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Comment by tomc1985 | Hacker News Reader

tomc1985

First of all, where is the 'punk' aspect? There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word.

This sort of organic-growth-everywhere aesthetic is not new, it has been in utopian urban visions for the last 20 or 30 years. Personally I think it started with SimCity 2000 arcologies, but I am probably wrong.

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> There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word.

Hard disagree. I think "punk" has always been about an ethos that individuals are empowered to make change from the bottom up. The punk aesthetic stands between dystopian and utopian. The former says those in power have made everything horrible and there's nothing you can do about it. The latter says those in power make everything amazing so there's nothing you need to do. Punk says those in power made everything horrible but you can make things amazing.

I've never heard it put that way before, but I love it. Rings 100% true.

This is a wonderful take on the 3 states!

> There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word

I disagree, "punk" is not about dystopia, it's about rebelling against the status-quo. Solarpunk, at its core, is about rejecting our current way of life. That's where the punk comes from.

But that rebellion is from a stimulus of some kind. It's a subculture in rebellion from disenfranchisement, war, fascism, or what-have-you. There is anger and lots of other negative emotions.

This vision is too bland and perfect to be 'punk'. 'Avant garde' is a better term, since that is used to describe things 'rebelling' against the current aesthetic. 'Solavant Garde' doesn't have the same ring to it though.

The "what-have-you" in this case is the stronghold that capitalism and tragedy-of-the-commons has on urban society and our way of life. Of course, capitalism could produce such neigborhoods, at least on a small scale, simply because affluent folks will pay for it. But the ethos of solarpunk is to create these environments by taking matters into our own hands. Perhaps a decent analogy from the punk world is magazines versus fanzines.

I don't know, that argument isn't super compelling. It kind of reminds me of that one marketer at SXSW a while back that wanted the whole conference hall to have "idea sex" as some weird way of framing brainstorming or innovating.

Like if yall want to have your utopic fantasies then cool, but if you want to use the punk name there needs to be some raw grit

Besides... light has no meaning without dark to contrast it

Your idea of what is punk sounds like the mass-marketing by malcolm mclaren. Consider a band like the Buzzcocks, all around friendly looking blokes but they pressed up their own 7" singles, that is the true spirit of punk.

It all sounds like ineffable cultural projection. Ask 10 self-identified punks for a definition of "punk" and get 10 different answers.

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