What the fuck is solarpunk and why does Tumblr love it so much?

That sounds like something I’d like, but I’m sure it’s plagued by intersectionality faggots who ruin the entire thing.

I will say it has pretty interesting aesthetics. I appreciate the amount of greenery. It's the kind of style that I think works really well for hopeful sci fi.

Describe it.

Is it insular?
Is it expansionist?
Is it proselytizing?

What is the value of a human life in this setting?

What cultures arise?
What cultures are made to die?

If solarpunk means post dyson sphere society than sign me the fuck in
If solarpunk means sci fi hippies then sign me the fuck out.
>t. someone who works in solar panel research

Unfortunately, it's more the latter. With ~intersectionality~ and ~green-cities~ added on top of the shit sundae.

Is it also full of "acceptance"? If tumbler loves it, it probably is.

There's no reason solarpunk can't be good. As much as Tumblr envisions hippy commune future, this all also means massive decentralization of humanity, since these communities only ever work on a small scale. You know what that means senpai? That's right, tribalism!

There are still things for people to fight over - land, mineral wealth, religion, etc. And while life necessities are borderline post scarcity that doesn't mean the system doesn't require effort elbow grease or suffering.

Think of it as post-post apocolyptic, like CATastrophe but without the yiff.

So it's Art Noveau, Arts and Crafts, gardens, small idyllic looking communities?

I'm still reading stuff about it, but taking the premise and building on it could lead to a fun setting. And if it's supposed to stand around the early 1900s(?) or late 1800s(?) then there's a chance to mix it up with competing societies.

Man, it is deeply frustrating to see an idea as basic and common sense as 'social interaction is impossible to analyze outside of a holistic approach' get buried under extremists who think phrases like 'every dark cloud has a silver lining' are racist because it's denigrating the cloud for being a color other than white.

From what it sounds like, and follow me on this, it could be a cool setting Ford after FFVII. The FMV with Red XIII running up the hill to see the midgard covered in foilage. Any takers on that idea?

sorry mate, don't follow what you're saying. Could you break it down for me? Sounds like a legit point to be made aware of.

Fuck your holistic approach, faggot.

Anyone who doesn't think that holistic examination is an important part of understanding a subject is, unironically and probably willfully, an idiot.

The basic, fundamental underlying point of intersectionalism is that you have to consider all aspects, and how those aspects intersect, of an individual or social structure to understand that individual or social structure. Unfortunately, as a philosophical point of view and examination, it's largely devolved into incredibly myopic bickering over the heteronormative gynophobia of crosswalk lights.

Sorry I don't buy into your healing crystals and snake oil, hippie. Take your pseudo-mystical pablem and go back to the forest you came crawling out from.

...I rest my fucking case.

Any idea when the shift from understanding interactions between the person and the society the lived in became 'stop excluding me, reee'?

>It's "punk" because it's opposing cynical shit and pessimism which are the mainstream now.
That honestly sounds far more "*-punk" than most things that get given that suffix.

You know what? Your pretty fucking upset my friend and I think your posting has given me just enough insight into what the fuck your problem is. You see, ever since your mother left, your daddy's been raising you in every regard to be his fucktoy sissy daughter. He works hard to pay for your hormones, makeup, and clothes, you show your appreciation by dragging him to bed as soon as he enters the door.You just love the taste of your daddy's sweaty cock after a day of eagerly waiting for him to come home. The wait is excruciating; yo're horny all day, and your transition is at the point that you can't even cum without his thick rod rubbing against your aching prostate. Often you spend the entire evening licking his gorgeous shaft and drinking his sweet precum. Once he eventually wills it, you sheepishly let go of him and stick your rounded ass out for him to ravage as he pleases. He pounds you into the sheets all night long, his massive member milking your little balls dry as you cry out and orgasm for the fifth time that night.Judging by how closely related you two are, it's almost surprising how his cock is so much bigger than yous! Guess that just goes to show that you were meant to be his daughter all along!

Unfortunately, almost at conception; despite explicitly representing the idea that all elements of a person or structure and their intersections must be examined, the idea was codified to examine only a single example thereof (being both female and black). This was, unsurprisingly, remarkably counterproductive in the long run (which, to be fair, kind of made her point for her).

Games with aesthetic?

You seem pretty mad. Are you upset I won't play your hippie reindeer games, faggot?

F.A.T.A.L

Low-energy-density future where people have to be efficient with their tech, and cooperate, because there's no more oil.

emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/Waylight.Waylight.html here's my effort from a few years back.

>these buttmad solarfags
Lel, how's it feel to be pussies with a genre as "punk" as fucking Hanson?

I mean, thematically speaking it doesn't seem to be a bad thing at all, its just settings require an amount of conflict of some sort and these Utopian scenarios can't really ever get it right to produce that without literally being >DA BIG BAD INDUSTRIALIST WANNA CHANGE EVERYFINKA

...

wtf I love solarpunk now

Let's ruin it by making the tribe of the moon men

The problem is, it's only focused on power/dominance. As it happens the world has way more mechanisms than that. Also you can divide identity groups all the way down to the individual, which makes that kind of logic lazy or evil.

Turn A Gundam already has a society of moon men.

Pretty cool, it sounds and looks like an update of the 'village' you come from before you go on a quest!

Yeah. I like the idea of it being more of an ecological disaster in terms of conflict. Something like solarpunk feels like it'd work really well with a crisis like "A thresher maw has awoken on the planet, deal with it." or "Your society is super in-tune with the biosphere to survive, and a nearby volcano is going to erupt. If it does, the disaster will turbofuck your entire society. Figure out a solution"

Solarpunk's aesthetic almost feels best for science fantasy to me. Its like the sci-fi shire.

Didn't think I'd ever say that about a *punk genre, but that is something nobody needs.

It's an attempt to create social-through-literary movement combining ecologocial activism is with some of the dumbest radical left-wing ideologies currently available.
The manifesto that defined it is so fucking dumb they literally ask "what is wrong with wanting and expecting Utopia" and they also get the etymology of the word wrong.
It's just... pathetic, really. Really dumb naive leftist kids pretending that they and only they can totally solve the world in their dreams, and think that if they pretend hard enough, their little dreams will suddenly just pop into reality.
I don't think it's significant in any way though. Outside of the moral circle jerk, there is literally nothing it can offer to anyone, so it will probably die out pretty soon.

people forget that real punk is being homeless or squatting while shooting speed and howling mad rage. It's the politically oriented useful idiots like oi polloi, who made punk the shit it is today.

I love this board so much

This turns me on really bad.
I'm so ashamed to be a soyboy.

I like the aesthetic.

>Sci-fi Shire
Thats it! thats fucking it isn't it! That the only way it's tolerable is if it were in contrast to other themes!

It DOES work in sci-fi, it does, but only if you treat it like it's a complete pleasure being there, like PCs in their downtime, or visit it for an arch, but the nitty gritty is almost completely necessity

>Ruin

That sounds totally fitting though

>It's "punk" because it's opposing cynical shit and pessimism which are the mainstream now

The idea of technology married with nature?
Best setting ever, I'm adopting it whatever a good basis/roman/game about it is created.

The only way that would be tolerable in any kind of punk setting would be if it were the private habitat or arcology of some nutcase religious sect that wants to go back2nature.

Niggas be hating but this is literally STAR TREK

Its true, and those are tacky as fuck.

There's a lot more ranting about tumblr people than anything else ITT.

ain't hating here, this shit sounds rad

I wonder what would menace that kind of universe?
Big corp wanting to transfer the tree energy link to some nuclear one?

At this point -punk means nothing but that.

I have no real problem with it but it would be nice to properly differentiate cyber punk

>outlaw high tech gangs raiding corporations and frustrating a shadowy illuminati, under trained, under funded and surviving off of their limited wits and what they can scavenge and steal

and working for a future maga-corp.

>You are part of a highly trained, well equipped problem solving team commissioned by a mega-corp or shady illuminati contact and your current job is to slap the stupid out of some troublesome punks.

Two very different themes that just happen to be in the same basic setting.

Didn't we come up with solarpunk years ago on Veeky Forums?

Maybe people fight over what kind of tree biome to have?

>THE CACTUS CULT IS AT IT AGAIN

Could be a small group of cities trying to repopulate and reseed a world after an ecological disaster that mutated all life outside of said cities.

Which version?

Roddenberry: The Senile Years, Kirk's Space Western or DS9?

Of the three I would like DS9 better because it's what was built from the Wild West IN SPAAAACE! of Kirk as civilization sprang up and the frontier, whilst still existing and you can get posted there to push it back, is several horizons away. It also offers the potential for the fuck awful of TNG Season 1 to be totally fucking ignored.

Eh, I'd stray away from blatant "industralism is bad mmkay" and go more into the idea that just because you are in tune with nature doesn't mean that nature isn't out to murderfuck you and everyone else. When a civilization is so in tune with their biosphere that they can survive indefinitely, as is the dream with solarpunk, the smallest change can bring ruin. A slight shift in temperatures that your tech can't account for and suddenly everything starts going nuts. A space-born bacteria goes all andromeda strain all over you. The planet develops an allergy to humans and starts pulling a Nausicaa. There are tons of options.
Beyond that, I think a lot of potency could really come from the idea of people fighting over such a place too. The idea of people fighting for a garden of eden that their actions while fighting despoil could be poignant as fuck if done correctly.

Thinking about it, I'd love to set an Infinity-styled small squad based combat game in a setting like this. Half forest and half city in terms of terrain, fighting through arcologies and swinging off of branches, leaping through public parks and alongside aircars. I'd love it.

If that was a problem I can agree with the 'punk' name convention. Every other punk takes the era it is set in and ramps everything up.

Steampunk takes the Industrial revolution and makes the technology more advanced, but it also carries themes of Imperialism, pointless wars fought by the nobility and the unbelievably huge gap between the haves and have nots getting even wider

Dieselpunk brings the aesthetic of the retro style of the 40s and 50s, and the use of diesel instead of coal being the miracle energy source. It also carries the jingoist attitudes of the time, when wars were still fought by sending waves of soldiers into the meat grinder while folks at home enjoyed products which were essentially watered down tech the military developed.

Cyberpunk is the promise of a technologically advanced future with flying cars, giant hologram signs, and the rights of individuals superseded by the wants of mega corporations, tyrannical governments, or both.

Solarpunk is...post apocalypse hippies running the world?

I like the idea of it; nobody but the most one-dimensional of captain planet villains actually "hates" the idea of greenspace in cities. No one actually wants their life to be nothing but concrete and glass; it's just that the costs associated are, to varying people at varying degrees, not worth it, whether you believe that's right or wrong.

That said, it is a nice idea, even if the actual aesthetics look like Seattle infected the civilized world.

youtube.com/watch?v=gFufOGZBwFM

You know what would add some conflict to this utopian setting? Some wild mutated fauna and flora which has overgrown due to our obssesion with returning the world to its 'natural beauty'?

Now that I can understand. Nature being the queen bitch wrecking shit with little provocation, and humanity lives more in tune with it to keep from pissing her off and say...turning all the animals on the planet against humans for a week.

>Solarpunk is...post apocalypse hippies running the world?
A Utopia by most measures of the word; everyone is healthy, enjoys fulfilling social life, etc etc, a true Eden. It comes at the cost of suppressing more "negative" human traits such as aggression, ambition, conflict, and competition, to the point where some would even say it's tantamount of taking away free will and making humans in-human.

You could probably put some properly dystopian biblical spin on it by having humanity "remake" God as an AI or something that would govern their new Eden, and all that comes with it.

Are you a bad enough dude to eat the fruit of knowledge and bring bad vibes back to paradise?

The conflict doesn't have to immediately apparent. The idea of a superficially ideal society which hides terrible horrors is quite appealing. There are good examples for terrifiying utopias, brave new world being the first one that comes to mind.

>Utopia

None of you niggas ever worked onna farm I take it

You think the people who like solar-punk semi-commie eco-shit have either? At best they fed a few chickens or cows during high school for credits.

The aesthetic is rad. So far there isn’t much else to it, though.

Which area do you work in? Just curious. I don’t keep up with it too well.

Yes, but with a lot of urbanism and high technology as well.

Is it me, or does “Out on Blue Six” feel solarpunk, despite not looking anything like solarpunk is supposed to look?

I got to be honest dude a lot of the arguments in this thread seem to come from the kind of people who feel threatened by the fans of solarpunk rather than who want to discuss it.

Like the point is its utopian, from what I can see. That's fine. People have been writing utopian sci-fi for at least 100 years. Why are you trying to be like, nuh emotions are repressed or nature is going to fucking murder you .

It's just a thing. It's OK that it is a thing. Your problem seems to be the people you see as "semi-commie eco-shit" and because of that you feel offended by their setting.

Would Horizon: Zero Dawn be considered Solarpunk? It's got a huge enviromental message. If so, that's probably where this fad started.

Not that I'm complaining though, H:ZD was fuckin rad.

>I got to be honest dude a lot of the arguments in this thread seem to come from the kind of people who feel threatened by the fans of solarpunk rather than who want to discuss it.
This.

kek

>Would Horizon: Zero Dawn be considered Solarpunk?
Sure why not, though it's not Noveau enough, I feel.
>that's probably where this fad started.
Considering that according to TV Tropes it started around 2014, no, it didn't.

You want to know how I can tell you're from tumblr?

Yeah, it's a thing; everything is a thing, and that means that calling it a thing means absolutely nothing.
Just because it's a thing doesn't mean it's immune to criticism or expansion, and to be quite honest with you, Utopia is boring. Straight up, 100% boring. Conflict and drama, highs and lows, light and dark, that's what makes something interesting.

I'm not offended by their setting, I just think it'd end up being a living hell after a few decades if it was real at worst, and just plain boring at best, regardless of whether or not I think they're commie ecofaggots or not. Pretty much every utopian setting that's utopian all the way through is just boring.

I like it, but needs more conflict and danger.

Also, no one likes Communists aside from others of their kind.

That too, but it's good practice to not judge an idea based on who had it.

Solarpunk would be just as boring if it was dreamt up by radical ecologist Quakers or something rather than Marxists.

>utopian

Just because we achieve post scarcity doesn't mean humans will stop fighting, each other or other races if it's that kind of sci-fi. There are lots of reason to have conflict even in a post scarcity society, furthermore just because there's a decent garunteed living for everyone doesn't mean people won't still work to earn luxuries for enjoyment or status, nor does it garuntee that baseline living will be to everyone's satisfaction.

None of this requires humanity to exist in a Utopia or a dysotopia, nor to be Communist. Just lots of green technology

>You want to know how I can tell you're from tumblr?
Not really, because I'm not. I don't have a tumblr and the only time I ever visit a tumblr is 1) it's some artist I'm checking out 2) it's the Q&A section of my favourite webcomic (Unsounded) or 3) I'm looking at porn.

You can find utopia boring and that's fine; I agree that narrative stories need conflict. But that conflict can absolutely take different forms and that's why we have such a wide variety of creative works with an insane variety of scales of conflict, some of them utopian, that already exist. Conflict doesn't have to be as simple as 'skirmish gangs are shooting each other in the streets' or 'people are really living in a fascist dystopia'.

You're definitely not doing anything to dissuade me of the idea that your problem is with the people you perceive as behind this more than anything else.

I can't fathom running anything interesting in the setting because of this though. it's it's weakness

>how to have conflict in post scarcity sci-fi
Eclipse Phase

ITT and everywhere else:
>social critics rediscover differential equations
>ideologues and social critics of every stripe consistently and sometimes deliberately misunderstand the idea

>Solarpunk is...post apocalypse hippies running the world?
O humans realizing that overwhelming technology will brought the Earth on verge of destruction so there's a massive switch in nation mindsets to turn them into longterm symbiotic interaction with nature based on scientific knowledge (green plant energy, solar scalar fields, ect...)
For running a civilisation, you need energy, materials, workforce, food, science, and spirituality.

That was the point of my question. How to bring instability into a long term stable setting? I doubt a bacteria would work because of the scientific knowledge, nor a climatic reversal because it was probably the cause leading to that kind of setting. An alien invasion will look like the standard anti-emperialism setting.
How to trouble a setting that look like the perfect answer to an already troubled setting? Maybe a mystical one? Humans merged themselves with other living beings like plants and discovered new perception of the world, leading to a new door to madness?

>Why are you trying to be like, nuh emotions are repressed # or nature is going to fucking murder you #.
Because it's supposed to be a punk setting. Utopia and Punk are mutually exclusive.

>using tumblr for porn

Regardless, here's my problem with Utopian settings; the fact that they're Utopian doesn't even mean anything. If the conflict is so small scale that it doesn't threaten this Utopia, then it could just as easily be set in any other relatively peaceful period of time, real or fictitious, without losing any meaning. If that society has enjoyed peace, prosperity, and social harmony for a thousand years and will continue to do so for a thousand more, the wider scope that the society is Utopian means absolutely nothing beyond a vague sense of "Oh, that's nice."

However, if the conflict is serious enough that the setting being Utopian actually matters, it's not Utopian in the first place. Whether the conflict comes with implementing the Utopia, or tearing it down, or sustaining it, the fact that there's a conflict at all means it's not actually Utopia, that there still are problems, whether those be explicit or insidious.

"Utopia" is just taking "It was a peaceful and good time" and turning it into "It was the MOST peaceful and MOST good time"; it adds so little to the story that actually preserves the setting as a Utopia. It's either a backdrop to personal conflict or slice of life, or its a boring narrative of a static society, or it's a Utopia in peril and thus actually not Utopia. It's Oxymoronic, in essence.

Also, isn't me; and is me.

Are they? Specifically this kind of nature-driven tight-knit community utopianism? I'm thinking of The Art of Not Being Governed here, these small tribal societies existing at the edges of East Asian padi states and actively resisting incorporation. Geographically and socially isolated, preferring their hunter-gatherer and small-scale agrarian culture to the a hierarchical, royal, rice-gathering and slave-taking one.

Those societies were anarchic, which at least has strong crossover with punk subculture, but they'd also fit in this solarpunk world. WITHOUT needing to say oh people are shooting each other on the reg or oh all the technology is bad and the earth is evil or oh everyone is kept docile and drugged up.

>I just think it'd end up being a living hell after a few decades if it was real at worst, and just plain boring at best,
Wait, that makes no sense. Are you really telling me you’d wake up one day and think, “Man, this bites! Where’s the war, the corruption, the poverty? Couldn’t we have a pandemic or a crime wave or at least a few solid riots? God, this peace and prosperity is so dull!” Conflict in fiction is one thing; conflict in real life is another.

>O humans realizing that overwhelming technology will brought the Earth on verge of destruction so there's a massive switch in nation mindsets to turn them into longterm symbiotic interaction with nature based on scientific knowledge (green plant energy, solar scalar fields, ect...)
>For running a civilisation, you need energy, materials, workforce, food, science, and spirituality.

>not becoming post-human techno-god ubermensch and leaving the Earth to its own devices as a pristine jewel, all while keeping careful watch to ensure the wider universe doesn't threaten it through natural disaster
Could have something interesting with un-uplifted humans living in the suddenly abandoned and "reset" Earth.

I don't agree with your first point: sci-fi often explores unique social, personal and technological problems through the science fiction setting. It's not always going to be possible to explore those in any other peaceful period of time.

On your second and third point, I'm seeing "utopian" and you're sticking to strict "the utopia" so YMMV.

desu solarpunk was more utopian rather than an actual utopia.

What if the society is genuinely good, but at the expense of being brutally authoritarian and stagnant? So the core tension is safety,health and stability against the desire to make one's own mistakes and experience novelty.

The state is benevolent but stagnant and stifling. The punks live worthwhile and interesting lives but if extended to the entire population it would lead to destruction.

Solarpunk is basically niggers and chinks living in a Communist Utopia, the setting.
Fire it into the sun.

I know you're being facetious and purposefully hyperbolic, but yes. There needs to be argument, there needs to be disagreement, because that's how humans advance. A perfect society is a stagnant society, and a stagnant society is not perfect.
While day to day life for the average person would be wonderful, because no one themselves want conflict of that scale, can you imagine it after a thousand years? Generation after generation of the same, whatever social progress there is being glacially slow, perhaps even an "end" to history. An eternity of stasis without revolution and change to bring out true human vigor.

I'm sure it'd be nice for the first few generations, but I can only imagine the despair and decadence of a people who's history is unchanging.

>I don't agree with your first point
I didn't say it had to be non sci-fi, only that it had to just be a relatively peaceful period of any other era, real or fictional, and that includes other sci-fi eras that are not necessarily utopian.

It really comes down to the fact that the difference between a peaceful era, and a Utopia, is a Utopia where history Ends. Full stop.

Have you read, say, “The Dispossessed” or “The Left Hand of Darkness”? Where would they fit into this categorical scheme?