The "punk" in "cyberpunk" isn't about aesthetics any more than punk rock is. The punk element wasn't just in the relationship of the fictional characters to the

The "punk" in "cyberpunk" isn't about aesthetics any more than punk rock is. The punk element wasn't just in the relationship of the fictional characters to their settings; it was in the relationship of the writers to mainstream science fiction. William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker--they were very deliberately responding to the more utopian, and by then rather dated, science fiction of the 1950s and before, the Heinleins and Clarkes and Asimovs. Cyberpunk is manifestly about the contentious relationship between individual freedom, corporate power, and state control. Solarpunk arguably is a minor niche thing, but any artistic/literary movement that calls itself "-punk" better damn well be political. Otherwise, it is rather missing the point. :)