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[The Culture] Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism

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  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Monwyn wrote: »
    htm wrote: »
    Echo wrote: »
    Consider Phlebas is absolutely a great book, but it's also an outsider's perspective of the Culture, so people that have been told all these cool things about the Culture might find the lack of Culture in it a bit disappointing. So as a Culture novel it might not be the best starting point for that reason.

    I always recommend Use of Weapons as a starting point for the Culture books. <.<

    I love all of the Culture, but Banks turned into a big softie towards the end of his career. None of the later Culture novels have nearly biting edge that the early ones do.

    I mean I'm with you on the last bit, but man Use of Weapons is fucking ROUGH, tonally

    I have a hard time suggesting it as the first introduction just because I can easily see someone being like "well that was depressing as fuck, not reading any more of those"

    I dunno, I thought Surface Detail went into a fair bit of detail as to how horrible the concept of hell is.

    Caedwyr on
  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    It makes sense too
    if the society is post scarcity, private property makes little sense. You "own" stuff so you have it when you want it need it.

    If can have more than we can imagine with a mere word spoken, why would you need to own stuff?

    If mansions that would make a billionaire of today blush are just standing around basically waiting for inhabitants, why would you need to buy them?

    And if you want your own private space, that might be seen as quirky, but no one would fault you. They'd support you

    On the whole, Banks was careful to make it clear that while all the technology helps, the culture is a utopia because it chooses to be.

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    IMO Player of Games is the definitive First Book

    Consider Phlebas was definitely a better read AFTER having read other Culture Books to me

    Player of Games gives you a good view on why the Culture works
    when the protagonist is just baffled by the idea of wanting to own a planet

    He's also perplexed at the idea of
    private property and money

    The idea of someone walking into your house and using your stuff when you aren't using it is the norm to The Culture

    Even among a people who convert the matter of entire star systems into goods, waste is seen as more of a social taboo than it is to people of Earth today in 2021 - because they have the luxury to extend their views out ten or a hundred thousand years
    when contact is describing wages and marriage to him and he thinks theyre just fucking with him
    htm wrote: »
    Echo wrote: »
    Consider Phlebas is absolutely a great book, but it's also an outsider's perspective of the Culture, so people that have been told all these cool things about the Culture might find the lack of Culture in it a bit disappointing. So as a Culture novel it might not be the best starting point for that reason.

    I always recommend Use of Weapons as a starting point for the Culture books. <.<

    I love all of the Culture, but Banks turned into a big softie towards the end of his career. None of the later Culture novels have nearly biting edge that the early ones do.

    Hyrdogen Sonata is pretty fucking biting under the fluffy surface.

    Styrofoam Sammich on
    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • htmhtm Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    Monwyn wrote: »
    htm wrote: »
    Echo wrote: »
    Consider Phlebas is absolutely a great book, but it's also an outsider's perspective of the Culture, so people that have been told all these cool things about the Culture might find the lack of Culture in it a bit disappointing. So as a Culture novel it might not be the best starting point for that reason.

    I always recommend Use of Weapons as a starting point for the Culture books. <.<

    I love all of the Culture, but Banks turned into a big softie towards the end of his career. None of the later Culture novels have nearly biting edge that the early ones do.

    I mean I'm with you on the last bit, but man Use of Weapons is fucking ROUGH, tonally

    I have a hard time suggesting it as the first introduction just because I can easily see someone being like "well that was depressing as fuck, not reading any more of those"

    I dunno, I thought Surface Detail went into a fair bit of detail as to how horrible the concept of hell is.
    Chay certainly had a rough time, but its other threads all end happily: the sinners escape hell, hell gets destroyed, Veppers gets minced, Y’breq lives happily ever after. And I’m pretty sure that young Banks would never have rehabilitated Zakalwe.

    Also, thematically, it doesn’t challenge its readers the way some of his earlier books did. “Hell is bad and so are the people who maintain it,” is a pretty feelgood theme for the sort of SF nerds who read Banks.

    htm on
  • htmhtm Registered User regular
    Monwyn wrote: »
    htm wrote: »
    Echo wrote: »
    Consider Phlebas is absolutely a great book, but it's also an outsider's perspective of the Culture, so people that have been told all these cool things about the Culture might find the lack of Culture in it a bit disappointing. So as a Culture novel it might not be the best starting point for that reason.

    I always recommend Use of Weapons as a starting point for the Culture books. <.<

    I love all of the Culture, but Banks turned into a big softie towards the end of his career. None of the later Culture novels have nearly biting edge that the early ones do.

    I mean I'm with you on the last bit, but man Use of Weapons is fucking ROUGH, tonally

    I have a hard time suggesting it as the first introduction just because I can easily see someone being like "well that was depressing as fuck, not reading any more of those"

    Mostly, I recommend it because I think it’s his best book, and (I think) the chronological second after Consider Phlebas. CP is great, but Echo is right that’s it not a great introduction to the Culture.

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Hell was honestly not even close to the roughest part of Surface Detail for me
    yeah its grotesque and graphic but its written very consciously as like a 14 years olds idea of brutality, fitting with Banks's running theme that cruelty is weakness.

    I think you're kind of equating misery with depth here. Surface Detail is a very touching story about moving on from and surviving trauma. That he writes on the belief that such a thing is possible doesnt make him feelgood or whatever.

    Styrofoam Sammich on
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  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Also those are open spoilers there @htm

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  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    It makes sense too
    if the society is post scarcity, private property makes little sense. You "own" stuff so you have it when you want it need it.

    If can have more than we can imagine with a mere word spoken, why would you need to own stuff?

    If mansions that would make a billionaire of today blush are just standing around basically waiting for inhabitants, why would you need to buy them?

    And if you want your own private space, that might be seen as quirky, but no one would fault you. They'd support you

    On the whole, Banks was careful to make it clear that while all the technology helps, the culture is a utopia because it chooses to be.

    Yep, Player of Games is a great example
    the Azati Empire is as advanced as the Federation from Star Trek, or close enough to it, but as barbaric as North Korea

    Some level of technology is required, sure, but in Excession, The Sleeper Service is recreating a battle scene from the last great battle on the world that can best be credited with starting the idea of the culture - and it was fought with muskets - so the Culture sprang from worlds that had no more major national conflicts before the invention of the steam engine

    override367 on
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    I'll agree with most of that, though I wouldn't really say that Zakalwe gets rehabilitated. He's still the broken person he's always been full of his own neuroses. Use of Weapons has a whole bunch of nasty stuff in the past around Zakalwe, but the Culture's objectives are still successful. I guess Surface Detail is a more hopeful book because there's a focus on a larger conflict, but much of what is shown in Use of Weapons ends up feeling shocking on a personal history scale, but not as part of the larger setting. I do get and agree with the point about the tone of the books being quite different. Matter and Look to Windward are the other books that have some common elements in their tone to parts of Use of Weapons.

    One of the fun things for me is how different all the Culture books mostly end up feeling even though they are by the same author and in the same setting. Normally each book looks at a big theme or concept and explores it in a way. You get a real sense of how nothing matters at all, and yet because nothing matters, the choices made by the individuals involved have more inherent meaning than if there was some kind of grand plan or destiny.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    It makes sense too
    if the society is post scarcity, private property makes little sense. You "own" stuff so you have it when you want it need it.

    If can have more than we can imagine with a mere word spoken, why would you need to own stuff?

    If mansions that would make a billionaire of today blush are just standing around basically waiting for inhabitants, why would you need to buy them?

    And if you want your own private space, that might be seen as quirky, but no one would fault you. They'd support you

    Like they seem to understand personal property just fine, we see people who have things that have meaning to them, so it's unlikely that strangers will come into your bedroom while you're sleeping and crawl in next to you or barge in uninvited while you're eating in a study - but as you say, a mansion, like Gurgei's house? Yeah why the hell would he keep it to himself? We see in other books that there are culture citizens who live in 3-4 room apartments of pretty modest size, and visitors who do the same, presumably those people care more about their privacy - because the only reason to HAVE a giant mansion is so other people can see it

    nobody in the culture is stopping you from having a 300 room house to yourself, but everyone would look at that the same way we would look on someone buying all the butter that the local grocery store currently had in stock - (mostly) all of us could just go do that at any time

    but why would you

    override367 on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    I'll agree with most of that, though I wouldn't really say that Zakalwe gets rehabilitated. He's still the broken person he's always been full of his own neuroses. Use of Weapons has a whole bunch of nasty stuff in the past around Zakalwe, but the Culture's objectives are still successful. I guess Surface Detail is a more hopeful book because there's a focus on a larger conflict, but much of what is shown in Use of Weapons ends up feeling shocking on a personal history scale, but not as part of the larger setting. I do get and agree with the point about the tone of the books being quite different. Matter and Look to Windward are the other books that have some common elements in their tone to parts of Use of Weapons.

    One of the fun things for me is how different all the Culture books mostly end up feeling even though they are by the same author and in the same setting. Normally each book looks at a big theme or concept and explores it in a way. You get a real sense of how nothing matters at all, and yet because nothing matters, the choices made by the individuals involved have more inherent meaning than if there was some kind of grand plan or destiny.

    Hydrogen Sonata left me sitting there cycling between anger at how little it all meant and melancholy, until I thought about it more and felt fulfilled

    The universe doesn't care. So what?

    Go finish the piece of music you swore to yourself you'd finish

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    I'll agree with most of that, though I wouldn't really say that Zakalwe gets rehabilitated. He's still the broken person he's always been full of his own neuroses. Use of Weapons has a whole bunch of nasty stuff in the past around Zakalwe, but the Culture's objectives are still successful. I guess Surface Detail is a more hopeful book because there's a focus on a larger conflict, but much of what is shown in Use of Weapons ends up feeling shocking on a personal history scale, but not as part of the larger setting. I do get and agree with the point about the tone of the books being quite different. Matter and Look to Windward are the other books that have some common elements in their tone to parts of Use of Weapons.

    One of the fun things for me is how different all the Culture books mostly end up feeling even though they are by the same author and in the same setting. Normally each book looks at a big theme or concept and explores it in a way. You get a real sense of how nothing matters at all, and yet because nothing matters, the choices made by the individuals involved have more inherent meaning than if there was some kind of grand plan or destiny.

    Hydrogen Sonata left me sitting there cycling between anger at how little it all meant and melancholy, until I thought about it more and felt fulfilled

    The universe doesn't care. So what?

    Go finish the piece of music you swore to yourself you'd finish

    Written while he was dying iirc

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  • mrondeaumrondeau Montréal, CanadaRegistered User regular
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    I'll agree with most of that, though I wouldn't really say that Zakalwe gets rehabilitated. He's still the broken person he's always been full of his own neuroses. Use of Weapons has a whole bunch of nasty stuff in the past around Zakalwe, but the Culture's objectives are still successful. I guess Surface Detail is a more hopeful book because there's a focus on a larger conflict, but much of what is shown in Use of Weapons ends up feeling shocking on a personal history scale, but not as part of the larger setting. I do get and agree with the point about the tone of the books being quite different. Matter and Look to Windward are the other books that have some common elements in their tone to parts of Use of Weapons.

    One of the fun things for me is how different all the Culture books mostly end up feeling even though they are by the same author and in the same setting. Normally each book looks at a big theme or concept and explores it in a way. You get a real sense of how nothing matters at all, and yet because nothing matters, the choices made by the individuals involved have more inherent meaning than if there was some kind of grand plan or destiny.

    Hydrogen Sonata left me sitting there cycling between anger at how little it all meant and melancholy, until I thought about it more and felt fulfilled

    The universe doesn't care. So what?

    Go finish the piece of music you swore to yourself you'd finish

    Written while he was dying iirc

    IIRC, not quite: written while he was dying, but before he was aware he was dying.

  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    I would say that broadly every Culture book has the same message, which is a sort of depressed optimism; the moral arc of the universe tends towards justice, but it is a crap shoot whether any particular individual will ever get to experience it. The protagonist doesn't always win, but the Culture always wins.

  • htmhtm Registered User regular
    Also those are open spoilers there @htm

    Fixed, thanks!

  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    I'll agree with most of that, though I wouldn't really say that Zakalwe gets rehabilitated. He's still the broken person he's always been full of his own neuroses. Use of Weapons has a whole bunch of nasty stuff in the past around Zakalwe, but the Culture's objectives are still successful. I guess Surface Detail is a more hopeful book because there's a focus on a larger conflict, but much of what is shown in Use of Weapons ends up feeling shocking on a personal history scale, but not as part of the larger setting. I do get and agree with the point about the tone of the books being quite different. Matter and Look to Windward are the other books that have some common elements in their tone to parts of Use of Weapons.

    One of the fun things for me is how different all the Culture books mostly end up feeling even though they are by the same author and in the same setting. Normally each book looks at a big theme or concept and explores it in a way. You get a real sense of how nothing matters at all, and yet because nothing matters, the choices made by the individuals involved have more inherent meaning than if there was some kind of grand plan or destiny.

    Hydrogen Sonata left me sitting there cycling between anger at how little it all meant and melancholy, until I thought about it more and felt fulfilled

    The universe doesn't care. So what?

    Go finish the piece of music you swore to yourself you'd finish

    The whole book is more or less an answer to the question "why live?"

  • htmhtm Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    I'll agree with most of that, though I wouldn't really say that Zakalwe gets rehabilitated. He's still the broken person he's always been full of his own neuroses. Use of Weapons has a whole bunch of nasty stuff in the past around Zakalwe, but the Culture's objectives are still successful. I guess Surface Detail is a more hopeful book because there's a focus on a larger conflict, but much of what is shown in Use of Weapons ends up feeling shocking on a personal history scale, but not as part of the larger setting.

    I think a better way of trying to articulate my point about his earlier vs. later works is that his earlier works are more provocative in terms of challenging the sensibilities of his audience:
    Consider Phlebas expresses deep ambivalence WRT Just War Theory and pretty much shat all over the usual Campbellian mythic hero tropes.
    Use of Weapons is bitterly angry at the sort of covert ops imperialism that the West engaged in during the Cold War.
    Excession’s Affront subplot is an explicit rejection of Just War Theory, which was quite the hot take back in the time it was published (i.e. between Gulf War I and 9/11).
    Look to Windward is also explicitly anti-Gulf War I.

    All these were published during the height of post-Cold War western triumphalism in an era when even more of the extant neckbeards thought Starship Troopers was a classic of western literature.

    In contrast, I feel like some of his later books were kind of him singing to the secular nerd choir. Nothing wrong with that–they’re all great–but at the end of his career he didn’t seem as nearly as contrarian WRT current events, SF genre tropes, and the biases of the stereotypical SF&F reader that was his intended audience.

    htm on
  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Demeisen really is delightful, especially in the audio book

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  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    My favorite part of Surface Detail is the slap drone
    The reveal at the end is so great. It really hammers home the idea that even when you are being "punished" in the Culture you have not gained a prison warden, you have gained a friend and protector who is legitimately there to help you.

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Winky wrote: »
    My favorite part of Surface Detail is the slap drone
    The reveal at the end is so great. It really hammers home the idea that even when you are being "punished" in the Culture you have not gained a prison warden, you have gained a friend and protector who is legitimately there to help you.

    That's what makes Demeisen so great
    Like the entire story he plays up the homicidal barely restrained monster and to whatever degree he is that but he's also legitimately her friend and is exactly what she needs over the Sense's pampering approach.

    The way the line "And this, Joiler Veppers, you ghastly cunt,..." is delivered in the audio book is fantastic

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  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    Hydrogen Sonata has probably one of the most viscerally horrifying deaths in all the Culture books
    When the head of government is assassinated with the "melts your nervous system" weapon. That one got to me.

  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    If there ever actually materialises a culture TV show or movie I wonder if the members of the culture are al going to be just regular humans, little make up, nothing else, or if they're actually are depicted closer to what they are in the books.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    honovere wrote: »
    If there ever actually materialises a culture TV show or movie I wonder if the members of the culture are al going to be just regular humans, little make up, nothing else, or if they're actually are depicted closer to what they are in the books.

    I kind of thought that a good chunk of The Culture could be shown with Trek level weird forehead aliens. There's some other stuff happening, I think the Player of Games guy had bifuricated nails or something, but generally they humanoid. The giant spider bartenders and mentors who have shoved themselves into a spike ball are the tough ones.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    In Star Trek terms I feels like someone like Saru from discovery might be closer to your average culture member "human" than Worf or Spock?

  • M-VickersM-Vickers Registered User regular
    Winky wrote: »
    I would say that broadly every Culture book has the same message, which is a sort of depressed optimism; the moral arc of the universe tends towards justice, but it is a crap shoot whether any particular individual will ever get to experience it. The protagonist doesn't always win, but the Culture always wins.

    Because "No-one Fucks With The Culture."

    I can't remember the book that's from, but I loved the hushed tones it's mentioned in.

    Look to Windward ?

  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    It's basically all of them..

    kFJhXwE.jpgkFJhXwE.jpg
  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Some degree of diversity would be nice. They are generally bipedal mammals, but are only a species due to some aggressive gene fixing. Like, regular culture person can simultaneously encompass the entire StarTrek cast list, from basically every season, just slightly more open-minded.

    Like, everything on StarTrek, that some viewer has thought, Yeah I'd hit that. Probably pretty much fits into the Culture.

    redx on
    They moistly come out at night, moistly.
  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    honovere wrote: »
    In Star Trek terms I feels like someone like Saru from discovery might be closer to your average culture member "human" than Worf or Spock?

    Could be that too. Best source of any information would be the story where The Culture rolls into 1970's Earth. I think it had some stuff about how many of the crew could be, or were willing to be, rejiggered to look human and how much of a change it was for them.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    I have zero faith in any film series not turning this into just hedonistic sci fi

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  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Player of Games is the only story I trust anyone to do properly, the only sex parties in that are with the imperials (who someone like HBO would make a lot more conventionally attractive than they are)

    override367 on
  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    M-Vickers wrote: »
    Winky wrote: »
    I would say that broadly every Culture book has the same message, which is a sort of depressed optimism; the moral arc of the universe tends towards justice, but it is a crap shoot whether any particular individual will ever get to experience it. The protagonist doesn't always win, but the Culture always wins.

    Because "No-one Fucks With The Culture."

    I can't remember the book that's from, but I loved the hushed tones it's mentioned in.

    Look to Windward ?

    Like daveNYC said: All of them.

    But especially Look to Windward.

    Even
    if you act on behalf of your Sublimed ancestors to avenge a mistake made by Special Circumstances that caused a civil war and may or may not have been egged on by a bunch of Culture Minds that wanted to rouse the Culture itself from complacency...
    "Don't Fuck with the Culture"

    Being eaten by E-dust Assassin that turns into insects and eats you from the inside out is bound to hurt.

    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Surface Detail presents "dont fuck with the Culture" as a well known galaxy wide axiom and warning.

    Styrofoam Sammich on
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  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    Surface Detail presents "dont fuck with the Culture" as a well known galaxy wide axiom and warning.

    The bit where FOTNMC just casually annihilates the fleet is so good

  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    The Culture is possibly the only sci-fi series that gets massive differences in scale right

  • mrondeaumrondeau Montréal, CanadaRegistered User regular
    Winky wrote: »
    Surface Detail presents "dont fuck with the Culture" as a well known galaxy wide axiom and warning.

    The bit where FOTNMC just casually annihilates the fleet is so good

    I love the fact it actually wait for the fleet to launch what would be a killing attack, if it was the old demilitarized ship the fleet believed it was. It wasn't.

    Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints is pure troll. It pretends to be a monster, but at every point it actually does what the ideal Mind would do.

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Winky wrote: »
    Surface Detail presents "dont fuck with the Culture" as a well known galaxy wide axiom and warning.

    The bit where FOTNMC just casually annihilates the fleet is so good

    "Its my time to shine baby"

    All the other Culture warships jealously congradulating it on getting to waste a fleet

    Styrofoam Sammich on
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  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Winky wrote: »
    Surface Detail presents "dont fuck with the Culture" as a well known galaxy wide axiom and warning.

    The bit where FOTNMC just casually annihilates the fleet is so good

    "Its my time to shine baby"

    All the other Culture warships jealously congradulating it on getting to waste a fleet

    yessssss

    The other great bit with a Culture Warship where the REALLY PISSED OFF one in excession goes blaring around with engines clinging to the fabric of the universe so hard that it might as well be spraying a light year long cone of fire

    "MISSED ME FUCKER"

    and its revelation that despite all of its vast intelligence and all of its incredibly sensory capabilities and weapons systems and blah blah, at that moment it felt like it truly understood what being a morally righteous human warrior running into battle with a spear was like

    and the entire combat is over in miliseconds, with hundreds of involved combatants

    override367 on
  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    On the "what if people want mansions" debate. I remember reading about the Manor(that is the actual name of the house) in Hollywood that Aaron Spelling the TV producer built. It had 123 room, 27 bathrooms, 14 Bedrooms and both a 2-ale bowling alley and a Cinema with seats for 20 people. There where a lot of other amenities as well, including a servants wing(not something the Culture would need)

    Despite this Tori Spelling says, the family of four spend most of their time in the same 5-8 rooms and left the rest of the building to gather dust most of the time.

    At some point possessions become just too large for you to interact with them in a meaningful way.

    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    On the "what if people want mansions" debate. I remember reading about the Manor(that is the actual name of the house) in Hollywood that Aaron Spelling the TV producer built. It had 123 room, 27 bathrooms, 14 Bedrooms and both a 2-ale bowling alley and a Cinema with seats for 20 people. There where a lot of other amenities as well, including a servants wing(not something the Culture would need)

    Despite this Tori Spelling says, the family of four spend most of their time in the same 5-8 rooms and left the rest of the building to gather dust most of the time.

    At some point possessions become just too large for you to interact with them in a meaningful way.

    It doesn't need to be The Culture, but I really wish we had more media where they actually explored the difference between personal and private property, and how private property, landlords, etc are bad for the majority of people

    Star Trek even largely shied away from that

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    On the "what if people want mansions" debate. I remember reading about the Manor(that is the actual name of the house) in Hollywood that Aaron Spelling the TV producer built. It had 123 room, 27 bathrooms, 14 Bedrooms and both a 2-ale bowling alley and a Cinema with seats for 20 people. There where a lot of other amenities as well, including a servants wing(not something the Culture would need)

    Despite this Tori Spelling says, the family of four spend most of their time in the same 5-8 rooms and left the rest of the building to gather dust most of the time.

    At some point possessions become just too large for you to interact with them in a meaningful way.

    It doesn't need to be The Culture, but I really wish we had more media where they actually explored the difference between personal and private property, and how private property, landlords, etc are bad for the majority of people

    Star Trek even largely shied away from that

    I like Star Trek but it frequently engages in a lot of "if we're just liberal enough then bam, utopia" without changing a lot of underlying assumptions about wealth and power.

    Styrofoam Sammich on
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