We discussed those green skyscrapers in university environment class, and as far as I know they didn’t work that well. It was hard to keep the plants alive and when they did grow, they became a breeding ground for pest insects that got into the units where people were living. It’s very much prioritizing looking green over being green.
IMO it’s better to just have efficient but visually boring skyscrapers, and then have dedicated green space around clusters of density (which is what China is mostly doing nowadays). Separating housing and green space make both more effective, easier to manage, and more resiliant.
Also, in case you’re wondering, most Western environment profs are very impressed by what China has done, at least in the university I went to.
Skyscrapers seem a waste and vulnerability compared to the traditional 10 story style brick, or preferably stone, buildings typical in cities before skyscrapers. Some are bigger than 10 stories, and they can be built earthquake safe same as skyscrapers, the first earthquake safe designs of which that I’m aware of happened after the San Francisco area earthquake some time around the turn of the 20th century that leveled the large buildings. But I’m sure there were prior methods probably dating to antiquity in the middle east and elsewhere.
One method was to build a sort of pool over the build area, a solid container, with sand and the like inside, and building on top of that, vibrations would be absorbed by the sand. There are other methods too but they can be employed by both skyscrapers and masonary buildings.
As to size, the city hall building in philadelphia is the larges I believe, a magnificent building, with statues at levels going up with William Penn at the top. Ornate and decorative too, very unlike the brutalist architecture of today’s city leaders. Compare the subway of any european capital city, from moscow to paris, to new york or DC’s subway. Our leaders have no style, all the money for overinflated contrancts, and more money than any, but none for style or art built into it.
I agree, I didn’t want to change the premise too much in my original comment, but ideally you’d do some complicated math to determine the optimal height for your location, building materials, and population density.
I don’t know what that calculation would look like in China because I don’t live there (I’m sure the Chinese engineers are well aware of those calculations though) but in my country it would definitely be a lot closer to the 10 story range, maybe even lower.
Either way, something us in the West absolutely NEED to get used to is prefab buildings that all look the same. A bunch of prefab skyscrapers like China has is still worlds ahead of the logistical nightmare of demanding every single building be custom designed like is so common here. You call it boring, I call it efficient. Having a few reusable designs (usually different heights) to choose from and copy paste building housing, like what China does, is what we need first, IMO, and then we can talk about the optimal heights for those prefab buildings.
Yeah, functionality comes first and we’ve a lack of housing. But we should add some art to that functionality as we go as we are able, but a solid structure reproduced a million times comes first. Waiting on private interests to do it is a fool’s errand it appears. Capital has colluded to keep the housing stock overpriced, with hedge funds and private equity buying a significant percent of all consumer housing, 15 percent just as of 2018, likely higher now.
I’m partial to leaving decorating buildings to the residents who live there. Something like community murals and art projects on the prefab blank canvas that reflect the people and community those buildings foster. IDK, something about a lot of modern ornamentation commercial developers create feel even colder than no ornamentation at all, but that’s just a personal opinion.
Eh… I’m not sold by this. For me the “punk” aspect is about people taking hopeful actions that go against the grain. Focusing on the authority of any government is a pretty weak sell. Let’s cultivate hope in people!
People don’t just need hope, they need education, safety nets, access to healthcare, job security. Going against the grain won’t magically change any of these things.
That looks more like spider punk
Why not just say you’re against solarpunk? Why try to twist solarpunk to be something it’s not?
Have you forgotten all about me:
Solar punk or solar authoritarianism?
Solar punk is “real” as in, plenty people living off grid on solar, catchment, whatever. China does seem to be making whatever theyre doing become a thing. And its great. Cheap energy probably the most effective path to world peace. If we can get the price to “effectively 0” we can solve just about everything.
How would you produce solar panels when living “off grid”? You need a large, integrated economy to be able to produce such complicated hardware. This is why solar punk is fundamentally an elitist ideology. You look down your nose on “authoritarians”, and have a holier-than-thou attitude toward them, but the society you envision is impossible without them.
Solar panels last a long time and in 30 years or so we will have enough to power the world for a century.
Imagine being over the age of 10 and using the word authoritarianism like it means anything.
Solarpunk is the fiction, the ideal. What China is doing in this regard is 1 version of an attempt to achieve it, and that’s great! Its not the only path forward and there is room for critique of every attempt.
As an anarchist, I would like less authoritarianism actually. But, as a solarpunk enthusiast and environmentalist, im in favor of this action by China. I believe that actions towards solarpunk and actions against government systems i dont like should be handled separately
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In the most abstract sense: Is organisation without authority possible?
In a concrete sense, yes
What appeals to you about that text?
How authority is defined and how Engels actually logically provides an answer to the question whether organization without authority is possible
A short ‘logical’ essay can give any answer in an abstract sense, but that doesn’t discount empirical examples.
Always seemed to me like Engels begs the question, takes “anarchy = chaos” as a starting assumption.
Empirical examples… that you have not provided?
Authoritarian solarpunk. But really it shows the issues of anarchism, works in small scale but is fragile when scaled. The probably most efficient government form would be a dictatorship of the wise.
The probably most efficient government form would be a dictatorship of the wise.
This is just aristocracy with no extra steps, just other name.
You missunderstand then by wise i mean experts in there fields not rich dudes. And the selection process could be democratic aswell.
Oh, so much like China now.
Well china is a lot more efficient and faster. You can criticise other aspects of it ofc.
That’s an interesting topic btw - what is the way for any dictatorship to work well for everyone’s benefit in theory? If it’s dictatorship of the wise, would smartest people get put into place with absolute power? Is it an expectation that people currently in power pass power voluntarily to wiser people? Would there be a framework that determines wisest people and it would be decided upon by the popular consensus? Isn’t it technically still a democracy if people trust in the framework/system that governs how smartest people are decided upon?
A democratic process could be used for selection, but you would also need to limit corruption by taking any incentive from the people in power. Like it is not possible for them to gain more than the median all others in a nation have for the rest if their lives. A good incentive to govern with the future in mind, because you only improve your future when you improve everyones. Another the prestige ofc.
Solar panels and computer chips need large complex centralized factories, but that is basically 0%of the Land so there’s no problem with having both, as long as you don’t pretend that your solar powered homestead isn’t dependent on inputs like that.
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Zenz-maxxing
Gotta love guzzling CIA propaganda uncritically.
Ths is sad
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today’s largest fascistic governance comes from the US and spans almost the entire globe.
leftists shouldn’t spread FUD
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151·13 days agoUS has term limits and doesn’t even permit a “leader for life.”
Lol. Lmao even.
US has a broader international identity
I would say “lol, lmao even,” but the horrors inflicted on all the non-whites in the US is not a laughing matter.
and is much less isolationist.
Sure would be better if it was.
Everything I said is true and you didn’t refute any of it. You do realize that, if you have nothing to say, you don’t have to post, right?
Trump has been leader for 5 years, and will cease leadership in 3 years. Xi has been in power since 2012 and can be leader for the rest of his life.
Now please explain how US is NOT less isolationist than China. This should be good. 🤣
You imply that it is good to have term limits, despite the fact that it is clearly un-democractic to limit who the people can vote for. If the people like someone and think they should continue their work, they should be allowed to do so. [EDIT:] And if China did have term limits… what would it change? Xi ends his terms and then what? Someone else will simply step up.
I didn’t say it wasn’t. I said it would be better if it was.
No. I implied that it’s not fascistic to have term limits (or less fascistic). I don’t think I said anything was good or bad.
You’re implying that being un-democratic is a bad thing. The US Constitution is also un-democratic, as it doesn’t permit the voting majority to violate the rights of the minority. And I doubt you would consider such mob rule of the majority to be a good thing. Or do you?
being un-democratic is a bad thing
Do you think so?
the fuck you are talking about.
state directed != fascism, you know that, right?
state directed + corporatism + extreme nationalism + state control of press and labor + lifetime leader
Name a single thing about the US that is more fascistic than China. I’m willing to concede that such a thing might exist.
here’s more than a single: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
the fascistic us empire has been raining death suffering and poverty all over the planet for decades. china hasn’t been in an active war for decades.
again, the fact that these things are state directed doesn’t make it fascist. that’s not even what fascism is.
Since people here seem to disagree
Since people here have seen all this sinophobic propaganda countless times already and thoroughly debunked it all, you’re going to go ahead and confidently spew tired, gullible U.S. State Department talking points and lies to be debunked yet again for the umpteenth time because you’re either painfully naive and depressingly uneducated or you have an explicit pro-U.S. anti-China agenda you’re desperately trying to spread.
Yeah, we know, dronie.
Neoliberals so far gone, they attack fascism from the right! “fascism is when foreigners”
They try to out fascist the fascists, by being total monsters but pretending to have “concern” about Israel, or workers rights, or anything. As if everyone really wanted to be exploited by corporations but with gay marriage and token actions taken in their favor while workers are further stripped by the super rich.
The answer is to run a populist alternative, not a fake populism like the Right that scapegoats, one that accurately identifies the villains and the problems they cause, and gives a solution that can actually work.
They are hopeless, and until you realize the “liberals” are controlled opposition of the oligarchy, chosen to be weak, to not upset the license further garnered by rich every term, it doesn’t make sense as to why they would suck so bad.
It’s really true though, chosen to be weak, chosen to cave to the other aggressive party, to not change anything back let alone make it better. Just emptly platitudes, perfunctionary efforts at fulfilling promises, a lack of any real politik, and a reason for being of preventing popular reform while being the party of popular reform.
Because you definitely knows what fascism is
-Guy who totally knows what fascism is
