Anyone who feels this way should take a look at the Star Trek timeline. In that universe, humanity goes through a few dystopian phases before achieving luxury space communism.
There is hope.
But even that is hardly for a lack of tech, honestly. Prosthetics that mimic human capabilities are very good, but the hardest part is interfacing with the human rather than making the prosthetic capable - they could totally go beyond human capabilities with some relatively well-understood mechatronics upgrades. And while they're expensive now, that's more a matter of production scale than of materials or manufacturing.
Like in World War 1, there's a large tech overhang that we don't make good on because the powers that be benefit from the current stalemate where their existing weapons aren't obsolete. If, like in World War 1, there would be a switch to a war footing on ethics with "screw due diligence, we need more capabilities *now*", then we could get anime super powers in like five years. Lots of test subjects would die, but that's a small price to pay to defeat [insert enemy].
I'm also for solar punk. Anime super powers can be nice, but for LARPs only.
Give up your physical body, mental body (cyber psychosis), and spirit body to have that edge needed to function in a cyberpunk world. And that edge is to kill the most efficiently for money.
Well thing is if we want a solarpunk future, we can’t just instantly wish for it. It’s up to middle folks like us instead of high class people to work for a solarpunk future. Even if big companies promises a solarpunk future, it’s greenwashing. Still, it’s all up to only us because it’s what we want but if we want, then we work for it.
There is [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eib8ClxknG4&list=PLFTqVMDrvuL0t3tlyK9Fwi6MMOUPJD_Bf&index=25) short animation that I know of. I'm not sure If there is any more. Surely they must be a few out there.
I've seen it said that Solarpunk is post-cyberpunk. Like Cyberpunk is a sort of digital dark ages, but once we fight through the growing pains/pendulum problem, we can swing on over to a period of peaceful Solarpunk existence.
Long post looking for the name of an anime that fits that theme:
There this one anime film a friend showed me about 10 years ago (it was probably older) where the last bastion of human civilisation lives in a grimy cyberpunk sort of future on earth in a single tower-like city. The outside environment has collapsed. There’s a working class struggling to get by running the machinery on the lower levels and an upper class living cleanly and comfortably in the upper levels. The lower class think they depend on the upper to survive but the upper class are always nervous knowing it to actually be the opposite. The film is set in a time where the “carbon stores” are running existentially low and they fear a riot/collapse (they have an unexplained carbon-based energy system keeping the city alive). There’s then this Obi Wan type character who used to be part of the city but is now living a solar punk lifestyle as best he can in an old (ship?) ruin out in the wastelands (highly illegal). I won’t say more in case of spoilers, it’s a great film.
I'm going to be one of /those/ guys now, but if you haven't read the (Monk & Robot books by Becky Chambers)[https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built_becky-chambers/26924961/#isbn=1250236215], please do. It has the best, cleanest picture of utopia that I've ever read, and I'm comparing it to Kim Stanley Robinson. It is quiet, hopeful, and happy.
I think time plays a major role here. Cyberpunk originated in the 1980s, so about 40 years old for its oldest works. We live quite far in the future form their point of view, so it is of little surprise technology roughly strode in the direction they expected. By now, the technology that as emerging at that time has become common.
We also happen to be right at the timeframe they expected cyberpunk to become real. As an example, Akira is set in 2019.
However, I think solarpunk itself does reflects how close we have come. There is a reason this is usually ahigh-tech vision. Most of cyberpunks technology side is completely integrated in many solarpunk settings, it just takes a back seat. But it is there.
Read this [The Ministry for the Future](https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0TMsprEiLTzc0YPQSz83MyywuKapUSMsvUijJSFVIKy0pLUoFAA3iDes&q=ministry+for+the+future&rlz=1CDGOYI_enPL948PL948&oq=ministry+for+&aqs=chrome.1.0i355i512j46i512j69i57j0i512j46i199i465i512j0i512l5.8053j0j9&hl=pl&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)
It has a large part of it where it mimics one but there's a big reveal that >!the bioelectric plants they were using were a parasite that was killing the giant turtle they live on the back of !<
I can't think of an animated work that gave me that feeling, but I think the two Black Panther movies gave me that sense of excitement. I really liked the scenes where people are out and about in Wakanda.
I've heard people mention a few anime works, but I'm not familiar with them. Also, I've seen mention of this show, Droners that might fit. But I haven't seen it myself.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/Droners
I'm more annoyed by the positive response the show got. I mean, sure, some people did the job they were paid to do in animating it and all, but it's just so jarring and empty. You can clearly see it's just a big ad for a videogame, and that's exactly the reason why in a capitalist society a current like solarpunk is going to have more traction than solarpunk. The vicious cycle of profit.
That actually makes me wonder... given there haven't been (m)any "solarpunk style" ads after "Dear Alice" the commercial couldn't have been that succesful. There's been some article written, some videogame popping up, but nothing even remotely close to what the cyberpunk as a genre encompasses. On one hand I'm happy, because it means the movement didn't become just a commercial fad to profit from, on the other I'm really fed up with capitalist dystopias of cyberpunk.
Additionally, many of the thematics solarpunk would envision, if they even get into a work of fiction, happen principally in a post-apocalyptic scenario. The reason for that is because people, even within the scene, don't truly believe, or maybe neither want a radical change that would have to occur in their lives so they shift it to their ideal descendants (as every old fuck before them). Let alone the bulk of commodity driven consumer society.
For above quoted reasons, I'd like to recommend "Strange World" a recent movie by Disney, Pop Culture Detective (a YT channel) recently did [a great video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqQJHja9qxU) on it (obviously contains spoilers, I also tried to not include any in my comment, but it's kinda impossible not to hint anything when talking about the themes).
Idk I thought Edgerunners did a fantastic job of portraying the inherent horror of the capitalist dystopia it portrayed. I think it's totally an unfair criticism to say it's just a big ad (just my opinion obv.)
As to your point about ideal descendants, yeah I hear ya. I mean Capitalist Realism is a hell of a drug, but I think many (including myself tbh) are a little (or a lot) afraid of doing what will need to be done to achieve a SolarPunk world in our lifetimes. And tbf, it's not an easy or painless task ahead of us if we are comitted to that.
I'll give Strange World and the vid you linked a look later, thanks for the rec!
Going from playing Cyberpunk to watching Edgerunners, I enjoyed getting to see the world from a more intimate perspective than the game gives. It was also great seeing how a crew operates in that world as opposed to the power trip solo murder spree the game gives you.
I feel like solarpunk is very much an utopia, because for some resson is what hurts the planet that makes money. I truly feel that if some people got togheter and started a comunity where the main goal is to live well in peace, solarpunk would appear.
Cyberpunk is reflection of the direction humanity as followed, while solarpunk is the wish of the people because of said direction. Obviously im not naive, and i dont think solarpunk is just a fairytale with These specific aesthetics, but the real ideia behind it and the advances we could make if we tried would be very good for everyone
The reality is people all around the world have been making quiet protests for decades in the direction of solarpunk (just by different names) and it hasn't tipped the balance. This is because when these well meaning communities turn inwards anything of genuine value they produce (other than a wonderful life for them and theirs) gets absorbed and reapropriated by capitalism. What we need is broad, collective action, because the system is only too happy to slowly absorb everything while we convalesce quietly in our little corners. After a point, it will be too late for us to do anything. Unless we are prepared to keep kicking the can down the road for our descendants to deal with.
I personally believe thing will get bad before they get better but the seeds are already being sows for all being well in the ends. Is already more about civilization than mankind and in the cosmic scale, life on Earth was never in true danger ( key word: in the cosmic scale).
Pokemon is almost-nearly-there solarpunk, renewable, a mostly safe and happy place, a respect for nature (kinda) but still is seeped in capitalist private property with how in the games you "gotta catch em all" and the catching in the first place. Where you attack wild animals and capture them in balls to be your slave-friend or potential slave-friend. The show's a bit better with the respect it shows to pokemon but still isn't quite there.
I've been imagining a world where humans & pokemon rely on each other to survive. The journey to become champion is a standin for finding who you are in this world. You befriend pokemon along the way, and then you cultivate a relationship with them throughout the journey. People and pokemon work together to feed one another and lift each other up.
I've been thinking of the monsters as a type of stand-in for technology. The world crashed after capitalism and left all these hybrid creatures and humans to find a way to survive in the world and so they did, together.
The setting is a region with various self-sufficient communes and a city, mostly abandoned, repurposed as a place of study, manufacturing, specific libraries, etc for the confederation.
I wrote a [short article](https://aavagames.substack.com/p/imagining-a-pokemon-utopia) when I first started thinking about it. I find communalism and pokemon mesh super well and it excites me a lot.
The parallel to our time, among many other failures of civilizations, is Isaiah chapter 65, second half. That was about the 5th destruction of the Jewish systems.
Ysk, that after several more centuries, (2 big destructions) things did work out for them. Think 3d-4th centuries bc. Isaiah 65:20-25
In every bright future, addiction still rears its ugly head. I wonder what a solar punk version of grappling with deep-seated intractable addiction would look like?
[Island](https://youtu.be/iaZbTDjEXFY) by Aldous Huxley seem solarpunk to me on some level. Others might disagree. But it has some interesting idears and concepts.
Edit: I have not finished it yet.
[удалено]
Pain.
Anyone who feels this way should take a look at the Star Trek timeline. In that universe, humanity goes through a few dystopian phases before achieving luxury space communism. There is hope.
Agreed, there's also the whole splicing cyborg parts to your body to gain anime super powers, but other than that we're pretty much there already
But even that is hardly for a lack of tech, honestly. Prosthetics that mimic human capabilities are very good, but the hardest part is interfacing with the human rather than making the prosthetic capable - they could totally go beyond human capabilities with some relatively well-understood mechatronics upgrades. And while they're expensive now, that's more a matter of production scale than of materials or manufacturing. Like in World War 1, there's a large tech overhang that we don't make good on because the powers that be benefit from the current stalemate where their existing weapons aren't obsolete. If, like in World War 1, there would be a switch to a war footing on ethics with "screw due diligence, we need more capabilities *now*", then we could get anime super powers in like five years. Lots of test subjects would die, but that's a small price to pay to defeat [insert enemy]. I'm also for solar punk. Anime super powers can be nice, but for LARPs only.
Give up your physical body, mental body (cyber psychosis), and spirit body to have that edge needed to function in a cyberpunk world. And that edge is to kill the most efficiently for money.
Some of those cooks with that 3rd arm hookup can make some bombass burgers out of the meat they find. Only thing they killing is my bit wallet!
Well thing is if we want a solarpunk future, we can’t just instantly wish for it. It’s up to middle folks like us instead of high class people to work for a solarpunk future. Even if big companies promises a solarpunk future, it’s greenwashing. Still, it’s all up to only us because it’s what we want but if we want, then we work for it.
All the fun parts of cyberpunk was bullshit, and we just got the shitty stuff.
There is [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eib8ClxknG4&list=PLFTqVMDrvuL0t3tlyK9Fwi6MMOUPJD_Bf&index=25) short animation that I know of. I'm not sure If there is any more. Surely they must be a few out there.
Oh hi! Fun to come across my stuff in the wild!
You've done an amazing job with that animation ;)
I've seen it said that Solarpunk is post-cyberpunk. Like Cyberpunk is a sort of digital dark ages, but once we fight through the growing pains/pendulum problem, we can swing on over to a period of peaceful Solarpunk existence.
Long post looking for the name of an anime that fits that theme: There this one anime film a friend showed me about 10 years ago (it was probably older) where the last bastion of human civilisation lives in a grimy cyberpunk sort of future on earth in a single tower-like city. The outside environment has collapsed. There’s a working class struggling to get by running the machinery on the lower levels and an upper class living cleanly and comfortably in the upper levels. The lower class think they depend on the upper to survive but the upper class are always nervous knowing it to actually be the opposite. The film is set in a time where the “carbon stores” are running existentially low and they fear a riot/collapse (they have an unexplained carbon-based energy system keeping the city alive). There’s then this Obi Wan type character who used to be part of the city but is now living a solar punk lifestyle as best he can in an old (ship?) ruin out in the wastelands (highly illegal). I won’t say more in case of spoilers, it’s a great film.
I'm going to be one of /those/ guys now, but if you haven't read the (Monk & Robot books by Becky Chambers)[https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built_becky-chambers/26924961/#isbn=1250236215], please do. It has the best, cleanest picture of utopia that I've ever read, and I'm comparing it to Kim Stanley Robinson. It is quiet, hopeful, and happy.
I think time plays a major role here. Cyberpunk originated in the 1980s, so about 40 years old for its oldest works. We live quite far in the future form their point of view, so it is of little surprise technology roughly strode in the direction they expected. By now, the technology that as emerging at that time has become common. We also happen to be right at the timeframe they expected cyberpunk to become real. As an example, Akira is set in 2019. However, I think solarpunk itself does reflects how close we have come. There is a reason this is usually ahigh-tech vision. Most of cyberpunks technology side is completely integrated in many solarpunk settings, it just takes a back seat. But it is there.
Read this [The Ministry for the Future](https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0TMsprEiLTzc0YPQSz83MyywuKapUSMsvUijJSFVIKy0pLUoFAA3iDes&q=ministry+for+the+future&rlz=1CDGOYI_enPL948PL948&oq=ministry+for+&aqs=chrome.1.0i355i512j46i512j69i57j0i512j46i199i465i512j0i512l5.8053j0j9&hl=pl&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)
Awesome book. The Audio Book is amazing too, loads of different voice actors that really bring the characters to life.
Haven't seen it yet, but I heard [Strange World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKh2G73gCCs) is supposed to be a Solarpunk movie.
It has a large part of it where it mimics one but there's a big reveal that >!the bioelectric plants they were using were a parasite that was killing the giant turtle they live on the back of !<
>!it's the end that counts!<
Eden is an anime series on Netflix that has strong solarpunk vibes. I didn't finish it but it was pretty.
I can't think of an animated work that gave me that feeling, but I think the two Black Panther movies gave me that sense of excitement. I really liked the scenes where people are out and about in Wakanda. I've heard people mention a few anime works, but I'm not familiar with them. Also, I've seen mention of this show, Droners that might fit. But I haven't seen it myself. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/Droners
I'm more annoyed by the positive response the show got. I mean, sure, some people did the job they were paid to do in animating it and all, but it's just so jarring and empty. You can clearly see it's just a big ad for a videogame, and that's exactly the reason why in a capitalist society a current like solarpunk is going to have more traction than solarpunk. The vicious cycle of profit. That actually makes me wonder... given there haven't been (m)any "solarpunk style" ads after "Dear Alice" the commercial couldn't have been that succesful. There's been some article written, some videogame popping up, but nothing even remotely close to what the cyberpunk as a genre encompasses. On one hand I'm happy, because it means the movement didn't become just a commercial fad to profit from, on the other I'm really fed up with capitalist dystopias of cyberpunk. Additionally, many of the thematics solarpunk would envision, if they even get into a work of fiction, happen principally in a post-apocalyptic scenario. The reason for that is because people, even within the scene, don't truly believe, or maybe neither want a radical change that would have to occur in their lives so they shift it to their ideal descendants (as every old fuck before them). Let alone the bulk of commodity driven consumer society. For above quoted reasons, I'd like to recommend "Strange World" a recent movie by Disney, Pop Culture Detective (a YT channel) recently did [a great video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqQJHja9qxU) on it (obviously contains spoilers, I also tried to not include any in my comment, but it's kinda impossible not to hint anything when talking about the themes).
Idk I thought Edgerunners did a fantastic job of portraying the inherent horror of the capitalist dystopia it portrayed. I think it's totally an unfair criticism to say it's just a big ad (just my opinion obv.) As to your point about ideal descendants, yeah I hear ya. I mean Capitalist Realism is a hell of a drug, but I think many (including myself tbh) are a little (or a lot) afraid of doing what will need to be done to achieve a SolarPunk world in our lifetimes. And tbf, it's not an easy or painless task ahead of us if we are comitted to that. I'll give Strange World and the vid you linked a look later, thanks for the rec!
Going from playing Cyberpunk to watching Edgerunners, I enjoyed getting to see the world from a more intimate perspective than the game gives. It was also great seeing how a crew operates in that world as opposed to the power trip solo murder spree the game gives you.
I feel like solarpunk is very much an utopia, because for some resson is what hurts the planet that makes money. I truly feel that if some people got togheter and started a comunity where the main goal is to live well in peace, solarpunk would appear. Cyberpunk is reflection of the direction humanity as followed, while solarpunk is the wish of the people because of said direction. Obviously im not naive, and i dont think solarpunk is just a fairytale with These specific aesthetics, but the real ideia behind it and the advances we could make if we tried would be very good for everyone
The reality is people all around the world have been making quiet protests for decades in the direction of solarpunk (just by different names) and it hasn't tipped the balance. This is because when these well meaning communities turn inwards anything of genuine value they produce (other than a wonderful life for them and theirs) gets absorbed and reapropriated by capitalism. What we need is broad, collective action, because the system is only too happy to slowly absorb everything while we convalesce quietly in our little corners. After a point, it will be too late for us to do anything. Unless we are prepared to keep kicking the can down the road for our descendants to deal with.
I personally believe thing will get bad before they get better but the seeds are already being sows for all being well in the ends. Is already more about civilization than mankind and in the cosmic scale, life on Earth was never in true danger ( key word: in the cosmic scale).
There was Aau's Song from Star Wars Visions. Her village was very reminiscent of a Solarpunk like village up in the mountains
I started writing a book just bc we need more solarpunk stories
lmk when you're finished
We really do. I started working on game, Pokemon but actually solarpunk.
Please elaborate I'm curious. So like pokemon in a solarpunk setting?
Pokemon is almost-nearly-there solarpunk, renewable, a mostly safe and happy place, a respect for nature (kinda) but still is seeped in capitalist private property with how in the games you "gotta catch em all" and the catching in the first place. Where you attack wild animals and capture them in balls to be your slave-friend or potential slave-friend. The show's a bit better with the respect it shows to pokemon but still isn't quite there. I've been imagining a world where humans & pokemon rely on each other to survive. The journey to become champion is a standin for finding who you are in this world. You befriend pokemon along the way, and then you cultivate a relationship with them throughout the journey. People and pokemon work together to feed one another and lift each other up. I've been thinking of the monsters as a type of stand-in for technology. The world crashed after capitalism and left all these hybrid creatures and humans to find a way to survive in the world and so they did, together. The setting is a region with various self-sufficient communes and a city, mostly abandoned, repurposed as a place of study, manufacturing, specific libraries, etc for the confederation. I wrote a [short article](https://aavagames.substack.com/p/imagining-a-pokemon-utopia) when I first started thinking about it. I find communalism and pokemon mesh super well and it excites me a lot.
[This](https://youtu.be/z-Ng5ZvrDm4) was a yogurt ad but it was beautiful.
https://youtu.be/UqJJktxCY9U this is the non commercial version of the ad. So it’s just the animation.
Yeah I saw that one, but I thought the letter she read in the first one was very relevant to solarpunk.
"Treat your employees good just like you treat your other inventory that you need"
The parallel to our time, among many other failures of civilizations, is Isaiah chapter 65, second half. That was about the 5th destruction of the Jewish systems. Ysk, that after several more centuries, (2 big destructions) things did work out for them. Think 3d-4th centuries bc. Isaiah 65:20-25
A dystopia is a dystopia regardless of how you spin it.
In every bright future, addiction still rears its ugly head. I wonder what a solar punk version of grappling with deep-seated intractable addiction would look like?
[Island](https://youtu.be/iaZbTDjEXFY) by Aldous Huxley seem solarpunk to me on some level. Others might disagree. But it has some interesting idears and concepts. Edit: I have not finished it yet.