very little overlap between the transhumanist community and Solarpunk
Ok, so I guess my friend group contains the intersection between the two nearly-disjoint communities. Good to know.
The philosophy behind Solarpunk is essentially a codified rebranding of the leftmost-half of the Transhumanist movement. I know because I’ve explicitly identified myself as a transhumanist for over a decade; I’m comfortable with the community and have been immersed in the philosophy since. It’s probably not a coincidence that the aesthetic of Solarpunk is nearly identical to one that I’ve been cultivating in my world building even prior to becoming a transhumanist.
Solarpunk is Transhumanism, or at least a branch of it. If you hate transhumanism, you hate Solarpunk.
No it is not. Solarpunk is rather broadly defined and intentionally vague so that it allows building broad coalitions, which might also include transhumanists at the fringes, but the core idea and origin of Solarpunk has very little to do with transhumanism.
The overlap of imagery is indeed often seen as problematic, but there is a relative scarcity of Solarpunk imagery and those that exist have usually borrowed from existing prior-art which often includes (authoritarian) techno-optimist and sometimes transhumanist visions.
P.sure you’re the first anti-transhumanist I’ve ever encountered in the Solarpunk community, and that appears to largely stem from a great deal of ignorance about the philosophy.
The fundamental question of transhumanism is what it means to be a person. Some say that it’s what it is to be “human” but such consider humanity and personhood to be synonymous. Solarpunk doesn’t grapple with this question; instead, it uses the answers that transhumanists tend to give as a core to build off of. Transhumanism is a way of thinking about humans, technology, nature, and how we interact with each other. A really good art piece for introducing this idea to people is Landsailor by Vienna Teng. Every piece of technology we make, be it a mobile phone, a quern, cattle, nuclear weapons, or prosthetics are extentions of ourselves. They’re all products of artifice that we collectively use to affect our environment, ourselves, and each other. Consider the devices we’re using to communicate: these allow for crude but potentially rapid telepathy over vast distances, and augment our minds to the point of superhuman ability. You’re probably thinking “no it’s just a phone/computer/tablet, that’s stupid, my mind uses it; it’s not a part of me” but that fails to consider the changes your mind undergoes when using the device. Set aside the brand-new functions like making calls and you’re still left with the fact that you’re offloading years or decades of memories onto a device as well as computing power. When you do math several parts of your brain communicate with other parts to do the calculations piecemeal. So, when you’re punching numbers into your calculator, that’s essentially just a cruder mechanism for doing the exact same thing; one part of your mind asking another part to perform a task to accomplish a larger goal. What’s really fascinating is that this is backed up by neurology; when humans use a tool, our brains process the information as if it was a part of our actual bodies. Just as is true of a human and their engineered tools, so is also true of humanity and our environment. Our infrastructure: plumbing, vast sky scrapers, villages in the countryside, farmland, food banks, tended woods, steam pipes, hospitals, the internet, all of these augment humanity as a whole or subpopulations thereof.
As outlined in Yudkowsky’s essay: Transhumanism as simplified humanism Transhumanism seeks to preserve and improve the lives of everyone it can. It is fundamentally about using technology to perform acts of altruism for its own sake. It’s about what’s practical and possible and bringing the first closer to the second without compromising on anything we don’t need to. We can have enough food, water, and power for 10,000,000,000 and have a beautiful environment and have a society more equal than any in history. Yes, that will mean that things will need to change, yes that means we need better sustainability, yes that means we need to work for decades engineering new, innovative, and unintuitve solutions, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it. So we have a philosophy that advocates for using technology to engineer our environment to be more sustainable and allow for a better society for all people, meanwhile compromising on nothing and being optimistic about the future if we work together. What does that sound like to you?
Solarpunk eschews the stereotypical transhumanist aesthetics in favor of a synthesis of a richer natural aesthetic, but transhumanist philosophy is fundamentally aesthetic-neutral. This is something that I think confuses people, and probably why you personally regard the two as fundamentally opposite. All you see are robots in one frame, trees in the other, and think “these are opposites” but transhumanism and Solarpunk are fundamentally about what you don’t see. You don’t see that the robot has a human brain inside that’s only able to live because of a full-body prosthetic. You don’t see that the trees are biologically engineered to give unnaturally nutritious fruit. As a side note this is why I don’t consider people like ol’musky transhumanists; he wants weird robots and brain implants because it looks futur-y, not because he’s grappled with the pros and cons of the solutions for decades and determined that this is the best way to help people. He’s a sham who pretends to know what he’s talking about after looking at a cool photo instead of honestly engaging with the philosophy he pretends to advocate. I am reminded of him through my interactions with you.
You are arguing against a strawman. I never said that I am anti-transhumanist.
But at the core Solarpunk has quite different values to transhumanism. Technology (while useful) is largely irrelevant to Solarpunk. And it actively escews the typical transhumanist narrative (that you basically repeat) that technology innovation will safe or transform humanity for the better.
Solarpunk isn’t anti-technological innovation but it recognizes that we already have all the technology we would need to live a sustainable and "worth living” life, the problem is rather how we use the technology. Solarpunk is also deeply anti-capitalist, which is something that can not be said about transhumanism.
And last but not least, you paint a very rosy picture of transhumanism, but in the history of it major proponents advocated for terrible ideas like eugenics and like it or not, but people like Elon Musk do fit into the transhumanist definition.
So while I think Solarpunk and Transhumanism has some small overlap at the fringes, it is extremely misleading to group them together like you do.
I never said that you said you were; I said that you are because that’s what you appear to me to be.
actively escews the typical transhumanist narrative […] that technology innovation will safe or transform humanity for the better.
Then how is it that almost everypiece of solarpunkmedia I’ve seen shows technology that’s fantastical and helps people in wonderful ways or are explalainers on how to use extant technology such as Acorn Land Labs’ demonstrations on sustainable farming? This is one of the least convincing arguments that you could have made.
Solarpunk […] recognizes that we already have all the technology we would need to live a sustainable and "worth living” life
Can you cite some piece of media by a prevelant member of the solarpunk community that demonstrates this point? I haven’t noticed that at all, and even if there’s some notion of that in the community it hardly seems prevelant.
Solarpunk is also deeply anti-capitalist, which is something that can not be said about transhumanism.
This is true; the core of Transhumanism is politically agnostic. This is why I said that it’s a codified re-branding of the left wing of the transhumanist movement. Anarcho-transhumanism is transhumanism, and it’s not exactly a small part of the community at this point; contemporary transhumanists are often at least deeply critical of capitalism, which has been going on since at the latest around the advent of Google Deep Dream.
major proponents advocated for terrible ideas
It’s existed since the 60s. Holy shit, do you have any idea how many awful people went around calling themselves socialists? “Some people who call themselves X said bad things sometimes” is a universally terrible argument. The version you’re looking for is “X portion of community Y says Z, and community Y seems largely OK with it”. Which by the rule of charitable interpretation I should assume is what you meant, except modern transhumanists aren’t in favor of eugenics.
Instead of embracing retrofuturism, solarpunk looks completely to the future. Not an alternative future, but a possible future.
Solarpunk wants to counter the scenarios of a dying earth, an insuperable gap between rich and poor, and a society controlled by corporations.
Solarpunk envisions a built environment creatively adapted for solar gain, amongst other things, using different technologies.
We’ve learned to use science wisely, for the betterment of our life conditions as part of our planet.
Wow, you’re right, no H+ rhetoric, phrases, or similarities whatsoever! What ever *could* I have been thinking!
The pathos, methods, and terminology of the contemporary Anarcho-transhumanism movement is all over the manifesto you linked; you are proving my point for me! Furthermore, it doesn’t appear to contain any specific references to innovation being unnecessary, as you claimed was part of the core of this movement which you also claimed was intentionally vague. Claiming on one hand that a movement is vague to attract a broad coalition and also very confidently claiming (with as far as I can tell no actual evidence) that it definitely has very few members from any particular other movement while not contradictory strikes me as extremely odd.
Well, obviously you are very certain of your opinion as well, so there seems little point in arguing further. Just don’t be surprised when other people will tell you the same next time you incorrectly claim solarpunk and transhumanism is the same 🙄
Ok, so I guess my friend group contains the intersection between the two nearly-disjoint communities. Good to know.
The philosophy behind Solarpunk is essentially a codified rebranding of the leftmost-half of the Transhumanist movement. I know because I’ve explicitly identified myself as a transhumanist for over a decade; I’m comfortable with the community and have been immersed in the philosophy since. It’s probably not a coincidence that the aesthetic of Solarpunk is nearly identical to one that I’ve been cultivating in my world building even prior to becoming a transhumanist.
Solarpunk is Transhumanism, or at least a branch of it. If you hate transhumanism, you hate Solarpunk.
No it is not. Solarpunk is rather broadly defined and intentionally vague so that it allows building broad coalitions, which might also include transhumanists at the fringes, but the core idea and origin of Solarpunk has very little to do with transhumanism.
The overlap of imagery is indeed often seen as problematic, but there is a relative scarcity of Solarpunk imagery and those that exist have usually borrowed from existing prior-art which often includes (authoritarian) techno-optimist and sometimes transhumanist visions.
P.sure you’re the first anti-transhumanist I’ve ever encountered in the Solarpunk community, and that appears to largely stem from a great deal of ignorance about the philosophy.
The fundamental question of transhumanism is what it means to be a person. Some say that it’s what it is to be “human” but such consider humanity and personhood to be synonymous. Solarpunk doesn’t grapple with this question; instead, it uses the answers that transhumanists tend to give as a core to build off of. Transhumanism is a way of thinking about humans, technology, nature, and how we interact with each other. A really good art piece for introducing this idea to people is Landsailor by Vienna Teng. Every piece of technology we make, be it a mobile phone, a quern, cattle, nuclear weapons, or prosthetics are extentions of ourselves. They’re all products of artifice that we collectively use to affect our environment, ourselves, and each other. Consider the devices we’re using to communicate: these allow for crude but potentially rapid telepathy over vast distances, and augment our minds to the point of superhuman ability. You’re probably thinking “no it’s just a phone/computer/tablet, that’s stupid, my mind uses it; it’s not a part of me” but that fails to consider the changes your mind undergoes when using the device. Set aside the brand-new functions like making calls and you’re still left with the fact that you’re offloading years or decades of memories onto a device as well as computing power. When you do math several parts of your brain communicate with other parts to do the calculations piecemeal. So, when you’re punching numbers into your calculator, that’s essentially just a cruder mechanism for doing the exact same thing; one part of your mind asking another part to perform a task to accomplish a larger goal. What’s really fascinating is that this is backed up by neurology; when humans use a tool, our brains process the information as if it was a part of our actual bodies. Just as is true of a human and their engineered tools, so is also true of humanity and our environment. Our infrastructure: plumbing, vast sky scrapers, villages in the countryside, farmland, food banks, tended woods, steam pipes, hospitals, the internet, all of these augment humanity as a whole or subpopulations thereof. As outlined in Yudkowsky’s essay: Transhumanism as simplified humanism Transhumanism seeks to preserve and improve the lives of everyone it can. It is fundamentally about using technology to perform acts of altruism for its own sake. It’s about what’s practical and possible and bringing the first closer to the second without compromising on anything we don’t need to. We can have enough food, water, and power for 10,000,000,000 and have a beautiful environment and have a society more equal than any in history. Yes, that will mean that things will need to change, yes that means we need better sustainability, yes that means we need to work for decades engineering new, innovative, and unintuitve solutions, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it. So we have a philosophy that advocates for using technology to engineer our environment to be more sustainable and allow for a better society for all people, meanwhile compromising on nothing and being optimistic about the future if we work together. What does that sound like to you?
Solarpunk eschews the stereotypical transhumanist aesthetics in favor of a synthesis of a richer natural aesthetic, but transhumanist philosophy is fundamentally aesthetic-neutral. This is something that I think confuses people, and probably why you personally regard the two as fundamentally opposite. All you see are robots in one frame, trees in the other, and think “these are opposites” but transhumanism and Solarpunk are fundamentally about what you don’t see. You don’t see that the robot has a human brain inside that’s only able to live because of a full-body prosthetic. You don’t see that the trees are biologically engineered to give unnaturally nutritious fruit. As a side note this is why I don’t consider people like ol’musky transhumanists; he wants weird robots and brain implants because it looks futur-y, not because he’s grappled with the pros and cons of the solutions for decades and determined that this is the best way to help people. He’s a sham who pretends to know what he’s talking about after looking at a cool photo instead of honestly engaging with the philosophy he pretends to advocate. I am reminded of him through my interactions with you.
You are arguing against a strawman. I never said that I am anti-transhumanist.
But at the core Solarpunk has quite different values to transhumanism. Technology (while useful) is largely irrelevant to Solarpunk. And it actively escews the typical transhumanist narrative (that you basically repeat) that technology innovation will safe or transform humanity for the better.
Solarpunk isn’t anti-technological innovation but it recognizes that we already have all the technology we would need to live a sustainable and "worth living” life, the problem is rather how we use the technology. Solarpunk is also deeply anti-capitalist, which is something that can not be said about transhumanism.
And last but not least, you paint a very rosy picture of transhumanism, but in the history of it major proponents advocated for terrible ideas like eugenics and like it or not, but people like Elon Musk do fit into the transhumanist definition.
So while I think Solarpunk and Transhumanism has some small overlap at the fringes, it is extremely misleading to group them together like you do.
I never said that you said you were; I said that you are because that’s what you appear to me to be.
Then how is it that almost every piece of solarpunk media I’ve seen shows technology that’s fantastical and helps people in wonderful ways or are explalainers on how to use extant technology such as Acorn Land Labs’ demonstrations on sustainable farming? This is one of the least convincing arguments that you could have made.
Can you cite some piece of media by a prevelant member of the solarpunk community that demonstrates this point? I haven’t noticed that at all, and even if there’s some notion of that in the community it hardly seems prevelant.
This is true; the core of Transhumanism is politically agnostic. This is why I said that it’s a codified re-branding of the left wing of the transhumanist movement. Anarcho-transhumanism is transhumanism, and it’s not exactly a small part of the community at this point; contemporary transhumanists are often at least deeply critical of capitalism, which has been going on since at the latest around the advent of Google Deep Dream.
It’s existed since the 60s. Holy shit, do you have any idea how many awful people went around calling themselves socialists? “Some people who call themselves X said bad things sometimes” is a universally terrible argument. The version you’re looking for is “X portion of community Y says Z, and community Y seems largely OK with it”. Which by the rule of charitable interpretation I should assume is what you meant, except modern transhumanists aren’t in favor of eugenics.
You don’t get to define us; we define ourselves.
Those examples are really not the best as they are basically corporate attempts to jump on the Solarpunk bandwagon and use it for green-washing.
As for the other things… you seem to be really not have looked deeply at all into Solarpunk if you haven’t even read the Solarpunk Manifesto.
Maybe the articles that we mirrored here will give you a better idea: https://wiki.f-hub.org/books/slrpnknet/chapter/learn-more-about-solarpunk
Wow, you’re right, no H+ rhetoric, phrases, or similarities whatsoever! What ever *could* I have been thinking!
The pathos, methods, and terminology of the contemporary Anarcho-transhumanism movement is all over the manifesto you linked; you are proving my point for me! Furthermore, it doesn’t appear to contain any specific references to innovation being unnecessary, as you claimed was part of the core of this movement which you also claimed was intentionally vague. Claiming on one hand that a movement is vague to attract a broad coalition and also very confidently claiming (with as far as I can tell no actual evidence) that it definitely has very few members from any particular other movement while not contradictory strikes me as extremely odd.
Well, obviously you are very certain of your opinion as well, so there seems little point in arguing further. Just don’t be surprised when other people will tell you the same next time you incorrectly claim solarpunk and transhumanism is the same 🙄