#soilpunk

"Dust carries the memory of extinct machines. We archive the decay, to decode what replaced life" - Earthpunk Protocol

Hoping is sometimes difficult, especially when everything seems to be going badly, the world, and one's own private life. But that's precisely the difference between a frivolous hope without practical foundations and one based on action and planning a different future—solarpunk, or whatever it may be—in which we can all live a dignified and happy life.

True hope lies there, true inner strength (Iroh 💛), and the kind outlined by authors like Gloria Anzaldú or Ernest Bloch. The ability to heal one's own wounds caused by the ego-monistic system that discriminates against any subjectivity other than the canonical one, to be a balm for wounds in a practice of self-care that offers new horizons of meaning and intersectionality, empathy between discriminated subjects.

The Big Elephant in the Room: AI and Solarpunk

We have a problem Yuston and it's quite extensive! Solarpunk, which supposedly thrives on counter-systemic directions and a return to the Earth in harmony with it and non-human animals, has had a toxic relationship with artificial intelligence for quite some time. The massive use of AI to create solarpunk imagery by stealing from artists has been present since the early years of solarpunk. Many of us will have surely seen these images at the top of Pinterest searches when we first searched for the genre.

Lately, this trend has diminished a little, but hyper-technological posthumanism remains a veritable virus within the community. But why? Aside from the obvious negatives about AI (depletion of already scarce freshwater resources, health problems for citizens, its use to suppress and continue the genocide in Palestine, instant facial recognition in every country that claims to be democratic, even in the EU now, etc.), it solves a major problem that capitalism and neoliberal thinkers have been think for about two centuries, starting with Adam Smith: the tendential fall of capital.

I promise I won't write a history of political economy here (besides, I'm writing this before a long day at work and I'd like to avoid falling asleep alone; I hope I don't write any typo because I slept for three hours, lol), but I really wanted to write something about this.

The tendential fall of the rate of profit is one of the problems of capitalism, already noted by the father of liberalism, Smith, cited above, but also by Riccardo and good old Marx himself. In short, what these economists observed and theorized was that sooner or later, in the distant future, capitalism would enter a crisis due to internal structures (competition, companies growing ever larger until they swallow up all the others) that lead to serious consequences due to savings (worse construction materials, for example, leading to more fragile buildings), and we know what companies love to save on. Certainly not their bosses' wages.

Well, does that resonate with you? Because yes, that distant future theorized by Smith and the others is, unfortunately, our present. So how can we solve rising production costs without cutting our own wages and continuing to expand our company? Through technology, yes, by limiting the cost of spending on salaries. Once upon a time, they thought about factories; now it's AI.

AI is the last desperate gasp of a dying and failing economic system whose theorists had predicted its demise, and dear old Marx was no exception. This was just to explain in this little space why AI is so dear to big companies, and to give another reason to fight it at all costs :) Because we should reduce, reuse old methods, and learn from more intelligent cultures in their relationship with nature. Technology won't save us; the communities we build will.

Solarpunk that isn't anti-capitalist is just gardening, or a tool of neoliberalism.

What's the point of Solarpunk/Soilpunk?

History teaches us that when human beings thought differently, they acted differently; when they believed utopia was achievable, they made it possible. The great point Rousseau teaches us is also echoed by the Chinese philosopher Mozi and the African philosophy of Ubuntu. It's understanding that we must put our own personal selfishness below the common good; public affairs are common space, because true happiness lies in ourselves. I exist thanks to others, and no personal happiness can be complete if the world is literally burning.

When do you feel at peace, when everything seems right? I feel this in the midst of community and nature. The individualism fostered by the hegemonic neoliberal system is destroying communities. But we are social animals, yet we are locked in our homes, so depressed. Let's take back and build communities, social spaces, community centers, municipal and community libraries, public gardens, parks, let's plant wild and native seeds, practice guerrilla gardening, and practice permeculture public gardens. And let's destroy the source. The same source, the 1% of ultra-billionaires who own 99% of the wealth, is destroying the earth and meanwhile building luxury bunkers in New Zealand, aware of the possible eco-climate collapse. Let's not give in to resignation and cynicism because every hundredth of a degree counts. 1°C of global average temperatures is infinitely better than 4-5°C and their consequences. Organize, fight. There are many ways I could write and be banned, haha, but books like How to Bl0w Up a Pip3line might give you some ideas. Another type of nonviolence is certainly effective, too, like that of movements like Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, and A24. They can move many consciences. Minneapolis's practices and struggles certainly inspire and guide us. Who knows what other ways we'll find. Let's save the earth and all its inhabitants, both human and non-human, to create a full future of dignified and happy life for all. Let's achieve the impossible. This is what solarpunk and every other utopia we decide on together in assemblies (sociocratic or whatever) are for, to give us a vision of the possible future to set us on our way.