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@alxd that was a cathartic read, I never knew what to do with the cognitive dissonance from the contrast between the book and the rave reviews but you nailed it! I nearly chucked it across the room when I got to the bits about the world religion, like oh, the UN is gonna fix that up real quick too?? Is it on the blockchain?!

@kattrali I still have this cognitive dissonance when discussing the book with people. Even when confronted with specific quotes (Frank not sharing his water and causing people to die) people argue that "this wasn't in the book".

Several times I heard "we need a book that gives us hope and you're taking it away!". That's specifically why I wanted to sketch a book which could give hope without neoliberal colonialism :P

@alxd The book as a whole reminded me of the opening of Notes towards a Manifesto, except inverting the intent to imply that "WorldChanging and TED talks, to artfully-designed green consumerism and sustainable development NGOs" were actually the basis of a inspirational, functioning future. I want so much more for everyone's imaginations.

@kattrali try other #solarpunk books! LX Beckett's Gamechanger, Cory Doctorow's Walkaway and The Lost Cause, Ruthanna Emrys' Half Built Garden.

They are all imperfect, sketches, proposals, but much more bold and brave than KSR's safety of a Zurich cafe.

I wrote more about them at https://lenses.alxd.org/

@kattrali Im also working on a series of notes towards Solarpunk game design, because a lot of games are modelling the climate similarly to KSR, while others, like Terra Nil, are really technosolutionist and don't portray humans in the better tomorrow.

@alxd oh that's rad! it was kind of a bummer at the end of each terra nil segment to be like, "and then nobody ever lives there or sees this landscape again"!