Listening to a recent episode of the Solarpunk Presents podcast reminded me the importance of consistently calling out cryptocurrency as a wasteful scam. The podcast hosts fail to do that, and because bad actors will continue to try to push crypto, we must condemn it with equal persistence.
Solarpunks must be skeptical of anyone saying it’s important to buy something, like a Tesla, or buy in, with cryptocurrency. Capitalists want nothing more than to co-opt radical movements, neutralizing them, to sell products.
People shilling crypto will tell you it decentralizes power. So that’s a lie, but solarpunks who believe it may be fooled into investing in this Ponzi scheme that burns more energy than some countries. Crypto will centralize power in billionaires, increasing their wealth and decreasing their accountability. That’s why Space Karen Elon Musk pushes crypto. The freer the market, the faster it devolves to monopoly. Rather than decentralizing anything, crypto would steer us toward a Bladerunner dystopia with its all-powerful Tyrell corporation.
Promoting crypto on a solarpunk podcast would be unforgivable. That’s not quite what happens on S5E1 “Let’s Talk Tech.” The hosts seem to understand crypto has no part in a solarpunk future or its prefigurative present. But they don’t come out and say that, adopting a tone of impartiality. At best, I would call this disingenuous. And it reeks of the both-sides-ism that corporate media used to paralyze climate action discourse for decades.
Crypto is not “appropriate tech,” and discussing it without any clarity is inappropriate.
Update for episode 5.3: In a case of hyper hypocrisy, they caution against accepting superficial solutions---things that appear utopian but really reinforce inequality and accelerate the climate crisis---while doing exactly that by talking up cryptocurrency.
Who are you to define solarpunk? It's fine to disallow talk of crypto in the sub but I don't know that any individual or group has the right to define solarpunk at this point.
Many coins are indeed scams, and many NFTs are scams. This does not mean the underlying technology is a scam. Many scams use the dollar. Somehow we have to get from here to there, from an exploitative unsustainable capitalist world to a solarpunk world. This will almost certainly mean many years in a state of transition where money of some sort will still be needed. Crypto currencies could be a tool on the path, I don't know but I'm not ready to throw out a whole technology because of some scams. In fact, it's usefulness for scams might actually be a sign of it's utility, just like cash.
Fiat currencies also take massive amounts of power, and they are exclusively controlled by the bad guys. Banks have racks of servers and/or use cloud services, financial exchanges also run racks of servers and build microwave towers for fast communication.
I know this one will sound incredulous to most, but have you considered that those with billions invested in the current system spend money to influence communities like ours and social media to make something that could be their kryptonite have a bad reputation? Isn't odd how the anti-crypto crowd is so uneducated on the topic and yet so rabidly against it? Why would people interested in changing the balance of power not have interest in a tool that has potential there?
Maybe crypto is not strictly solarpunk but that doesn't mean that it cannot be a useful tool in the transition away from capitalist control to solarpunk.
Those against crypto, how do you propose we get to a solarpunk world from here? What is the path? What are the tools?
Hold up, there's a huge leap of logic in this question. Are you saying there is a path if only we embraced cryptocurrency? If not, then why even phrase the question that way?
My answer, then, would be "Mu".
(sorry, not sorry)
No, I'm saying if we actually plan on making progress, maybe use available tools and don't let purist thought, groupthink, and propaganda take our tools from us.
OK, so we probably want to avoid crypto if we don't want groupthink.
Why would avoiding a technology help you avoid groupthink?
You're conflating communities full of idiots that crypto tends to attract for a technology. These are not the same.
Solar panels are technology that attracts lots of idiots and scammers (scammy companies abound if you're not familiar), should we avoid solar panels? No, because solar technology doesn't have anything to do directly with scammers right?
Because cryptocurrency is as much a culture as a technology. Solar panels are not.
So if a culture grew up around solar panels that you don't like, we should avoid them and suffer the negative environmental consequences of throwing out one of our best tools to fight climate change?
Smart
Since crypto isn't our best tool for anything, the analogy falls apart.
Keep in mind that the leftist answer to currency is quite possibly none at all.
So only the best tools are allowed to be used then? How is the best tool determined? By whom?
Yes, I am one of those leftists who desires a world without money and believes it's possible (it was for hundreds of thousands of years in fact).
Pretty much, but it still has a general meaning. Just like the word "punk" itself. If Blink 182 said "This is punk", Minor Threat and The Romones might have something to say.
This is mostly true now but doesn't have to be. I'd say a large part of why it's stuck is because of people's negative attitudes towards it. Faith in a currency is critical.
And you know this how? How are you measuring the electricity the modern dollar requires? What about crypto-currencies that don't use proof-of-work and instead use a consensus algorithm like Raft?
No worries, it's expected that heavily propagandized people view the claim they are propagandized as kooky.
you seem like a prime example of this phenomena.
likewise! :)
Obviously, terms like solar punk are subjective, it's a bit dramatic to claim "x is not solarpunk" but it's equally so to declare "you have no right to define solarpunk". Just imagine they said "x doesn't align with my values".
I'll concede that crypto doesn't have to be all speculative. IDK how to get to somewhere useful from here though and I'm not sure it's possible really.
Consensus and PoS or PoA or whatever are not the norm. Bitcoin needs to be mined which consumes energy, fiat does not. There's no question that crypto is wasteful. Again, maybe it's possible to fix this with some future iteration but that doesn't seem likely.
We are all of is "propagandised", but that doesn't make my assertions any less valid.
But they didn't, they said "X isn't solarpunk".
Ethereum is arguably coin #2 -- https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/consensus-mechanisms/pow/
So you propose we move from one fiat I can hold in my hand to a different fiat that I can no longer hold in my hand. You propose we move from having bad guys we know controlling the system to change to bad guys we don't know controlling the system (see mystery whales).
There is no viable use case for crypto that has not already been solved by other, less power hungry, means.
And if you think the big banks, venture capitalists, and private equity don't have disproportionate influence on crypto, something is very wrong.
"Solarpunk is an art movement that depicts nature and technology in harmony, and is also a subgenre of speculative fiction, fashion, and activism. The term was coined in 2008, and aims to tackle climate change, galvanize the community, and deploy existing technologies for the greater good of people and the planet. Solarpunk aesthetics include: Renewable energy Technology that disappears into the environment Lush green communities with roof top gardens Floating villages Clean energy transport Hope-filled sci-fi tales"
I'm not saying crypto talk should be explicitly banned here, but should at least be limited to the context in which it is applicable to the topic.
So you propose we move from one fiat I can hold in my hand to a different fiat that I can no longer hold in my hand.
You don't know what fiat means. Learn about money, and the technology behind before having such a strong opinion.
That sounds appropriate. Cryptocurrencies, when considered without the layers of misunderstanding and propaganda could be a useful tool in a transition to a more sustainable future similar to other imperfect but still at least temporarily useful technologies we might not ultimately want in a solarpunk future such as electric cars or tall buildings with trees all over them.
There could be implementations of crypto that don't consume a small country's worth of electricity and water just to work. Even the credit card industry uses a ton of energy and also continually funnels money to a small group of people who use it to prevent the sort of change we want to see.
Decentralizing the means of exchange and store of value is, I think, a very solarpunk thing. Crypto as it's been implemented isn't solarpunk at all. But the idea of alternative currencies and means of exchange that are more in line with the greater good of the people is solarpunk.
I, for one, like the idea of Ricky's hash coins.
I, for one, like the idea of Ricky’s hash coins.
Sure. It's not "Technically" a fiat currency. A government doesn't back it's value. But that just means it's literally fucking worse. It's so detached from the idea of representing anything that it is only worth something because someone believes it is. At least a gold standard is backed by something that has value. But I'm not fighting for a change to that either.
I just don't see the point of replacing one meaningless strip of paper with a meaningless strip of 1s and 0s in the context of solarpunk futures. At the current point in our timeline, cryptocurrency has NO valid use case for which there is not already a better system out there, even if that better system isn't the one we are currently using.
Also, fuck off. I'm entitled to my opinion, and I don't particularly believe anyone when they say that crypto is a force for good or useful. It's only been a way to rip people off.
Uh... ya.... money
We don't have a gold standard (in the U.S. or most western countries).
me too ya?
Did I fucking say you did? A gold standard. General case you myopic fuck.
What the fuck are you talking about? A backed currency has value from the item it is backed by, a fiat currency has value from the government it is backed by. Crypto has value from...??? Burning GPU time? Proof of stake is better, but there's no guarantee that it won't just all lose value tomorrow. But, I hear you protest, so could all money? Yes, but you know, people generally have a vested interest in keeping their government running for a multitude of reasons and to that point, other countries have a vested interest in keeping other countries afloat. Crypto? Not so much.
Look. There's nothing wrong per se with the technology itself. I just do not see it realistically being a necessary component for a solar punk future. Which was the point of the entire post.
And I was asking who are you to make this decision for solarpunk, which was a major point of my response.
But I see you're upset so no more responses.