I'm fresh off a visit to the Technisches Museum in Vienna which has an absolutely superb collection of steam-age technology from the first and second industrial revolutions. It is a steampunk's playground. The collection also does an awesome job of putting the past 300 years of technical progress into a kind of perspective. I am an environmentalist, but the objections to heavy industry seem a bit quaint when faced with the weight and capability of all modern society.<p>Maybe I'm a bit humbled right now. It seems increasingly ridiculous that we could solve our pollution problems with solar panels and trees and equally ridiculous that we could put any of our magic back in Pandora's box. I'm not sure what the solution is. Maybe there isn't one but to deal with the consequences as best we can.
I am almost finished with a book about Humboldt (Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf). It's been a fantastic read, and I was surprised/ashamed that I hadn't known anything about Humboldt until earlier this year.
Pretty cool. Just listened to a podcast where they talked about solarpunk. I appreciate the movement for its optimistic outlook of integrating humanity with nature as opposed to the dystopian cyberpunk narratives we see where everything is techno-centric and completely apart from the natural place we originate from.
The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf is a fantastic, highly recommended read. It covers Humboldt’s life as an adventuring proto-scientist as well as the impact he’s had on the world’s great scientific and artistic minds (Darwin, Goethe, many more). Despite his huge impact, the world has mostly forgotten about him, sadly.
Some books about and by Alexander von Humboldt at the Internet Archive:<p><i>Lives of the Brothers Humboldt, Alexander and William</i> (1852)<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/livesofbrothersh01klen" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/livesofbrothersh01klen</a><p><i>The Travels and Researches of Alexander von Humboldt</i> (1857)<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/travelsresearche00humb" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/travelsresearche00humb</a><p><i>The Life, Travels and Books of Alexander von Humboldt</i> (1859)<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/lifetravelsbooks00stod/" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/lifetravelsbooks00stod/</a><p><i>Darwin and Humboldt: Their Lives and Work</i> (1883)<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/101597985.nlm.nih.gov/" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/101597985.nlm.nih.gov/</a><p><i>Researches Concerning the Institutions & Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America: With Descriptions & Views of Some of the Most Striking Scenes in the Cordilleras!</i> (English translation, 1814)<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/researchesconce121814humb" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/researchesconce121814humb</a><p><i>Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe</i> (English translation, 1866)<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchofphcosmos01humbrich" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/sketchofphcosmos01humbrich</a><p><a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchofphcosmos02humbrich" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/sketchofphcosmos02humbrich</a><p><a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchofphcosmos03humbrich" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/sketchofphcosmos03humbrich</a><p><a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchofphcosmos04humbrich" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/sketchofphcosmos04humbrich</a><p>Many more here:<p><a href="https://archive.org/search.php?query=Alexander%20von%20Humboldt%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/search.php?query=Alexander%20von%20Humbo...</a>
How is this "movement" more than a rebranding of the tech optimists of the past? It reads as a pathetic response to the meagerest of efforts to go back to the tech optimists and technofuturists, or whatever these industrialists and capitalists pretentiously called themselves, to show them how wrong they were. Now you're all just trying to turn that frown upside down with greenwashing masquerading as philosophy. Anything to keep the capital flowing through the door and down the drain.