Brute Technology, Cunning Technology

Thinking about solarpunk, at least for me, is an exercise in thinking about collapse. Not a Mad Max sort of postapocalypse, though that's (unfortunately) not quite out of the running.[1] More like a Fall of the Western Roman Empire type of collapse, the sort that is defined in the historical record less by a single definitive moment everyone can point to -- though that doesn't stop us from trying to do so -- but by a reduction in the complexity and sophistication of civilisation afterwards.

It's not that apocalypse is intrinsic to solarpunk, a sort of given that lurks behind the aesthetic of green homes, wind farms and solar panels, earthships and passive heating and so on.[2] It's that solarpunk assumes an end to abundance, a fall from an irresponsible prelapsarian state where energy was cheap and abundant, negative externalities could be ignored, and our works could be profligate. Solarpunk is us making the best of a bad situation.[3]

Often, people tend to assume technological development will solve our problems, most obviously with climate change, where we have literally bet our survival on the prospect of carbon capture technology becoming practical and economical at scale, because our emissions have long blown past the point where reductions would be enough to prevent disaster. Technological development is important for solarpunk, but perhaps not in the way that we might think.

The cleaving point here is (as with solarpunk generally) that between abundance and scarcity. There are abundant and scarce^H parsimonious approaches to technology, which I think of in terms of Brute and Cunning approaches. The Brute approach is all about throwing more technology and engineering at a problem to solve it: more complexity, more power, more energy. The Cunning approach is about relying on cleverness to do more with less; often, Cunning technology *looks* less sophisticated, without necessarily *being* less sophisticated, since it applies sophistication in different ways.

A classic example of Brute technology is microprocessor manufacturing. We've driven the size of transistors into the nanometer range so we can pack more of them into the same space, to drive increasing performance. The chips have not only gotten more dense and more complex, but the kind of technology needed to manufacture at nanometer scale and to overcome the kinds of problems that emerge at that level (like quantum tunneling) represents a huge continuing accumulation of research and engineering. Building these chips requires incredibly sophisticated and expensive equipment. The costs associated with increased complexity (and not least the increasing capital costs of new chip foundries) become sustainable only by a small circle of the very largest manufacturers, relying on huge economies of scale.

A classic example of Cunning technology is the windcatcher.[4] The basic idea is to drive passive cooling through manipulating airflows, so as to take advantage of wind chill and convection to remove heat. But details depend heavily on local conditions; it's height, cross-sectional area, internal design, etc. will all vary to match the environment around it. And yet once built, it just works, without any ongoing input. It *looks* low-tech, but someone building a windcatcher would have to know not only the underlying principles but also the local microclimate. Since Cunning technology leverages knowledge to reduce costs (in complexity, inputs, etc.), it is less subject to centralising tendencies.

The distinction between Brute and Cunning is one of attitude, and since the divide relies on whether a particular problem or area is approached with an assumption of attitude or parsimony, it is also a line that is drawn relative to available resources. Industrial agriculture is Brute; we fill vast fields with monocultures, reliant on continued inputs of fertiliser to maintain productivity, kept safe through further inputs of pesticides and herbicides. Industrial farming involving animals is worse because it is inhumane. What's the solarpunk alternative?

The usual aesthetic here is of vertical gardens using hydroponics to grow fresh produce amidst greening cities. Such gardens are certainly more Cunning than Brute; the resource inputs (water, nutrients, etc.) are much less, due to better control and optimisation. But such farms rely on their own, high-tech inputs.

Permaculture techniques as applied to small gardens or allotments are also solarpunk. The use of techniques such as hugelkultur, composting, sheet mulching, etc. are low-tech, in a way that hydroponics is not, but permaculture is just as intentional and relies just as much on the thoughtful application of knowledge.

Both hydroponics and permaculture are Cunning compared to modern industrial farming, but they also represent high- and low-tech ways of approaching constraints. I think there's a place for both in solarpunk, as different and complementary ways of tackling the problems we'll face. But it's clear that solarpunk *doesn't* care for Brute technology, with it's automatic and unceasing tendency to simply pile more and more technology, engineering, and power on top of it all.

I think solarpunk's emphasis on *constraints* and it's strong preference for Cunning technology has other implications as well for what solarpunk futures will look like: a topic I hope to explore more of in future.

Footnotes

[1] I say it's not out of the running because one only has to look at the late Bronze Age collapse to see how apocalyptic events can be involved in collapse; as I understand it, the evidence indicates not only the presence of earthquakes, but also drought, famine, and war. A path we may be on as climate change affects rainfall, floods populated areas, reduces crop yields, drives migratory flows, etc.

[2] Some commentators however do assume that solarpunk is intrinsically a rejection of the dystopia we seem to be heading towards. See, for instance, "Towards a Solarpunk Future" on The Dork Web.

[3] And yet solarpunk still represents a positive future, despite this shadow in the background, not just because it's aesthetic is sunny with lots of nice green trees and plants, but because it assumes that human ingenuity will be able to rise to the occasion.

[4] Windcatchers are tall towers traditionally used in Northern African and West Asian architecture to drive passive cooling.

Links

The Dork Web, "Towards a Solarpunk Future"

Wikipedia, "Windcatcher"

EOF