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.
Excuse me, but they were describing a problem they perceived with cryptocurrency not with the current financial system. And all I’m saying is I’m extremely tired of criticisms of cryptocurrency without a very least acknowledging the problems with the global financial system that drew people to it in the first place, and making it very clear that they are indeed problems that we need to address, and that it’s gonna take a lot more than just complaining.
Well I think that’s a very limiting way to have a conversation. You are now placing an expectation on everyone to spend time to make their posts about topic A longer so it can include topic B. That makes it less likely people will engage because post length is a big factor in attention.
Secondly, many of the people excited by crypto, and nearly everybody engaging in solarpunk discourse, recognize the problems with the current system. So OP addressing people who have been led into thinking crypto will solve XYZ is a good thing. Those people know we need change, they just got excited about the wrong change, OP trying to steer them in the right direction is a good thing.
it’s a shame that you can’t share how something makes you feel alienated without people inferring that it must mean you disagree with the essence of what the person is saying. It’s even more of a shame because all of us sharing this feeling of alienation should only service making the messaging better in the future.
I don’t believe that you were speaking as clearly as you thought you were. Happens to everyone. When I get caught up being misunderstood, I try to look at what I’ve said and see if there was a better way to have said it.