>>719733962
They didn't really flip the concept, Essence in Shadowrun and Humanity in Cyberpunk are similar mechanics but work in completely different ways.
Both of these go way back, obviously further than their representation in games.
Shadowrun Essence is basically your soul getting literally shredded, there's actual measurable component in form of your soul you're throwing away when installing any augmentations that you will never ever get back thus you become less capable of magic and even emotion.
With Cyberpunk it's just you slowly going mentally ill because you kinda lose touch with reality when you can shoot missiles from your arms at a mere thought but you can still stabilize. Especially since in Cyberpunk it's directly tied to Empathy stat and you can recover your Humanity literally a bit by therapy. The point is that it's hard to keep your empathy with others when you know you can just kill anyone at any moment.
Essence in Shadowrun can't be recovered since again, it's you throwing away your soul when getting rid of your flesh and corrupting yourself with shitty hardware. So Cyberpunk has you go insane from sheer power, Shadowrun has you become an empty shell from losing what you are.
It's not some bullshit subversion but just natural result of how chrome works in Shadowrun and always did.
