How solarpunk has affected me so far
Welcome to Futurism! I thought it would be nice to start Futurism, my solarpunk-themed gemlog, with a few thoughts about how the ideology of solarpunk has influenced my life and my thinking so far.
Author: Blake Leonard
Date: 2024-05-18
Compared to my WWW blog[1], this gemlog is geared towards solarpunk-related, and maybe Gemini-related, commentary, announcements, and think-pieces. It's entirely possible that the gemlog index page will include links to off-world articles I want to promote as well, although I might not archive these.
I was first introduced to solarpunk by the "Solarpunk Grampy" series on TikTok; the playlist disappeared at some point but the videos are still out there if you want to find them. They depict a gender-neutral grandparent, explaining to Calyx, Boopa, and the viewers how things have changed since they were young, letting minor bits of worldbuilding and ideology slip (like the Houston bayou, or the solar-train downtown, or the global vote to restart the space program, or kids' parents being merely their "biologicals"). The series, and as I find out the ideology as a whole, paint a picture of an improved future where despite the warming climate, humanity manages to overcome the climate crisis, carefully embraces new technology and improved ideology, and adapt to the changing climate (among a host of other things).
Gemini (the protocol)
Solarpunk and Gemini undoubtedly go hand in hand. Gemini's low footprint fits exceedingly well with solarpunk ideals, in particular the (electric/carbon) efficiency, simplicity, and people-centrism of technology. While trust-on-first-use isn't ideal in a lot of systems, it's acceptable in Gemini because while you _could_ transfer large amounts of sensitive information over it, it's a terrible idea and the protocol design actively discourages it.
I wonder if Google knew about the Gemini protocol when they decided to name their generative AI product Gemini. I somehow doubt it, it's (intentionally) a small, niche thing that unfortunately poses no true threat to their Internet hegemony.
The ideal computers of the future
Something I've been trying to do recently is minimize the need/use of a heavy Web browser, and any Webview, on my computer. It's unfortunately a tall ask, especially when GTK itself seems to rely on a complete HTML parser to handle its dialogs or something, and half the apps out there use Electron, which is literally just Chrome but without the chrome, locked to a single website, and with elevated permissions to your system.
Sticking to GNOME apps for consistency (and because it looks nice, in my opinion), there is already a lot I can do without ever opening Firefox, my browser of choice. Wike, a Wikipedia viewer, does seem to have a webview somewhere (it's in the source code) but it looks like it uses a GTK TextView to render wiki pages. There's a translation app called Dialect which seems to be a frontend for Google Translate or your still-cloud-hosted inferior machine translator of choice (Bing, Yandex, LingvaTranslate, and LibreTranslare are your other options).
(Update about Wike: it turns out I was looking at a web view in the inspector after all. God damn it.)
Dialect doesn't seem to be particularly well made, since it has no support for self-hosted translators, runs in the background (that might be a fixed bug), and if it fails to connect to the service you selected, it sits on a full-page Loading screen for a while (it should just block the Translate button).
Tuba for Mastodon is pretty great, although it doesn't support the full feature-set of Mastodon forks and other Mastodon API providers like Akkoma or Iceshrimp (I guess it's fair if that's out of scope, though). Its options are a little lackluster too; this seems to be a recurring issue with GNOME apps.
Flare, an unofficial Signal client, seems pretty finnicky and maybe that's Signal's fault, because they seem to hate everyone: no federation, no alternative clients, only the ones they provide, from where they provide it, and that's it. Signal isn't available on F-Droid despite being (supposedly) free and open source software because the Signal developers, for some unknown or idiotic reason, don't want F-Droid to compile their own copy. While I'd still definitely recommend Signal over Telegram for security reasons, at least Telegram lets you make custom clients.
(NB: You should consider making an XMPP client or full service instead of making a client for any centralized service. Matrix is impractical to self host so I'd avoid that; plus, the company who has an effective monopoly on Matrix, Element, is doing standard corporate things to allow them to enshittify in the near future.)
All this to say, "protocols over platforms" should be the one and only approach to computing in the future. We should be building for things that can outlast any one service. The ActivityPub-based Fediverse is the most shining example of this; you have plenty of flexibility in how you develop servers or what you develop clients for, and in the end they all work with each other (you know, barring the social issue of defederation).
Rechargeable batteries
I think this is probably the least positively impactful thing I've done but the solarpunk, sustainability line of thinking led me to acquire rechargeable batteries. I first got them for my walkie-talkies (Onn brand FRS radios) when my family was in the mountains for the week, so that while we were at home base they could charge and they'd be ready for our next outing. Since then I've got a lot more and put them in a lot more things: my keyboard and mouse, my Quest controllers (for the Quest 2 at first, then later the 3).
For now, I'm charging them from a standard wall-outlet through USB (and occasionally through the Energizer wall charger too, mostly if I'm charging a lot at once). I've looked into solar-charging them but the chargers are either trickle chargers (pretty useless) or super expensive ($100+). I'd also like one that can function like my Tenergy charger, which has 8 slots and doesn't require them in pairs (so I can charge 3 at once, useful for my walkie-talkies). Maybe a good solar-powered USB charger would work well? Most of those I can find don't advertise how fast it charges via sun-power alone, which is what I want to know most from this.
(Side note: I'd really like a decentralized version of Amazon, basically where I can search and shop with pretty much any online vendor, but not have to fuel Amazon's crimes against humanity.)
The Role of Radio
The Internet might not have been the best idea, but it's here now, so we should make the best with what we have. However, you don't need protocols with analog radio, and even digital it's extremely low latency. I don't know how wireless Internet compares to "raw" radio electricity-wise; I'm thinking for things like digital/analog voice or TV. But I know you can't detect who's receiving your airwaves, so there's no tracking involved. Although, one cannot simply ad-block the radio (you'd need either good disclosure or AI/ML). You win some, you lose some.
Even if it's not so practical in today's times, I feel like amateur radio (and some other types of radio service, like GMRS and CB) fit the ethos of solarpunk pretty well.
The power grid
Solar, wind, and water should be the key generators for the power grid of the future. Nuclear, by fission or fusion, will probably be kept around for a while, and it's clean energy, so that's fine, although it should not be a priority, by any means. Obviously oil, gas, and coal power have to go, and that's going to be a big fight. That's not something that only affects the people who do it; that's something that affects everyone, and it affects us a lot. So we are responsible for stopping it; it's not just a moral imperative, but a survival imperative.
Most homes will probably have their own solar power someday, because it's the obvious right thing to do from pretty much every standpoint (even financial, which is important)! There's technology now to put it in windows or on clothes, and that's something we're going to start seeing in, I don't know, maybe twenty years. I think that's just awesome. (Maybe solar panel infused clothes are the real solarpunk aesthetic.)
I feel like the grid will end up being a backup for a lot of things, mostly for charging batteries; in homes, in vehicles (particularly commercial EVs and personal micromobility), and in the grid itself. If the grid withstands a storm, it can provide extra power during the tail end of it. It might also end up being the primary power source for power-heavy appliances like dishwashers, some vacuum cleaners, washers, dryers, and air conditioners; for pretty much all of them but the last, the appliance might only draw from the grid and only when the grid has the capacity for it, particularly regarding the battery and production rates.
We're not going to be able to reverse climate change any time soon and it's not going to slow down that much no matter what we do; so no matter what, a lot more people are going to need air conditioning, and some others are going to need better systems.
Plus, schools should have HEPA air filters, because like hospitals, they're like petri dishes of disease. Those probably take a lot of power, too (I'll be honest, I don't know), so they'll probably get the same treatment as AC c.f. the grid.
Heavy computing (AI and VR)
I wrote about this in a short story on the Fediverse at some point, but I think we should start instituting carbon-heavy computing bans. The idea is that it would prohibit computers from exceeding some concurrent emissions limit. You'd probably get a fine and, if legal, temporary confiscation of the device if caught. "Probable cause" here would include being found using (modern generative) AI, running a cryptocurrency miner, or playing certain games that have been found to cause violating emissions, which would chiefly include high-graphics titles and PC VR. Hell, add in a repeat offenders clause which can land you in jail and get all your devices permanently confiscated, wiped, and sold.
This would be hard in a world without authorities, but unfortunately men exist and do men things so there's always going to be an oppressor. At least we should use that power to improve things like this, if we can.
Ethereum might end up being mostly exempt from this because it uses "proof-of-stake" now instead of the way more carbon-heavy "proof-of-work", but it would ban most cryptocurrency, generative AI, and some heavy gaming in one fell swoop. Actually, now that I think about it, it would probably also ban or slow down graphical rendering, like exports from a video editor or Blender renders.
I don't think it would happen and the way this would be enforced in a solarpunk future would probably look way different, but in the world we have, this would be pretty helpful.
More thoughts
I could probably keep adding on and on to this; next time, I could write about political geography (countries and the names of regions), transportation, smartwatches, e-ink tablets, and/or computers.
I'd like to hear your thoughts about all this, too; maybe I'm forgetting just how radical some of the solarpunk ideology is (I remembered halfway through writing the heavy carbon computing ban section), and I definitely don't know what the solarpunk aesthetic is. Feel free to fill me in, or ask questions, or just say hey that's pretty neat.
Chat with me: me@blakes.dev (XMPP or DeltaChat)
or chat with me here if that one is down for some reason: blake@federation.quest (XMPP)