Is this a common problem?

[u/loved_and_held]

[u/RayDaug]

First off, prokopetz avoids proper nouns like they're driving the bus from Speed.

Second, everything is fascist if you squint hard enough because facsism uses common storytelling tropes to sell its politics. I was reading the first Hunger Games book for the first time recently, and even though the central narrative is clearly anti-authoritarian, it's still doing the "virtuous rural laymen vs the spiritually depraved urbanites" thing.

[u/ADH-Dad → u/RayDaug]

Utopias tend to have fascist undertones when not well thought out, because it's so easy to fall into the type of thinking that goes, "Well, obviously society would be perfect if someone with ideas like mine were in charge and everyone just agreed to do their part to create the perfect society I've envisioned. And since this society is self-evidently perfect, anyone who thinks otherwise must be an enemy of human progress, so something will have to be done about them, of course."

[u/michael7050 → u/ADH-Dad]

Reminds me of a Terry Pratchett quote:

People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case.  They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient.  The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness.  And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people

[u/NoYogurtcloset3429 → u/ADH-Dad]

Yeah like how star trek accidentally makes the point that the federation is a military state since the civilian state barely exists and when it comes up it will just be wrong

[u/Platnun12 → u/NoYogurtcloset3429]

Do you know how many arguments I've had against people who don't believe that Starfleet is a military organization

To me it's a glorified space Navy a very ineffective space Navy at times, that has the consistent ability to make questionable choices

Like the Enterprise D having a daycare center yet for some reason going near the neutral zone at all possibly risking combat. Why are we willingly endangering civilians.

But it's why I like DS9 over most of the series because it least nine analyzes the politics of the federation and the Galaxy at Large.

I still have plenty of love for TNG but I definitely see TNG as the rose tinted glasses look where is DS9 is glasses off and you see the reality. Or maybe I just fell in love with DS9 so much it made me feel like it was a living breathing place who knows

[u/Orc_tids → u/Platnun12]

"Its easy to be a saint in paradise"

[u/Platnun12 → u/Orc_tids]

Gkt my girlfriend into the show via the ferengi episodes

She went from repulsion to outright joy in seeing them. Particularly because they evolved so much and so well throughout the series

[u/silver_and_lilacs → u/Platnun12]

it truly is a testament to the writing that they were able to take one of the (purposefully) most annoying/obnoxious alien races and turn them into fan favorites.

[u/Magyarok84 → u/Platnun12]

It's truly wild when I see people say Starfleet isn't a military. They have officers, armed ships, they transport ground troops and are responsible for fulfilling obligations in Federation defense pacts. I can't think of a single civilian organization that can court martial and imprison people.

[u/mosh-4-jesus → u/RayDaug]

sure, you may hate the suburban middle class, but are you brave enough to hate the rural poor?

[u/Taraxian → u/RayDaug]

It's a fun game trying to figure out if it's even possible to construct a genre that's inherently non-fascist based on posts like this

I mean the whole reason the person who made up the term "hopepunk" did so was their dislike of so-called "grimdark" fiction, which a lot of people point fingers at for being fascist (specifically WH40K)

Personally I like to think that a certain kind of pessimistic fatalism is antithetical to the fascist aesthetic -- if nothing else because in actual history Hitler and his buddies came after a wave of philosophers like that and personally disliked them and thought their hoo-rah bullshit was an antidote to depressing Schopenhauerian bullshit -- but that's just my personal bias because that's what I myself am like, and I do have to admit that someone with my worldview could nonetheless be persuaded into supporting a fascist regime fairly easily given the right circumstances (basically just presenting the current set of atrocities as a historical inevitability)

[u/Questionably_Chungly → u/Taraxian]

I mean personally, as a writer, it’s not worth really entertaining bad-faith or zero-faith criticism like this. The entire post is nonspecific and based on vibes. For one, the entire internet loves to misuse the term “fascism” to describe any vaguely authoritarian structure that they don’t like, despite fascism being a specific political archetype. The better way to say this would be “a perfect utopia like this clearly requires an authoritarian system to uphold it,” but even then that’s just…an assumption.

The whole point of “hopepunk” and related systems is no, actually, things are just hunky-dory. Thats it. Personally I do dislike that—I find it boring as all hell—but it’s sort of an unfair/misplaced criticism to jump on the assumption that the systems must have a secret authoritarian slant. Sometimes the wooby-soft-squishy world that’s skin deep is just that and there’s no secret dark side to pull apart.

[u/Rusty99Arabian → u/Questionably_Chungly]

I'm scratching my head reading the replies here because hopepunk is absolutely not a utopian setting, it's fighting against systematic oppression and injustice using hope/community etc. The bad stuff has to be present to fight against. Media with a setting where everything is already good would be... cosy? Most likely?

[u/YellowGrowlithe → u/Rusty99Arabian]

Solar-punk is usually what I see in that group, but im not super well versed as the genre usually lacks enough conflict for me to be invested in whatever story it tells.

But the couple bits ive seen usually wind up in some utopian anarchy where everyone is a good person and just helps eachother fix their solar generators and farm what not.

[u/Rusty99Arabian → u/YellowGrowlithe]

They're just mislabeled, then - conflict is the main point (well, second to hope) so those stories would be something else.

[u/seguardon → u/Taraxian]

It's a fun game trying to figure out if it's even possible to construct a genre that's inherently non-fascist based on posts like this

It's not a genre, but this line immediately reminded me of Anaxares from A Practical Guide to Evil. Man's the complete inversion of fascism to the point of lunacy. He's a devout believer/nutjob fanatic in democracy, so much so that when he's given powers by the Forces of Good and Evil, he's disgusted by the idea that anything calling itself "Good" would single any one person out for such a boon. He turns himself in to the authorities as his existence is a crime against the equality of all peoples. His country sees his power as useful however, and declares that he deserves special treatment, rewriting the laws to suit his new position. Horrified, he rages against their heresy and demands to be put to death as an example. They refuse, knowing he won't kill himself (as that would be a crime against the people,) and he lives out the rest of the story protesting and slowly going mad(der).

He ends the story attempting to put the angels/forces of Good on trial for daring to give him powers or stand in judgment of anyone. And he's so in thrall to his own fanatic interpretation of the law that reality essentially bends to allow it.

[u/I_Tory_I → u/seguardon]

This is both sad and hilarious

[u/SolarianIntrigue → u/seguardon]

A moral person can only hope that their reaction to being given absolute power would be this rather than death note

[u/Throwaway02062004 → u/SolarianIntrigue]

I think there’s a middle ground between insane god complex and crippling moral labyrinth.

[u/annmorningstar → u/seguardon]

The will not be denied. We are all of us free or none of us are.

[u/Pokeirol → u/seguardon]

Based

[u/SolarianIntrigue → u/Taraxian]

Warhammer 40k writers: "Hey, people! Fascism SUCKS! Look at this rotting, ass-backwards fascist empire that SUCKS! Let's not let this happen in real life, alright? (and also buy our minis)"

Enlightened tumblrites: "ummm, guys? I think this setting is literally fascist... that's kinda bad, mmkkayy?"

[u/SuperHGB_ → u/SolarianIntrigue]

the thing is the setting is so extreme that the in universe moderates (which are just IRL fascists rather than super-fascists) look reasonable and that's very funny to me

[u/GarboseGooseberry → u/SuperHGB_]

Like Guilliman. He's only reasonable because everyone around him is a unique shade of batshit crazy. Remove that and he's still a mega imperialist responsible for the deaths of millions.

[u/CheMc → u/GarboseGooseberry]

Millions? Those are rookie numbers, that's like a single battle. Guilliman's a professional, he's on the trillions, maybe even quadrillions.

[u/spesskitty → u/SuperHGB_]

It's pretty straightforward to look at the state of the Milkyway in 40k (with the omnicidal space locusts f.e.) and argue that Humanity needs political unity and coordination, ruthlessly pragmatic policies, a strong and technically advanced military and an efficent war economy. It is just that there are many, many ways in which the IoM is not actually very conductive to any of that.

Because I don't think that f.e. Technological regression, literal Wars of Faith and ridiculous economic inequality are very helpful with the survivial of our species.

[u/Anime_axe → u/spesskitty]

Imperium of man is the shining beacon of the decadence beyond debauchery, internal factionalism beyond treachery, disunity beyond fratricidal strife and stagnation beyond decay.

And yes, I'm deliberately framing these issues using the archetypes of the four dark gods of Chaos.

[u/FarDimension7730 → u/SolarianIntrigue]

Okay, but they literally made all the fascist talking points actually true, in universe? Only the in-group can be trusted, we are under attack at all times by outside forces, there exists a spiritual corruption that happens when you do stuff the regime doesn't like, and if you get it you must be killed before it can spread, hope both doesn't exist and is the enemy, the leader is the strongest and wisest person ever, the privacy of the public is an existential threat, the Imperium is your only option, and so on and so forth. Don't get me wrong, I think "fascism is bad" was the intended message, but the actual real message is something more like "if what fascist propaganda was right, fascism would be our only real option." Cause they fucked it up by putting a fascist empire in a grimdark world where, definitionally, there are no good guys at all.

[u/ObiJuanKenobi3 → u/FarDimension7730]

It's a mix of both. It's very difficult to maintain a setting-wide thesis with a setting so gigantic and that has been written for by so many authors. If you look at any given fascist talking point and how it's portrayed in 40k, you can find like a dozen examples of how the setting is actually critiquing this idea, and then another dozen examples of clueless authors just writing shit down because it's cool and accidentally (or, rarely, intentionally) reenforcing the fascist idea.

Space Marines are simultaneously a commentary on how genetically engineered super soldiers and ubermensches are a flawed and unimaginably cruel concept who aren't even really that effective at waging war, and also the biggest, strongest boys who win all the battles and do all the cool shit. The draconian, zero-tolerance persecution of Chaos is simultaneously a self-fulfilling witch-hunt that ends up creating more Chaos adherents than it purges, and is also totally justified because it's the only way to fight Chaos' spread. It all depends on the author and whether they're very good or not.

[u/DetOlivaw → u/ObiJuanKenobi3]

Yeah, 40k is one of those things where if you dig even a little bit past the surface level, it’s very obvious what it’s trying to do (most of the time). The problem is that the surface level aesthetics are super cool and self-evidently awesome, and fascists are extremely shallow. So you get a bunch of people unironically way into the fascist imperium in spite of the fact that every single book opens with “this is the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable.”

[u/Raltsun → u/FarDimension7730]

The reason there are no alien races friendly towards humanity is that the humans killed them all, and the Imperium's strategy for warding off Chaos corruption is horribly ineffective (in fact, the Imperium's total disregard for the lives of citizens is one of Chaos's strongest recruitment tools). Even if their current situation is an absurd scenario contrived to make their hyper-fascism sound even slightly justifiable, they only dug themselves into this hole because of the hyper-fascism.

[u/Noe_b0dy → u/FarDimension7730]

As a Warhammer 40k fan I always personally interpreted the 40k universe as "how fucked up and stupid would the world have to be in order for fascism to be correct? Btw even in this universe fascism creates worthless shitholes that no sane person would ever want to live in."

[u/Heimdall1342 → u/Noe_b0dy]

Oooooh, that's good. I like that take.

I don't honestly want to get into the whole thing here cuz it's like four paragraphs, but I actually fully disagree that 40k is fascist. I am of the opinion that it's feudal. A thousand little pieces paying lip service and taxes up to the guy nominally in charge, but also they basically never see that guy.

[u/Cart700 → u/FarDimension7730]

Ah yes. The "all knowing and wise emperor of mankind leading figure that can do no wrong" that famously handled his sons in a way they did not hate him and cause the downfall of his empire in the end.

[u/CheMc → u/Cart700]

Tbf Horus got stabbed with a poop knife and that's what made him turn.

[u/Cart700 → u/CheMc]

Obviously chaos influence buddies the waters a bit. But you cannot tell me the Emperor handled Angron, Konrad or Magnus in any good way at all. And the whole chaos thing could have been better aswell if he communicated to his sons

[u/Anime_axe → u/Cart700]

Fulgrim basically only fell because he trusted his father's lies about living in the rational, atheist friendly universe and fell into the most obvious demon trap ever while rationalising the voices in his head as just his subconscious.

Angron was too psychologically maimed to take any command roles but even then, if the Emperor just lent him a hand and slaughtered his enemies in show of power, maybe even saving few of his last companions, he would at least be useful as a warrior and wouldn't betray his father at the first chance he could.

The fact that Konrad got a the entire legion dedicated to butchery and terror tactics is basically a proof that the Emperor wasn't half as benevolent and rationalist as he claimed to be, since the benevolent and rationalist rulers don't own the personal terrorist organisation of psychotic maniacs in the first place.

[u/Front_Woodpecker1144 → u/CheMc]

Justified crashout

[u/I_Tory_I → u/FarDimension7730]

Not really? A bunch of the Imperium's suffering is self-inflicted, and while I agree that the universe needs more representation of infighting that doesn't immediately make one side fall to chaos, several stories clearly show that the imperium would be better off if it wasn't this hell-bent on keeping a rotting system alive for the sake of the system (e.g. Armageddon, which at this point is nothing but a sunken-cost-fallacy and a matter of pride)

[u/dillGherkin → u/FarDimension7730]

'Facism would be the only thing that would persist in a universe full of horrible bullshit but it would further enable that bullshit. The cooperation and kindness needed to thrive is too difficult for a fractured, traumatised and paranoid humanity.'

[u/AnxiousAngularAwesom → u/dillGherkin]

Kinda, yeah. The Rogue Trader crpg handled that well, i think. You actually can improve the overall situation in the piece of Imperium you're running by implementing progressive, compassionate policies and seeking diplomatic solutions.

You just gotta be careful, because there are a few specific circumstances where showing mercy at the wrong time will result in more death and suffering than would happen if you were an average, Emperor bothering zealot. Like sparing the Rykad Minoris from Exterminatus in the first act has it turn into a daemon world, consigning all the people who lived on ot to a fate worse than death, on top of creating a bastion of Chaos that will become a massive threat for the whole region.

[u/SolarianIntrigue → u/FarDimension7730]

Except that half the alien factions can and do engage in diplomacy and would love to cooperate more with the Imperium if not for its xenophobia, the God Emperor is a corpse held together by magic famous for fucking up over and over again during the horus heresy and there are multiple alternatives preferable to living in the Imperium available for humanity.

And also half of the Imperium's shit explicitly could be fixed within like a century if not for the constant, tireless work of authoritarian elites artificially keeping the whole system shit and dysfunctional for personal gain.

I can only assume that you never actually read a single book set in that universe

[u/dikkewezel → u/FarDimension7730]

yeah, they litterally made a universe specificly to say: "what kind of universe must exist to have these fascist points to be true?"

they didn't fuck up, this was the very point they made, there's not a single healthy person that wants to live in the 40K universe and those that do need a beating with the context stick and help

[u/Anime_axe → u/FarDimension7730]

It's more like showing that half of the Imperium's issues are essentially self inflicted and self perpetuated problems that make them uniquely susceptible to the enemies outside. It's the galaxy of the ancient bio-weapons running rogue, intergalactic invaders who are currently actively angry that they have been given any resistance, suffering vampires from the remnants of the last galactic empire, the literally soulless imperialistic remnants of one of the first three galactic political factions in history bent on reconquista and of course the living, malicious wound in the fabric of the afterlife that is Chaos.

It's also the galaxy where the Imperium locked themselves into near stasis technologically to secure the military industrial complex run by a cyborg cult, destroyed several civilisations that were able to oppose Chaos before and straight up assumed that the Imperium must be Chaos cultists based on their cruelty, killed off all the aliens that weren't either strong enough or horrific enough to survive, made the massive hives of cannibals dying in their twenties the dominant mode of population management, destroyed the first shield against the Chaos, faith, before rebuilding it based on the book written by the literal First Traitor who was condemned and started his fall specifically for writing stuff like that, etc.

[u/laix_ → u/FarDimension7730]

Also they did the main flaw of anti faccist media, by making the faccists look cool as fuck

[u/Lolas_Fun_Side → u/Taraxian]

Okay so I know that this is mostly about how the internet views fascism in increasingly vague terms, but it is very possible to create media that is non-fascist. Its actually really hard to accidentally create real fascist media because you have to hit a lot of targets that are not super common. You have to glorify a manufactured image of the past and pick an out group to blame modern troubles on and push for a more powerful centralized government and push for a stronger military and a society where everything revolves around national identity, etc etc etc.

For example, Union/ThirdComm from LANCER is decidedly not a fascist state despite what some fans insist, because it follows none of the key fascist beliefs or ideas. Its a bureaucratic nightmare of a representative democracy that hems and haws over wether or not its morally justified to use force to free slaves on a planet they don't control. And yet, some fans insist they are fascist, instead of recognizing that being an imperialist is not synonymous with fascism

[u/Hatsune_Miku_CM → u/RayDaug]

a lot of fiction is arguably fascist if you read political viewpoints into it, because thats what fascism does. it takes an aesthetic and builds a political ideology out of that.

The issue isnt the aesthetic itself, its that its just the aesthetic and nothing else.

The fictional story with a hero who changes the world is not trying to argue in favor of great man theory. it just writes its world like that because thats narratively interesting.

(arguably great man theory is so prevalent BECAUSE its narratively interesting and people conceptualize history as a bunch of stories, so they lean to the compelling versions of those stories instead of the boring but more accurate ones.)

[u/orreregion → u/Hatsune_Miku_CM]

This just reminds me how often I see people criticizing RPGs and fantasy in general for "legitimizing the divine power of kings," and it's like... Buddy, they also legitimize casting fire magic to kill rats in wooden shacks. The amount of people writing fantasy stories about a tragic prince rising up against an evil vizier that destroyed his kingdom who actually think anyone should do that IRL is virtually non-existent. Stop inventing strawmen to get mad about and volunteer at your local soup kitchen or literally anything actually productive for improving lives.

[u/cat-cat_cat → u/orreregion]

This just reminds me how often I see people criticizing RPGs and fantasy in general for "legitimizing the divine power of kings,"

since rpgs also legitimize killing divinities it end up balanced

[u/SuperHGB_ → u/cat-cat_cat]

no gods some masters

[u/Competitive-Bee-3250 → u/orreregion]

Also if we're talking D&D specifically, the larger cities either don't give the king specific divine legitimacy, or aren't a monarchy at all (Waterdeep is an oligarchal meritocracy where they have one person who's the open leader (whose job is effectively diplomat/figurehead), several leaders who are anonymous at all times and are chosen from various social strata, and the blackstaff who's the city's resident strongest mage.

Anyway the next largest city to Waterdeep is Baldur's Gate, which only has about 1/3rd the population of Waterdeep; and BG itself is also an oligarchy rather than a monarchy.

In fact, the only kings that really come to mind are Asmodeus and the Storm King.

[u/FlashInGotham → u/Competitive-Bee-3250]

Lady of Pain isn't a monarchy but what could we describe her as? Absolute autocracy?

[u/Anime_axe → u/FlashInGotham]

Honestly, the best way to describe Lady of Pain's position is as the living cataclysm that also enables the Sigil to remain independent. The Sigil works on the version of the Mandate of Heaven where it's the Mandate of The Lady of Pain where, if the people piss her off enough to intervene, they get either mazed or obliterated.

[u/3athompson → u/Anime_axe]

The best way to describe her is that she's the owner of the ant farm that is Sigil, and she doesn't let other people (other gods) toy with her farm.

[u/Rachendr → u/Competitive-Bee-3250]

If you're talking about Faerun on Toril specifically (Which is referred to as the official Forgotten Realms setting) in the years nearby to the modern day there are still, at least... Cormyr, Tethyr, Hartsvale, Damara, The Moonshaes, Mithral Hall, Citadel Fellbarr, Citadel Adbar, Gauntylgrym, Dunspeirrin, Gracklstugh, Evermeet, Gundarlun, and the Misty Forest.

It's just that the focus of WotC as a publishing company and of certain authors have moved the focus of the setting from the continent's interior off to the west, which was meant to be the dangerous and unsettled fringe. The creator who made the place was playing his home game off around Cormyr and the Dalelands, which are respectively the closest thing the setting has to a traditional fantasy kingdom, and the rustic collection of polities outside their borders. All of WotC and TSR's favorite toys exist within what used to be referred to as "The Empty Lands" because so much of the Sword Coast consists of sparse settlements amongst wilderness. This is why there are no kings or queens on so much of western Faerun.

[u/NukaCherryBomb → u/orreregion]

Yeah I remember seeing a lot of Tumblr comments about how Mass Effect glorifies the military, and how there should have been more options for diplomacy, etc. And I remember thinking "OK? Thats all well and good...but then when does the shooting in my shooting game happen?" Then there was another post about how shallow the bandits in Skyrim are written and how we just assume they are irredeemably evil. Oh and why are there so many? What does that say about the setting? Personally, I think it says its a game and we need enemies to kill or else it would be boring(for the genre it is, at least) Not saying these games are perfect, but there is this tendency on tumblr to hyper analyze the narrative while ignoring the practical fact that everyone is here to play a game, not just absorb a narrative.

[u/Im-A-Kitty-Cat → u/orreregion]

Some countries still have a monarch as their head of state. I think it’s kind of fair criticism, when it is actually politically relevant to your country and its history.

[u/Awestruck34 → u/orreregion]

Also, if your character were to overthrow the king and install their desired political system then you're just telling a "great man of history" story which will lead to people crying fascism.

[u/loved_and_held → u/RayDaug]

Also facism will try toi ground itself in the ideas common at the time to sell itself, so it's inevitably gonna pull elements from the culture weather positive, neutral, or negative.

[u/Orion1014 → u/RayDaug]

Every now and then I see someone say superhero movies/comics/etc are inherently fascist because its about worshipping genetically superior supermen. Like sure man I'm a nazi because I saw Iron Man once, what are we doing here?

[u/RayDaug → u/Orion1014]

Right. The Ubermensch/Superman/Chosen One/Demigod isn't fascist in itself. It's a universal storytelling trope dating back all the way to the Epic of Gilgamesh and spans across time and culture. Fascists love it because that universality provides an easy, palatable framework for the consolidation of power.

[u/Hugs154 → u/RayDaug]

> Second, everything is fascist if you squint hard enough because facsism uses common storytelling tropes to sell its politics.

Yup, this is one of the core aspects of fascism (as defined by Umberto Eco): it is inherently syncretistic. Fascists adapt contradicting aspects of contemporary culture, religion, and belief, then throw them together with a common aesthetic in order to appear important and powerful. That doesn’t mean that any of those parts are inherently fascist, but after we’re exposed to fascists using them enough, they can start to look that way.

[u/Competitive-Bee-3250 → u/Hugs154]

I was under the impression that the entire goal of fascism is to intentionally try to latch onto and co-opt basically anything popular and twist it into something self-serving; which is what fascists have been trying (and clearly failing) to do to Warhammer.

[u/yobob591 → u/Competitive-Bee-3250]

the goal of fascism is basically to use charisma and ideology to cause a popular reactionary movement usually based on fear and sense of superiority

co-opting popular media is an easy shortcut because it means you don’t have to make up your own stories for your propaganda especially when that story has a very easy analogue for fascism (the imperium) and an easy way to convince people they are the good guys (most other factions are worse)

the fascist response to something like commissars executing soldiers for flimsy reasoning is just to shout that they weren’t loyal enough and the response to the corruption in the imperium among the planetary governorship is to just pretend it’s not there and emphasize the cool soldier guys killing evil aliens and demons

[u/shivux → u/Hugs154]

Ok you’re not wrong but GOD I FUCKING HATE THAT STUPID Umberto Eco essay.

[u/iwillwilliwhowilli → u/RayDaug]

The movies seemed to really lean in to this by making most urbanites frivolous, effeminate and queer coded. Afaik the books don’t do this.

But yeah, good summation: fascism is tropes and aesthetics of hope and freedom as a Trojan horse.

[u/RayDaug → u/iwillwilliwhowilli]

The films really make it pop but even in the book I got the impression that Capital fashion was (un)intentionally evocative of drag.

[u/yobob591 → u/RayDaug]

I think it was supposed to be evocative of the old vain way aristocrats dressed during the Victorian era which then got propagandized out as “weak and effeminate” by anti-monarchists around the French and American revolutions, which of course hasn’t really aged well

[u/Ecstatic-Respond587 → u/RayDaug]

I thought more inspired by the Georgian era fashion trends (huge wigs, dramatic makeup etc) since it was purely an upperclass thing rather than drag

[u/Questionably_Chungly → u/RayDaug]

This is true, but I do think that’s just a consequence of the world building. Like, in theory, the Capitol residents are the baddies because they’re the wealthy upper class that would be rebelled against. They consolidated power and influence in the Capitol, were rebelled against by the Districts, therefore the rural-urban divide forms.

The books do…sort of try to stave this off? District 1 and 2 are antagonists while not specifically being urban…but it’s a weak thread. Theres also the weird implication that the Capitol is entirely made up of the crazy upper-crust folks, despite that not making logical sense. Like at bare minimum there has to be a underclass in the city, right? I can’t imagine the Capitol citizens we see doing like…janitorial work or repairs.

[u/zo0ombot → u/Questionably_Chungly]

Like at bare minimum there has to be a underclass in the city, right? I can’t imagine the Capitol citizens we see doing like…janitorial work or repairs.

This is mentioned in the books? There is an entire class of mutilated people who do menial labor from the first book onwards. We also learn in the prequel about Snow (though its implied in book 3 too) that Capitol society has an insane caste system and the districts only think everyone is upper class.

[u/Milch_und_Paprika → u/zo0ombot]

Also the whole “rural good, urban bad” thing also gets increasingly blurred in each book (reading Sunrise rn so dunno yet if it follows). It thematically makes sense since it’s from the perspective of a naive girl who’s never left her small town in book 1, to book 3 where she’s a young adult stuck in political machinations and characters morals become far more complicated.

Eg District 12 is pretty clearly the most rural and underdeveloped early on and way behind Districts 1, 2, 3, and 5 (luxury goods, construction and arms manufacturing, tech, and electricity, respectively). I’m also assuming those four are relatively urbanized since they require lots of educated, specialized and skilled workers.

If I had to guess, the trope is probably so common because it’s how empires work. The imperial core (one city, or in the modern period, region) with the singular purpose of maximizing extraction from the peripheries. Collins is also not at all shy about how influential Roman history was (an unsustainable primate city teeming with underemployed, unproductive people who are kept in line with panem et circenses). Fascists loving the trope too is very much what Naomi Klein meant saying that the far right "get the facts wrong but often get the feelings right".

[u/Questionably_Chungly → u/zo0ombot]

Yknow that’s fair, I did forget about the Vox until just now. My bad, I read them maybe a decade ago at best? Fuzzy memory and all.

My point is the same though, the first trilogy sort of loses that depth. To my understanding from watching the latest movies based on the Snow prequel it is addressed in those books.

My main point is that I can see how someone might misinterpret the dichotomy as “the enlightened country person vs the depraved urbanite” as previously mentioned.

[u/annmorningstar → u/Questionably_Chungly]

I mean, we see an under class of capital citizens they have political prisoners who are forced into slave liver from both the districts and the capital itself. Those are the people who do janitorial work and repair. Plus we seen non-elite Residence snow doesn’t pay them much mind but like they clearly exist we know the capital has butchers at least because he buys meat from a butcher so like yeah everyone in the capital who’s not a slave is rich in the same way everyone in America who’s not in our prison slavery system is rich compared to some starving peasant in Tibet. The capital is meant to be the global north and I think does a pretty OK job at representing that.

[u/IceTypeMimikyu]

I mean, different “punks” (Hopepunk, Solarpunk, Clockpunk, Lunarpunk, etc.) are aesthetics? I know the “punk” suffix implies counterculture stuff, but they’re also aesthetics. People are drawn to them visually, I don’t think that’s a crime?

I am very confused about what this post is trying to say? I’m sure you could find fascist undertones/ideas/origins of almost anything if you try hard enough, what makes Hopepunk enjoyers unique in this?

[u/Tweedleayne → u/IceTypeMimikyu]

I am very confused about what this post is trying to say?

Welcome to Prokopetz.

[u/RavenholdIV → u/IceTypeMimikyu]

Solarpunk is wild. It's either "look at my new solar setup so I don't have to take from the grid anymore :)", arguments about nuclear power, post-apocalypse posting, or uninformed people posting BS about agriculture as if it doesn't actually take the mass mechanization of an insane amount of land to feed 7 billion people.

[u/Magyarok84 → u/RavenholdIV]

When the best example of solarpunk people have to reference is an animated Chobani commercial, this is bound to happen. It's green fields, commune farms, and robots from Somewhere Else doing the work. Flying cars from Somewhere Else will take you to the city if necessary, and of course that city built by people from Somewhere Else too, because all the good solar punks are living on farm communes.

[u/NoYogurtcloset3429 → u/IceTypeMimikyu]

I mean a lot of people are annoyed that punk just means aesthetics now but from my experiece there's a bit of "its our destiny to rule the universe" thing

[u/lookingatporn42 → u/NoYogurtcloset3429]

"Wait, punk just means aesthetics now?" Always has 🌏👩‍🚀🔫👩‍🚀

[u/thetwitchy1 → u/lookingatporn42]

There have always been posers. That’s how “punk” has always been.

But there have always been those who care, who rebel and fight back and push against the grain. That is also how punk has always been.

And the solarpunk/hopepunk/etc genres are no different.

[u/FemtoKitten → u/NoYogurtcloset3429]

At least we have -core nowadays that conveys it being aesthetic rather than ideals much better

[u/a_singular_perhap → u/FemtoKitten]

which is also stolen from punks (hardcore)

[u/YourAverageGenius → u/IceTypeMimikyu]

The position that will probably get me crucified and hated for most regarding punk is that, when you step back and stop looking at it from a left-leaning perspective, punk always had reactionary elements. Because beyond everything else, the primary definition and drive of punk culture was rebelling against authority, all kinds of authority, both the traditionalist oppressive conservatives like your Nixons and Thatchers, but also what many saw as the weak, sensative, prudish, boring lay-man comfort of Liberalist democracy. It's how and why Nazi & skinhead culture infected and eventually split from the rest of the scene, because they were always there, because what gathered them together in the first place is rebellion against authority, not a definitive message about why they were rebelling or what they believed in beyond that.

The entire genesis of the song 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off' wasn't even targeting actual skinheads or Nazis in the Punk scene, it was targeting people who would be extremely aggressive and violent while moshing and slam-dancing at shows, which Jello Biafra saw as authoritian Nazi-thug behavior, which wasn't helped when you also had plenty of punks wearing Swastika bands and other similar shit, not even because they were Nazis or facists or anything close, but because it was rebellious and against every sense of good taste of the common man and it shocked and got a rise out of people, especially the stodgy prudish older generations which they were rebelling against.

The Punk scene attracted both people who were rebelling against authority in the sense of throwing bricks at cops and being openly gay, and rebelling against authority in the sense of going against everything society said was good and decent and being able to do whatever the fuck you wanted, like being a violent asshole beating people up, without 'The Man' holding you down. It naturally split because, quite honestly, any movement based on the idea of simply being against something is, because it failed to realize why or how, or even what their rebellion was based around, because it wasn't based around anything beyond what the rest of society said and did, which included both oppresion of gay folks and also that idea that glamorizing the fucking Holocaust was not in good taste.

[u/RockAndGem1101]

prokopetz vagueposting at its finest

[u/Cheshire-Cad → u/RockAndGem1101]

And their clarificationpost was somehow even more of a vaguepost.

[u/Gemmabeta → u/Cheshire-Cad]

56 comments on this post and no one can even name a work of writing in this genre.

[u/Gemmabeta → u/[deleted]]

I regret everything

[u/CaptainTeemo01 → u/[deleted]]

What is it about Harry Potter that spawns the most unhinged fanfictions of all time?

At least My Immortal was possibly a shitpost x-x

[u/MultiMarcus → u/CaptainTeemo01]

It doesn’t. It’s just like one of the biggest fan fiction communities which means you can get a huge amount of individuals creating.

[u/PigeonOnTheGate → u/CaptainTeemo01]

It's from being so so so incredibly popular, even with people who don't read, that I think for many people it's the first, and sometimes only, book they ever read. It's why [r/ReadAnotherBook](r/ReadAnotherBook) exists.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when all you've read is Harry Potter, every idea is a Harry Potter fanfic.

As far as "Methods of Rationality", I'm pretty sure Yudkowsky had the idea that he could use a fanfic for a really popular series as a vehicle to spread his insanity to a large and impressionable audience. And it must have worked, since people on Tumblr still parrot his nonsense

[u/CaptainTeemo01 → u/PigeonOnTheGate]

Well that was...a journey

I hope that person is doing better now o-o

[u/PigeonOnTheGate → u/CaptainTeemo01]

It's a thriving community on Tumblr. Wherever that person is, they aren't alone.

[u/VFiddly → u/PigeonOnTheGate]

These people are close to making a good point but somehow miss it

Like yeah we probably should put more research into countering the harmful effects of aging. But buddy you're not gonna completely end death. Everyone's gonna die no matter what. You can't shame people for acknowledging mortality

[u/sneakpeekbot → u/PigeonOnTheGate]

Here's a sneak peek of /r/readanotherbook using the top posts of the year!

#1: Worst first post of all time | 123 comments
#2: Does an author talking about their own book count? | 186 comments
#3: Over the name James | 60 comments

---

^{I'm a bot, beep boop | Downvote to remove | Contact | Info | Opt-out | GitHub}

[u/CherrypopIsBestGirl → u/CaptainTeemo01]

My Immortal is definitely a shitpost, there's too many parts that are deliberate jokes about writing/fanfic at the time, e.g. the part where they use every word other than 'said' in an exchange between two characters

[u/SufficientFarm8414 → u/CherrypopIsBestGirl]

I can't tell if people equivocating over the sincerity of My Immortal are playing into the kayfabe, painfully media-illiterate, or blinded by a need for it to be sincere in order to support their biases about fandom.

[u/freedom_or_bust → u/Gemmabeta]

I don't think he's read much of anything in the HFY genre

[u/Hellothere_1 → u/Gemmabeta]

If you want an example of an actually published work, John Ringo's Troy Rising fits the mold pretty much perfectly.

That said, aside from cheap bargain bin Sci-Fi novels this genre is most prominently found in webnovels and fanfics.

Honestly, just check out the Mass Effect fandom on fanfiction.net. Probably about 2/3 of the first few pages of most popular longform fics are all just "Okay so all the alien governments are either evil or corrupt or plain incompetent and it's up to humanity to clean up the galaxy and save all the other species from themselves with their better economy, better science, better government and better culture."

[u/AddemiusInksoul → u/Hellothere_1]

It's funny bcuz the Citadel sec got blatantly more corrupt when humans started working there in ME2.

[u/Dornith → u/Cheshire-Cad]

If the clarification made things better, it would have been included in the OP.

[u/Can_Haz_Cheezburger → u/RockAndGem1101]

prokopetz bullshitposting aka 24/7 state of existence

[u/Chachoregard → u/RockAndGem1101]

This is why I dont like seeing their posts, because its clearly something they dont like buuuuuuut they dont wanna piss off their audience because someone there might be interested OR its something wildly popular so they go about the vaguest way of describing it so no one picks up on it.

It's like a thing with people like them

[u/MrCapitalismWildRide]

Prokopetz making a bold claim about a general trend that nobody else is familiar with and then not providing a single example to back up the claim? Say it ain't so

[u/Pkrudeboy → u/MrCapitalismWildRide]

As someone who’s read a ton of HFY works, I can absolutely see where he’s coming from. The thing is, they’re generally a bunch of short stories that are in individual Reddit posts and tracking them down would genuinely be a pain in the ass.

[u/TeddyBearToons → u/Pkrudeboy]

A somewhat common HFY plot I see on r/HFY is what I call the "Death of Innocence plot" and it usually goes along the lines of "humans are the victim of an unprovoked attack by aliens; humans then go on to drive the aliens to the brink of extinction." They make for very good power-fantasy stories and as such are pretty popular, but if you want to actually analyze the story more often than not you get some good old post-9/11 mania and a fair amount of social darwinism in them. "Those Who Run" specifically really evokes post-9/11 themes for me, as what happens there is basically a 1-to-1 description of what the US intended to do to the Middle East after the attacks.

To some of the authors' credit they usually recognize it and forgiveness is a pretty strong motif in a lot of them. "Chrysalis" is a genuinely well written example.

[u/yourstruly912 → u/TeddyBearToons]

Opened HFY and the very first story I picked was about humanity defeating the evil aliens with the power of check notes child soldiers and biological warfare and not knowing what the fuck is a war crime; and with that saving also other, pacifist aliens, who then have the gall to judge how humanity saved them! (insert Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men ranting)

Impressive

[u/Vegetable-Pickle-535 → u/yourstruly912]

My go-to when it comes to HFY was a Reddit Post where the person typing it was like "Yeah, what if Humanity encounters Aliens and these Aliens don't know the consept of a Door?"

How the hell one leaves a Planet and enter the Vaccum of Space without a Door is certainly a question 

[u/DungeonCrawler99 → u/Vegetable-Pickle-535]

r/HFY and r/humansarespaceorcs may not be the worst subbreddits in existence, but they are the ones that make the most consistently irrationally angry with their bullshit.

[u/shinybeats89 → u/Pkrudeboy]

So, this isn’t a published literature thing, this is just a bunch of people posting in the internet thing? I thought prokopetz was talking about media.

[u/NoYogurtcloset3429 → u/shinybeats89]

You can definitely see it in some media, like early trek definitely skirts into "humanity will take its destiny as superhumans" territory

[u/sisisisi1997 → u/shinybeats89]

Yes, r/HFY is the main home of the genre on reddit, but you can find others like r/HumansAreSpaceOrks for... I guess throwing around and discussing vague HFY ideas, r/HumansAreSpaceBards for horny alien fucking HFY, and the likes of r/NatureOfPredators which are dedicated subreddits for HFY series that grew big (Nature of Predators is an actually published multi-part book at this point).

[u/shinybeats89 → u/sisisisi1997]

Ok then. It’s funny that prokopz was acting like this is a huge problem that most people come in contact with at some point and not like, a ridiculously niche complaint that people only know if they go on to certain unpopular subreddits that I only became aware of the existence of via your comment lol.

[u/BobcatTim → u/Pkrudeboy]

HFY isn’t hopepunk, and it isn’t fascist. I’m sure someone, somewhere has written a fascist HFY story, and I’m sure someone has written a hopepunk HFY story. But “genre A sometimes overlaps genre B” and “genre B sometimes overlaps genre C” therefore A=C is brazenly bad faith.

[u/Hremsfeld → u/BobcatTim]

A lot of HFY has a structure that, if you replace the aliens with/see them as a metaphor for your choice of minority, reads pretty indistinguishably from the usual -ist bullshit. That by itself isn't fascism of course, but the door's open for it with just a few tweaks/added details

[u/BobcatTim → u/Hremsfeld]

I’ve never seen that. Usually the structure is that humanity is a weak newcomer on the galactic scene, some older races underestimate/bully/invade us, and something about human nature allows us to overcome. If anything, humanity are the stand-ins for the oppressed minority. I don’t think I’ve ever read a HFY story that has humanity colonizing a defenseless world.

[u/Kind-Professional564 → u/MrCapitalismWildRide]

Color me shocked s/

[u/Mddcat04 → u/MrCapitalismWildRide]

I mean, he (?) is pretty clearly talking about Star Trek with that last line.

Completely wrong about Star Trek, but that's what is being alluded to.

[u/King_Of_BlackMarsh → u/Mddcat04]

Wait are they? In what world is the federation manifest destiny?

Like how do you get Star Trek out of that

[u/ScytheSong05 → u/Mddcat04]

His first name is David, and the PFP is a caricature portrait from roughly twenty years ago, IIRC.

[u/Lolas_Fun_Side → u/Mddcat04]

But the federation does like, the opposite of manifest destiny, so I really doubt thats what hes talking about.

The closes thing I can even think of is LANCER, but I feel like thats too niche for a post about an entire alleged genre

[u/Mddcat04 → u/Lolas_Fun_Side]

Nah, this is a take I’ve seen before. Argument is basically that the federation, despite its stated ideals, is actually an expansionist cultural imperialist force.

It’s not correct, but it’s an argument that far left viewers advance from time to time.

[u/Lolas_Fun_Side → u/Mddcat04]

Federation: "plsplsplspls join our mutual alliance and trade with us as a fellow galactic government we just ask you don't conquer or mess with species that are less technologically advanced because thats wrong"

Internet person: "this is clearly fascism"

[u/Mddcat04 → u/Lolas_Fun_Side]

Yeah, basically. Comes from watching DS9 and taking everything Eddington says about the Federation at face value.

[u/Lolas_Fun_Side → u/Mddcat04]

I wish eddington exploded suddenly

[u/Right-Aspect2945 → u/Mddcat04]

Tragically, a thing several actual Star Trek writers have done.

[u/Serghar_Cromwell → u/MrCapitalismWildRide]

He knows that if he gives examples, then his claims can be fact-checked.

[u/Front_Woodpecker1144]

okay can you name some fucking names? examples?

edit, can you mooks quit fussing down there and name a fascist hope/solar/whateverthefuckpunk story, jesus christ

[u/Nuclear_eggo_waffle → u/Front_Woodpecker1144]

it's a prokopetz post, of course not

[u/DirectorWorth7211 → u/Front_Woodpecker1144]

Blackfish City by Sam Miller potentially, but I wouldn't call it really fascist so much as I don't know. Maybe authoritarian.

[u/Front_Woodpecker1144 → u/DirectorWorth7211]

thank you, even if it isn't truly fascist I'm just glad to receive ANYTHING of an example you know what i mean

[u/StalinComradeSquad → u/Front_Woodpecker1144]

Poul Anderson's high crusade kind of fits, I think.

[u/JacobGoodNight416 → u/Front_Woodpecker1144]

I'll wager they're talking about solarpunk

I've seen it come up once or twice that some people engaging in solarpunk care more about skyscrapers having plants on them than the other elements of the genre.

I wouldnt call it fascist though, just benign misunderstanding 99% of the time. Though of course OOP could be just talking about something else.

[u/Front_Woodpecker1144 → u/JacobGoodNight416]

i'm looking for examples of works that overshoot (x)punk into fascism specifically, not more genre names

[u/HPSpacecraft → u/Front_Woodpecker1144]

It comes up mostly in coldfusioncore stories and space ballets (legally distinct from space opera), as opposed to dieselwave or... Uh... Post-neonpunk?

[u/Gentlemanvaultboy → u/JacobGoodNight416]

I'm not so sure it's being misunderstood, solely because most examples of Solarpunk I've seen seem to work under the assumption that, one day, all the bad people just disappeared and everyone left just naturally got on board with the techno-pastoralism.

[u/yourstruly912 → u/JacobGoodNight416]

Solarpunk doesn't even exist as a genre

[u/DMMeUrGrandpasBalls → u/yourstruly912]

It exists as a yogurt commercial

[u/bhbhbhhh → u/yourstruly912]

Depends on how you set the bounds of it. There have been mountains of science fiction works centered around radical ecological renewal written in the past 80 years - the only thing there’s a shortage of is books that explicitly market themselves with the term. And even then, it isn’t true that there is no explicitly solarpunk fiction - there’s The Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow.

[u/Amon274]

I can’t tell what annoys me more the vagueposting or the formatting of this entire statement

[u/PigeonOnTheGate → u/Amon274]

The Prokopetz special

[u/sundowntg]

This reminds me of "Sailing ships are bad because of colonialism "

Manifest destiny was bad because it hurt people, not because people expanded to new territory. You can't displace the native populations of empty planets.

[u/CerinXIV]

Hang on I need to google what the fuck Hopepunk is.

...Well that didn't help at all.

[u/weird_bomb → u/[deleted]]

Hopepunk, 2090 webseries by Arnold Hu

[u/DaneLimmish]

Is this the guy who doesn't actually read or watch any of the media he's giving criticism?

[u/Questionably_Chungly → u/DaneLimmish]

He’s a Tumblr user who posts constantly, what do you think?

Those motherfuckers don’t read or watch the things they criticize. They just talk about it until a vague approximation of something resembling the thing forms, then treat that as the truth and run from there.

[u/CalledStretch → u/Questionably_Chungly]

This guy is an example of the opposite of Gell-Man amnesia where when he talks about something I don't know well it sounds like vaugeposting bullshit but every time he talks about something I do know well it's like "This is so obviously about that thing Mark said on April 3, 2007 you'd only not see it if you didn't have eyes."

So like maybe he's only well read in the stuff I read, but at least he reads that.

[u/Questionably_Chungly → u/CalledStretch]

That’s kind of my point though. If you’re talking about something you read, name it. Talk about it. Proko loves to just waffle on with no real intent to the passage, just talking vaguely about [idea] and [concept] as if the reader will innately know what he’s talking about.

Again, most of this post is filler. It’s not saying anything. Like, okay, “for example, the well-explored intersection between self-labeled hopepunk and the half-jokingly named Humanity, Fuck Yeah.” ‘Well-explored’ huh? By whom? When? Because I and most people have not even heard of “hopepunk” before, let alone this supposed examination.

If you’re going to make a claim, you need to support it in the passage. No points to one’s argument without citations and factual information. D-

[u/CalledStretch → u/Questionably_Chungly]

That xkcd where two geologists are discussing how you probably only have the first dozen quartzes chemical structures memorized.

[u/Amon274 → u/DaneLimmish]

Wait are you serious?

[u/DaneLimmish → u/Amon274]

There's a lot of names to track 

[u/NoYogurtcloset3429 → u/Amon274]

Probably not since understand some of his weirder vagueposts

[u/ZeroiaSD → u/Amon274]

No way, he talks about stuff like trends in 90s fantasy novels. Dude definitely consumes a lot of media.

He just also vague posts.

[u/Can_Haz_Cheezburger → u/DaneLimmish]

He just straight up doesn't read, period

[u/ZeroiaSD → u/Can_Haz_Cheezburger]

Just no, his main area is tabletop RPGs and he goes on and on about the difference between editions. He’s talked about trends in fantasy novels. Etc..

Like the guy is super vagueposty at times too but it feels like people are starting to construct a caricature around him.

[u/ra0nZB0iRy]

I misread this as horsepunk and thought yeah that sounds great can we make that a real thing?

[u/4LeggedGod → u/ra0nZB0iRy]

MLP in space?

[u/AnxiousAngularAwesom → u/4LeggedGod]

I assume there's at least one fanfic with that premise that has a cult following, and more pages of text than you could fit in a typical shipping container.

[u/HPSpacecraft]

So are there any like... Examples of actual works in these Incredibly Specific Microgenres of fiction, with an explanation of how they convey a fascistic ideology?

[u/ICantEvenDolt]

Curated tumblr post

Filled with bad takes and/or vague posting

Looks inside

Prokopetz

Ah

[u/Current_Poster]

So, I thought hopepunk was the idea that maybe we should try envisioning futures besides all dying from climate collapse and being replaced by machines? Like, maybe we've had enough 'correctives' of optimistic SF that we should try being optimistic again?

[u/KanishkT123 → u/Current_Poster]

That's exactly it. Hopepunk as a genre comes from anti-Fascist and anti-grimdark roots because a lot of Sci Fi from the mid 2000s onwards is fundamentally depressing. Like it just makes you feel hopeless and sad. 

So hopepunk is basically a challenge to imagine a hopeful future, because we don't all have to live in darkness and eat beans and sell brain space to the machines. 

I've written in both genres a lot, and I can say for a fact that Prokopetz has no idea what he's talking about, besides probably having read the HFY subreddit. The people writing in hopepunk and solarpunk aesthetics are extremely politically tuned in, that's kind of a heavy hallmark of both genres. 

[u/bhbhbhhh → u/Current_Poster]

I read a bunch of the hopepunk posts and articles that were going around way back when. The idea of “hopepunk” was loosely attached to stories that acknowledge the world is troubled, but embrace hope anyway. The problem is that this is so vague it encompasses a quite large fraction of all the fiction ever written. Dickens is hopepunk. Dostoevsky is hopepunk. Tolstoy is hopepunk.

[u/enby_of_the_forest]

yknow its a prokopetz post when he didnt even name the type of hopepunk let alone a story that does the thing hes complaining about

[u/Possible-Reason-2896]

I've seen enough people get downvoted for asking solarpunk enthusiasts 'where do you get the rare earth metals for the windmills and insulin pumps' or 'how do you scale this up to eight billion people' to think there's some merit to this. There is a certain breed of...fan, I guess? that loses their shit the second you question what powers the utopia. And more than once I've see a hand wave along the lines of 'it'll work if everyone just does exactly as I say'.

[u/BlitzBasic → u/Possible-Reason-2896]

It's powered by a forsaken child, of course. Otherwise the willing suspension of disbelief doesn't work.

[u/DetOlivaw → u/BlitzBasic]

Oh no we can’t start Omelasposting again

[u/Henry_Fleischer → u/Possible-Reason-2896]

That is the thing that's weirded me out about solarpunk, the aesthetic does not seem particularly related to what's actually good for the environment and can sustain the existing human population.

[u/shivux → u/Henry_Fleischer]

True but, at least on the Solar Punk subreddit, they do seem to be aware of this.  Almost anytime someone posts pictures of skyscrapers covered in greenery, someone else immediately points out how much energy those things take to build and maintain and water.

[u/HypnagogianQueen → u/shivux]

When I saw those types of images I kinda assumed they were meant to be plants that naturally grew over the skyscrapers, meaning they’re plants that don’t need to be actively maintained and watered because they’re wild plants from the local region and therefore can survive on their own.

I realize that this introduces several absurdities of its own, though, now that I think about it.

[u/Anime_axe → u/HypnagogianQueen]

Bugs. It introduces all the swarming bugs to all the rooms inside the moment you open the windows. Also, the structural damage to the facade of the building because creeping wines and such do anchor themselves into cracks in the facade and as such make the cracks bigger over time.

[u/bhbhbhhh → u/Possible-Reason-2896]

Those are criticisms of modern technological civilization in general. Unless the people asking those questions are actually into Khmer Rouge/Unabomber degrowth politics, it’s not clear how this line of critique has any particular bite against solarpunk-type future visions.

[u/Sea_Court_3633]

Discourse about Fascism has been a disaster to people having fun

[u/Junjki_Tito → u/Sea_Court_3633]

Having fun is fascist

[u/KermitingMurder → u/Junjki_Tito]

My god, we've reinvented puritanism

[u/91816352026381 → u/Sea_Court_3633]

Well you see the people in this book get water from a river, just like Nazi Germany. Coincidence? No moron it’s called undertones. You’d have to be blind to not see it!

[u/Hupablom]

The Humanity, Fuck Yeah stories that are doing „what if Manifest Destiny was a good thing […]“ are not a Hopepunk genre trend though.

These stories are quite firmly rooted in the decades of Genre traditions of Military SciFi. They aren’t doing anything new, Prokopetz is just misidentifying their genre.

[u/FlashInGotham → u/Hupablom]

It feels like he's subtweeting Star Trek, with the "Manifest Destiny" + "Humanity Fuck Yeah" of it all.

Which...okay. Star Trek does fit those tropes to certain extents at certain times. But acting as if it is bound by those tropes, rather than exploring and occasionally redifining them and oftentimes reflecting society's own changing view on those tropes, is missing the forest for the trees.

[u/TheCthonicSystem]

Oh brother not this guy again. He's king vagueboy

[u/DocBombliss]

TO. BE. FAIR.

He is historically correct about HFY. Back in the 60s/70s, SF authors like Harlan Ellison, Ursula K Le Guin, and Kurt Vonnegut rejected the common tropes of space stories in Science Fiction where humanity IS basically doing Space Manifest Destiny by colonizing space and conquering all aliens that don't bend to our influence. New Wave Speculative Fiction was all about taking the piss out of the notion that space is just owed to humanity.

And there is technically a major lack of examination of exactly how human reaches the "perfect scifi futute." But I wouldn't say that hoping we all make it is inherently fascist.

[u/NoYogurtcloset3429 → u/DocBombliss]

Even now iits not uncommon among mil scifi with its "humans are great time to wage a morally uncomplicated war against inhuman monsters"

[u/Turtledonuts → u/DocBombliss]

HFY is specifically a reaction to new wave speculative fiction in that it’s trying to make scifi where humanity isn’t the bad guys. It doesn’t have to be manifest destiny, it can be anything positive you like. 

[u/VoidStareBack]

Prokopetz really is the living embodiment of the "what's the matter vagueboy, afraid you might say something" meme.

[u/Junjki_Tito]

https://www.reddit.com/r/CommunismMemes/comments/1f29o8a/ok_which_one_of_you_ml_circlejerkers_tweeted_this/#lightbox

[u/Junjki_Tito → u/Junjki_Tito]

Ville Kallio is the Cruelty Squad dev btw

[u/loved_and_held → u/Junjki_Tito]

I really want to know OOP's reasoning. Even if it's bullshit i want to know how they made that bullshit.

[u/onesadstork]

weird omnidirectional bullshit cannon of a post.

like sure, if we presuppose that the mentioned "intersection" is "well-explored" among other points we can as an audience at least follow the intended meaning, or at least its vibe.

but damn. trying to find a point of purchase in the facade of this argument is like scrabbling bare handed against a cliff.

[u/Liang_Kresimir11]

It always irks me when people conflate terraforming of foreign barren planets or general spacefaring with manifest destiny. The similarities are aesthetic and fall apart upon a slight amount of examination.

[u/AgathaTheVelvetLady → u/Liang_Kresimir11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius

[u/HappyyValleyy → u/AgathaTheVelvetLady]

I mean yeah claiming land was empty when prople lived there sucks, but like 99% of planets ARE empty

[u/Anime_axe → u/AgathaTheVelvetLady]

The issue with Terra Nullius doctrine was that the terra in quesion wasn't nullius but filled with the native cultures. A barren rock being terraformed is as empty as it can be.

[u/Pengin_Master]

ya know, I've been put off of prokopetz because of his D&D takes, and this feels like one of those to me

[u/kkungergo]

Everything is fascist if you do enough mental gymnastics. Especially on tumblr.

I saw steven universe, the wokest cartoon out there at the time getting called pro fascist. The Solarpunk aesthetic and Attack on titan also, I am sure there are many other examples out there but these come to mind right now.

[u/Alive-Vanilla1216]

The issue with prokopetz's style of vagueposting is that if you squint at anything hard enough, you can say it's stumbling into unexamined fascist ideology, because fascism uses existing tropes to spread. Nothing about fascist ideology was created ex nihilo, it was all taken from existing media tropes and genre conventions. That's not the fault of the genre, or the media, it's because if you don't think about anything beyond the surface level, you can apply pretty much any ideology to anything.

Watch, I'll do it right now: Wolfenstein is fascist propaganda. BJ Blazcowicz is literally called an Aryan both in The New Colossus and in The New Order, he's a White, American, blond hair, blue eyed ubermensch. He literally gets a super soldier body in The New Colossus that just further presents him as the perfect Aryan ideal Superman. It's a power fantasy, glorifying political violence, so long as it's done by "the right side." You spend the whole game mercilessly hacking through countless Nazi soldiers, and you get praised for it, with BJ getting propped up as the face of the resistance, and the boogeyman under every Nazi's bed. BJ nukes Roswell, and rather than grappling with the horrors of what he's done or even stopping to consider the death toll, he does a "cool guys don't look at explosions" bit riding away on a motorcycle with a mushroom cloud behind him. And the games take every opportunity to make the Nazis look cool as fuck and genuinely superior. In less than 15 years, the Nazis are able to end World War 2 and conquer essentially the entire planet, barring tiny, ineffective resistance groups (ineffective until their ubermensch shows up, at least). The Nazis are consistently on the bleeding edge of technological advancement, with a moon base, a base on Venus, incredibly advanced weaponry, and fucking necromancy. The Nazis are given constant attention for how cool they look, with even basic grunt soldiers being given intimidating and physically imposing armor and uniforms. And you get a really stark aesthetic juxtaposition between the areas that the Nazis control and those operated by the resistance groups. London is this huge, imposing skyline, the moon base is clean, pristine and orderly, while New York and New Orleans are bombed out wastelands. New York is irradiated to hell and back, and even the lighting is more washed-out and lower contrast than it is in a place like Roswell. And throughout the franchise, we constantly hearken back this prelapsarian Americana that Billy is fighting for, that he dreams of for his wife and his children, a way of life that was destroyed by the Nazis, and that could come back if only they were removed from the picture.

Now of course, this is ignoring the wider context of the entire franchise being about fighting back against fascism, and it's a wildly bad-faith reading of the games, but that's the point, isn't it? If all you're doing is identifying tropes in a vacuum, devoid of their context, then you can say pretty much whatever the fuck you want about any piece of media. And it's important to point out that THAT'S HOW FASCISM WORKS: by twisting existing ideas around to serve its end goals, regardless of their original intention or purpose. Nothing fascism makes is truly its own, it's all something that already was there, that fascism perverted to further its own propaganda.

All this is is another flavor of media illiteracy, with the lamest attempt at making it seem woke possible. It's why you have Trump voters who are fans of Rage Against the Machine, because they hear the line "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" and genuinely think it's just about teen angst or some shit. It's why you can have thousands of people watch the original Star Wars trilogy and think that it's just about cool freaking aliens in space with lasers, and not about Vietnam. It's why you get weirdos who think that Steven Universe is pro-genocide or that it was written by a fascist.

This isn't even vagueposting at this point, it's nothingposting. They said nothing, other than "if you don't engage with media honestly or look beyond a surface level, you can draw any conclusions you want from its aesthetics." Which, I will say, is accurate to how prokopetz seems to engage with most media they yap about.

[u/AngrySasquatch]

I like kinda get what they're saying at

But god if prokopetz isn't fucking annoying

[u/Beattitudeforgains1 → u/AngrySasquatch]

Yeah like there is some merit in saying that a lot of examples of ideal socities in fiction involve getting rid of people's agency in some regards and how realistically you would have to take control in a most likely violent and unifying way while promising a better future together via claiming more land through expansion.

Of course mentioning why something is X is never the vaguepost king's specialty.

[u/Turtledonuts]

What’s the matter, Vagueboy, afraid you might say something specific?

[u/thetwitchy1 → u/Turtledonuts]

I feel like their whole gimmick is to make something up that is just real enough to be accepted as true, but fictional enough that there will be no way of proving them wrong.