71–80 of 87 posts
many of you here in the comments misunderstand. punk isn't nihilistic lamentation, it's nihilistic resistance. it's punk to fight . it's building anything from nothing, because there is nothing to lose. punk cultures appear within dystopia as an alternative, punk aesthetic is amateur and diy-accessible, and punk attitudes are critical and creative. we have enough dystopic warnings. everyone knows where we're headed.…
The one problem I have with solarpunk is that much of the fiction is simply not that good. I think most emblematic of that is maybe Cory Doctorow's book "Walkaway". I have lately come to accept that the book had a huge influence on me; it just keeps coming up in conversation. Well... I bring it up, because it struck a chord, and because it fits well with the conversations I have. But the writing is so.... aaaargh, so…
I agree. I was intrigued by the genre and picked up what happens to be the only books mentioned in the article by name: The Dispossessed and Sunvault.
They're both fairly boring. Slow paced, lack of nail-biting moments, some stories from Sunvault completely went over my head (barely understood anything from them)...
I have respect for Doctorow from an advocacy perspective, but I'm not a fan of his fiction at all.
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Doctorow is a pundit and pseudo-futurist who thinks he can write (or at least has convinced some small subset of this particular delusion.) In small doses like short stories or selected snippets from his novels there is a bit of fun, but too much and it becomes apparent that he is better at the idea than the literary execution.
I think he's a much better essayist (and polemicist) than he is a fiction writer. I'm skeptical about his positions a lot of the time, but I enjoy reading him when he's making cases about technology and free speech. The problem comes when he tries to rewrite those same essays in narrative form, which does not play to his strengths.
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Those folks are being way too dramatic. This is not a year devoid of wholesomeness.
The 2020 meme is by far the worst meme of the year (and worst meme of the decade since we've started saying $CURRENT_YEAR is bad). These are peculiar times but it's far from the end of the world. In fact it's given us some perspective and respite from modern frantic life in some aspects.
Business and museums are shutting down for good.
Cities are emptying out.
Hugging another human has been demonized and is considered irresponsible.
People are getting fined for not wearing facial coverings.
Our way of life has been completely hijacked by fear.
Things are very unstable and then we have an election.
The one problem I have with solarpunk is that much of the fiction is simply not that good. I think most emblematic of that is maybe Cory Doctorow's book "Walkaway". I have lately come to accept that the book had a huge influence on me; it just keeps coming up in conversation. Well... I bring it up, because it struck a chord, and because it fits well with the conversations I have. But the writing is so.... aaaargh, so…
This is a problem I've noticed especially with some of the collections of Solarpunk short stories. I really wanted to like them and couldn't Walkaway was way better than most of it and as you said the writing is, pretty awkward at times. But some of the ideas (reclaiming and rebuilding bad areas, sharing how to do brain uploads) were evocative enough to stick with me. That being said DM me if you ever run a bookclub…
Agreed, would love to hear about a bookclub if someone were to do it.
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The 2020 meme is by far the worst meme of the year (and worst meme of the decade since we've started saying $CURRENT_YEAR is bad). These are peculiar times but it's far from the end of the world. In fact it's given us some perspective and respite from modern frantic life in some aspects.
Its extremely peculiar. 10% of the country is unemployed. Business and museums are shutting down for good. Cities are emptying out. Hugging another human has been demonized and is considered irresponsible. People are getting fined for not wearing facial coverings. Our way of life has been completely hijacked by fear. Things are very unstable and then we have an election.
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If you can do better, where is your writing? Doctorow has added more to my life than the whole of New Yorker, and I'm grateful.
You don't need to be a chef to give your opinion on food.
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You don't need to be a chef to give your opinion on food.
That is true but a chef is classed as a (usually) expert so knows what they're talking about. Put another way, I value the opinion of a chef about food than everyone else.
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That's right, we need to end fossil fuel usage right now. If we don't switch solely to solar and wind worldwide in the next ten years there's going to be an apocalyptic ecological event. It's a climate crisis. I don't understand why people can't just follow the science. It doesn't matter how much food and energy prices would rise if fossil fuels were abruptly banned; a few poor peoples' ability to eat or stay warm is…
> a few poor peoples' ability to eat or stay warm is nothing in the face of the climate crisis. Or maybe, in such a case, the people who have actually been consuming (and emitting) like there is no tomorrow all these decades should make substantial adjustments to their lifestyle (i.e. pay more taxes), so that the people who have been consuming nothing can eat. Sounds a bit more reasonable to me. And we are not talkin…