Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future • Hacker News Board

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#11

Post by baxtr » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 8:10 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #8

defertoreptar wrote: post #6

> Most importantly Solarpunk is a rejection of dystopic fears and a return to hope, not as a con-trick, but as a construct. Yeah I just don't find that to be very "punk." In cyberpunk, we have drug-addicted hackers, alienated from society. "Solarpunk," to me, sounds pretty wholesome and very much in line with the direction that society wants to go.

>"Solarpunk," to me, sounds pretty wholesome and very much in line with the direction that society wants to go. I'm not sure if you're paying attention, but current society wants capitalism and consumption until the earth has been pillaged. For instance, Joe Biden said no fracking after 2050. That's 30 years from now.

Biden would be what 107 years old by that time.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#12

Post by notankies » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 8:18 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #8

defertoreptar wrote: post #6

> Most importantly Solarpunk is a rejection of dystopic fears and a return to hope, not as a con-trick, but as a construct. Yeah I just don't find that to be very "punk." In cyberpunk, we have drug-addicted hackers, alienated from society. "Solarpunk," to me, sounds pretty wholesome and very much in line with the direction that society wants to go.

>"Solarpunk," to me, sounds pretty wholesome and very much in line with the direction that society wants to go. I'm not sure if you're paying attention, but current society wants capitalism and consumption until the earth has been pillaged. For instance, Joe Biden said no fracking after 2050. That's 30 years from now.

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 nothing in the face of the climate crisis.

https://rebellion.earth

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#13

Post by detaro » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 8:20 PM UTC

defertoreptar wrote: post #6

> Most importantly Solarpunk is a rejection of dystopic fears and a return to hope, not as a con-trick, but as a construct. Yeah I just don't find that to be very "punk." In cyberpunk, we have drug-addicted hackers, alienated from society. "Solarpunk," to me, sounds pretty wholesome and very much in line with the direction that society wants to go.

Society doesn't really seem to want to strongly go to more anarchist structures, simpler lives and less stuff, but much rather trends to continuing how its going while hoping for some tech miracle to save everything. Otherwise deep environmental activism wouldn't be put in the "hippie" corner it still is. "Everyone has a Tesla" isn't solarpunk.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#14

Post by pier25 » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

defertoreptar wrote: post #6

> Most importantly Solarpunk is a rejection of dystopic fears and a return to hope, not as a con-trick, but as a construct. Yeah I just don't find that to be very "punk." In cyberpunk, we have drug-addicted hackers, alienated from society. "Solarpunk," to me, sounds pretty wholesome and very much in line with the direction that society wants to go.

> very much in line with the direction that society wants to go

Or at least, he direction that society should want to go.

I don't see that much conscience about climate change, renewables, energetic sustainability, resource depletion, etc, around me.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#15

Post by throwaway8451 » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #10

mortenjorck wrote: post #7

The problem with solarpunk is right there in its name: Nearly everything that gets labeled solarpunk is simply not punk. Punk music was born as an expression of the cultural and economic alienation of youth in Thatcher's UK. Cyberpunk was the extrapolation of this into a world defined by the trends of the 1980s: accelerating technology that dehumanizes, unchecked globalization, runaway capitalism that leaves a perman…

I think the article is working with an extremely wide and weak definition of the term, which indeed runs into that problem. But I think that's a problem with the term being applied to anything "green and hopeful". The point of the -punk label is that actively working towards a solarpunk world is pretty much punk because it's not where the powers in society want to go. E.g. a lot of it has an anarchist tendency becaus…

I would put Solarpunk rather in the accelerate/anti-auth corner of a chart with axes for (anti)authoritarian-iness and pro-/contra-progress as I saw it on Twitter once.

Slow-down/anti-auth is primitivism (think: subsistence farming, no computers, ... ).

Cyberpunk is definitely accelerate/auth (like it or not but we seem to be heading into this direction).

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#16

Post by Nasrudith » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 8:28 PM UTC

defertoreptar wrote: post #6

> Most importantly Solarpunk is a rejection of dystopic fears and a return to hope, not as a con-trick, but as a construct. Yeah I just don't find that to be very "punk." In cyberpunk, we have drug-addicted hackers, alienated from society. "Solarpunk," to me, sounds pretty wholesome and very much in line with the direction that society wants to go.

Punk is about change and rebelling fundamentally - including ironically against the concept of rebellion which has established its "norm".

We were at this before with both cyberprep and steampunk too in different ways. Cyberprep was more "work inside the system" and "technology has potential for good" and rebellion against tired old luddite science fiction 20th century tropes of fear and panic against science and technology. Steampunk is fundamentally dated such that its progressive or radical ideas and aesthetics as very old hat, its past traditional ways laughably obsolete. How much of the usual era suspect's past (Usually Victorian but one could on a trchnicality put in Bronze Age Hero punk as it is only an incorrect descriptor by convention) and old mores are included or not and how praised, condemned, or simply presented how it "was" unflinchingly.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#17

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 8:30 PM UTC

defertoreptar wrote: post #6

> Most importantly Solarpunk is a rejection of dystopic fears and a return to hope, not as a con-trick, but as a construct. Yeah I just don't find that to be very "punk." In cyberpunk, we have drug-addicted hackers, alienated from society. "Solarpunk," to me, sounds pretty wholesome and very much in line with the direction that society wants to go.

In 2020, being wholesome - not addicted, not acquisitive, not narcissistic, not "dark and edgy", not alienated - is the ultimate narrative taboo.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#18

Post by detaro » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

throwaway8451 wrote: post #15

detaro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the article is working with an extremely wide and weak definition of the term, which indeed runs into that problem. But I think that's a problem with the term being applied to anything "green and hopeful". The point of the -punk label is that actively working towards a solarpunk world is pretty much punk because it's not where the powers in society want to go. E.g. a lot of it has an anarchist tendency becaus…

I would put Solarpunk rather in the accelerate /anti-auth corner of a chart with axes for (anti)authoritarian-iness and pro-/contra-progress as I saw it on Twitter once. Slow-down/anti-auth is primitivism (think: subsistence farming, no computers, ... ). Cyberpunk is definitely accelerate/auth (like it or not but we seem to be heading into this direction).

technologically yes (although not as fast), but I think at the same time the assumption often is that the anti-authoritarian move also leads to an intentional "enlightened" slow-down of society (compared to the capitalist rat-race of cyberpunk), reduced nature impact that way, ...

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#19

Post by jldugger » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 8:43 PM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #7

The problem with solarpunk is right there in its name: Nearly everything that gets labeled solarpunk is simply not punk. Punk music was born as an expression of the cultural and economic alienation of youth in Thatcher's UK. Cyberpunk was the extrapolation of this into a world defined by the trends of the 1980s: accelerating technology that dehumanizes, unchecked globalization, runaway capitalism that leaves a perman…

I feel like that boat already sailed: steampunk, as best I can tell, already divorced 'punk' from any negative consequences of progress and replaced it with whimsy.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#20

Post by _jahh » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

vsareto wrote: post #3

IMO Solarpunk is cool, but it's not going to offer many realistic social lessons or warnings like cyberpunk does because it still relies on globalisation, huge logistics networks, and large factories to support the lifestyle and direction it promotes. In that sense, it's at odds with itself because there's still a divided population who have to work to support that infrastructure while the solarpunks get the real fre…

I'd like to believe the punk component is like DIY 3-d printing wind turbine arrays, setting up solar powered mesh networks financed by distributed cryptocoin miners.