Hello community,
I am allowing myself to open a “casual” conversation here about the fact that I feel like the debates around AI should have been an opportunity for the solarpunk movement to push its discourse yet this community (here on lemmy) feels dead and solarpunk in general too.
I never really interacted with any solarpunk community so far, I believe my first introduction was from Andrewism (https://www.youtube.com/@Andrewism/videos) so probably 3 years ago, maybe 4. I feel like the movement as mainly from “white” people who tends toward “anarchism” (there are many flavors especially if we talk about USA’s people anarchism) and missed a lot of political points, instead converging in a vague cultural/artistic idea.
In my opinion the solarpunk movement followed an growth of ecological-related topics. And like many environmental movements failed to be radical enough instead going in a more “centrist” ideology. The amount of corporate-friendly discourse (not here but in general) showed, to me, the origin of the movement and its limits. I am not going to hide the fact that I am in favor of a communist revolution so I always felt like solarpunk seems nice-and-all but misses some big points.
Yet to this day the debates around AI : what technology do we want, from who, for who, should have been a great opportunity for people liking solarpunk to show up but no.
Was solarpunk just a trend? I am genuinely asking here for people that are/were more involved as I see solarpunk as a fight (like feminism/anti-racism/LGBT/ecology/validism/adultism/librism/etc) rather than a full model of society so something I was interested to learn from.
I guess what fascinates me about solar is it seems to transcend traditional political left/right type ideology, and I think views towards it remain largely positive across the board. Am I wrong?
The same cannot be said about AI and data centres. Their domination of news cycles and public discourse likely stems from the negativity, while solar is less controversial. Doesn’t mean it’s not as important or relevant though.
I don’t think solarpunk has really coalesced into a singular movement or vision. Some may see it as a path to cleaner cities with less automobile dependence and a more community-building environment. Others may find its appeal in rural off-grid living.
I feel that at the moment, there are a few technological and policy-related obstacles which need to be overcome before any sort of solarpunk future can be realized, but once this happens, the transformation could come pretty quickly.
@Kajika
I think this is a western-centric view. Decentral solar power is winning the people in many less fortunate countries in Asia and Africa. It’s really about installing panels and not just talking about it.
