“They are not hard to envision as a possible future. They are, I think, essentially today’s society and culture as the author thinks it might be if we have access to tomorrow’s technology and science.”

I do agree with that and I think you’ve summed that up beautifully, especially when you observed that technology can be used for good or for ill.

Coincidentally, as I re-read you’re piece today I noticed a TED talk in my Feed Reader that chimes with this, by Evgeny Morozov, entitled “How the Net aids dictatorships”

http://www.ted.com/talks/evgeny_morozov_is_the_internet_what_orwell_feared.html

It’s interesting that the internet as we know it or the NET in Ghost in the Shell, or Gibson’s Matrix etc. often seem to represent a kind of freedom that doesnt exist in the real world for the protagonists. This environment is a key part of the setting in any Cyberpunk story, it was interesting to listen to Morozov’ illustrate how, in the real world, like any tool its been used to oppress people … scary

I wonder if it would be possible to write a cyberpunk novel in which the characters are not set up in conflict/contrast to the setting. It always seems that they’re hustling the system and the environment to survive, and maybe without the hustle, it wouldn’t be cyberpunk.