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> a post-scarcity, hedonistic society where you could create your own drugs in your own body, change gender at will and where freedom was the highest and nobles
by telesilla 8y ago
> a post-scarcity, hedonistic society where you could create your own drugs in your own body, change gender at will and where freedom was the highest and noblest sign of a civilisation.
This sounds great, why can't we have it without all the bad stuff? The wonderful Ian M. Banks had to add conflict so it would make a page-turning novel: real-life isn't so constrained.
- dahdum 8y agoThe Culture world trapped power hungry would-be tyrants in deep ultra-realistic VR, indeed almost all competition went there IIRC. So maybe one day we could?
- 394549 8y ago> The Culture world trapped power hungry would-be tyrants in deep ultra-realistic VR That's an interesting idea. What book was that described in? I've only read a couple of the Culture books.
- awiesenhofer 8y ago"Surface Detail", absolutely recommend! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Detail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Detail
- dahdum 8y agohttp://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm It was in his notes from '94 but mentioned in books along the way too, see the section starting with "megalomaniacal".
- pmoriarty 8y agoBack in 1965, Stanislaw Lem wrote in his Cyberiad about a sadistic king who was given a virtual world to rule over. The king gleefully proceeded to torture its virtual inhabitants. Lem has a lot to say on the ethics of this. You can read this remarkable story and Douglas Hofstadter's and Daniel Dennett's commentary on it here: https://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-18-seventh-sally-or-how-trurls.html https://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-18-seventh-sal...