Why does it seem like so many solarpunk forums and posts focus on hypotheticals, what governments and politicians should do, and wishing for big things, but dont include real world, small scale personal experiments?
There seems to be a huge opportunity for hacker like, actual DIY punkrock communities, but i dont see many.
why? is alot of this a LARP? where are the people taking action? sincere question…
Less connected, more IRL. Depending on your interests you will find them in farming coops, fablabs, citizens groups…
You could read the classic Hakim Bey’s essay on TAZ (temporary autonomous zones) to understand why real life experiments are not very advertised. Tl;dr: many are fragile and can be killed by success/attention. When you have to do a bit of effort to reach them, it creates a natural filter of motivation that guarantees that the people who come are those who will contribute, not just mere tourists.
There’s a small project I found recently that offers free milkweed seeds to people who can’t afford to buy them. I found out about it from a well-shared social media post. On their website, they say that they were inundated with tons and tons of requests for free seeds from people who probably could have afforded to toss a donation in there to keep the program running and now they have to charge for the seeds, which sounds like a great example of what you’re talking about - a project set up literally by a few people packing milkweed seeds at a table went viral online and turned into a free-for-all of people hoping to get free stuff.