@prahou

riding a bike is solarpunk

@prahou burning coal is not solar punk?

@prahou trams are solarpunk. trackless trams, surprisingly, are not solarpunk.

@prahou
A 1981 Harley Davidson is not solarpunk.

@prahou Drawing with a pencil is solarpunk

@prahou oh, and I forgot the most important : reading a book is solarpunk

@prahou
Sharing knowledge is definitely Solarpunk

@prahou Fcking off bigtech is solar punk

@prahou taking a dump in the woods ~feels~ solarpunk (ecofriendly like, of course, no wiping with paper I guess, burying it like a cat).

@prahou Weaving textiles is solarpunk. Natural fibres definitely, but I think we can weave a little bit of synthetic polymer as well, as a treat.

@prahou Greenhouses are solarpunk!

@prahou contemplating the ineffable is solarpunk

@prahou an overpriced townhouse with a perfectly manicured lawn and a Ford F150 in the driveway in the suburbs of northern Virginia is not solarpunk

@prahou is indoor tanning solarpunk?

@prahou cyberpunk is not solarpunk

@prahou UBI is solarpunk

@prahou
tesla nc 470 hifi turntable is solarpunk

however, the continued vinyl record production requires oil and is, puzzlingly, not solarpunk

@prahou a centralized directory of what is and isn't solarpunk isn't solarpunk

@prahou pooing in a field is solarpunk

@prahou smiling is solarpunk :)

@prahou

Is solar punk: windmills

Isn't solar punk: the moon?

@prahou i am not solarpunk and idk what's solarpunk

@prahou

LLMs are not solarpunk
sabotaging datacenters is solarpunk
setting Teslas on fire is solarpunk
a lawn is not solarpunk
a wild garden is solarpunk
feeding birds is solarpunk
drinking soda is not solarpunk
staying hydrated is solarpunk

@prahou I think that, instead of allowing cow flatulence to accelerate the greenhouse effect, we should instead capture all of the cow farts into the balloon of an airship, and use that as transportation. That would give a lot of inspiration to watercolour landscape artists.

@prahou
Opensource is Solarpunk

Sharing is solarpunk

@prahou wait, if smoking cigarettes isn't solarpunk but batteries are, would vaping be solarpunk?

@prahou
Killing pandas is not solarpunk.

@prahou
Also I must add to the pooing in the forest and field, that peeing in these locations is also solarpunk

@prahou Restoring wetlands and the natural flow of rivers is solarpunk

@prahou For "solarpunk given the conditions" I nominate: Scything, rather than machine mowing, a lawn (realising that a lawn is in se not solarpunk).

For "extremely not solarpunk" I nominate petrol-powered lawnmowers.

#lang_en

@prahou i think if you re use existing batteries it sounds really solarpunk to me. The production of new ones probably isn’t most of the times.

@prahou The moon may not be solarpunk but tides and eclipses are.

@prahou gonna need the experts to chime in on this one

Is livecoding/demoscene solarpunk?

4kb limit, sounds solarpunk, but often it involves significant wattage from an oversized discrete GPU...

And most of the popular livecode platforms run on the web... Is JavaScript solarpunk?

Many questions!

@prahou abolition of the state and all the social hierarchies it exists to enforce is #solarpunk

@prahou Mending is solarpunk! TEMU / SHEIN is not solarpunk! Thrift stores are solarpunk! Department stores are not solarpunk! Handmade holidays are solarpunk! Landfillcore is not solarpunk!

@prahou Mutual aid is solarpunk af

@prahou@merveilles.town Smoking is vegan and therefore still solarpunk. And the moon reflects whose light?? Still solar punk! If the moon isn't in this movement then neither am I

@prahou corporate management is not solarpunk, but co-operative working could be?

@prahou Bus on Rails has to be solarpunk. What about tandems?

@prahou Sharing excess produce from your garden, allotment or greenhouse, with neighbours and friends is Solarpunk.

@prahou

#BonkWave either is, or is not, #SolarPunk.

@prahou pissing on milton friedmans grave is trickle down solar punk

@prahou
RSS Feed is #solarpunk

@prahou Is stealing (I mean borrowing) dishes from your vegan landlord solarpunk?

@prahou solar ovens are so solarpunk

@prahou
Programming with an LLM is not solarpunk.

Programming with meat _can_ be solarpunk. Except JavaScript. Frick JavaScript.

@prahou soldering is solarpunk

@prahou Unix is solderpunk

@prahou Is trans šicí kroužek that is %60 trans people and %40 liberal white cis women solarpunk so long as only šlapací šicí stroje are used?

@prahou Oracle Cloud is NOT solar punk

@prahou pocket calculator was my first encounter with solarpunk

@prahou could you add links to the comments that suggested each? I just want to talk to the germknödel haters. They are/can be vegan and delicious!

Also, the SR-71 Blackbird. Unfortunately, not solarpunk 😔✊

@prahou kirkifying people is solarpunk

@prahou solaris by stanisław lem is not solarpunk

@prahou
burning fossil fuels is solar punk (you are using billion year old solar energy)

dyson spheres are not solarpunk (you block out the sun and that's very Mr. Burns (Mr. Burns is not solarpunk))

@prahou Static site generators are solarpunk. Self-hosting is solarpunk.

@prahou
gonna provide a smol list of boolean inquiries

is lisp(any tbh) solarpunk?
is werc solarpunk?
is plan9/9front solarpunk?
is musl solarpunk?
is solarpunk solarpunk?
is jupp solarpunk?
is mksh solarpunk?

@prahou Replacing your robot grassmower with a scythe is solarpunk.

@prahou Buying 20kg planting soil to grow 10 kg potatoes is not solarpunk.

@prahou Is burning a lawn solarpunk?
I think if you're also seed bombing it might be

@prahou hello i think the clearest vision of solarpunk i have seen is the start of the novel "a half-built garden". a key element there is that the solarpunk experience for those characters is not good, at all, but it is working

@prahou educating your niece about permaculture and STEM and keeping her curious is solarpunk.

@prahou

Why not?

@prahou Is Rob Pike (a) solarpunk?

@prahou tractor with air conditioned cabin: not solarpunk. tractor without: solarpunk

@prahou ink is solarpunk

@prahou is georgism solarpunk?

@prahou i strongly object that germknödel are not solarpunk!

@prahou cranberry juice is solarpunk, imo

but solarpunk is definitely solarpunk, kinda wild that you missed that one tbh

@prahou this plushie

Alt...

a weird looking fox plushie that is really dumpy and egg shaped and seemingly is a photorealistic fox printed onto what amounts to a small beanbag??

@prahou

solarpunk is solarpunk

@prahou Furries are solarpunk

@prahou Formerly marginalized groups and cultures thriving is solarpunk.

@prahou Baba is solarpunk

@prahou UBI isn't solarpunk afterall as it's still capitalism

@prahou Drinking homemade soda is solarpunk

@prahou Printing hundreds of PLA boats isn't solarpunk

@prahou Tear gas isn't solarpunk.

@prahou Daily work meetings aren't solarpunk.

@prahou Riot police puking from their own tear gas isn't solarpunk but is pretty funny :3

@prahou La Grande Motte isn't solarpunk.

@prahou Clotheslines are solar punk. Dryers are not.

@prahou

Slow cookers (aka, crock-pots) are solarpunk

as are solar ovens

Alt...

Snippet from the Wikipedia page for "slow cooker": The ability to food to be slow-cooked ahead of time is regarded by some cooks as convenient. Drawing little energy, it is used in some households so it can draw entirely on 1 to 2 kilowatt solar panels during the day.

@prahou
Community is solarpunk.
And probably pacifism is solarpunk.

@prahou is solarpunk even solarpunk?

@prahou a public book-sharing point.

@prahou Mastodon is solar punk!!! Truth Social is not!!!

@prahou our planks are solarpunk

funny, after reading the draft, @dngrs sent me this video by Another Roof, which is concerned with AI in mathematics but hits on very similar fundamental themes, which is that we enjoy art made by humans, and this also applies to mathematics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0MjPe7wXs8

@mntmn
>

@mntmn
> In the same way in which I want to experience art made by other humans as a form of emotional and mental connection, I enjoy using software, hardware, and other products that are made by caring, considerate human beings, and not by unfeeling robots. All of these artifacts are essentially fragments of human communication

So much this.

@mntmn What do I think? I think that I wholeheartedly agree. I think that you write with a beautiful clarity. I think that I'm more happy than ever that I decided to order my next laptop from you. :-) Please keep creating--with words, with code, and with circuit diagrams.

@mntmn I was speaking at a conference recently and many of the others there would do this charade about their business not heing possible without AI. I'd ask how and they'd say "I couldn't possibly do all the work myself" with no hint of irony when I talk about nobody hiring when workloads get tough and instead throw money at AI... which they agree hurts the community.

@mntmn fake people for fake people

@mntmn I see I'm not the only one who's been thinking of “Dollhouse” in our current moment…

@mntmn this is without a doubt one of the best pieces of writing on the topic. Thank you for sharing your thoughts <3

@mntmn Lucie, that article is spot on.

The kind of people who push this are power hungry, their empathy is damaged.

We can tell the care and empathy you have for the mnt community.

@mntmn I'd love to boost this, very well thought out and written, but is this a permalink? Seems like if you blog more in the future, this would shift out from the main index.html, but correct me.

@mntmn I'm reading Magnifica humanitas by the Pope. It's vey similar yet it falls short of consequences. Doesn't makle it less valuable because any reader should come to the right conclusions.
Life is art, programming is art and letting a machine take over is cutting short on what's beautiful in life.

@mntmn

> The people who try this stuff are always of the same kind

I think this is wrong. It might feel that way, but it's weakening the argument. There is more to explore there about what drives people into all this.

> I had a realization that *pain* is the main anchor of reality

I think you're right on the money with this one. And that is also why the idea of AI alignment and trying to teach it ethics is not going to ever fully work.

Ethics are an emergent property of shared vulnerability. Something that can't die cannot truly feel empathy for something that can.

> because they only see the results

Again right on the money I'd say.
The obsession with "efficiency" and believing that it's about the destination, when in reality it is about the journey.

@mntmn
> they lack empathy and are, above all, power hungry. They see others as playthings, or "toys"

I guess it’s a common “just business, nothing personal” thing. Yes, everything/everyone is a tool in this POV

@mntmn fantastic text, thanks!

@mntmn

I think you put up a thesis and then wrote about 3-5 other things that are on your mind, but aren't actually related to the thesis.

Whether or not I value genAI "Art" or human "Art" has nothing to do with making fake people or causing intentional suffering.

I do agree that the remixed stuff isn't as helpful as the marketing says and that "not helpful" is on the bad side of a "feels good to use to feels bad to use" spectrum.

But I think that about human output too, so...

@mntmn

I've been carrying my Assumed Intelligence and Unsupervised Text Extruder dread around for a similar amount of time and today I started writing down my own concerns.

After sending them to a friend I read your thoughts and discovered a whole other angle that was hidden to me, even though as a software developer with over 40 years of experience, I've regularly drawn parallels between art and the process of software development in all its frustrating glory.

Thank you for bridging my gap!

@mntmn like it very much and <3 "please don't sacrifice human connection on the altar of productivity."

@mntmn
Excellent piece!
Also quick note: You're linking to the homepage of your blog, i don't see a way to link to JUST this piece but that will be needed for sharing, as once you write something else it will get pushed off the front page.

@mntmn i'm 100% with you on the second half (discussing programming as an art form and as an empathetic endeavour), but not really on the first one (transhumanism being exclusively a billionaire's fantasy). to the extent i was given a human mind i'm not happy with it and i won't be until i shape it to my own ends. do i get to be put into the same category as the likes of Musk and Bezos, now?