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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

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 freedom of living.

_jahh 6y ago
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.
- xarthna 6y ago
  This is how I interpreted it as well. As the article states, 'farming on every corner'.
Nasrudith 6y ago
Cyberpunk offers realistic social lessons or warnings? That is news to me like the number of cyborg street thugs and automatic weapon proliferation. Jokes aside it is a Texas Sharpshooter fallacy and more something that one can look back on and find resemblances by comparision like say Star Trek and Tricorders vs cell phones and replicators vs 3d printing. I don't think that is a difference on solarpunk's part though. One thing that became more and more explicit with cyberpunk was that the "independence from society" was fundamentally a lie the "fringer" told themself because they broke into offices and factories for money instead of working in them and obeyed laws only when the barrel of a gun was staring them down but fundamentally they were just as much as an interchangeable cog as everybody else. Getting over that delusion could be considered a painful step forward as they need either steps towards truer independence or move to try to change what they don't like about society. They don't have to be subservient proles by any means but well the first step to solving a problem is recognition.
playingchanges 6y ago
I don’t think the infrastructure required for the scarcity free society necessarily has to be a global / universal one. The political angle seems more anarcho-socialist to me which would lead to a decentralized model enabled by technology. Think self sufficient city states.

_jahh 6y ago

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.

xarthna 6y ago
This is how I interpreted it as well. As the article states, 'farming on every corner'.

Nasrudith 6y ago

Cyberpunk offers realistic social lessons or warnings? That is news to me like the number of cyborg street thugs and automatic weapon proliferation. Jokes aside it is a Texas Sharpshooter fallacy and more something that one can look back on and find resemblances by comparision like say Star Trek and Tricorders vs cell phones and replicators vs 3d printing. I don't think that is a difference on solarpunk's part though. One thing that became more and more explicit with cyberpunk was that the "independence from society" was fundamentally a lie the "fringer" told themself because they broke into offices and factories for money instead of working in them and obeyed laws only when the barrel of a gun was staring them down but fundamentally they were just as much as an interchangeable cog as everybody else. Getting over that delusion could be considered a painful step forward as they need either steps towards truer independence or move to try to change what they don't like about society. They don't have to be subservient proles by any means but well the first step to solving a problem is recognition.

playingchanges 6y ago

I don’t think the infrastructure required for the scarcity free society necessarily has to be a global / universal one. The political angle seems more anarcho-socialist to me which would lead to a decentralized model enabled by technology. Think self sufficient city states.