“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” Peter Thiel’s famous lament captures the disappointment of those of us raised on mid-20th-century technological optimism. Back in the 1960s we were sending men to the moon and exploring the ocean depths, and we thought we were just getting started. Back then, a bright and gleaming future beckoned with moon bases, space stations, underwater cities, limitless energy from fusion power, robots at our beck and call, and yes flying cars.
If we need to move away from dependence on wage employment and we also need to bring fertility rates back up to replacement level, then the first step should be establishing cash child allowances at a much higher level (relative to GDP per capita) than any country currently offers.
Child benefits in France cost around 3 percent of GDP and although French fertility rates are still below replacement level, they're among the highest in Europe. But they don't allow one half of a married couple to leave the labor force for a long period of time without a substantial drop in household income.
I think the clear policy implication is "France plus". National governments in rich countries should set a more ambitious target (Hungary is aiming for 5 percent, although I don't suggest the Orban regime is a model in other respects) and see if that brings us closer to both population stability and a less market-dependent way of human life.
Thank you for another thought-provoking essay. First I’ve heard of Solarpunk but I like your take on it.
A side note. May I ask why Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is a self-proclaimed Social Democrat and not just a Social Democrat? If Donald Trump isn’t a self-proclaimed Republican and Joe Biden isn’t a self-proclaimed Democrat, I don’t get why AOC or Social Democrat requires that qualifier.
Brink, your creative, original thinking continues and it s a welcome break from the daily news. Keep it up. I've always liked the idea of marrying environmental and historic preservation with advanced technology and clean energy. That could help us build a smarter and more pleasant world. The great barrier to progress today is rigid, emotional, tribal thinking reinforced and sustained by electronic media. The growing hostility on the right toward clean energy and green tech is alarming. I can enjoy and support NASA, historic Episcopal churches, nuclear energy and fusion research, a strong business community, and state and national parks all at the same time and without any sense of contradiction or worry about tribal boundaries. Great essay!
You are a great thinker with a small audience. I send every post out to about thirty people. and I may get one response. These non-responders are college educated upper middle class or stinking rich. They will read your long, abstract, posts when it is too late, when they are affected, painfully affected. And in that pain and suffering we will chase a "Solarpunk" that will supply us with the energy of a Sisyphus to push the boulder back up the mountain. We are as ignorant as the donkey and the carrot, and in that ignorance is hidden the key to our survival. Just ask Sisyphus . . . or Brink:)
Beautiful. I love the idea of sustainable communities... but I wonder if that's truly possible in a world where high level chips needed for computers require so much expertise.
How will these self sustaining communities create local production of chips and modern technology more generally? Is our level of technology not too complex?
Maybe I'm an oddball, but I like our commercial culture. I like the way Christmas has turned into a commercial festival capping a season of commercial holidays. It's a celebration of harvest surplus and fiscal positivity. I grew up in a city, and liked checking out the shops in my neighborhood and even more so when exploring a new one. Maybe it's because my ancestors were hunter-gatherers, and the same skills one uses to find things in the supermarket aisles date are those used in the days of hunting for edible roots and vulnerable small animals. I can imagine a basically capitalist system with a good dose of socialism making for a more environmentally and people friendly future.
If we want the food security, the mobility, the health services, the infrastructure, the labor saving gadgets, the communications and other benefits of modern life, we're stuck with a technological civilization with a minimum requisite scale. Just as we have vast, increasingly automated farms to provide our food, we are going to need vast, highly technical "farms" and "plants" to provide for our other needs. The idea of the self-sufficient freehold was out of date by the late 17th century. We aren't going to live in log cabins in roadless wilderness with our own nuclear reactors, food production machines and the like. It's a fun fantasy, but it's unrealistic for all but a handful, and they usually require supplies from our more complex civilization. That was one of the ironies of Robinson Crusoe.
Despite my reservations, Solarpunk is a useful driver. Sometimes one needs some starry eyed optimism. Why not have organic farming on a space station? Why not have fabricators, not unlike the genies in the folk tales, except without the gotchas and limited number of wishes? A good example is the diesel engine at the heart of our global transportation network. Diesel was a starry eyed idealist. He studied thermodynamics and the Carnot cycle and spent years to develop a small highly efficient engine for the everyman. Small prime movers, he hoped, would free workers from factories, and reintroduce the yeoman artisan except now power assisted. It didn't quite work out. Diesel engines are most efficient in large doses, and electrical power filled the niche for small prime movers and gave us the electric power bill.
Still, thinking of what a more sustainable civilization might look like is a good idea. Can we get rid of our reliance on large, powerful organizations? History seems to show that whether we move towards capitalism or communism or even various flavors of socialism, maintaining anything like our current standard of living will require large scale institutions and installations. It's not like Legos are made by Danish elves working in hollow trees. Solarpunk proposals, some rather zany, some extremely sensible, open space for solutions. To survive and thrive, we are going to have to restructure our instrumentality, and there are powerful forces fighting against this. Solarpunk, for all its weaknesses, is about finding a path to do so.
I am all in favor of a solar punk world. The solar punk world view of replacing “late stage capitalism” with something that is more equitable and less voracious is not that different than what you are proposing. The difference is that you cannot see capitalism being replaced while they cannot see it continuing. You insist on an individualistic rugged self reliance while they see a more egalitarian cooperative aesthetic. I would love to see a Venn diagram of the actual values of both approaches and see where the over lap and differences are. We may all have much more in common than we think if we stop insisting the other person is wrong, and start looking for how we can achieve the results we both desire and allow each to arrive at that point in their own way.
I see at least one entrepreneurial opportunity here, namely selling machines designed to be kit-built and/or user-serviceable. One major pillar of physical-world independence and agency is understanding how the stuff you use is put together and how to fix it when it breaks, but almost all modern industrial design has become outright hostile to that.
I bought a Framework Laptop DIY edition awhile ago because I wanted to support them making the countercultural design choice to support user understanding and repair. They seem quite successful so far. But where is the Framework Phone or Heat Pump or Electric Car or Dishwasher? All business opportunities for the right sort of founder, I would think.
Note that there are some existing hardware geek subcultures worth learning from here. Gun enthusiasts, for example: even if you dislike guns, the popular use of the AR-15 as essentially a Framework Rifle should be a kind of success case to consider.
If we need to move away from dependence on wage employment and we also need to bring fertility rates back up to replacement level, then the first step should be establishing cash child allowances at a much higher level (relative to GDP per capita) than any country currently offers.
Child benefits in France cost around 3 percent of GDP and although French fertility rates are still below replacement level, they're among the highest in Europe. But they don't allow one half of a married couple to leave the labor force for a long period of time without a substantial drop in household income.
I think the clear policy implication is "France plus". National governments in rich countries should set a more ambitious target (Hungary is aiming for 5 percent, although I don't suggest the Orban regime is a model in other respects) and see if that brings us closer to both population stability and a less market-dependent way of human life.
Thank you for another thought-provoking essay. First I’ve heard of Solarpunk but I like your take on it.
A side note. May I ask why Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is a self-proclaimed Social Democrat and not just a Social Democrat? If Donald Trump isn’t a self-proclaimed Republican and Joe Biden isn’t a self-proclaimed Democrat, I don’t get why AOC or Social Democrat requires that qualifier.
Brink, your creative, original thinking continues and it s a welcome break from the daily news. Keep it up. I've always liked the idea of marrying environmental and historic preservation with advanced technology and clean energy. That could help us build a smarter and more pleasant world. The great barrier to progress today is rigid, emotional, tribal thinking reinforced and sustained by electronic media. The growing hostility on the right toward clean energy and green tech is alarming. I can enjoy and support NASA, historic Episcopal churches, nuclear energy and fusion research, a strong business community, and state and national parks all at the same time and without any sense of contradiction or worry about tribal boundaries. Great essay!
You are a great thinker with a small audience. I send every post out to about thirty people. and I may get one response. These non-responders are college educated upper middle class or stinking rich. They will read your long, abstract, posts when it is too late, when they are affected, painfully affected. And in that pain and suffering we will chase a "Solarpunk" that will supply us with the energy of a Sisyphus to push the boulder back up the mountain. We are as ignorant as the donkey and the carrot, and in that ignorance is hidden the key to our survival. Just ask Sisyphus . . . or Brink:)
Beautiful. I love the idea of sustainable communities... but I wonder if that's truly possible in a world where high level chips needed for computers require so much expertise.
How will these self sustaining communities create local production of chips and modern technology more generally? Is our level of technology not too complex?
Thank you
The ultimate Solarpunk country seems to be Singapore. America has a Steampunk constitution but it still seems to function.
Maybe I'm an oddball, but I like our commercial culture. I like the way Christmas has turned into a commercial festival capping a season of commercial holidays. It's a celebration of harvest surplus and fiscal positivity. I grew up in a city, and liked checking out the shops in my neighborhood and even more so when exploring a new one. Maybe it's because my ancestors were hunter-gatherers, and the same skills one uses to find things in the supermarket aisles date are those used in the days of hunting for edible roots and vulnerable small animals. I can imagine a basically capitalist system with a good dose of socialism making for a more environmentally and people friendly future.
If we want the food security, the mobility, the health services, the infrastructure, the labor saving gadgets, the communications and other benefits of modern life, we're stuck with a technological civilization with a minimum requisite scale. Just as we have vast, increasingly automated farms to provide our food, we are going to need vast, highly technical "farms" and "plants" to provide for our other needs. The idea of the self-sufficient freehold was out of date by the late 17th century. We aren't going to live in log cabins in roadless wilderness with our own nuclear reactors, food production machines and the like. It's a fun fantasy, but it's unrealistic for all but a handful, and they usually require supplies from our more complex civilization. That was one of the ironies of Robinson Crusoe.
Despite my reservations, Solarpunk is a useful driver. Sometimes one needs some starry eyed optimism. Why not have organic farming on a space station? Why not have fabricators, not unlike the genies in the folk tales, except without the gotchas and limited number of wishes? A good example is the diesel engine at the heart of our global transportation network. Diesel was a starry eyed idealist. He studied thermodynamics and the Carnot cycle and spent years to develop a small highly efficient engine for the everyman. Small prime movers, he hoped, would free workers from factories, and reintroduce the yeoman artisan except now power assisted. It didn't quite work out. Diesel engines are most efficient in large doses, and electrical power filled the niche for small prime movers and gave us the electric power bill.
Still, thinking of what a more sustainable civilization might look like is a good idea. Can we get rid of our reliance on large, powerful organizations? History seems to show that whether we move towards capitalism or communism or even various flavors of socialism, maintaining anything like our current standard of living will require large scale institutions and installations. It's not like Legos are made by Danish elves working in hollow trees. Solarpunk proposals, some rather zany, some extremely sensible, open space for solutions. To survive and thrive, we are going to have to restructure our instrumentality, and there are powerful forces fighting against this. Solarpunk, for all its weaknesses, is about finding a path to do so.
I am all in favor of a solar punk world. The solar punk world view of replacing “late stage capitalism” with something that is more equitable and less voracious is not that different than what you are proposing. The difference is that you cannot see capitalism being replaced while they cannot see it continuing. You insist on an individualistic rugged self reliance while they see a more egalitarian cooperative aesthetic. I would love to see a Venn diagram of the actual values of both approaches and see where the over lap and differences are. We may all have much more in common than we think if we stop insisting the other person is wrong, and start looking for how we can achieve the results we both desire and allow each to arrive at that point in their own way.
I see at least one entrepreneurial opportunity here, namely selling machines designed to be kit-built and/or user-serviceable. One major pillar of physical-world independence and agency is understanding how the stuff you use is put together and how to fix it when it breaks, but almost all modern industrial design has become outright hostile to that.
I bought a Framework Laptop DIY edition awhile ago because I wanted to support them making the countercultural design choice to support user understanding and repair. They seem quite successful so far. But where is the Framework Phone or Heat Pump or Electric Car or Dishwasher? All business opportunities for the right sort of founder, I would think.
Note that there are some existing hardware geek subcultures worth learning from here. Gun enthusiasts, for example: even if you dislike guns, the popular use of the AR-15 as essentially a Framework Rifle should be a kind of success case to consider.