8 ms·

Utopias like solarpunk look nice but how does it make good stories? It is hard to make stories without some form of conflict, and being a utopia, solarpunk is

by GuB-42 5y ago

Utopias like solarpunk look nice but how does it make good stories? It is hard to make stories without some form of conflict, and being a utopia, solarpunk is defined by the lack of it. I mean, if it is perfect, there is no way for improvement, it is not surprising that utopias go stale. Dystopias are the natural result of pushing utopias too far. Once you have finished describing the wonderful world of joy, equality, optimism and forest-like cities, you will necessarily end up with the question "what happened to assholes?". Are they punished like criminals? Is their behavior "adjusted"? Did we engineer the asshole gene out? And the more you dig in, the more your utopia starts to look like a dystopia. As expected, these themes have been covered at length by many sci-fi authors.

pyrale 5y ago
> Utopias like solarpunk look nice but how does it make good stories? Feel-good stories make for good stories, like a good love story or a fantasy book about a young protagonist overcoming obstacles. There's nothing wrong with escapism from time to time. But indeed, there's not even a trace amount of punk in it.
cyberpunk 5y ago
Ach I dunno, did you read any of the Culture novels by Banks? His post scarcity human/machine setup the closest thing to a utopia I can think of, but there are still a good load of novels there :)
- detaro 5y ago
  A good chunk of those are about the conflicts/interactions of the utopia with the rest of the universe, at least as the backdrop. (Which also works for solarpunk stories)
  - cyberpunk 5y ago
    I don’t think it’s possible not to have a bit of a soft spot for the affront..
- lazide 5y ago
  There are several culture books that feel a lot like dystopias - they are just less popular. Culture also cheats, with most of the popular ones using Contact with it’s fundamentally problematic and ‘messy’ interactions with non-Culture to create the necessary conflict for an interesting story. Since most Utopia descriptions seem to imply that everyone is in the utopia, that is a lot harder. The books that go into what it would be like actually living in a Culture society with other people/interpersonal relations get.. pretty gross pretty fast IMO.
  - cyberpunk 5y ago
    Which ones? I’ve read the whole series multiple times and I can’t think of the society as a dystopia. Look to windward is probably my favourite.
    - jiggawatts 5y ago
      Where do I start? The humans are essentially pets, kept around by the Minds mostly for nostalgic reasons and because it's a trivial effort for them. People love their pets, but don't allow their pets to make life-altering decisions. All of the main characters are Minds or drones. None of the biologics ever get to influence events, they're just along for the ride. The humans are controlled, both actively and passively. The Minds don't lower themselves to anything as crude as "carrots or sticks". Oh no, they prefer to use a far more subtle forms of "guidance", such as inventing an artificial language (Marain) that influences the way people think. This is the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity The Culture's main opponents, peaceful or not, are all primarily-biologics that reject machine minds and associated technologies such as field manipulation. After reading the series, you start to get the inkling that perhaps they are right, and that the Culture made a mistake in allowing themselves to be ruled by computers. The undercurrent, the persistent theme, in all of Banks' works is betrayal, often of the worst possible sort, the kind that leaves you breathless when fully unveiled in the final chapter. The Culture series has some sort of betrayal in just about every book. Often it is the machines betraying the humans in some way. The drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw in Use of Weapons, for example, was deceiving everyone to some degree, even the protagonist Zakalwe. Some of this deception feels unnecessary, taken to the n-th degree by the drone just because it can. Similarly, the ship Grey Area is notable for being a "meat fucker" in that it abuses (or merely uses?) its godlike power to torture organics it judges as worthy of punishment. This is called out as unusual, but then in A Look to Windward the hub Mind casually strips Quilan's very soul out of his meat body so that he can experience death at the elevated level that only a Mind can. A worse horror is difficult to imagine. Etc, etc...
worldsayshi 5y ago
A good place to start for such stories is in the contrast between solarpunk and cyberpunk. They feel like natural polar opposites. Have the world be partially solarpunk and partially cyberpunk. Or maybe fully cyberpunk with a growing movement towards something much more hopeful. Forward 20-50 years. Environmental problems are worse than ever. Big chunks of society are still stuck in the old ways. But big chunks have found lifestyles and technology that have minimal negative impact on the environment. But perhaps there are still tradeoffs. Perhaps there's conflict between those that have power thanks to the old ways and those that promote the new ways.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  Love it! Are there works based on this idea?
  - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
    One that comes to mind is Cory Doctorow's Walkaway[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkaway_(Doctorow_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkaway_(Doctorow_novel)
  - datameta 5y ago
    The Culture series by Iain M Banks. The Culture is a pan-galactic post-scarcity Type I/II civilization of transhumans. The novels often revolve around the dealings with other civilizations of many different tech levels (including medieval and steam age).
  - worldsayshi 5y ago
    One example is the most classic solarpunk novel, the Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. It deals with the tension between a capitalist society (not really cyberpunk) and a anarcho socialist outer planet colony on the corresponding moon. It doesn't paint the alternative society as a perfect utopia. It has its strengths and weaknesses. And it deals a lot with the cultural chock of someone who travels between. It doesn't deal that much with environmental issues though. And I feel like Cory Doctorow's walkaway is a lot like this. I bought it but I haven't gotten into it. His writing style can sometimes throw me off a bit.
DennisP 5y ago
I don't see anything in the solarpunk manifesto that says we magically eliminate all interpersonal conflict.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  >17. Solarpunk is the idea of humanity achieving a social evolution that embraces not just mere tolerance, but a more expansive compassion and acceptance. What kind of interpersonal conflict remains after that, besides play fighting (aka sport)?
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    I dunno, reading that I’m more inclined to prepare for cyberpunk than to magically assume we can fix millions of years of evolution.
  - sp332 5y ago
    Star Trek made it work.
    - jhbadger 5y ago
      Yes, by making a comparison between the Utopian Federation and other "lesser" cultures like those of the Klingons and Romulans, and then in later series like DS9, implying that the Federation itself wasn't as utopian as it seemed.
  - namarie 5y ago
    Jealousy, unrequited love, grief for those who passed away...? Just what immediately popped into my head; I'm sure there's more.
- Proven 5y ago
  They don't. They just don't write about it. How do you think they achieve socialism (and eliminate capitalism) without stealing property from cyberpunks and using legislative and other coercive measures to ban private property? Do you think their socialist utopia can be realized and paid for by beating capitalists in a free market environment?
jhbadger 5y ago
>Utopias like solarpunk look nice but how does it make good stories Kim Stanley Robinson (better known for the 'Red Mars' trilogy) wrote in the 1980s the Three Californias trilogy about three possible futures for California in the 21st century, one dystopian, one neutral, and one utopian. The utopian one (basically "solarpunk" although the term didn't exist then) was, predictably, the least interesting as a story.
hypertele-Xii 5y ago
> It is hard to make stories without some form of conflict Internal conflict works. Overcoming primitive instincts. Also natural disasters.
darthrupert 5y ago
Check Peter F. Hamilton's books perhaps, at least the Commonwealth sagas. They seem to be somewhat like this (although with added alien dangers). Also his Night's Dawn trilogy has an offshoot of humanity which is pretty solarpunkish.
avaer 5y ago
You can ask an AI and get some amazing stories out as a result (I've tried and it works). That also seems like a fairly Solarpunk solution to the problem.

by GuB-42 5y ago

pyrale 5y ago

> Utopias like solarpunk look nice but how does it make good stories? Feel-good stories make for good stories, like a good love story or a fantasy book about a young protagonist overcoming obstacles. There's nothing wrong with escapism from time to time. But indeed, there's not even a trace amount of punk in it.

cyberpunk 5y ago

Ach I dunno, did you read any of the Culture novels by Banks? His post scarcity human/machine setup the closest thing to a utopia I can think of, but there are still a good load of novels there :)

detaro 5y ago
A good chunk of those are about the conflicts/interactions of the utopia with the rest of the universe, at least as the backdrop. (Which also works for solarpunk stories)
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  I don’t think it’s possible not to have a bit of a soft spot for the affront..
lazide 5y ago
There are several culture books that feel a lot like dystopias - they are just less popular. Culture also cheats, with most of the popular ones using Contact with it’s fundamentally problematic and ‘messy’ interactions with non-Culture to create the necessary conflict for an interesting story. Since most Utopia descriptions seem to imply that everyone is in the utopia, that is a lot harder. The books that go into what it would be like actually living in a Culture society with other people/interpersonal relations get.. pretty gross pretty fast IMO.
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  Which ones? I’ve read the whole series multiple times and I can’t think of the society as a dystopia. Look to windward is probably my favourite.
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    Where do I start? The humans are essentially pets, kept around by the Minds mostly for nostalgic reasons and because it's a trivial effort for them. People love their pets, but don't allow their pets to make life-altering decisions. All of the main characters are Minds or drones. None of the biologics ever get to influence events, they're just along for the ride. The humans are controlled, both actively and passively. The Minds don't lower themselves to anything as crude as "carrots or sticks". Oh no, they prefer to use a far more subtle forms of "guidance", such as inventing an artificial language (Marain) that influences the way people think. This is the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity The Culture's main opponents, peaceful or not, are all primarily-biologics that reject machine minds and associated technologies such as field manipulation. After reading the series, you start to get the inkling that perhaps they are right, and that the Culture made a mistake in allowing themselves to be ruled by computers. The undercurrent, the persistent theme, in all of Banks' works is betrayal, often of the worst possible sort, the kind that leaves you breathless when fully unveiled in the final chapter. The Culture series has some sort of betrayal in just about every book. Often it is the machines betraying the humans in some way. The drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw in Use of Weapons, for example, was deceiving everyone to some degree, even the protagonist Zakalwe. Some of this deception feels unnecessary, taken to the n-th degree by the drone just because it can. Similarly, the ship Grey Area is notable for being a "meat fucker" in that it abuses (or merely uses?) its godlike power to torture organics it judges as worthy of punishment. This is called out as unusual, but then in A Look to Windward the hub Mind casually strips Quilan's very soul out of his meat body so that he can experience death at the elevated level that only a Mind can. A worse horror is difficult to imagine. Etc, etc...

worldsayshi 5y ago

A good place to start for such stories is in the contrast between solarpunk and cyberpunk. They feel like natural polar opposites. Have the world be partially solarpunk and partially cyberpunk. Or maybe fully cyberpunk with a growing movement towards something much more hopeful. Forward 20-50 years. Environmental problems are worse than ever. Big chunks of society are still stuck in the old ways. But big chunks have found lifestyles and technology that have minimal negative impact on the environment. But perhaps there are still tradeoffs. Perhaps there's conflict between those that have power thanks to the old ways and those that promote the new ways.

GuB-42 5y ago
Love it! Are there works based on this idea?
- blacksmith_tb 5y ago
  One that comes to mind is Cory Doctorow's Walkaway[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkaway_(Doctorow_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkaway_(Doctorow_novel)
- datameta 5y ago
  The Culture series by Iain M Banks. The Culture is a pan-galactic post-scarcity Type I/II civilization of transhumans. The novels often revolve around the dealings with other civilizations of many different tech levels (including medieval and steam age).
- worldsayshi 5y ago
  One example is the most classic solarpunk novel, the Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. It deals with the tension between a capitalist society (not really cyberpunk) and a anarcho socialist outer planet colony on the corresponding moon. It doesn't paint the alternative society as a perfect utopia. It has its strengths and weaknesses. And it deals a lot with the cultural chock of someone who travels between. It doesn't deal that much with environmental issues though. And I feel like Cory Doctorow's walkaway is a lot like this. I bought it but I haven't gotten into it. His writing style can sometimes throw me off a bit.

DennisP 5y ago

I don't see anything in the solarpunk manifesto that says we magically eliminate all interpersonal conflict.

GuB-42 5y ago
>17. Solarpunk is the idea of humanity achieving a social evolution that embraces not just mere tolerance, but a more expansive compassion and acceptance. What kind of interpersonal conflict remains after that, besides play fighting (aka sport)?
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I dunno, reading that I’m more inclined to prepare for cyberpunk than to magically assume we can fix millions of years of evolution.
- sp332 5y ago
  Star Trek made it work.
  - jhbadger 5y ago
    Yes, by making a comparison between the Utopian Federation and other "lesser" cultures like those of the Klingons and Romulans, and then in later series like DS9, implying that the Federation itself wasn't as utopian as it seemed.
- namarie 5y ago
  Jealousy, unrequited love, grief for those who passed away...? Just what immediately popped into my head; I'm sure there's more.
Proven 5y ago
They don't. They just don't write about it. How do you think they achieve socialism (and eliminate capitalism) without stealing property from cyberpunks and using legislative and other coercive measures to ban private property? Do you think their socialist utopia can be realized and paid for by beating capitalists in a free market environment?

jhbadger 5y ago

>Utopias like solarpunk look nice but how does it make good stories Kim Stanley Robinson (better known for the 'Red Mars' trilogy) wrote in the 1980s the Three Californias trilogy about three possible futures for California in the 21st century, one dystopian, one neutral, and one utopian. The utopian one (basically "solarpunk" although the term didn't exist then) was, predictably, the least interesting as a story.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago

> It is hard to make stories without some form of conflict Internal conflict works. Overcoming primitive instincts. Also natural disasters.

darthrupert 5y ago

Check Peter F. Hamilton's books perhaps, at least the Commonwealth sagas. They seem to be somewhat like this (although with added alien dangers). Also his Night's Dawn trilogy has an offshoot of humanity which is pretty solarpunkish.

avaer 5y ago

You can ask an AI and get some amazing stories out as a result (I've tried and it works). That also seems like a fairly Solarpunk solution to the problem.