this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
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Read "Project Hieroglyph" and the way one of its "optimistic" stories ("Girl in Wave: Wave in Girl") shows a multiplayer superhero game and the main character hates it. That's not how mental illness works, computers used to be GOOD for providing social contact. That's not education, that's "fix yourself".
I am not broken. I am unhappy because I don't want to live in a world where I face reality, whether that's "IRL" or "social media". You know why I like the 4th Matrix movie? It reminds us that this image isn't what the world provides, it's what the Matrix - real life - forces us to work towards. The Matrix isn't just the fake world, it's the fake world on top of a real one and the real escape is to change, not break, the system that binds us because there is nothing in the real but vast lifeless desert. Mars, the Moon... Dead rocks. There is no evidence of an afterlife nor any point to "accepting" a secular life you hate because you will still hate it and "scientific evidence only" doesn't fix anything or change who you are.
Also are you ok? I find it rather odd to be this intensely invested about what is generally a fairly niche community in solarpunk. Not that the mission and ideology aren’t worth being passionate about, but I mean we are talking about video games and green societies nothing crazy.
Mainly I'm a sci-fi author who hates the genre because almost everyone else wants it to be true and I'm the only one saying "it would literally be like the world is a prison to me" only to get the response "you're the only one not allowed to be happy, suffer so normal people are all equal".
Again I’m really not sure where this is coming from since the majority of solarpunk people I’ve talked to do not espouse the view you are describing. But in the interest of fairness; why would solarpunk which only aims to create a fair, renewable energy based, democratic post scarcity society focused on human happiness be a prison to you?
Mainly because, at least as far as I've seen, solarpunk societies requires "taking responsibility for your survival into your own hands" which I am mentally incapable of doing, and not from lazyness or lack of effort. Trust me, if I could hold a job I wouldn't be able to afford to not be working right now. I might have a mild form of oppositional defiant disorder or a bad case of PTSD, but when someone is a jerk to me I take it personally and hold grudges, making working with people who give me orders or take orders from me essentially like ordering a cat to herd sheep.
I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree, I think solarpunk societies are focused on community and not on "taking responsibility for your survival into your own hands". That view is for people trying to run away from others. Generally solarpunk is just for people who want to build a more environmentally conscious society, not one that abandons people. In your case specifically, I think a solarpunk society would actually benefit you greatly.
Mainly my issue is that I am simply not interested in nature and solarpunk works I've personally viewed have - at least by chance - been extremely anti-urbanist and anti-disability the first three times.
I have no issue with the environment being protected, only with valuing it at the expense of someone whose only place to be themselves used to be online. That isn't even a "me" thing, it's a "this work doesn't necessarily need a token disabled person, but you should design it so that disabled people will still be just as if not more able to function without being forced to make social connections IRL or on centralized social media or even (for now) federated social media" thing. The reason disabled people fantasize about VR worlds with superpowers is because if we had that power but were still ourselves, we'd feel like equals rather than "superior" because we'd have something people value us for.
I think the fediverse is a mistake. I shouldn't be here. You might think that just because I prefer FOSS that I would promote it, but it's been almost a year and Lemmy/etc. are a bigger cesspool than reddit. Maybe Web³ is right, as far as VR is concerned. People who do hate reality are on whatever fledgeling metaverse platform they're on because the fediverse will never be like golden age reddit. We finished the Web in 2D and it's a corporate shithole. Time to move to a greener pasture...
Reading this, I think most of the disparity in our views comes from where our view of solarpunk comes from as well as opinion toward nature. I have never engaged with any solarpunk works simply cause I never thought of them as relevant to the overall concept, I’ve only ever engaged with people.
And people as far as I am aware are in a sense anti-urbanist but not anti-cities, mostly just car infrastructure and other urban-specific environmentally hostile additions. In particular many of these individuals actually care a great deal about accessibility and are with greater frequency than other groups I’ve seen disabled themselves. I usually prefer to actually talk to people rather than refer to works unless those individuals specifically refer me to those works as representative. Otherwise you’re being unfair.
Also could you give examples of those works being anti-accessibility? It may be worth bringing up accessibility in this lemmy community in a separate post. Also can’t say I agree with the fediverse take, this place has been nothing but nice to me.
The issue is mostly the type of disability. You have to realize mental disability is not visible unless you know what to look for and even then you're dealing with some strange and often self-hated traits. So while physical disability is accounted for, mental illness and especially mental trauma (abandonment issues, PTSD in my case) are simply not even recognized as existing.
In most solarpunk I've seen, the issue of permanent differences in how a person functions is simply never addressed, and it feels like a gentrification of the problem. "Maybe we should push the mentally-handicapped somewhere else!"
It hurts even more when you get the handicap after you're born. Most mental issues are genetic and so they have no reference point. I didn't ask to be fucking beaten by a foster father who smoked in the house and refused to be questioned. I didn't ask or deserve to be stolen from my family by corrupt government officials. I didn't ask to be beaten by a bully so hard that he went to juvie for it and I was bedridden for a month. If you want to improve life, do it for people who have less than you without lowering anyone's standard of living. Otherwise you're asking for a world I cannot live in because I am a permanently-scarred psyche and I cannot support myself nor function in a community.
Don't get me wrong, inclusivity is bullshit. I only ask for a future I can rely on machines in, not one in which I would be doomed to die. I can see how being exposed to solarpunk via people first might make that something you didn't expect at least.
Damn, I’m sorry all that happened to you, I wish you the best in your life going forward. And I do have to say I don’t think anyone who is into solarpunk thinks those with mental disability should just be pushed aside and discarded. That would be almost antithetical to a concept so focused on improving the human condition.
That said, I could see where an emphasis on nature more in the goals could lead to people suggesting they want to take away the things you hold dear. However, I don’t think that’s the majority opinion of people into solarpunk nor do I believe you would be unable rely on machines in a solarpunk society. The whole goal of solarpunk is environmentally conscious technology not no technology. In fact I think most solarpunks would love a future that has the technology you would want. In other words I think your goals are in alignment if not complete agreement.
I’ll definitely have to give that a read, though some quick reading of opinions about that work are fairly mixed.
Also no one has said you’re broken or that you need to face reality. The whole point of solarpunk is that will be no world to face unless we take action. And none of that has anything to do with video games or anything you have described.
To be fair, I'm aware you're correct, it's a shitty book with very little actual optimism. It's not alone though, aside from the Necroverse I also have issue with the general attitude of solarpunk because it proposes that humans can't have a genuine affinity for a digital existence.
"You don't have to upload if you don't want to, and I will march with you against the singularity to defend that. March against me, though, and I will not be subject to your worldview willingly." I don't actually believe the singularity is likely, technology doesn't work that way, but that point still stands. Solarpunk demands you sacrifice what you have for "the greater good" even if you have very little to begin with.
Imagine if the evil cyberpunk megacorp, or the steampunk empress, or the dieselpunk dictatorship, or the biopunk megacorp, told you up-front what the costs really are. Nobody would buy into their machinations. Solarpunk tells you "You want satisfaction? Run away to the middle of nowhere and pretend electronics can be made at 1nm scale without semiconductor factories and never play with your tech toys ever again." and doesn't seem to care that outliers like me will say "Actually, I am satisfied. I'm angry because you want to take that away."
Scratch that. It doesn't have to care. "If everyone but the corner cases wants it, we can FORCE it to happen. Just like the conservatives did with cyberpunk." It learned, so to speak, what the Social Media Dystopia did to win. It bought an election of an ideology, because without the popular upvote a corporation can't become powerful in a world with online criticism. I'm trying to kill an idea before that idea truly becomes an issue, by pointing out that solarpunk is still dystopian.