Futurism
A gemlog about the future; specifically, solarpunk, climate, and sustainability.
2025-01-05 — The next four years
The United States is in deep peril. With various controlled factors, the Republican Party has come out on top in the federal elections. This dangerous group consists of liars, gun nuts, grifting Evangelicals, bigots, racists, and abusers of every kind. Make no mistake: the next four years are going to be rough. The modern Nazi party gains full control of the US federal government on Jan 20: there's no way to soften that blow. There just isn't.
There's lots of talk in my circles about making life better for city folk, but the conversation overlooks the suburbs and rural areas. Where they are talked about, it's often for the primary benefit of city dwellers. That's a problem. We should be talking more about how to improve life for everyone, not just those who can afford to live in a city.
2024-10-16 — Diversity in Housing
We need more housing. Populations in most places aren't going down, as kids grow up and want to move out and have their own kids, who will eventually do the same. But at the same time, we're seeing dynamics and priorities shift. While we absolutely should be building the most housing for the most popular living situations, we should also consider other peoples' (ideal) living situations too.
With the virus not yet fully understood, but obviously super infectious and super dangerous and quickly mutating, Earth went into a half-assed lockdown phase on or around March 13, 2020. After the two weeks it was supposed to take because as it turned out we still needed groceries, and then more and more time, people started getting resigned to the "new normal" of staying far away from other people and wearing masks all the time.
2024-10-04 — Follow-up: Tower Defender
Recently I wrote a short story for Futurism, Tower Defender, about an unnamed network engineer reinstating the network after a string of attacks. I wanted to expand on some of the things mentioned in that story, so I'll write about some of them here.
2024-09-30 — When tragedy strikes at home
It's terrifying to hear about the impacts of severe weather and natural disasters, but it's even more heartbreaking when you or someone you love are caught in the middle of it. In July, I visited my grandma, who lives in a mountain town in western North Carolina. As Helene approached Tallahassee, Florida, where the storm made landfall as a category 4 hurricane, there were warnings about how bad it would get for everyone from there to the mountains of North Carolina. My dad even said, "remember Katrina." And boy, was he right.
2024-09-26 — Short Story: Tower Defender
His comm buzzed. He looked at it, and couldn't figure it out for a second, until he noticed the crossed-out tower symbol. "Damn it," he thought. "Where is it this time?"
2024-09-21 — The Eirlys Timeline's Tech
I am a considerably tech-interested person, so a lot of my fiction, and especially solarpunk fiction, includes tech elements. In Eirlys's world, certain pieces of technology have found new roles. Some modern tech has been advanced in a humane direction, some of it has been cast to the wayside, and some of it is alive and kicking almost exactly how it is today.
I've never quite liked my birth name. It sounds kinda, "bleh." It's been nothing more than a minor bother my whole life, only really coming up when I hear my name. So, a couple months ago I started trying to think of name ideas. Eventually, in a hit of inspiration, I came up with Hal, and recently I've started to use it.
2024-09-08 — The Fediverse, or the Social Web
I haven't been able to find much solarpunk literature, so I was pleasantly surprised when this micro-story appeared as a reply to a post in my feed, which asked what the Fediverse might look like in 2030. The story reminds me of what I wrote about in Peace & Violence, which was my inaugural entry into solarpunk fiction. It also gave me something new to write about for this gemlog, which I haven't written for in a bit.
2024-07-20 — The ultimate virtual reality tech
A "holodeck" is a type of virtual reality device that completely contains the user. Multiple people can use it at once. It can unlock telepresence unlike anything we've ever seen. But it relies on its user's body, which may not be as able as expected. Invasive Neuralink or BMI style VR solves a lot of the issues with holodecks, including its physical space constraints. But they are invasive, and the privacy and security issues should be obvious to anyone with a brain.
2024-07-14 — From the mountains to the city, part 2
I'm being influenced by the siren-songs of Stardew Valley, The Peripheral (mostly, the closer future), and now, spending the week in the mountains. My grandma's house is close enough to other places, downtown and the shopping center, that I _could_ just (e-)bike there. I've gotten pretty familiar with the area from the last couple visits, too. The small town allure is, however, in stark contrast with my conscience, solarpunk ideals, and humanity's best interests.
This weekend I'll be heading off on vacation. I've elected to leave my laptop at home, although I still intend to bring everything else: phone, Steam Deck, headphones, and VR headset among them.
2024-07-04 — Food and veganism
Food is great! Everyone loves it, even though we all have preferences, and often they clash. I'm no vegan (hate me for it later), but with an odd set of circumstances I've been thinking about the topic quite a bit today. There is a noticeable overlap between the solarpunk and vegan communities, and today I'm daring to address it.
2024-06-24 — Radio vs the Internet
Radio has always been a small interest of mine. My broadcasting capabilities are currently limited to GMRS and a tiny low-power FM transmitter I use as a toy, but I also have a couple RTL-SDRs I like to toy with too, mostly receiving FM radio but also monitoring GMRS, listening to ham nets, and discovering other broadcasts.
While I've been writing for Futurism, the place of radio in a solarpunk or anarchist future has come up a couple of times. Today, I don't want to talk about how it would be regulated, but how it might be used.
2024-06-20 — Short Story: Waffle House
Even though we've changed over time, the bright yellow signs still stand tall. We're known for a lot of things, but after the Pacific Nuclear Crisis, we're known more than ever for being a refuge of safety. Because if the Waffle House closes, there's nothing left for it to serve.
I've been thinking about this strategy for a while now. It uses our existing systems to get rid of the wasteful suburbs. In short, build new inner city housing, bring people in from the suburbs, and keep moving that outwards and inwards until there are no more suburbs. To accomplish this, a system of development and residence incentives and disincentives would be put into place.
This is a follow-up to "From the mountains to the city, part 1".
2024-06-16 — From the mountains to the city, part 1
In about a month I'll be on vacation in a small town in the mountains. Last year, I had some thoughts about the experience of a small town compared to where I live. Recently, I went into the city for my brother's graduation, so I want to write about what I think it would be like to live in the city, compared to the suburbs.
In our current capitalist legal system, designed to protect the rich and criminalize the poor, piracy is the "theft of intellectual property." This is done by copying. Literally just copying. It doesn't make the creator money, though, which is what matters the most to the capitalist class. And, better yet, you can only get it reliably enforced if you're rich enough to buy copyright protection or a patent (although laws about this vary worldwide).
The cities and towns of the future might end up going back to mostly trolley traffic, shared with bicycles and other forms of micromobility. This would not just be better for the people who live there, but it's overwhelmingly better for the environment. I expect BEVs will still be around, but they'll be mostly for ambulances, fire trucks, moving vans, construction vehicles, buses, and maybe taxis.
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