Google forms, eventbrite, shop full of “”collectibles”(aka garbage), prices for tickets to pay every part of the event instead of crowdsourcing everything except for the server, not so little price for the tickets, domain squatting for “solarpunk”, presence only on mainstream social medial (Twitter included!!!), very little praxis… At least they do publish some talks on YouTube, even tho it’s stuff that some channel already explain.
I don’t like to be a killjoy because it’s not solarpunk to watch and point mistakes of people who try but this really feels like more trying to earn something out of solarpunk rather than trying to change something out there
I hope I’m wrong :/
I think the effort is genuine. Like props to them for the “supporter” ticket, and I think the example talk is really good.
I do feel a lot of what you’re saying though. In terms of practical vs principled, this one heavily falls on the practical side.
I’m all for the practical side when the aiming result is also practical, like a training for organizing people or guerrilla gardening or how to influence urbanism and so on
But if the content is basically what “our climate change” and “not just bikes” offer on YouTube + a sprinkle of solarpunk I feel like it’s neither practical nor principled :)
Yeah… I suppose it is more like a fundraiser for video essay than an IRL conference. And once looking at it like a fundraiser, it is a weird way to go about fundrasing.
Uh, nice point of view :O
I’m not even seeing a way to buy tickets now.
I’d really like a virtual game space like this open source one (similar to gather.town or Topia), where conference members can walk around, see/hear nearby conversations, and make comments that aren’t posted in a giant global chat.
I don’t want to be a downer, organizing events is really hard and someone put a lot of effort into this. I think it is worth saying though, the best part of conferences are meeting people, and I feel like solarpunk would emphasize that rather than dimish it. The conference being a zoom call feels a bit, idk, like watching a low quality YouTube video that can’t be paused, or being in a big corporate meeting.
