i enjoy the aesthetics but i hate when its revolutionary character is washed away by liberals.
Utopian, and either impossible (under capitalism) or unnecessary (under socialism).
It might seem unnecessary, but I can see the benefits to it in socialist society. Some extra food for a relatively small amount of effort, hardened resiliency in case of supply issues.
You don't need to grow plants absolutely everywhere for that, like on the solarpunk graphics.
Liberal copium
Tbh, I haven't seen a plot set in solarpunk that didn't make my eyes roll out of my head
Uses the word punk but has nothing punk about it. Would be a lot more interesting if it was used as set dressing for a story about an environment friendly society that's just as opressive as ours.
I don't see any mass public transit in that photo. Those little floating gondolas don't count.
Just like other anarchist and lifestyle dealists, they all need to read Engels - Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. There is no small-scale, isolated, DIY-route to socialism, it's been tried before and they all fail.
Or if they really want to criticize communists, the backyard pig iron forges made during the cultural revolution.
Don't place in China and the DPRK take influence from solarpunk? I agree that there is no small-scale isolated path to socialism, but I think it's a wonderful post-revolution concept.
I've never heard of them taking influence from it, so I'd need to see a source on that. Anyways food production in those countries is as industrialized and centralized as any other country.
Solarpunk proposes small-scale gardening as a solution to food and energy production, and that is wasteful and Utopian. Entirely different from someone just tending a garden for fun.
I meant viewing solarpunk more as an aspect of socialism for fun or just in case of supply chain issues, people can feed themselves.
I don't have anything on hand, just pictures of hydroponics in China and DPRK
Alot of the architecture and city planning, when I have the energy to look.
Green usage in socialist city planning predates solarpunk by decades, if anything took from anything there, it's the latter from the former.
Looks pretty and it's important as an optimistic counterbalance to cyberpunk or other dystopian settings, but trees growing on the side of skyscrapers isn't really functional or sustainable.
While it's fantasy, for sure, I think that a setting directly inspired by sustainable thinking has a responsibility to portray an accurate representation.
If its escapist that makes it actually more black pilled than it lets on.
I don't see the problem with trees on the side of skyscrapers. I could see multiple reasons for this, but that would require more idealization.
but why have trees when you can have vines draping all the way down from the top?
Middle class white person's depiction of "future but not depressing"
Looks pretty but the idea of small scale agriculture is already obsolete. I for one don't want a future where i have to waste away my life working gardens for hours daily just to produce 1/1000000 of what an industrial farm produces.
Expand the picture a little bit, though, and you're living a life where you have hours to spare and gardening, with advances in small-scale farming tech, is an enjoyable hobby. Something you do as your main source of food, or something you do to supplement your apportionment of the centralized, industrial scale farming industry (which also enjoys advanced in technology that make it more harmonious with nature and more efficient with its use of land).
When you consider the technology we have today that was considered sci-fi whimsy 40 years ago, the technological advance required for the pictured aesthetic is well within our capability.
What you say is completely fine and i support it, but in my experience the solarpunk aesthetic has been largely used by "back to nature" reactionary movements that see "industrial society" as corruption etc...
industrial society in its current form HAS poisoned our planet. You're suggesting that solarpunk would send us back to the fucking stone ages but it really just means phasing out harmful and obsolete technology in liu of ecofriendly alternatives. There's alot of agricultural methods that industrial society has phased out to it's own detriment, depleting the soil and replacing biodiversity with... corn. endless corn.
Yeah very true. The difference isn't in the solarpunk-aesthetic vision but in the path to get there (industrial innovation vs primitivist regression), and when reactionaries try to falsely claim the idea of a green future as something that is exclusive to de-industrialization. I think it's important not to let that false exclusivity stick.
I agree, but can I ask what your solution is then for sustainable industrial farming? As far as I know, there doesn't exist one. We literally have to spam small-scale/organic/lab-grown food, or continue destroying our land and environment with industrial farming practices. At least that's the dichotomy I've heard
The solution boils down to improving efficiency worldwide, there is a massive difference of crop yield rates between imperial core countries and the global south.
Even between imperial core countries the difference between yield rates is massive, example: the most efficient farmers in the US consistently produce corn yields of > 30ton/ha yet the national corn yield is about 12 ton/ha, there is a ton of room for improvement.
Generally, I find that the graphics are pretty but are often devoid of realism. That being said, the stories often told in the name of Solarpunk generally eschew capitalism as a default. The one book I read in the genre was explicitly post revolution, though it was a bit more anarchist than would be generally practical for the goals they were trying to accomplish. Certainly it's an interesting future imaginary, and it's better than yet another cyberpunk which by default reifies capitalism.
Is it impractical? yes. Is it worthless? Well, what's the value in imagining a world beyond capitalism? It may be a trap for liberals who want a better world but are blinded by ideology, but maybe it can break them away from capitalist realism to start seeing that a better world is possible.
How is it unrealistic? Many places in China and DPRK take influence from it.
It's a cool aesthetic but I think the guerrilla gardening aspect of it needs to be cranked up to a thousand for it to be considered "punk".
once the mall next to my house fails I'm 100% going to do some cool shit with the parking garage when I'm confident filthy capitalists aren't going to ruin my plans.
