Solarpunk and How We Escape Dystopia with
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2023
- In this episode we explore a relatively new subgenre of science fiction called Solarpunk, which aims to imagine better, more ecologically harmonious, futures on earth. In many ways Solarpunk is a reaction to both the real-world climate crisis and to the many apocalyptic visions of collapse filling our screens. Andrew Sage from the CZcams channel @Andrewism joins host Jonathan McIntosh and friend of the show Carl Williams for this conversation.
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LINKS & REFERENCES
• The Andrewism CZcams Channel
/ andrewism
• Walkaway by Cory Doctorow
craphound.com/category/walkaway/
• Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...
• Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation
upperrubberboot.com/sunvault/
• Fighting for the Future edited by Phoebe Wagner
www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable...)
• Princess Mononoke from Studio Ghibli
letterboxd.com/film/princess-...
• The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One...
• Emergency Skin by N. K. Jemisin
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergen...
• Monk and Robot book series by Becky Chambers
us.macmillan.com/series/monkr...
• Disney’s Strange Solarpunk World
• In Defense of Disney’s...
• Dear Alice from THE LINE
• Dear Alice
• Dear Alice’ Decommodified Edition by Waffle To The Left
• 'Dear Alice' Decommodi...
• Our History Is the Future by Nick Estes
www.versobooks.com/products/6...
• 3000-Year-Old Solutions to Modern Problems by Lyla June
• 3000-year-old solution...
• Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital...
* Background image is the cover of the first book in the Monk and Robot series entitled "Psalm for the Wild-Built."
FAIR USE
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CREDITS
Audio production: Jonathan McIntosh
Intro music: Simon Stålenhag
Outro music: Rick Lopez - Zábava
Hello, Pop Culture Detective. I'm a 20 year old student from Mexico City. I just want to tell you how much I appreciate your work. Your videos helped me in so many ways throughout this months, I've learned to be a more empathetic person and to have better perspectives of the media I usually consume. Social problems are often overviewed in TV series or movies, unfortunately many people do not care about solving them. I certainly wasn't the kind of person who criticized content full of these problems (sexism, racism, clasism, etc.), but now I know better thanks to you. Thank you very much, sir. Hope you have a nice day and continue making great content in this platform. :)
There used to be huge symbiotic food forests across the US before colonisation, we need that back, the book 'braiding sweetgrass' is so eye opening on the solarpunk aspect of indigenous culture and history
In my childhood there were several sitcoms on TV about US-suburb life. It was a foreign world that only vaguely resembled the rural or suburbian life in my country that I knew. Back then it seemed idyllic and perfect and flawless. Over time I learned that much about US-suburbs makes me detest them, yet that nostalgic idyllic feeling still lingers, now detached from anything real.
Solarpunk is my way of reconnecting with that feeling, I enjoy that utopian fiction. Partially because my environment is a local bubble that kinda resembles a version of it. A walkable urban neighbordhood, a park, friends and family I can reach by bike or even on foot, public transport for everything else. That's superficial, but it has a calming effect on me.
Rebecca Chambers "Robot and Monk" series is fabulous. I highly recommend it to any and every person I can.
It's one of my favorite book series too
It’s REALLY GOOD
Just finished the first one yesterday. Such a great book!
I loved every single book of Becky chambers (my favorite) There are unfortunately so few books like hers.
Agreed , picked it up recently thanks to this conversation and it has been excellent
I need the optimism regarding our ecological future right now. Sure it sucks right now, and won't turn around quickly, but it still can.
And will my friend!
I am creating a capital-free ecological system 🤩
Copium
And it won't unless a lot of people like us are working their butts off. And not burning out and getting depressed. 😆 Just like any big change.
We passed the point of no return back in the 18th century.
People really have no clue on the metrics on anthropogenic climate change.
I don't think solarpunk is "too good to be true." If anything, it's "bad enough it just might work." Because it isn't just our world with trees and free energy. It's a radical restructuring of every aspect of our society and our technology, and it's still only somewhat better than what we have now. But its appeal is its _achievability._ We _could_ get there, but it will be a LOT of work. But what else are we going to do?
The problem is that Capitalism has taught us to be utopia aversed because "human nature".
13:50 That episode of Strange New Worlds HEAVILY borrowed from "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin
It did. Though the message was diluted. What made Le Guin’s story so pointed was that it was from the prospective of people who lived there and then chose to leave. The Trek story was from the POV of outsiders.
@@PopCultureDetective its been awhile but iirc it wasnt really from the prospective of anyone in particular, and didnt have specific characters, which to me is the only big difference between them. The world, the message, the moral dilemma in the Trek story is pretty much that of Omelas.
Guys, let’s give more credit to Dear Alice, but not as vision financed by Chobani. In the end we have to thank animation studio THE LINE for giving life to a solar punk world in just under two minutes of visuals. THEY’RE the artists, I hardly doubt a yogurt mega-corporation came up with the concept, so props to THEM.
The owner or founder of chobani is a Turkish man, known for his philanthropy. Check him out.
i read the title too fast and thought it said "salsapunk". Its all good, still looking forward to listening, but I will be distracted wondering about escaping dystopia through habanero
Salsapunk does sound really fucking cool tho
Might do something with it lmao
Solarpunk, but a musical.
Great crossover! Did not really expect Andrew and you in the same thing
I really hope Solarpunk will take off properly. And that some aspects of it will actually become reality. Definitely need to read Monk & Robot. This isn't the first time I heard of this book. (Did you perhaps mention it in your video about Strange World? If not, definitely somebody else was talking about it)
I did mention it very briefly in that video essay yeah
Mayb you watch Think That Through?
They also talked about it. Somewhat extensively.
This is the crossover I've been waiting for 😁 perfect after your Solarpunk themed film review
Yeah, i feel that when it comes to solarpunk people think we need more tech or new break throughs when we can do it now, we just need to make life adjustments, especially one where people are not in the ratrace, instead they are in a community.
I so feel this. I love community and the inbuilt safety nets it gives. Where I am it's in the church, even just okay grounds you can only find inside churches, mosques and temples but you also get cheap healthcare, support groups, schools and nice little hangout spots. Of course they'd be heavily centered around deism but the progressive inclusive groups that you can discuss this "solar punk buds" in are heavily anti-religion and religious people.
@@availanila I do agree that religious groups can make great community but not always unfortunately. The problem is when they are exclusionary, for instance excluding queer people due to religious dogmatism.
@@thisisnotausernameXD good and all but we used to have welfare association and they are very exclusionary, i.e women/tribe/in-group only, then atheists groups are huge on philosophising over nothing and are organized in an inaccessible way to families in their forms and ways. It sucks that some religious groups are anti-LGBTQ but there's always a weakness in most organizations.
Loving this crossover! Just wanted to add here that maybe, like Ruth Levitas, we need to shift away from utopia as a perfect blueprint for society, but just as a stage of thought. A way to imagine and rotate an idea of a society in our minds to then get to the stage where we can see ways and maybe obstacles for realizing it, so we can move those out of the way too.
Best discussion on solarpunk I’ve heard. Many thanks! I’ll be re-listening to it, and sharing. 👍🏻
People and studios missing the point of cyberpunk makes me think of how Alan Moore created Watchmen as a warning against the growing darkness in superhero comics, only for fans to miss that and celebrate the comic as an ideal for superheroes.
All punk follows the same path: First rebel against 'the system' only to be absorbed by it when the system realises rebellion can be commoditised and turned to profit.
Down with capitalism! Buy the album and the t-shirt.
I'm from Singapore and truly there is this strangely corporate vision of "green future" that is super popular! In any case I kind of quite like it, as compared to many other cities I've been to. No comment on capital punishment though, that's just... how things are here.
Something we forget is how impactful art was and is in the development of many things in the real world, if it wasn’t for things such as the Czech play “R.O.R.” or the works from Isaac Asimov, Jules Verne, and so on, the concepts of robots and space travel, and by extension, the scientific fields of robotics and astronautics wouldn’t even exist, or tablets and videocalls without sci-fi without Star Trek and early pulp fiction comics - after all, how can someone change the world for the better if they don’t even know there’s an alternative?
We need more solarpunk, so the future engineers, leaders, and the like, can bring fiction into reality.
At 12:45 when you're talking about rejecting utopias, I instantly though of The Last of Us and their presentation of the town in Wyoming, a communist utopia. I was just anticipating something to go wrong, but thankfully, they kept it perfect. Obviously we will wait to see how they taint it in season 2, but for now, they presented it as perfect.
Love this vid btw, really great food for thought
I'd also be interested in a discussion of the relationship between media like The Good Place and solarpunk, like it's obviously not trying to play to the aesthetic and associations but the themes and human-centric approach and the way it questions utopia and dystopia seem relevant to the conversation solarpunk brings. I guess ultimately it's more hopepunk.
To me, The Good Place goes against the tenents of solarpunk and punk in general. The Good Place discusses an incompetent bureaucracy which is functionally evil, but through argumentation, every day people are able to convince the bureaucracy to fundamentally change the way the system functions without changing the bureaucracy itself in any meaningful way. Solarpunk and punk in general is rooted in DIY culture and horizontalist forms of organization, rejecting the bureaucracy and removing the walls between the people and their decision making power. Solarpunk envisions a world rooted in community and ecology. I love The Good Place, but to me it is a liberal vision, whereas solarpunk tends to be more anarchistic
I fear Solarpunk being assimilated and stripped of all its radical features by mainstream media. Yes, making Solarpunk more popular would help to inspire more people, but the capitalist cultural hegemony of Hollywood and the like could easily take the genre over by making some big budget movie set in a Solarpunk world, sterilizing it, and making it the standard for what Solarpunk is seen as by the general public. It happened with the original Punk, it happened with Cyberpunk, and I don't want it to happen to Solarpunk.
Kind of reminds me of the whole Frutiger Aero aesthetic from the early optimistic 2000s that kind of dissipated soon after.
So excited to see two of my favourite creators collaborating on one of my favourite topics!
On the note of dystopian films being made aesthetically inviting, a film I will always love for going in the direct opposite direction and making the dystopia actually look and feel awful is Children of Men. Its themes of hope and renewal also feel at the very least tangentially related to solarpunk.
I'm curious about the choice of Mononoke over Nausicaa for solarpunk; I see the thematic relevance although the aesthetic/future sense isn't there in Mononoke, but I'd be interested to hear more analysis of why Nausicaa is or isn't solarpunk.
Seems a lot of us are in dire need of hope. I'd love for this to become a series where you discuss/do interviews covering more optimistic futurism. These creators deserve the support! Loved the episode, I'll be checking out the podcast for sure!
In terms of Ghibli works, Nausicaa is more solar punk than Princess Mononoke. But then again, the latter is basically just a remake of the former, so.
Agreed about Nausicaa fitting the genre. It's my favorite of Hayao Miyazaki's films.
But Nausicaa also takes place after a total collapse of civilisation. The peoples in that world didn't choose to live like that, they were forces to learn to adapt to a new world
Actually now I think about, we are having to adapt to a man-made collapse of the world!
The dude who said with the most haunting voice "spider mites" i feel you my fellow gardener, i feel you
All of you are taking the words right outta my mouth here!
What an awesome episode. Seems like a meeting of great minds! I look forward to more “Solarpunk” on your channel!
What an excellent crossover, 2 of the best creators around right now!
You dropped this as I’m rereading Pacific Edge by Kim Stanley Robinson. This is very much a solar punk book, and quite prescient about capitalism and climate change given it was published in 1990.
CZcams totally surpressed this one. I literally have you set to all notfications, and it did not notify me. I had to click and check, and I LOVE this! Thank you for focusing on Solar punk. It's a good follow up to your video on disney's Strange World
49:27 In answer to your question about how not to sound like you're saying "It's not that bad." when you try to say that there is hope, a sentiment I've used in the past with doomer friends to admittedly mixed success is "I'm not saying we *will* survive this, but that we *can* survive this. And we owe it to ourselves and every generation that follows to try, even if the odds are slim."
Obviously, doomerism is hard to break someone out of. It's almost comforting for them, the idea that since there's nothing we can do, we don't have to do anything. When you're resigned to hopelessness, hope can be almost painful. But it's also necessary for our survival.
7:00 Some references mentioned: Walk Away by Cory Doc and Ecotopia by Ellis or Enest, Sun Vault, Fighting for Future. Octavia Butler's Part of the Soul
21:27 Emergency Skin by NK Jemisin 24:19 Becky Chambers Novellas call The Monk and Robot Series, and 26:47 Wayfarer Series. 31:00 "How do we engage with how do we build for the best while preparing for the worst?".
33:55 In relation to advertising, I found out about this game at czcams.com/video/34YM5-uXwL0/video.html at the 22:46 minute mark. 37:55 Internal conflict overload like this seems like it might be a underestimated thing. 39:13 Video reference: Laughter's Disunity. 41:51 structural concept. 43:00 List of solar punk elements that might also be found in Anarchy concepts: social justice, mutual aid, direct action, pre figuration (practice of establishing the relationships and systems and institutions of a desired future in the here and now. 43:38 Discuses de growth "seeks to transform a society to ensure environmental justice and a good life for all within planetary boundaries. Re imagine our relationship with labor and leisure. 44:14 Disclaimer. 46:04 Book reference: Our History is the Future by Nick Estes.
I only recently learned about solarpunk in your video! Great podcast, I love learning more about what it is about!
When I was in college I took an archery class. The teacher only allowed us to set positive goals, and only goals that had to do with us, not with the target. So "I will hit the yellow 50% of the time" was out. So was "I won't lean back." You had to do something like "I will stand up straight." Her reasoning was the more you think about something, even in the negative sense, the more likely you are to make it happen. So think about the thing you actually want to do. And only focus on things you can control. You can't control what the target is doing, only how you're shooting.
This discussion made me think of that 😅
It's funny what you mention about the scepticism towards utopia. I remember being taught in school that the genre only exists in theory, as utopia is always hiding a dystopia. I was told that a utopian society wasn't interesting as a setting, as there is no struggle, and you need struggle/conflict to tell a compelling story.
So far I've only seen solarpunk through youtube and reddit. Perhaps I should pick up a solarpunk book, see their theory proven wrong.
Just to be clear though, theory is not practice, and a book is not evidence.
@@fellinuxvi3541 thanks for 'clearing something up' I had no questions about ❤️
@@TheGalacticGrizzly You made a claim though,
TWO OF MY FAVOURITES CZcamsRS TOGETHER WOW
Advance apologies for the off topic comment. I enjoy your analyses and wonder if you would consider discussing the use of what one might call the “reluctant father” trope (eg. The Mandalorian, Kenobi, The Last of Us, The Witcher, Logan, 65, Big Daddy, The Professional, etc). Cheers.
I’ve got something in the works related to some of those fatherhood stories yeah. Similar though not exactly that trope.
@@PopCultureDetective Excellent. I’ll be looking forward to it. Thanks for the reply :)
I agree, this was an excellent discussion.
I saw your strange world video and inmediatly looked for SolarPunk videos and started watching Andrew and now you are interviewing him
ugh i love yalls channels tbsi is so genuinely exciting im already crying
YEAAAAAAAAAH I AM ALL ABOUT SOLARPUNK RN
Yes! Fantastic conversation. Great reading suggestions. Ordered one will listening…” Emergency Skin.”
huge fan of andrewism. love this collab.
Thanks, hadn't heard of Solarpunk before and now can't wait to explore!
The last few minutes reminded me of a quote from Beau of the Fifth Column: "On a long enough timescale, we win."
That is only true through direct action and organization. There is no teleology toward progress.
@@otherperson agreed
Andrewism's accent is really interesting, I get strings hints of Welsh or tiny bits of Geordie coming through, though I know he's Trinidadian
The Caribbean accent is heavily influenced by the Irish indentured servants who worked alongside the African chattel slaves. It's really interesting to hear
I'm only about 15 minutes in and so this probably comes up but the issue with utopian fiction is that there's no plot if everyone is just living post scarcity, solar punk, self actualization.
Strange world got it by making that the ending and that's really thw only way unless you don't mind an obvious solution that no one thinks of for plot reasons.
It's even hard to make stories within that setting because if "the robots turn bad" or something not only is that trite and played out, they would probably have a solution or it just wouldn't happen in the first place.
It's quite a difficult nut to crack because we want to show this to more people but you can't really make movies within solar punk that aren't just "it's all a lie" or are dealing with a meteor incoming or something like that unrelated to the solarpunk utopia.
An or asteroid or some other 'out of context problem' like mountains are actually just giant hybernating super monsters that no one could expect or prepare for but that is only possible before post planetary timeliness.
There is the fact that light lag would lead to galactic cohesion difficult but humanity would be anarchistic and self sufficient and mutual aid based anyway 😅 it's very tough.
You could do a alien invasion but again true aliens would have no problem decimateing even a utopia (you could ignore that though, if they can some how get here but don't have the ability to just obliterate us based purely on virtue of crossing the galaxy to get to us anyway, that's usually what happens)
It's just really hard to come up with an obstacle in utopias to build a story around outside of just building that utopia (which we need more stories about but would get boring eventually, still tho write them while we can!)
It's not that living in them would be hard, we'd have infinitely many fun and fulfilling things to do irl but in fiction you can't just have everyone be happy and healthy and always getting along lol, it's just not how we write stories, if we can change that paridigm that would be great and I urge anyone who can do that please to do so, but it's very difficult because any problems utopias have could be solved before they even really occur lol.
I just hope that as this movement gets popularized, people and companies adopting this way of thinking don't abandon the "punk" aspect of solarpunk, in order to justify a continuation of old habits and energy-intensive practices. When LEED certification became an energy and sustainability goal that buildings aimed to achieve, a lot of building projects spoke highly of innovative tech and reusable/recyclable tech, and indicated their inclusion in these construction projects, but years later they are hardly being utilized. They got their gold star, but they aren't actually changing their operations from established structural and mechanical systems. I feel like a lot of people are drawn to the solarpunk aesthetic, but aren't really prepared for the differences in lifestyle, consumer habits, political reforms, and economic transformation that should go hand-in-hand with the movement. It's about more than adding greenery to buildings and growing crops on rooftops. It's not a utopia without the significant social shift in mindset about what we need in order to live sustainably and ecologically. It's cool to think of a pristine future in which it looks like a pastoral, Studio Ghibli setting with fun robotics and green technology, but it's just fantasizing over the appearance of "green revolution" without considering the monumental changes to every significant industry and business model we currently have.
Thank you for discussing this important topic! It gives hope indeed.
I love your podcast work so much, you truly offer some incredible information. Have you ever considered doing an examination of the way cultures are depicted in fantasy/sci fi video games and movies (alien cultures in star wars, the fantasy cultures in he legend of zelda) that absorb the stereotypical and often appropriated aesthetics of the 'primitive' and 'savage' societies juxtaposed against eurowestern societies? again always love your content!
I loved that Walk Away was the first novel mentioned because that's instantly where my head went. Also, Autonomous by Annalee Newitz, I think, fits the solar punk description. I'm still reading it, but Down And Out in The Magic Kingdom might fit the bill.
Super super cool podcast thank you for this format !
You're forgetting that in Star Trek, all of Star Trek, the earth is a solar punk utopia. There's no such thing as money. People do what makes them happiest. And we've figured out how to have entirely fissile fuel free power and transportation. There's no catch there. This is how we've evolved in 200-300 years.
This conversation is so inspiring and much needed
An amazing episode, thanks!!
I think what is so hard about Solarpunk is the setting itself wipes away the necessity for all kinds of conflict. Everyone is fed, housed, free, comfortable, calmed and happy. At least the WORLD sets them up to be. Creating conflict in that kind of world really means you need to dig deep. Like REALLY deep. I think that is why everyone struggles to write it. Solarpunk is, to me at least, what happens when "And they they all lived happily ever after" appears on the screen.
I mean, you could have outside forces trying to break the system
Forgive the late response but may I ask - would PCD or either of the wonderful guests suggest a kind of 'Solarpunk 101' text? Or would you say it's best to work with the texts mentioned earlier in this excellent discussion (Walkaway, Sunvault, Emergency Skin etc.)? And thank you for diving deeper here PCD! I can't remember the last time a video on youtube made me genuinely feel like I was learning about something important, exciting and accessible all at the same time!
Let's go! Let's go! Let's go travel the world together! Love this video! Amazing! : )
what a pleasant crossover event I never expected.
Ikr
I’m actually gonna be giving a workshop entitled Cyberpunk vs Solarpunk 2077 at EthPrague!
Only 5 min in, but solarpunk is a wonderful concept. It’s already happening in micro cultures across the world. Saba Cooperative is one I found this year, but curious to learn of other groups
Knowledge is power, passion is powerful. Know thyself first. Self reacts first, then may act or not.
I found your channel recently and I've been watching a lot of your videos these past few days. I was wondering if you've heard or have watched the anime Vinland Saga? I think it's the kind of story you would love, especially its second season. The themes of violence and pacifism, the portrayal of masculinity. The development of characters who grew up in a culture where violence is glorified. It's the all so well done.
"You have no enemies. No one in this world is your enemy. There is no one you need to hurt."
The thing is - We can still use electronics.
We have produced enough e-waste to last forever. We can reuse micro processors for decades. Most things can be done with micro controllers from e-waste with not much effort. Local municipalities in a solar punk society could be manufacturing devices and robotics without new chips.
new tech just makes it easier and profitable. Chinese phones for example are commonly made with recycled chips from discarded phones from generations past.
It's really easier than that: A lot of the need to replace electronics is driven by business pressure more than technological advancement now. Twenty years ago, you couldn't get your shiny new PC home from the store before it was obsolete - but today, no longer the case.
It's common practice for businesses to scrap and replace their computers after three years. Not because of any technological aging - the old hardware is still perfectly sufficient for the work. It's just that after three years the manufacturer's warranty runs out, and it can be nearly impossible to obtain replacement parts. If you've got the IT staff you can keep running the 'obsolete' hardware by scavenging bits from one laptop to repair another, but organisationally it's often just more efficient to replace the lot. IT technicians don't come cheap - replacing a fleet of laptops every three years can work out cheaper than hiring a full-time staff member who can do the repairs.
1:11 Because, as Mark Fisher said, it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
Great discussion
Have you heard of Raygun Gothic or Atompunk? What are your thoughts on it, Jonatham? Think about futures like the Jetsons, Tomorrowland or the writings of Hugo Gernsback. A postwar American, technologically advanced future based on 50s or 60s imagination
Try reading "The Gernsback Continuum" - a short story about the cultural echoes of that period of imagination.
9:15 you're pulling a muscle trying to reach that far
Perfect analogy for refuting Zootopia being casted as solarpunk
The image is based on "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" by Rebecca Chambers. It explores consciousness, community, depression, and finding one's place. Bonus, the MC is NB and queer. Mosscap, the Robot, is the best character I've ever read in a book, and I've read 43 books this year alone.
It’s a truly amazing book!
Loving Andrew's energy and warm, friendly voice, but for a moment there I thought he said that too many sci-fi authors think technology will solve our problems with Nietzsche!
Love it
It's really hard to be hopeful when you're constantly reminded that people look at you in one of two ways, raging hostility, or infantalizing false pity. Pessimism is easy against that.
Funny thing is that even with the dystopian aspects of Gorrila Games Horizon games (Zero Dawn, Forbidden West), they feel Solar Punk almost in the AI enabled assistance and abundance after the apocalypse. And the outcomes, while not settled as a stable future, still has accessible medicine, and communities. And Walkaway is a great recommendation.
On the note of Solarpunk needing to be anti-capitalist and there be a push for businesses to not co-opt the imagery (and remove its meaning). Very anti-capitalist works like Cyberpunk, is co-opted by the businesses and that is how it is known.
CD Projekt Red used to be private in its shares (still capitalist but less responsive to markets/greed). But they started making a Cyberpunk game, as soon as they opened to public shareholders. Arguably the most culutrally relevant piece of this anti-capitalist media is made by one of the most capitalistic corporate structures.
It is probably a lack of imagination on my part, but how would you prevent Solarpunk from a similar situation?
What you mentioned about conflict, I very much enjoyed the 1st 2 seasons of Cobra Kai. No villains, just constant misunderstandings that lead to conflict.
Greg Universe said it best: "There's always a catch to these utopias..."
My biggest difficulty with Solarpunk fiction is that fiction's predicated on conflict and Solarpunk is conflict averse. That creates a kind of tension, and it's why we see the 'it's too good to be true' trope explain utopias.
Solarpunk is an end-state. It's us winning in terms of sustainability (and to a degree personal actualization). We can look at that and ask 'how do we achieve that from where we are now', and if we chunk that into small enough pieces maybe we can get there. To do it, we need to win a huge culture battle against multilateral forces that who prioritize self-gain and mortgage the future for the now.
Honestly that thought is so daunting I've convinced myself that the best I can do is fight for this now, and wait for people with settled ideologies to pass so that the next, younger generation can take the torch and get the concensus that's needed to achieve even a part of it. And I guess that's okay?
Alright, foolish me commented without finishing the audio.
I like that you address conflict in Solarpunk fiction. Conflict based on the right way to do a good thing, or what should be prioritized over another is very nuanced, and I'd love to see more of it in our pop culture.
I said Solarpunk is an end-state, and I do think that's correct; it is _aspirational_, but that shouldn't trivialize any movements towards achieving it. And maybe it's not even an end-state... it's a new start towards optimization and exploration that leads to further, sustainable progress.
I too suffer from a great deal of cynicism, as mentioned. It's why I think my generation won't be able to affect enough change, but that the next might be better positioned to. Unless we get an acute climate event, I feel convinced that we're unlikely to see a Manhattan project for sustainability in my lifetime.
There’s also the potential to use Solar Punk as a way to explore character- someone trying to make a memorial for a loved one out of plastic of some sort because they “were supposed to have forever” and the metaphor of letting grief become toxic as it leaches into things. Just an example.
Wouldn't it be cool to make a cyberpunk story, and then partway through the main character has to go into hiding and drops into a poor but perfectly functional solarpunk subculture out away from the city? I think that could be really interesting, getting to see that contrast between a really affluent, technologically advanced society where people have easy access to all sorts of shallow shiny stuff -- but are really isolated, depressed, and systematically exploited and dehumanized -- and one where people have to live in tents, grow their own food, mend their own clothes, and haul their water from the creek, but are much happier, freer, and more connected with one another. You could maybe even get to see whatever methods these people are using to protect themselves from the encroachments of the surrounding megacorporations, and maybe seeing how these people have wrestled back control of their lives gives the protagonist the inspiration needed to go back, confront their enemies on their own terms, and wrestle a happy ending out of a dystopian genre.
The conflict doesn’t have to be large scale nor political. Like personally I would eat up a cute romcom solarpunk story and I think many other people would as well.
For indigenous ways as an alternative you can look at James Mooney for native American ethnography and Bruce Pascoe for australian aboriginal agriculture among other things.
There are many more but these are good names to start with
I clicked because of Becky Chambers book cover.
Beautiful illustrations from one of my favorite book series in recent memory
@@PopCultureDetective Really, all her books are good. The wayfarers series, the Monk and Robot books, and the To Be Taught If Fortunate novella. I love all them.
Also I agree, solarpunk should be much more low tech, I reccommend the book Lo-tek: Design by radical indigenism by Julia Watson
Hello! Love the video. Would you be interested in doing one on cozy sci-fi and fantasy?
Good vid
Imagining yourself as an npc is a revolutionary act.
I've always wanted to run a pub and be like "I'll give you a case of beer and a good shovel if you run the rats out of my basement"
I think there might be more to the idea of there being a bad thing always happening in fictional utopias.
I think it mirrors real life in a way. Like you can point out how things are generally improving for people with better healthcare and whatnot, but there's still slave labor and sweatshops and whatnot that haven't gone away despite things improving on the whole.
Maybe it's not only better for entertainment for there to be some hidden conflict, but it is more a reminder how in real life there's still room for improvement
Solar pink environments in media and art work is cool looking af and I don’t care what anyone says.
We are the waves eroding the cliffs of capitalism.
Love your videos man!😊😊❤❤❤
A counselor who uses tea while wandering the countryside? Sounds like somebody really liked Uncle Iroh
Frfr. In a lot of popular scifi, when there's a utopia it's usually mind control lol
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Solar punk feels like an extension of Gene Rotenberry star trek world where humanity have solved their problems.
Andrew's positions remind me a lot of William Morris' work.
Hi Pop Culture Detective, currently I'm trying to create a solarpunk world for my Dnd campaign for my players but I am hard stuck at what kind of conflict can I use for plot hooks that makes sense in a world where resource , politics and race is not much of an issue in society. Would I be able to get your opinion on what kind of topic I can use as hooks for a utopian world that does not have any filthy secrets like kids making things work or actually using non-renewable energy to power the world?
Thanks in advance for reading and possibly answering this question.
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Where's the "Screensaver" from? It's so pretty!
It’s the cover of the first novella in the Monk and Robot book series called “Psalm for the Wild-Built”
@@PopCultureDetective Thank you!
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another point about struggles within a Utopian vision is Mental Illness, ending Capitalism won't magically cure all Mental Health issues and a frankly shocking amount of people who do want to see the end of our contemporary economy seem to ignore those who suffer the most under it.
How would we classify a series wherein the goal is to take the status quo and turn it into Utopia? This is also my pitch to analyze the story of One Piece - the elements of freedom and liberation are present early in the series but as it develops and the battles become more emblematic of fighting genocides, racism, economic exploitation of the lower class for the benefits of the 1%.
The protagonist Luffy doesn't get his powerups from anger, pride, or duty. Instead, he dreams of a world where his friends can eat as much as they want and proceeds to mollywhallop anyone who gets in their way.