I noticed this with cyberpunk stuff, too. The genre has been incredibly prophetic. It just sucks that it’s all the stupidly bad shit and not a single one of the super cool sci-fi things.
This is very true. I use iSH on my phone to run python scripts and ssh into servers, I use Working Copy to make git commits from the toilet or my bed. Like for all intents and purposes, my phone is a cyberpunk “deck,” but I suppose cyberpunk is literally named “The Dark Future” for a reason, considering all else that is going on.
The problems lie in the “punk” part. Just like cyberpunk’s prophetic bad stuff isn’t the cyber. Pretty sure solarpunk is still about the societal issues existing in what could be a utopia if they didn’t. Wealth inequality, bigotry, etc. You’re just not polluting the planet because everything is green.
I mean that those things still exist in the world. The stories are about fighting those things, usually as John points out. Unless you’re saying the status quo is without inequality and bigotry and the heroes are trying to be a counter to that?
No, there may be inequality and bigotry in some solarpunk fiction but unlike cyberpunk it’s not about “our heroes fighting the system that will almost inevitably crush them”. Solarpunk is innately hopeful, and there’s conflict (kinda intrinsic to storytelling) but it doesn’t require the existence of inequality or bigotry, and a lot of solarpunk fiction explicitly doesn’t have any bigotry in it period.
Cyberpunk might be about “our system sucks, and our heroes may or may not want it to change”, but solarpunk is about “the system of the modern day was bad, and so we replaced it entirely”. The “punk” part doesn’t require that the heroes are individually punks within the context of their own world, it’s called punk because it’s in contrast to our modern system. Also because -punk is kinda a generic term for genres at this point.
I noticed this with cyberpunk stuff, too. The genre has been incredibly prophetic. It just sucks that it’s all the stupidly bad shit and not a single one of the super cool sci-fi things.
I read this comment on the toilet using a pocket-sized computer that everyone I know owns, and we’re all addicted to.
Nobody’s buzzing around in flying cars, but if they were, they’d be so ubiquitous we’d just say “meh, we should have jetpacks by now.”
I do agree with you that we’re getting all the Bad Stuff though.
This is very true. I use iSH on my phone to run python scripts and ssh into servers, I use Working Copy to make git commits from the toilet or my bed. Like for all intents and purposes, my phone is a cyberpunk “deck,” but I suppose cyberpunk is literally named “The Dark Future” for a reason, considering all else that is going on.
Is it prophetic, or do we just have a techno-capitalist elite that looked as those books as a roadmap rather than a cautionary tale?
Oh yeah. You know after World War III it’s not going to be warp engines that get invented.
But we might have neutrino (?) bombs; those theoretical bombs that can just vaporize people and leave buildings and infrastructure intact.
Neutron, not neutrino.
We should be reading/watching/sharing more solarpunk then!
The problems lie in the “punk” part. Just like cyberpunk’s prophetic bad stuff isn’t the cyber. Pretty sure solarpunk is still about the societal issues existing in what could be a utopia if they didn’t. Wealth inequality, bigotry, etc. You’re just not polluting the planet because everything is green.
Um, no. It’s the very opposite of that. Solarpunk addresses inequality and bigotry directly.
I mean that those things still exist in the world. The stories are about fighting those things, usually as John points out. Unless you’re saying the status quo is without inequality and bigotry and the heroes are trying to be a counter to that?
No, there may be inequality and bigotry in some solarpunk fiction but unlike cyberpunk it’s not about “our heroes fighting the system that will almost inevitably crush them”. Solarpunk is innately hopeful, and there’s conflict (kinda intrinsic to storytelling) but it doesn’t require the existence of inequality or bigotry, and a lot of solarpunk fiction explicitly doesn’t have any bigotry in it period.
Cyberpunk might be about “our system sucks, and our heroes may or may not want it to change”, but solarpunk is about “the system of the modern day was bad, and so we replaced it entirely”. The “punk” part doesn’t require that the heroes are individually punks within the context of their own world, it’s called punk because it’s in contrast to our modern system. Also because -punk is kinda a generic term for genres at this point.