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Lately I have seen term Solarpunk on reddits, tumblrs and scuttlebutt thrown around. I think people start to realize we need positive ideas for future. Solarpun

• beaconstudios 8y ago
  post-cyberpunk is pretty positive too. It's basically near-future tech in a society not that far from our own, and the conflict comes from the exact kinds of conflicts we're starting to think about now around privacy, economic advantage, AI going wrong and so on. But it's not inherently dystopian like cyberpunk is.
  • jhbadger 8y ago
    Even traditional Gibsonian cyberpunk isn't really as dystopian as it is often presented as. I remember an interview with William Gibson where he said the fact that he assumed that there would be a civilization, even a flawed one, in the mid 21st century, was optimistic given that he was writing in the 1970s and 1980s when it was widely assumed that we would likely nuke ourselves into extinction in a few years.
• harimau777 8y ago
  I could see that working. Maybe the problem is that the current visions for a utopian future aren't inspiring. In other sci-fi you strap on a badass lightsaber/phaser/gun jump in your spaceship/mecha/Mad Max Muscle Car, and live by your own rules. In modern utopianism, private ownership of weapons is banned, everyone uses public transportation, everyone's vegan, etc. (I realize this is a bit of a stereotype, but I'm just trying to generalize/exaggerate to illustrate what I mean.) I'm not trying to say that futurists do something like militarize their vision of the future in order to be cool, but I do think they need to figure out a way to present a future that is compelling.