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Re:From Cyberpunk to Solarpunk: Technics and the Cities of t... by carapace on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:58PM (#31357720)
Maybe I am totally mis-categorizing here, but I would say that Bucky Fuller's "Design Science Revolution" is solarpunk in spirit if not in fact. It has a similar techno-optimism with a radical non-violent revolution as it's stated goal.

> Fuller advocated the design science revolution as an alternative to politics, seeking to optimize planetary resources for the benefit of 100% of humanity. He coined the term synergetics to explain how design science could create rich returns, such as how "energy income" could be harvested from the environment. His main premise was that nature's existing and omnipotent order must be allowed to guide human designs, if they are to survive and thrive as a species. He wrote that humanity was approaching its critical test as a species, in which it would be determined whether or not man was a mistake of nature, or its greatest accomplishment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_science_revolution

There's no one book, but his "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth" might be a place to start if you're interested.

> The book relates Earth to a spaceship flying through space. Noting the lack of any user manual to help Earthians steward this ship, Fuller offers some reflections, prognostications, and guidance, based on contemporary concepts of linked relationships, that may help in the understanding, management, preservation, and sustainment of this ship. The spaceship has a finite amount of resources and cannot be resupplied.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_Manual_for_Spaceship...

Re:From Cyberpunk to Solarpunk: Technics and the Cities of t... by LewisMumford on Thursday May 12, 2022 @03:04PM (#31358749)
B. Fuller is a legend and revolutionary in a lot of ways. Have you read any Sloterdijk? He takes a lot of his ideas on and applies them more strictly to philosophy.
Re:From Cyberpunk to Solarpunk: Technics and the Cities of t... by carapace on Thursday May 12, 2022 @09:06PM (#31362022)
I haven't read him, I'm not much for philosophy I'm sorry to admit.
Re:From Cyberpunk to Solarpunk: Technics and the Cities of t... by LewisMumford on Friday May 13, 2022 @08:41AM (#31366802)
Fair enough!
Re:From Cyberpunk to Solarpunk: Technics and the Cities of t... by dr_dshiv on Thursday May 12, 2022 @02:43PM (#31358422)
Love it: Solar punk is fundamentally nonfiction. Now that’s an optimistic storyline with enough tension to make it readable.
Re:From Cyberpunk to Solarpunk: Technics and the Cities of t... by carapace on Thursday May 12, 2022 @09:03PM (#31362001)
I think it's like making up an alternate future but one that is feasible to reach (as opposed to e.g. Star Trek) or in other words, it's very-near-future hard sci-fi imagining a world that would be fun to live in and then trying to make it a reality. And why not? Aren't we living in a post-historical age? I think the development of quasi-arbitrary niches or fandoms where people make up a fantasy world and live there makes sense. Lifestyle as art. We're presumably free of the strictures and limits that plagued pre-scientific societies, our technology has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams, it may not be evenly distributed yet but the future is here.

If you can make your art/life self-sustainable (and you're not hurting anyone) so much the better. Life, rather than imitating art, becomes it. I'm thinking of the Hundred Rabbits folks ( https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/hundred_rabbits.html ), or the hand-made sail-powered Ceiba schooner under construction now in Costa Rica ( https://www.sailcargo.inc/ ) and already under contract to deliver sustainably grown coffee to Canada next year.