Has anybody else read this book? I'm about halfway through and I feel like I've been learning a lot from this. While the book is endlessly critical of the former Soviet experiment and the modern PRC without cushioning it's critiques by acknowledging that much of their problematic climate elements are due to material conditions, I find many of their critiques and ideas refreshing.

I'm a little ambivalent on their information about Nuclear Power too, I personally had assumed that Nuclear tech was brought to an incredibly safe level.

But beyond that I think some of the central thesis of the book of treating nature as a "known unknown", and needing to harness the power of hopeful utopianism while making use of the best elements of scientific socialism, I think these are swell things to adopt. The book is, on the whole, a bit lib in the ways that utopian socialists are, but I do think at the end of the day it prescribes some necessary ideas that are seriously worth engaging with.

Has anyone else read this book and have any thoughts, or ways we can adapt this critique to the struggle of socialism?

  • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
    ·
    1 year ago

    • Reducing and keeping power consumption low is key, fuel as the secondary priority. Electrification is bad if you still have to rely on fossil fuels. Thus, do not bother with hydrogen and other replace fuel with electricity consumption projects and switch to biofuels until you have no more fossil energy running.

    • Crack down on meat asap. Meat production has huge emissions and takes up a lot of land, especially as QoL improves. Switching to organic production is kinda pointless for it's less efficient while having the same problems. State enforced vegetarianism or veganism cost a lot of political points but are powerful decisions.

    • The Ecofeminist (not sure what that ideology even represents IRL, since it seems to be connected with some occult shenanigans etc. Events like "Rise of the Chtulucene" and the like Wicca witches or something? Idk)

    • Wooden skyscrapers are OP.

    • Wait with FALGSC until the fuel and power issues are fixed. Space is a neat goal for the late game but unfortunately iirc one of the decisions is bugged and adds a number with like 20 digits to your fuel consumption.

    • BECCS actively subtract emissions.

    • You can redistribute up to 4 bars in power/fuel/farming/animal husbandry per turn each.