Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

thedorkweb.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 87 posts

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#51

Post by edgyquant »

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…

Punk music predates thatcher and was born in NYC (even if political punk did originate the year thatcher took over the Conservative party.) It was inherently a rejection of the artists of the British Invasion (in the case of the Ramones, the first true punk band) and how corporate music in America had become. Also proto-punk goes back to the 60s.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#52

Post by CptFribble »

Science fiction was born as a critique of social constructs. The sci-fi patina was less of a Branded Genre Thing and more of a wink-and-nod to make the critique acceptable in the public sphere.

Solarpunk, like all the other ___punks, is just another Thing that people like. This is why you sometimes hear authors dump on "genre fiction," because making aesthetics the guiding star of a story doesn't usually make for compelling fiction.

As far as social commentary, why do we have to name everything - what if instead of a "Solarpunk Future" it was just...the future? Branding something has an interesting effect: it turns it into a fandom. Branding draws borders. It turns ideas into a tribe, and makes in-groups and out-groups of us all. Now instead of discussing specific solutions for our very real, very big problems, we descend into discussions of what is or is not solarpunk, or cyberpunk, or the relative merits of each.

Let's stop branding everything and just talk about real problems and real solutions, not which literary or artistic aesthetic is the best "path forward."

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#53

Post by netfl0 »

CptFribble wrote: post #52

Science fiction was born as a critique of social constructs. The sci-fi patina was less of a Branded Genre Thing and more of a wink-and-nod to make the critique acceptable in the public sphere. Solarpunk, like all the other ___punks, is just another Thing that people like. This is why you sometimes hear authors dump on "genre fiction," because making aesthetics the guiding star of a story doesn't usually make for com…

Very thoughtful analysis. But, perhaps the purpose was not to solve, perhaps it was to self-distinguish.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#54

Post by netfl0 »

CptFribble wrote: post #52

Science fiction was born as a critique of social constructs. The sci-fi patina was less of a Branded Genre Thing and more of a wink-and-nod to make the critique acceptable in the public sphere. Solarpunk, like all the other ___punks, is just another Thing that people like. This is why you sometimes hear authors dump on "genre fiction," because making aesthetics the guiding star of a story doesn't usually make for com…

Additionally, reading through most other comments lends credence to your hypothesis. Well done.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#55

Post by forgotmypw17 »

evgen wrote: post #37
black_puppydog wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree, except with the tone of your message, or the tone as it arrived at my end at least. I think there is a lot of value in the ideas there, we desperately need them, and they are very clearly formulated. Just a bit^Wlot too clearly. He should have chosen a different format, although I can't really think of a good one either. World building needs plot to give it any credibility, and tee point was to give…

Don't want to trash talk Doctorow, but I just think he missed his calling at the New Yorker or somewhere similar writing near-future short stories that were subtle critique of current issues. If we criticize Neal Stephenson for building great worlds and telling an interesting story but not being able to consistently stick the landing then I think Doctorow builds the world but can never really get a good story going.…

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.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#56

Post by kitotik »

tclancy wrote: post #46
philipkglass wrote: post #5

Solarpunk is to solar technology as steampunk is to the industrial revolution. I mean that pejoratively. These x-punks are generally an aesthetic set-dressed with anachronistic and impossible developments that don't mesh together. (Though I suppose I would also say that of most cyberpunk written this century.) I would like more SF authors working mostly within the constraints of known physics and considering how ecos…

You can always do better than now locally. And that’s all there is to it. Perfect is the enemy of done; who needs a factory or a megastructure?

Especially when factories and megastructures already exist. A key theme here is reclaim/reuse/repurpose.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#57

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #55
evgen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't want to trash talk Doctorow, but I just think he missed his calling at the New Yorker or somewhere similar writing near-future short stories that were subtle critique of current issues. If we criticize Neal Stephenson for building great worlds and telling an interesting story but not being able to consistently stick the landing then I think Doctorow builds the world but can never really get a good story going.…

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.

What a strange comment. What does it matter if he is a writer or not? Critique is not magically less valid because of it

People can criticize without providing a solution.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#58

Post by bigbubba »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #55
evgen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't want to trash talk Doctorow, but I just think he missed his calling at the New Yorker or somewhere similar writing near-future short stories that were subtle critique of current issues. If we criticize Neal Stephenson for building great worlds and telling an interesting story but not being able to consistently stick the landing then I think Doctorow builds the world but can never really get a good story going.…

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.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#59

Post by d_tr »

notankies wrote: post #12
bluntfang wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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…

> 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 talking about a few people, especially if you are referring to the whole world.

Actually, for a brief moment I thought you were joking.

Re: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future

#60

Post by ilaksh »

CptFribble wrote: post #52

Science fiction was born as a critique of social constructs. The sci-fi patina was less of a Branded Genre Thing and more of a wink-and-nod to make the critique acceptable in the public sphere. Solarpunk, like all the other ___punks, is just another Thing that people like. This is why you sometimes hear authors dump on "genre fiction," because making aesthetics the guiding star of a story doesn't usually make for com…

Ok. I think that the popular aesthetics in science fiction actually do have a very significant effect on daily life though. So although it's great to actually work on solving problems, it's still somewhat worthwhile to have science fiction, and in that case think about the worldview.

Maybe that would be good. At least to go more in a SolarPunk than CyberPunk direction.

I was into CyberPunk in the 90s. I always wondered what came after it in science fiction. I mostly stopped reading novels so I don't really know.

What is the actual normal common flavor of science fiction today? Or flavors.

I guess I did read one or two Singularity genre books and also Altered Carbon which is CyberPunk.

What section does Ramez Naam go under?

Post reply on HN