To be fair, I’m aware you’re correct, it’s a shitty book with very little actual optimism. It’s not alone though, aside from the Necroverse I also have issue with the general attitude of solarpunk because it proposes that humans can’t have a genuine affinity for a digital existence.
“You don’t have to upload if you don’t want to, and I will march with you against the singularity to defend that. March against me, though, and I will not be subject to your worldview willingly.” I don’t actually believe the singularity is likely, technology doesn’t work that way, but that point still stands. Solarpunk demands you sacrifice what you have for “the greater good” even if you have very little to begin with.
Imagine if the evil cyberpunk megacorp, or the steampunk empress, or the dieselpunk dictatorship, or the biopunk megacorp, told you up-front what the costs really are. Nobody would buy into their machinations. Solarpunk tells you “You want satisfaction? Run away to the middle of nowhere and pretend electronics can be made at 1nm scale without semiconductor factories and never play with your tech toys ever again.” and doesn’t seem to care that outliers like me will say “Actually, I am satisfied. I’m angry because you want to take that away.”
Scratch that. It doesn’t have to care. “If everyone but the corner cases wants it, we can FORCE it to happen. Just like the conservatives did with cyberpunk.” It learned, so to speak, what the Social Media Dystopia did to win. It bought an election of an ideology, because without the popular upvote a corporation can’t become powerful in a world with online criticism. I’m trying to kill an idea before that idea truly becomes an issue, by pointing out that solarpunk is still dystopian.
To be fair, I’m aware you’re correct, it’s a shitty book with very little actual optimism. It’s not alone though, aside from the Necroverse I also have issue with the general attitude of solarpunk because it proposes that humans can’t have a genuine affinity for a digital existence.
“You don’t have to upload if you don’t want to, and I will march with you against the singularity to defend that. March against me, though, and I will not be subject to your worldview willingly.” I don’t actually believe the singularity is likely, technology doesn’t work that way, but that point still stands. Solarpunk demands you sacrifice what you have for “the greater good” even if you have very little to begin with.
Imagine if the evil cyberpunk megacorp, or the steampunk empress, or the dieselpunk dictatorship, or the biopunk megacorp, told you up-front what the costs really are. Nobody would buy into their machinations. Solarpunk tells you “You want satisfaction? Run away to the middle of nowhere and pretend electronics can be made at 1nm scale without semiconductor factories and never play with your tech toys ever again.” and doesn’t seem to care that outliers like me will say “Actually, I am satisfied. I’m angry because you want to take that away.”
Scratch that. It doesn’t have to care. “If everyone but the corner cases wants it, we can FORCE it to happen. Just like the conservatives did with cyberpunk.” It learned, so to speak, what the Social Media Dystopia did to win. It bought an election of an ideology, because without the popular upvote a corporation can’t become powerful in a world with online criticism. I’m trying to kill an idea before that idea truly becomes an issue, by pointing out that solarpunk is still dystopian.