My brother pointed out to me that in last week’s episode of his podcast, Ezra Klein namechecked solarpunk in a blink-and-you-miss it mention:
“One common argument I heard on the left - Lina Khan made this point actually in our pages - was that this proved our whole paradigm of AI development was wrong. That we were seeing that we did not need all this compute, we did not need these giant companies, that this was showing a way towards a decentralized, almost solarpunk version of AI development, and in a sense the American system and imagination had been captured by, like, these three big companies.”
The context isn’t as interesting as the quote. He was talking about different approaches to developing strong AI. It’s only interesting because he used the term “solarpunk” in such a casual manner in a discussion that wasn’t about solarpunk or even fiction. It reveals that it’s in his vocabulary, and that he’s ingesting this in his media diet. For those who don’t know Klein, he’s a very popular writer and journalist whose politics roughly resemble a quieter version of Elizabeth Warren’s.
After hearing this, the thought occurred to me that what I’m witnessing is an idea spreading from a fringe group into a mainstream concept. Eventually, if it gets big enough with mainstream progressive liberals like Klein, I bet it’ll one day get discovered and made into a boogieman on the right.
I wonder how long that will take? When is the first time I’ll hear a clip of like, I dunno, Ben Shapiro shouting, ‘Have you heard about this new thing they call SOLARPUNK??? It’s crazy! It’s like… imagine a cyberpunk dystopia: but they want THAT with like, vines and TRANS PEOPLE everywhere! Some ruthless Soviet dictatorship but without even the cool cars or wonderful corporate innovation! It’s just TRAINS and GARDENS instead! Ulgh!! [eyes bugging out for the thumbnail image]’
That might be interesting. I think that this idea has a viral quality, so perhaps I can look forward to that in 2025 or 2026. What do you folks think?
I think you’re reading into it too much.
People have called things cyberpunk or referred to the term for decades, it still never took off as this big mainstream concept that everyone knows about. A bit of name recognition doesn’t mean much.
The genre name might not be common knowledge (and I’m not sure that’s the case) but cyberpunk aesthetics and themes and plot points have infiltrated so much of modern science fiction that cyberpunk communities frequently have trouble drawing a line around genre works vs mainstream scifi. And this is after companies and brand marketing “picked it too early” and made it a joke in the 90s. It just sort of kept going quietly, looked more and more prescient, and in the end, it had suffused through so many imaginations and works that it kind of was the mainstream.
I’m not sure the same thing will happen with solarpunk but given the way cyberpunk seems to have acclimatized us to our current distopia, I sort of hope solarpunk can do something similar. Maybe wear the rough edges and propaganda fears off building a society that actually looks out for its people and the habitats they live in.
To second what @JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net just said, to say that cyberpunk didn’t take off as a mainstream concept is bewildering when the richest man on the planet and and emergent fascist leader overtly applies cyberpunk concepts to his entire program of world domination.
It’s like saying that the social media or school shooters never really took off as mainstream concepts. Like… I don’t know how it can get much bigger than this, dawg.