4 ms·

I suspect all of the books are too weird for mainstream audiences at this time, though I would love to be proven wrong. Glanded designer drugs, gender changes b

I suspect all of the books are too weird for mainstream audiences at this time, though I would love to be proven wrong. Glanded designer drugs, gender changes by thought, AGI at millions to billions multiple of a human intellect, Grid energy,... As the list goes on, it would be too easy to veer into fantasy-like depictions, because to date there have been no major successful science fiction movies set in a post-scarcity environment. And Banks' Culture is unabashedly, raucously, bawdily post-scarcity. Any movie treatment of The Culture runs the constant risk of only getting the glossing highlights reel version that Dune received, and I'd be concerned that the mechanics of the story setting, neat as they are, in a movie would get in the way of telling the real story of Banks' more interesting themes via his incisive commentary delivered by holding up The Culture mirror-like, comparing to our own civilization.

sangnoir 10y ago
> it would be too easy to veer into fantasy-like depictions, because to date there have been no major successful science fiction movies set in a post-scarcity environment. The earliest science fiction I recall set in a post-scarcity environment is "Star Trek: TNG". Granted, the socio-economic impact of replicators is not a focus of the series or the movies, replicators are more of background/world-building device ("Tea, Earl Grey, hot")
- yourapostasy 10y ago
  Sorry, I should have phrased it as a positive-outcome post-Singularity environment. Mainstream audiences might not grasp the nuance between post-scarcity and post-Singularity, but when I read the series for the first time, the Mind-level AGI figured prominently in setting The Culture apart from Star Trek. Around that axle, Banks wound into his setting near-unlimited, near-free energy (the Grid), galaxy-spanning capable FTL (1-200,000+ X speed of light), carefully-orchestrated anarchy as a practical and efficient "government", and all the other accoutrements. It is amazing Banks didn't readily yield to the temptation to use the Minds as a deus ex machina, and instead showed how they would also grapple with their own limitations, frustrations, doubts, etc. Even more important than the sheer existence of the Minds was their egalitarian disposition and relationship to their pan-human co-citizens, and interesting tangentials like the Minds' polite yet firm declination to Sublime. I will sorely miss Banks' weaving of the tales of the proto-Culture, and how the early Minds came about to that position.
  - sangnoir 10y ago
    > Sorry, I should have phrased it as a positive-outcome post-Singularity environment. Mainstream audiences might not grasp the nuance between post-scarcity and post-Singularity Post-scarcity and post-singularity are orthogonal - The Culture is both, Star Trek TNG is post-scarcity only, Rapture of the Nerds[1] (Stross & Doctorow) is post-singularity only. 1. http://craphound.com/rotn/Cory_Doctorow_and_Charles_Stross_-_Rapture_of_the_Nerds.pdf http://craphound.com/rotn/Cory_Doctorow_and_Charles_Stross_-...

sangnoir 10y ago

> it would be too easy to veer into fantasy-like depictions, because to date there have been no major successful science fiction movies set in a post-scarcity environment. The earliest science fiction I recall set in a post-scarcity environment is "Star Trek: TNG". Granted, the socio-economic impact of replicators is not a focus of the series or the movies, replicators are more of background/world-building device ("Tea, Earl Grey, hot")

yourapostasy 10y ago
Sorry, I should have phrased it as a positive-outcome post-Singularity environment. Mainstream audiences might not grasp the nuance between post-scarcity and post-Singularity, but when I read the series for the first time, the Mind-level AGI figured prominently in setting The Culture apart from Star Trek. Around that axle, Banks wound into his setting near-unlimited, near-free energy (the Grid), galaxy-spanning capable FTL (1-200,000+ X speed of light), carefully-orchestrated anarchy as a practical and efficient "government", and all the other accoutrements. It is amazing Banks didn't readily yield to the temptation to use the Minds as a deus ex machina, and instead showed how they would also grapple with their own limitations, frustrations, doubts, etc. Even more important than the sheer existence of the Minds was their egalitarian disposition and relationship to their pan-human co-citizens, and interesting tangentials like the Minds' polite yet firm declination to Sublime. I will sorely miss Banks' weaving of the tales of the proto-Culture, and how the early Minds came about to that position.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > Sorry, I should have phrased it as a positive-outcome post-Singularity environment. Mainstream audiences might not grasp the nuance between post-scarcity and post-Singularity Post-scarcity and post-singularity are orthogonal - The Culture is both, Star Trek TNG is post-scarcity only, Rapture of the Nerds[1] (Stross & Doctorow) is post-singularity only. 1. http://craphound.com/rotn/Cory_Doctorow_and_Charles_Stross_-_Rapture_of_the_Nerds.pdf http://craphound.com/rotn/Cory_Doctorow_and_Charles_Stross_-...