>Instead of embracing retrofuturism, solarpunk looks completely to the future This to me is an interesting point I'm skeptical about. In recent times, among so

>Instead of embracing retrofuturism, solarpunk looks completely to the future This to me is an interesting point I'm skeptical about. In recent times, among some people like Nicholas Taleb and a few others there has been an appreciation for the culture of the Levant or Mediterranean that's about the commercial or city-state and pluralistic attitude of that historical region, some people even trying to start charter city movements, and so on. It feels like Solarpunk draws heavily from that aesthetic, with its pluralism, mixture of science, diversity and faith and maritime and mercantile culture with some more focus on ecology and technology on top. That to me very much is a form of retro-futurism, albeit drawing from a cultural background most people will be slightly less familiar with. The place of humans in Solarpunk seems very traditional, in harmony with nature, in human-scale cities, often including artisanal designs with a tech twist, but it very much does not seem future-facing. Even the punk label I think is questionable because very little about it seems transgressive or disruptive. Solarpunk to me very much has the same sort of parochial, escapist feel of pastoral American utopianism, fleeing back to nature, except that it comes without the Christian or colonial undertones and is explicitly diverse.