#cyberpunk religion

[morerichka8]

[alpaca-clouds]

Utopia is always a Compromise

Someone asked me something in a private message, getting rather annoyed with my insistence that pretty much any and all conflict can happen in a Solarpunk world: "Well, what is an utopia to you?" And technically the answer is fairly simple: "An utopia is not perfect, but as good as things are going to be." And that is a claim I am going to stand by.

I spent yesterday pretty much the entire day writing a Solarpunk short story for an anthology. And that short story very much is about all that. About compromises. Because I somehow feel, that a lot of folks in the solarpunk sphere do not grasp two things about utopias:

Utopias are going to differ a lot depending on who you ask.

Because of this, any utopia is inherently political.

One person's utopia is going to be someone else's dystopia. Or to put it differently: Nazis imagine utopias too. In their utopias whole cultures have been eliminated, while a few rich white people rule over everyone else. To them this is what they imagine "the best possible world" to be.

Of course, Solarpunk inherently is a very left leaning genre and ideology. My Solarpunk utopia is anarcho-communist of course. In my Solarpunk utopia, there are no more nation states, and there are no more borders. Everyone who wants it is given room to live, and the other necessities to life: access to clean water, food, electricity, health care and education. The education system is a lot more self-directed by the students. And the electricity obviously is created by renewable ressources. Food is grown more locally. Indigenous people get their land back. All those things apply.

And yet, even my Solarpunk utopia has to deal with compromises. Because some things are always going to be a compromise.

Everyone who has been following me, knows that I am a prison and police abolitionist. And this means compromise. While I am 100% certain, that most crime can be prevented by giving people access to the ressources listed above, and allowing everyone a healthy life, some crime will still happen. People still will find reasons to argue. And in some cases arguments might result in violence, and in some extreme cases in death through violence. And some people will be more prone to that violence, for a variety of reasons. And I still think, they should not be "locked away", with maybe some extreme cases as exceptions. But all of that is always a compromise not everyone is going to agree with.

The story I wrote yesterday tackled two other topics in this regard, I have very complicated feelings about myself. Religion and mental health.

Most folks active in the solarpunk sphere are either agnostic or atheistic, or part of some more spiritual nature-related religions. And either group generally tends to have a big disdain for organized religion like Christianity or Islam. Which I - someone who has been abused for pretty much his entire youth through the means of Christianity - absolutely can understand. And yet, I do not think it would be right to overly regulate religion in a Solarpunk world. Even though a lot of those religions are very anti-anarchist in many regards, I also do not think it is the anarchist way to forbid someone else from believing in whatever feels right for them to believe. But that will undoubtedly bring further issues. Because where are you going to draw the line? No matter where you draw it, it is going to be a compromise. And some conflict will arise from it.

What if you have a religion that thinks queerness is bad? Or that thinks women belong in the kitchen? When is it okay to regulate a religion? Because you will not have political success going on and wanting to forbid the world largest religions. Trying to do that would be quite dystopian to me. You also cannot force them to completely change their doctrine, and even if you tried, they would probably still preach some of it behind closed doors. So what are you going to do? Which is the compromise you would take?

In the story I wrote, the main character was a queer guy who has grown up religious and struggled a lot with mental health issues because of it. Because he was queer and his family had been hateful towards that queerness because of their religion. Simply for the reason that controlling someone's personal believes was not right - but the family controlling that queer kid was not right either.

And mind you: We know that contrary to what atheists say, religion is not fully something people choose for themselves. There is some genetic component to religiosity. And if someone has grown up religious, you cannot just force that person to change their religion. That is absolutely akin to forcing a gay person to be straight. It is a violation of the person's rights and freedom, and will be very detrimental to their mental health.

But the mental health issue is another one that is a big topic for compromise in the anarchist way - and even in our modern democratic way.

Most progressive nations do not allow a person to be forcefully put into a psych ward, unless that person tried to commit suicide, or was outright physically violent towards another person. This is also the same bar that usually has to be cleared before someone has to be forced into therapy, and you basically cannot force anyone to take medication. But this is a compromise as well, that does harm as much as it does good.

Because even those mentally unwell people who might not be physically violent, still can very much be abusive towards others. Be it family members, partners, colleagues, roommates, friends, or themselves. And there can absolutely be an argument made that it would be better for everyone to set the bar lower before you can force someone into therapy, as they would probably even benefit themselves. Yet, we do not do that. Because technically it is everyone's personal freedom to decide, whether they want medical care or not - and because we have made the mistake in the past, of course, when a lot of people were forced into and kept under miserable conditions in psychological phacitilies. And we do not want any repeat of it.

But to come back to the story: The main character is abusive mostly towards himself - but this is obviously still harmful towards his partner and child. Nobody can force him to accept any help, after having made a bad experience in therapy before. But the status quo clearly also is not helping anyone.

And you will find those issues in a thousand of different ways. If you are anarchist, you are going to be against a lot of regulations, because those will always give some people power over other people, but where will you draw the line to regulate? Where will you allow some people to make decisions over other people?

Because in some regards this will always have to happen. And no matter how much you can argue: Every line is pretty much arbitrary. Which is why you will find some people argue for pretty every possible line you could draw in the sand. I can bring a thousand arguments for prison abolition - but the people who are for keeping prisons around, can bring a thousand arguments themselves. Sure, I think a lot of those arguments are bullshit. But they think the same about my arguments. And the big issue with those social topics is, that the science is not as firm as we wanted it to be. I will argue that there is some science clearly giving indications for prison abolition - but the prison abolition crowd such as myself does also assume a general scenario, that never has been tested in the modern world. We do not know if it would work. And I myself will openly say, that I have no fucking clue how to deal with issues like misogyny, where we have some data that suggests that once it has taken a certain hold even the best rehabilitation system will not erase it from someone's mind in about 30% of all cases. Sure, we might be able to get rid of it over the course of generations - but as an anarchist I also have to ask: "What do we do until then?" Because those misogynist men will kill and assault women.

I know it is easy to imagine that if only things were better, all human strive would end. But it simply is not the case. Partly, because some people will still struggle with one thing or another and develop bad ways of dealing with that struggle. And partly, because certain ideologies that lie at the root of so many issues cannot just be erased from the world from one day to the other. You cannot uninstall hate from someone's mind. You might through education get some people to be better - but not everyone. And this... Well, this will always create some issues.

[whereserpentswalk]

Somewhere out on the very edge of human space there's a human planet whose religion completely rejects the material world. They believe the god that created the humans soul and the god that created the mortal body are in constant struggle. They see all matters of the flesh, from sex, to gluttony, to even the joy of sleep to be sinful and try to keep it to a minimal. They've cut contact with almost every other human world due to this holy war.

Over time their culture saw artifical beauty as more and more important. Their people wore complex clothing, and unnatural makeup, and jewelry, to try to separate themselves from the mortal form. Their architectural types became geometric and unnatural, and their art attempted to depict the perfection of mathematic and scientific truth more then it did the beauty of nature and humanity. Though still, they were limited then by technology.

Though as technology advanced they became more and more obsessed with cybernetics. They began to see the best way to transcend the flesh to be to destroy it. They began to make themselves less and less human physically. Rituals began where they'd mutilate their bodies publicly, and then heal themselves through cybernetics. The sense themselves were upgraded, going from the flawed and subjective biological senses, to perfectly accurate mechanical ones, eyes that saw all colors, and ears that heard all sound, and cold hard bodies that would never feel comfort.

Within a few generations they were entirely mechanical. Their bodies were completely doll like and mechanical, hard shells with visible joints hiding blood and bone underneath, and then not even blood and bone was in their bodies. Unable to sexually reproduce they made more of themselves in factories, creatures that would never know flesh.

When human ships come to that world nowadays they don't even register it as a human planet, just a strange machine world inhabited by doll like robots. Few humans come anyway, their religion has long since rejected the idea that anyone who was ever biological can join, and they're starting to convert other robot worlds. Soon most of their population won't even remember the fleshy times, the times before they made themselves "perfect".

[caveroach]

The beauty of the depths.

[gloryride]

Santo Enzolino patron saint of drivers

10 August is Saint Enzo's day. Enzo is a diminutive of several possible names, I chose Lorenzo, and his feast day is today (Saint Lawrence of Rome). And if St Christopher is the patron saint of drivers, I took a few liberties for my baby driver ... and i regret nothing ♥

And of course, i chose white McLaren (a)

[felixs-voice-makes-me-wanna]

yunho x cyberpunk = 😮‍💨💀🫠 ˡᵉᵗ ᵐᵉ ᵖʳᵃⁱˢᵉ ʸᵒᵘ ˡⁱᵏᵉ ⁱ ˢʰᵒᵘˡᵈ

[cyberpunk-r-j]

We needed the equivalent of crossing oneself for our AI. This is it.

[tau1tvec]

Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit. That I always may be holy. Amen.

[heintzmagic]

[parasiticbrainchip]

Limbs obtained from enemy droids.

[mark-mpls]

Ahura Mazda emerged from eternity and created the cosmos from a tiny, extremely dense pearl.

The ancient Zoroastrian creation myth is possible the most coherent one in relation to modern understanding of the universe’s beginnings.

Ahura Mazda was the first monotheistic cosmic god. Now most people have forgotten him. That’s about to change…

What an entrance!

I think the red wings look more authoritative.

The persecuted Yazidis of Kurdistan welcome him to their villages for protection from ISIS, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and the Taliban.

But don’t forget, even cosmic deities need a day off and a little R&R…

Hit that cosmic beat boy!

I helped him with the new branding, too.

An AI didn’t create these images, I did. Using NightCafe Studio, SDXL and DALLE-E3.

[lunavarley]

cyberpunk 2077 really is something special. i got to make my character jewish like me and say the amidah, which really made me feel good, just before i horrifically crucified someone in first-person

[rootsinthefuture]

"In the temple of technological religion, humanity kneels before the gods of algorithms, offering the data of its being as a digital sacrifice."

Rootsinthefuture

[zonkedz]

Disciples of chrome, bone, plastic, and broken skin.

[longroadstonowhere]

so my dnd group has taken a long break, due to the dm's wife (and a player's wife) having babies, and also because i'm doing ren faire stuff so i've just got zero free time

but! ren faire is ending soon and we're preparing to jump back into things (in like a few months' time to give the dm prep time), and like... i am starting to hype myself up, i have missed playing so much

[moodr1ng]

its me and my 15+ sideblogs against the world..