I agree with a lot of this manifesto. One of the things that I rarely see touched on with this sort of digital minimalism/de googling/disconnect/retro tech space though is that many times, it's...
Exemplary
I agree with a lot of this manifesto. One of the things that I rarely see touched on with this sort of digital minimalism/de googling/disconnect/retro tech space though is that many times, it's just consumerism wearing a mask.
A lot of times this stuff just turns into retro fetishism for retro fetishism's sake. For instance, the recent resurgence in the popularity of early digital cameras. Early digital cameras were generally terrible. Crappy sensors, crappy lenses, unreliable storage, poor battery life. Yes, they're completely offline devices, but so are basically all digital cameras that aren't smart phones. The price of these things has gotten so inflated recently too, since people now like collecting them.
If you're collecting something because it's interesting to you, and aquiring and owning it brings you joy, that's one thing, but it's not a political statement, it's just regular consumerism.
Same goes for people who are buying cassette tapes and players (a pretty objectively terrible format nowadays), or typewriters, or telex terminals. They're cool and interesting, but buying them isn't an act of defiance. It's just normal ass capitalism. You're not fighting the good fight against big tech buy buying more things.
I often think of the quote from disco Elysium when thinking about stuff like this:
Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead
You generally can't fight capitalists by buying things.
I think the actual defiant act is holding onto the stuff you already have for longer, repairing things instead of throwing them away, and refusing to purchase things that have anti fearures built in, even when it makes your life less convenient.
Tangential: Today I tried to buy some things (for a hobby I'm starting) from physical stores. Both places suggested that I order online instead. I asked them if it was possible for them to order...
Tangential:
Today I tried to buy some things (for a hobby I'm starting) from physical stores.
Both places suggested that I order online instead.
I asked them if it was possible for them to order them instead (included in their regular shipments from that manufacturer or central warehouse) and let me pay them for their service. One place said maybe and the other said they could call when their regular stuff had arrived (which included one thing I wanted, but not all).
It's hard to keep actual stores in business!
I want to touch the things I'm buying, I want to able to ask a person that knows stuff about the things I'm buying!
Going to totally honest, zillenial here, I forgot that was ever an option. That seems so ridiculously obvious and now I am sitting here trying to remember if I have ever walked into a store or a...
I want to able to ask a person that knows stuff about the things I'm buying!
Going to totally honest, zillenial here, I forgot that was ever an option. That seems so ridiculously obvious and now I am sitting here trying to remember if I have ever walked into a store or a trader and expected them to know what they are selling beyond what their sales brochures call for. I shop at a lot of hardware and engineering/supply shops and even then I never go in to look for, or even find someone that knows, anything. Just a totally foreign concept that I am now yearning for.
One of the things my dad always laments every time I talk to him is that people who work at hardware stores no longer know what they're talking about. He was always kind of a nerd, and he grew up...
One of the things my dad always laments every time I talk to him is that people who work at hardware stores no longer know what they're talking about.
He was always kind of a nerd, and he grew up in New York City. So when he and my mom bought their first house (a little Tudor built in the early 1900s, with a lot of work needed) he was completely in over his head and had no idea what he was doing, and not much money to do it. He ended up completely remodeling that house, knocking down walls, doing plumbing and electrical work, and all kinds of structural improvements, and he figured it out about 90% just from asking people at home depot a million questions. I remember as a kid going with him and being bored out my mind during an hour long conversation about the right way to reinforce floor joists or whatever.
You can't really do that anymore. Some of the older guys that work at some of the stores may know what they're talking about still, but most of the people that work at the home depot near me are people that are just working a minimum wage job without any actual construction experience. Most of them can't even tell me where to find a specific item in the store they work in, let alone how to actually use that item to repair the thing I'm working on.
Even though I understand why that's the case, and the Internet and YouTube exist with a huge wealth of information nowadays, it still kinda sucks that those types of places don't really exist anymore in the real world.
IME it can still exist in places which aren't obsessed with squeezing every drop of revenue out of the company? Stores like Home Depot are quite far gone down the profit seeking rabbit hole, but...
[...] it still kinda sucks that those types of places don't really exist anymore in the real world.
IME it can still exist in places which aren't obsessed with squeezing every drop of revenue out of the company? Stores like Home Depot are quite far gone down the profit seeking rabbit hole, but I've found that a lot of smaller companies (local lumber yards, hardwood/carpentry supply stores, specialty building material warehouses, etc.) are all surprisingly filled with knowledgeable people. I'm often quite taken aback with how glad they are to offer suggestions or discuss work, since I'm very much used to the opposite -- e.g. the HD employee who is simultaneously trying to stock shelves, cut down my sheet goods, deescalate a customer, and answer the radio. With the three remaining brain cells, they try to help, but these gigantic companies exist to squeeze blood from stones, and I suppose we all look like golems to them.
Furthermore, makerspaces and whatnot often have a few older folks that hang around, but I've frequented those less in recent years.
Woah! This sounds amazing! Would you mind sharing more about this?
m joining a nice-old-guys collective this week where they teach younger men skills in everything from DIY to really advanced tech fixing and trade work
Woah! This sounds amazing! Would you mind sharing more about this?
I touched on the topic of turning hobbies into consumption habits in a reply to another thread the other week, which seems tangentially related. My guess is that having the right things and...
I touched on the topic of turning hobbies into consumption habits in a reply to another thread the other week, which seems tangentially related.
My guess is that having the right things and investing money in them indirectly serves as a social signal of your commitment to and stake in an idea or movement. Like a kind of gatekeeping mechanism that draws a clear line between in and out where there is little else that creates a clear boundary.
Regarding sticking to what you already have, there's nothing inherent about a PC or even a smartphone that forces you to use them as a doom scrolling notification generators. There's a lot of free (as in beer) and open source software in particular that largely lacks the incentive of keeping you connected and hooked in the existential sense that Meta, Google, Microsoft or Apple does.
I think you may be mixing up a few things here with regards to some of the retro trends. I don't know of a single person, myself included, that is taking any part in them as some sort of defiance...
I think you may be mixing up a few things here with regards to some of the retro trends. I don't know of a single person, myself included, that is taking any part in them as some sort of defiance against capitalism. There is certainly an overlap of those crowds and ideas, but the retro items (cassettes, vinyl records, cameras, typewriters) are mostly attracting people because of their novelty and the fact that they are disconnected and private. No one is monitoring and then monetizing how many times you listen to a record or tape. No one is checking the paper you type on for subversive thinking or trying to upsell you on editing features, or trying to sell you additional cloud storage for your images from your crappy digital point and shoot camera. I can see the appeal of all of those things, but they do nothing to hinder capitalism, though I can see maybe some overlap if you strictly stick to thrift or no-buy sources.
I was commenting on the article's mentioning of things like older digital cameras having a resurgence, or the importance of analog media. There's nothing really inherent in analog media that keeps...
I was commenting on the article's mentioning of things like older digital cameras having a resurgence, or the importance of analog media.
There's nothing really inherent in analog media that keeps it more disconnected than digital media. A walkman you buy on eBay playing cassettes you bought somewhere to be disconnected is just as disconnected as flac files you play on an old smartphone without a sim card, and they also sound better.
I agree that the cassette player has a sort of interesting retro appeal, but the appeal doesn't really have anything to do with how disconnected it is, and it certainly isn't a rebellion against big tech. eBay already got their cut, after all.
AM radio, the original "connected" electronic mass communication media was analog too.
My point is that buying retro stuff isn't subversive or revolutionary, and if thats their main appeal for someone, they probably have better ways to achieve that with things they already own.
I definitely agree with that last sentence. I just don't think that is what is driving the retro stuff. On the flac note, DAPs have also had a resurgence and I believe it is because of the...
I definitely agree with that last sentence. I just don't think that is what is driving the retro stuff. On the flac note, DAPs have also had a resurgence and I believe it is because of the disconnected "feature".
I disagree with a lot of this, I agree with some of the criticism but not the end result or suggestion. The digital age is a marvel and it's incredible that we live in it. I think smartphones are...
I disagree with a lot of this, I agree with some of the criticism but not the end result or suggestion. The digital age is a marvel and it's incredible that we live in it. I think smartphones are still largely an amazing technology that makes our lives better not worse. I think social media in it's current implementation, or what honestly is the root of all evil here: advertising, are the main problems we need to address. I don't think living in a world where you are largely locked into socialization and economy strictly by geographic constraints is a solution, and to a certain extent: it's protectionism/isolationist.
There's something especially about this manifesto where it is ...so political it's off-putting. I'm someone who does hold a fondness for the analog, for the past where RadioShack and Fry's and early computers and programming wasn't co-opted by huge organizations that deal in data but frankly, I think it's the wrong way to look at it. The problem, as @papasquat alluded, is consumerism. The entire big data and data collection sphere is built around consumption, it's built around advertisement. It's not about being against digitalization, which has enabled so much more knowledge sharing and connectivity and allowed friendships and relationships across the globe. It's about fighting the exploitation of labor, the rampant consumerism, the wastefulness.
The online era has given me a much better life than I would have otherwise had, it's allowed me to pursue work without sacrificing leaving my friends and family, while enabling me to have friends outside that local sphere, too, that I can visit someone any place I go whether it's NY or LA or NoLa or Tokyo or Busan, people I'd have never interacted with otherwise. My smartphone is a portal to an amazing world and I don't mind having it, I don't struggle to put it down and engage with the real world because they are one in the same to me. Being addicted to the phone or anything else, much like other addictions, requires treatment, but much like abstinence education is misguided and harmful, I'm not convinced that full offline living isn't similarly misguided, even as someone who was alive before the internet became ubiquitous. I don't know, I'm rambling a bit, but I really really dislike this person's thesis, I think it's backwards.
I absolutely agree. In discussions of technology, the devil is in the details. Building healthy relationships with technology can be quite rewarding, and there are lots of tools to do that. The...
I absolutely agree. In discussions of technology, the devil is in the details. Building healthy relationships with technology can be quite rewarding, and there are lots of tools to do that. The Big Tech companies end up facilitating (intentionally or not, dependinding on your perspective) unhealthy relationships with technology, but many communities, developers, and builders find ways to improve those relationships. Tildes wouldn’t exist without tech.
Though, I still appreciate this manifesto. I think it’s useful. One of the benefits of the various “punk” subcultures is that, by rejecting some set of societal norms, they can help everyone else be more critical of pieces of their life that are taken for granted.
I think the friends in many places kind of lifestyle is at least enabled by a broader consumerist system around it, if it isn't directly consumerist in itself, which I reckon it often is....
knowledge sharing and connectivity and allowed friendships and relationships across the globe. It's about fighting the exploitation of labor, the rampant consumerism, the wastefulness.
...
I can visit someone any place I go whether it's NY or LA or NoLa or Tokyo or Busan, people I'd have never interacted with otherwise.
I think the friends in many places kind of lifestyle is at least enabled by a broader consumerist system around it, if it isn't directly consumerist in itself, which I reckon it often is. Consumption in a post material kind of framework is still consumption, even if it's more jet fuel and data centres and less labubu dolls and I wouldn't assume it's any less exploitative of others or the environment just as a matter of faith.
As I stated, I'm not solely against consumerism, just what I see as excess or active harm. Getting people fed, getting people access to technology, yes those too are consumerist, but they are also...
As I stated, I'm not solely against consumerism, just what I see as excess or active harm. Getting people fed, getting people access to technology, yes those too are consumerist, but they are also tools of uplifting humans. I don't agree with degrowth either. But everything in moderation. Maybe this author is purely against consumerism, but that's not my stance, it's the reason I prefaced it with rampant, and what I'm against is waste, I don't mind people having luxuries if it's positive EV, but I'm bothered by proliferation of plastic and e-waste, and the externalized costs of excess, but not the trend of everyone having a smartphone, that's my thoughts on it
Somewhat off topic, but I dont think you can properly make a ____punk with just a manifesto. Purely my own opinion, but I think a "-punk" genre needs to be more than just a political ideal. Its a...
Somewhat off topic, but I dont think you can properly make a ____punk with just a manifesto.
Purely my own opinion, but I think a "-punk" genre needs to be more than just a political ideal. Its a combination of themes and aesthetic and a collection of worldbuilding tropes that all fit together and synergize.
When you hear "cyberpunk" its more than just anti-corporatism, its neon lights in big megacities. When you hear steampunk you think of Victorian clothing with gears and clockwork embedded into everything. When you hear biopunk you think Rapture from Bioshock. When you hear dieselpunk you think mad max and monster trucks roving ober sand dunes.
Cyberpunk came from Neuromancer. Biopunk came from Bioshock. Dieselpunk came from Mad Max. These were all inspired by works of art that had political themes and messages, but they were first and foremost works of art before they became subgenres.
When a "-punk" genre lacks a core vision and identity, it feels hollow and doesnt attract many artists to contribute as much as it does ideologues.
This manifesto is fine for what it is, a political statement. But I really doubt "Offpunk" will ever catch on if thats all it is.
I consider "punk" to be different than "-punk". Cyberpunk is referencing the original Punk, but other "-punk" styles are referencing Cyberpunk, and not necessarily the aspects of it which were...
I consider "punk" to be different than "-punk".
Cyberpunk is referencing the original Punk, but other "-punk" styles are referencing Cyberpunk, and not necessarily the aspects of it which were taken from old school Punk.
Steampunk isnt really doing anything for the world but its definitely one of the main "-punk"s in my mind.
I think there are two senses of "punk" being conflated here, and it's not your fault, they've basically been welded together for decades and it's become problematic for cohesion and planning in...
Its a combination of themes and aesthetic and a collection of worldbuilding tropes that all fit together and synergize.
I think there are two senses of "punk" being conflated here, and it's not your fault, they've basically been welded together for decades and it's become problematic for cohesion and planning in some circles, like solarpunk.
The first is "punk" as an aesthetic genre such as: cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk. The second is "punk" as a stance or an ideological philosophy such as cypherpunk, biopunks, and now offpunk.
The "manifesto" isn't describing punk as an aesthetic, it's attempting to describe a subculture of punk that is offline in response to a now digital-native world. See, you can be an aesthetic cyberpunk, a philosophical cyberpunk, or both. And you can be an offpunk without subscribing to any of the aesthetic values of things like 'cyberpunk'. You can even be a proponent of cyberpunk (both aesthetic and concepts), cypherpunks, solarpunk, and offpunk all at the same time.
One of the problems with the conflation of ideology and style is seen in the solarpunk community where the community is continuanlly fighting within themselves for their ideology because it's 'members' are constantly fighting between overall real-world narratives and the futuristic-cottagecore aesthetics that some people only care about.
Overall though, I would say that that offpunk is a subculture of cypherpunks. Cypherpunks have no inherent style, even if Hackers later glued a costume/stereotype onto the idea of "hackers" in the public zeitgeist. Cypherpunks (something I describe myself as) historically believes in the right to privacy, to encrypt one's data from prying eyes, to 'fight the system' through encryption, obfuscation, and ownership of their machines through "Right to Repair" campaigns. (a 'cypherpunk' organization that I love is hackingisnotacrime.org) . This subculture was really created from, unionized, and extended beyond when they released things like the Cryptonomicon (which was basically a manifesto akin to the above), and even the original designs for things like Tor.
tl;dr: There is a difference between aesthetic 'punk' and ideological 'punk'. Offpunk exists as the later, not the former.
But hey, Offpunk could end up with its own aesthetic too, just needs some time, similar to Cypherpunks in a way.
Thats a good point. Its been a long time since Ive heard of cypherpunks so I forgot about them, but thats a good comparison. The Solarpunk comparison is particularly apt though, and sort of where...
Thats a good point. Its been a long time since Ive heard of cypherpunks so I forgot about them, but thats a good comparison.
The Solarpunk comparison is particularly apt though, and sort of where my opinion is coming from. I think Solarpunk is a stagnant idea thats failed to launch past the nascent stage, and in my opinion it is a consequence of it not having a good seed to branch off from. If the community had adopted something work of fiction like Treasure Planet or something as a foundational piece I think the subculture would have more momentum and vitality than it currently is.
I agree with a lot of this manifesto. One of the things that I rarely see touched on with this sort of digital minimalism/de googling/disconnect/retro tech space though is that many times, it's just consumerism wearing a mask.
A lot of times this stuff just turns into retro fetishism for retro fetishism's sake. For instance, the recent resurgence in the popularity of early digital cameras. Early digital cameras were generally terrible. Crappy sensors, crappy lenses, unreliable storage, poor battery life. Yes, they're completely offline devices, but so are basically all digital cameras that aren't smart phones. The price of these things has gotten so inflated recently too, since people now like collecting them.
If you're collecting something because it's interesting to you, and aquiring and owning it brings you joy, that's one thing, but it's not a political statement, it's just regular consumerism.
Same goes for people who are buying cassette tapes and players (a pretty objectively terrible format nowadays), or typewriters, or telex terminals. They're cool and interesting, but buying them isn't an act of defiance. It's just normal ass capitalism. You're not fighting the good fight against big tech buy buying more things.
I often think of the quote from disco Elysium when thinking about stuff like this:
You generally can't fight capitalists by buying things.
I think the actual defiant act is holding onto the stuff you already have for longer, repairing things instead of throwing them away, and refusing to purchase things that have anti fearures built in, even when it makes your life less convenient.
Tangential:
Today I tried to buy some things (for a hobby I'm starting) from physical stores.
Both places suggested that I order online instead.
I asked them if it was possible for them to order them instead (included in their regular shipments from that manufacturer or central warehouse) and let me pay them for their service. One place said maybe and the other said they could call when their regular stuff had arrived (which included one thing I wanted, but not all).
It's hard to keep actual stores in business!
I want to touch the things I'm buying, I want to able to ask a person that knows stuff about the things I'm buying!
Going to totally honest, zillenial here, I forgot that was ever an option. That seems so ridiculously obvious and now I am sitting here trying to remember if I have ever walked into a store or a trader and expected them to know what they are selling beyond what their sales brochures call for. I shop at a lot of hardware and engineering/supply shops and even then I never go in to look for, or even find someone that knows, anything. Just a totally foreign concept that I am now yearning for.
I'm sorry.
If it is any consolation: some of the knowledge wasn't true anyway ;)
One of the things my dad always laments every time I talk to him is that people who work at hardware stores no longer know what they're talking about.
He was always kind of a nerd, and he grew up in New York City. So when he and my mom bought their first house (a little Tudor built in the early 1900s, with a lot of work needed) he was completely in over his head and had no idea what he was doing, and not much money to do it. He ended up completely remodeling that house, knocking down walls, doing plumbing and electrical work, and all kinds of structural improvements, and he figured it out about 90% just from asking people at home depot a million questions. I remember as a kid going with him and being bored out my mind during an hour long conversation about the right way to reinforce floor joists or whatever.
You can't really do that anymore. Some of the older guys that work at some of the stores may know what they're talking about still, but most of the people that work at the home depot near me are people that are just working a minimum wage job without any actual construction experience. Most of them can't even tell me where to find a specific item in the store they work in, let alone how to actually use that item to repair the thing I'm working on.
Even though I understand why that's the case, and the Internet and YouTube exist with a huge wealth of information nowadays, it still kinda sucks that those types of places don't really exist anymore in the real world.
IME it can still exist in places which aren't obsessed with squeezing every drop of revenue out of the company? Stores like Home Depot are quite far gone down the profit seeking rabbit hole, but I've found that a lot of smaller companies (local lumber yards, hardwood/carpentry supply stores, specialty building material warehouses, etc.) are all surprisingly filled with knowledgeable people. I'm often quite taken aback with how glad they are to offer suggestions or discuss work, since I'm very much used to the opposite -- e.g. the HD employee who is simultaneously trying to stock shelves, cut down my sheet goods, deescalate a customer, and answer the radio. With the three remaining brain cells, they try to help, but these gigantic companies exist to squeeze blood from stones, and I suppose we all look like golems to them.
Furthermore, makerspaces and whatnot often have a few older folks that hang around, but I've frequented those less in recent years.
Woah! This sounds amazing! Would you mind sharing more about this?
I touched on the topic of turning hobbies into consumption habits in a reply to another thread the other week, which seems tangentially related.
My guess is that having the right things and investing money in them indirectly serves as a social signal of your commitment to and stake in an idea or movement. Like a kind of gatekeeping mechanism that draws a clear line between in and out where there is little else that creates a clear boundary.
Regarding sticking to what you already have, there's nothing inherent about a PC or even a smartphone that forces you to use them as a doom scrolling notification generators. There's a lot of free (as in beer) and open source software in particular that largely lacks the incentive of keeping you connected and hooked in the existential sense that Meta, Google, Microsoft or Apple does.
I think you may be mixing up a few things here with regards to some of the retro trends. I don't know of a single person, myself included, that is taking any part in them as some sort of defiance against capitalism. There is certainly an overlap of those crowds and ideas, but the retro items (cassettes, vinyl records, cameras, typewriters) are mostly attracting people because of their novelty and the fact that they are disconnected and private. No one is monitoring and then monetizing how many times you listen to a record or tape. No one is checking the paper you type on for subversive thinking or trying to upsell you on editing features, or trying to sell you additional cloud storage for your images from your crappy digital point and shoot camera. I can see the appeal of all of those things, but they do nothing to hinder capitalism, though I can see maybe some overlap if you strictly stick to thrift or no-buy sources.
I was commenting on the article's mentioning of things like older digital cameras having a resurgence, or the importance of analog media.
There's nothing really inherent in analog media that keeps it more disconnected than digital media. A walkman you buy on eBay playing cassettes you bought somewhere to be disconnected is just as disconnected as flac files you play on an old smartphone without a sim card, and they also sound better.
I agree that the cassette player has a sort of interesting retro appeal, but the appeal doesn't really have anything to do with how disconnected it is, and it certainly isn't a rebellion against big tech. eBay already got their cut, after all.
AM radio, the original "connected" electronic mass communication media was analog too.
My point is that buying retro stuff isn't subversive or revolutionary, and if thats their main appeal for someone, they probably have better ways to achieve that with things they already own.
I definitely agree with that last sentence. I just don't think that is what is driving the retro stuff. On the flac note, DAPs have also had a resurgence and I believe it is because of the disconnected "feature".
I disagree with a lot of this, I agree with some of the criticism but not the end result or suggestion. The digital age is a marvel and it's incredible that we live in it. I think smartphones are still largely an amazing technology that makes our lives better not worse. I think social media in it's current implementation, or what honestly is the root of all evil here: advertising, are the main problems we need to address. I don't think living in a world where you are largely locked into socialization and economy strictly by geographic constraints is a solution, and to a certain extent: it's protectionism/isolationist.
There's something especially about this manifesto where it is ...so political it's off-putting. I'm someone who does hold a fondness for the analog, for the past where RadioShack and Fry's and early computers and programming wasn't co-opted by huge organizations that deal in data but frankly, I think it's the wrong way to look at it. The problem, as @papasquat alluded, is consumerism. The entire big data and data collection sphere is built around consumption, it's built around advertisement. It's not about being against digitalization, which has enabled so much more knowledge sharing and connectivity and allowed friendships and relationships across the globe. It's about fighting the exploitation of labor, the rampant consumerism, the wastefulness.
The online era has given me a much better life than I would have otherwise had, it's allowed me to pursue work without sacrificing leaving my friends and family, while enabling me to have friends outside that local sphere, too, that I can visit someone any place I go whether it's NY or LA or NoLa or Tokyo or Busan, people I'd have never interacted with otherwise. My smartphone is a portal to an amazing world and I don't mind having it, I don't struggle to put it down and engage with the real world because they are one in the same to me. Being addicted to the phone or anything else, much like other addictions, requires treatment, but much like abstinence education is misguided and harmful, I'm not convinced that full offline living isn't similarly misguided, even as someone who was alive before the internet became ubiquitous. I don't know, I'm rambling a bit, but I really really dislike this person's thesis, I think it's backwards.
I absolutely agree. In discussions of technology, the devil is in the details. Building healthy relationships with technology can be quite rewarding, and there are lots of tools to do that. The Big Tech companies end up facilitating (intentionally or not, dependinding on your perspective) unhealthy relationships with technology, but many communities, developers, and builders find ways to improve those relationships. Tildes wouldn’t exist without tech.
Though, I still appreciate this manifesto. I think it’s useful. One of the benefits of the various “punk” subcultures is that, by rejecting some set of societal norms, they can help everyone else be more critical of pieces of their life that are taken for granted.
I think the friends in many places kind of lifestyle is at least enabled by a broader consumerist system around it, if it isn't directly consumerist in itself, which I reckon it often is. Consumption in a post material kind of framework is still consumption, even if it's more jet fuel and data centres and less labubu dolls and I wouldn't assume it's any less exploitative of others or the environment just as a matter of faith.
As I stated, I'm not solely against consumerism, just what I see as excess or active harm. Getting people fed, getting people access to technology, yes those too are consumerist, but they are also tools of uplifting humans. I don't agree with degrowth either. But everything in moderation. Maybe this author is purely against consumerism, but that's not my stance, it's the reason I prefaced it with rampant, and what I'm against is waste, I don't mind people having luxuries if it's positive EV, but I'm bothered by proliferation of plastic and e-waste, and the externalized costs of excess, but not the trend of everyone having a smartphone, that's my thoughts on it
Somewhat off topic, but I dont think you can properly make a ____punk with just a manifesto.
Purely my own opinion, but I think a "-punk" genre needs to be more than just a political ideal. Its a combination of themes and aesthetic and a collection of worldbuilding tropes that all fit together and synergize.
When you hear "cyberpunk" its more than just anti-corporatism, its neon lights in big megacities. When you hear steampunk you think of Victorian clothing with gears and clockwork embedded into everything. When you hear biopunk you think Rapture from Bioshock. When you hear dieselpunk you think mad max and monster trucks roving ober sand dunes.
Cyberpunk came from Neuromancer. Biopunk came from Bioshock. Dieselpunk came from Mad Max. These were all inspired by works of art that had political themes and messages, but they were first and foremost works of art before they became subgenres.
When a "-punk" genre lacks a core vision and identity, it feels hollow and doesnt attract many artists to contribute as much as it does ideologues.
This manifesto is fine for what it is, a political statement. But I really doubt "Offpunk" will ever catch on if thats all it is.
IMO any "punk" needs action, actually doing things that affect the world. DIY is more core to punk than any aesthetic.
I consider "punk" to be different than "-punk".
Cyberpunk is referencing the original Punk, but other "-punk" styles are referencing Cyberpunk, and not necessarily the aspects of it which were taken from old school Punk.
Steampunk isnt really doing anything for the world but its definitely one of the main "-punk"s in my mind.
I think there are two senses of "punk" being conflated here, and it's not your fault, they've basically been welded together for decades and it's become problematic for cohesion and planning in some circles, like solarpunk.
The first is "punk" as an aesthetic genre such as: cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk. The second is "punk" as a stance or an ideological philosophy such as cypherpunk, biopunks, and now offpunk.
The "manifesto" isn't describing punk as an aesthetic, it's attempting to describe a subculture of punk that is offline in response to a now digital-native world. See, you can be an aesthetic cyberpunk, a philosophical cyberpunk, or both. And you can be an offpunk without subscribing to any of the aesthetic values of things like 'cyberpunk'. You can even be a proponent of cyberpunk (both aesthetic and concepts), cypherpunks, solarpunk, and offpunk all at the same time.
One of the problems with the conflation of ideology and style is seen in the solarpunk community where the community is continuanlly fighting within themselves for their ideology because it's 'members' are constantly fighting between overall real-world narratives and the futuristic-cottagecore aesthetics that some people only care about.
Overall though, I would say that that offpunk is a subculture of cypherpunks. Cypherpunks have no inherent style, even if Hackers later glued a costume/stereotype onto the idea of "hackers" in the public zeitgeist. Cypherpunks (something I describe myself as) historically believes in the right to privacy, to encrypt one's data from prying eyes, to 'fight the system' through encryption, obfuscation, and ownership of their machines through "Right to Repair" campaigns. (a 'cypherpunk' organization that I love is hackingisnotacrime.org) . This subculture was really created from, unionized, and extended beyond when they released things like the Cryptonomicon (which was basically a manifesto akin to the above), and even the original designs for things like Tor.
tl;dr: There is a difference between aesthetic 'punk' and ideological 'punk'. Offpunk exists as the later, not the former.
But hey, Offpunk could end up with its own aesthetic too, just needs some time, similar to Cypherpunks in a way.
Thats a good point. Its been a long time since Ive heard of cypherpunks so I forgot about them, but thats a good comparison.
The Solarpunk comparison is particularly apt though, and sort of where my opinion is coming from. I think Solarpunk is a stagnant idea thats failed to launch past the nascent stage, and in my opinion it is a consequence of it not having a good seed to branch off from. If the community had adopted something work of fiction like Treasure Planet or something as a foundational piece I think the subculture would have more momentum and vitality than it currently is.
But thats all idle speculation, of course.