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The Culture is post-scarcity. Every single inhabitant is far, far, far richer in absolute terms than Musk or Bezos. There is no logical inconsistency in a capit

The Culture is post-scarcity. Every single inhabitant is far, far, far richer in absolute terms than Musk or Bezos. There is no logical inconsistency in a capitalist wanting to be a trillion times richer than they are today. Worrying about relative wealth over absolute wealth is a trap for those with limited imagnations.

incompatible 6y ago
I like the idea that each Culture society, such as a large ship or orbital, has a copy of the entire knowledge-base of the Culture, as well as the technical means to manufacture anything that the entire Culture knows about.
macca321 6y ago
It would be a lot harder in the Culture to get someone to be your human footstool.
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  It’s a big galaxy. The number of people into that sort of thing in the Culture is probably larger than the number of humans currently on Earth.
n4r9 6y ago
If wealth is defined as the total value of one's assets, and value is determined by people's preferences, how can absolute wealth be a meaningful concept?
- alasdair_ 6y ago
  It's difficult to put a numerical value on a concept like wealth in a post-scarcity society but a thought experiment could work: would you like to have Elon Musk levels of wealth today (while living in today's level of "total global absolute wealth") or live in a world where you can have your own starship, live essentially forever, and have essentially zero constraints on the amount of matter and energy (and their form) you'd conceivably want to use? Clearly something like The Culture is richer in material wealth (in terms of goods and services and knowledge available), even if it's difficult to put it into pure numerical terms, just as the world we live in now is "richer" than the world we live in three thousand years ago.
  - n4r9 6y ago
    I suppose the question then is why the Culture, and not one of the other myriad post-scarcity sci fi settings? Why pick a society that is explicitly anarchic rather than one with vestigial hierarchies?

incompatible 6y ago

I like the idea that each Culture society, such as a large ship or orbital, has a copy of the entire knowledge-base of the Culture, as well as the technical means to manufacture anything that the entire Culture knows about.

macca321 6y ago

It would be a lot harder in the Culture to get someone to be your human footstool.

dodobirdlord 6y ago
It’s a big galaxy. The number of people into that sort of thing in the Culture is probably larger than the number of humans currently on Earth.

n4r9 6y ago

If wealth is defined as the total value of one's assets, and value is determined by people's preferences, how can absolute wealth be a meaningful concept?

alasdair_ 6y ago
It's difficult to put a numerical value on a concept like wealth in a post-scarcity society but a thought experiment could work: would you like to have Elon Musk levels of wealth today (while living in today's level of "total global absolute wealth") or live in a world where you can have your own starship, live essentially forever, and have essentially zero constraints on the amount of matter and energy (and their form) you'd conceivably want to use? Clearly something like The Culture is richer in material wealth (in terms of goods and services and knowledge available), even if it's difficult to put it into pure numerical terms, just as the world we live in now is "richer" than the world we live in three thousand years ago.
- n4r9 6y ago
  I suppose the question then is why the Culture, and not one of the other myriad post-scarcity sci fi settings? Why pick a society that is explicitly anarchic rather than one with vestigial hierarchies?