Community implies people and you’ve already lost me.
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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Im more into soilpunk. Permaculture, frugile tech.
I really do enjoy the Solar Punk aesthetic and the optimism it represents, but when I try to bring people to the reality of things like "we still need solar panel and battery factories" people seem to get upset.
Just to say, I see the reality of what Solar Punk could be and I want to take the practical steps needed. And to be clear, my goal is to make sure that the workers own the solar panel factory, not capitalist investors. I think the solar punk aesthetic, whatever version of it we all decide on, will naturally emerge if we can achieve that.
You need the factories, and you also need logging and mining.
Lots of people who want to support the environment are reflexively anti mining and logging, even when it's done responsibly. I think it's often nimbyism that they don't admit to themselves.
Great point, I also think that if we're more responsible about what we use those technologies for it would also make a huge difference in the environmental impact. If you get rid of all the useless extravagances of the rich we can have a much leaner society resource-wise and still have everyone have a good quality of life.
I think ppl forget that the steps to clean energy are merely bridge technologies. You don't get to industrial age to solarpunk future without some "unclean" steps in between.
Solarpunk is an utopia. If every step we continue making needs to be perfect, we'll never get there. Instead we have to improve each step we make to get there.
Solarpunk is also about salvaging technology and post-capitalism. It's supposed to be reached through a transition period. We just gotta make the first steps and introduce more circular economies. This will phase out most harmful mining practices eventually.
"No don't break those poor eggs! That's not how you make an omelette 😔"
What's the problem with the concept of 'a factory'?
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Only loosely related, but why do people's idea of solarpunk aesthetics feel completely divorced from any punk-ness.
Gimme patched together, beautifully mended clothes and once broken possessions, gimme stickerbombed custom open source hardware, gimme a hodgepodge of recycled items used as planters for an herb garden, gimme things that feel deeply human. Not gleaming polished metal and glass, like 70's futurist magazine cover but with more plants.
There should be some texture and humanity in solarpunk aesthetics. It has to be punk.
You should watch Furiosa then. There's a solarpunk community in it.
I still need to see furiosa, thanks for reminding me of it!
using -punk as a suffix is almost always misleading. like steampunk was almost immediately diluted into mismatched victorian garb and random gears that couldn’t possibly serve any purpose. equally not punk.
I once had a friend tell me that steampunk is what happens when goths discover the color brown and I've never been able to get over that.
That's an awesome way to put it, honestly
Gears have a place in steampunk. A society that runs primarily on steam power is going to have a lot of gears. And the victorian garb comes from the narrow era between steam power and electricity, so it's not surprising that it's come to be integral to the aesthetic.
It certainly can be done badly. A shallow rendition of steampunk might have useless gears everywhere that aren't connected to anything. An AI generated steampunk aesthetic might look like that, because it doesn't understand mechanics and the uses of gears. Cheap etsy costume pieces might look like this because the seller only cares about making a buck. Bullshit pinterest inspo might look like this because the creators only care about reach and engagement.
But that doesn't make the -punk suffix misleading, it just means they're doing steampunk poorly.
Ghibli's Laputa is steampunk. Howl's Moving Castle has some steampunk elements. Those are pretty well done in my opinion.
Nausica is close to solarpunk, but it's more like windpunk which I don't know if has been coined yet.
Cyberpunk generally has a high focus on the punk aspect. I.E, anti-authoritarian, personal freedom, anti-hierarchy.
Steampunk has punk at the end purely because it's a riff on the word Cyberpunk, not because it retains any inherent anti-authoritarian punk-ness. It's more so just a label shorthand for an aesthetic and rough technological level. Dieselpunk does the same thing, using punk not to signify actual punk ideals, but instead uses it as shorthand for 'aesthetic'.
Solarpunk retains the punk aspect of Cyberpunk, but instead of dystopia, imagines a more utopic vision of punks succeeding against the corporations/governments/hierarchies, which is achieved through community building, a DIY ethos, prefiguration, and an appropriate use of technology.
I don't know, a lot of steampunk seems to have that dystopian aspect where the bad guys are oppressive rulers and the good guys are the rabble. I don't see how that isn't punk.
It's certainly possible to write a punk story in a steampunk setting, but from all the steampunk media I've encountered (and I was very much a fan of it years ago, and still enjoy it today), most of the time it's chosen as an aesthetic choice or as a backdrop for alternate history.
I'd be interested to hear any recommendations you have of steampunk works that focus on the punk angle, though, if you had some in mind.
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I do think the aesthetic can be a good jumping-on point for folks. It sucks that a lot of people don't really want to take it farther than that, though. And when people see the desaturated forest-tone aesthetic and it doesn't align with their taste, they may be turned away - but that's why my goal is to showcase a flashy, decora-kei version of Solarpunk aesthetics with my own fashion
There is sometimes a very unfortunate mix of people who can't stand social interaction or being around other people, hate to have bosses or be told what to do, yet they think they'd somehow thrive in a communist environment or any other environment which is heavily centered on empowering their local community.
If your communist environment can't accommodate loners who don't like being bossed around, it's no communist environment I want to be part of.
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