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Many people who win a lottery manage to spend it all, and often have a psychological meltdown while they're at it. Something similar seems to happen to those w

Many people who win a lottery manage to spend it all, and often have a psychological meltdown while they're at it. Something similar seems to happen to those who are born rich. They can have the perfect Instagram life - but they're more likely to do nothing much of interest except develop some addictions. When you can have anything you have nothing, because you have no skin in the game. You can't lose - which means you also can't win. There's an ancient fairy tale about a table that produces infinite food on demand. If you're a starving medieval peasant that's pretty appealing. But as heavens go, it has limited ambition. The Culture is the updated equivalent. It's a poor person's idea of a rich utopia. And it doesn't make sense. The Minds are almost infinitely smart and kind. But humans and events continually surprise them, even though they act more like humans than the humans do. And they have a vicious streak when angry. Everyone is free, but only if it doesn't affect anything that matters. You can do anything and think anything, but apparently no human ever considers whether they could become a Mind, or vice versa. (It's a flattering conceit that we're so interesting that a super-AI couldn't model our behaviour with ease. But it's not a very plausible one.) There's also a fair amount of by-the-numbers comic book violence. So while the books are fun and quirky and intelligently written, their attempts to grapple with utopia are more at the level of lottery-winning nerd-heaven wish fulfilment than credible post-human foreshadowing. I'd guess the reality is that any culture operating at that level would be incomprehensible and also invisible. No part of it would fit into our minds. It's interesting to try to imagine that. But it's not much of a foundation for a popular SF series.

zabzonk 6y ago
> But it's not much of a foundation for a popular SF series. And yet it was the foundation for an enormously popular (deservedly so, IMHO) SF series.
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
I think that you may be missing that Banks' series is actually about this very contradiction. He continually explores just how hypocritical, contradictory, and partial the "utopia" in the Culture actually is. His Minds are clever, but they have built-in biases. The majority of citizens are "happy" but his books explore the corner cases and there are plenty of characters shown to have ennui or some sense of resent. The first of the series (Consider Phlebas) involves a non-Culture character who despises the Culture for precisely this groundlessness. And all of his books in the Culture involve the "Special Circumstances" organization in some aspect, poking their fingers in places where they arguably should not be (but sometimes should be). In his books the Culture is simultaneously a "good guy" but also an overbearing preachy and hypocritical and sometimes ethically dubious plot foil. The actual "bad guys" (imperialist hierarchical tyrannical aliens, etc.) are shown in a very bad light, but in the process of dealing with them, the ugly side of the Culture is constantly shown.
bouvin 6y ago
Regarding humans surprising Minds: if memory serves, modelling human minds, while obviously trivial for Minds, is not a Done Thing, as The Culture, of which the the Minds are the premiere manifestation, holds a high ethical standard in which software simulations of sufficient high fidelity have rights. If you model a human mind, you have created a human, and you then have responsibilities for that human, tiny as it may be. Similarly, it would be trivial for a Mind to scan or manipulate an organic brain, yet the only known Mind to do so (Grey Area aka Meatfucker) was held in contempt by its peers. While the human level characters do not have any material worries to contend with, they do worry quite a bit about their social standing. You can choose to do nothing in The Culture, but then you are probably not going to be invited to the interesting parties.
rsynnott 6y ago
> It's a flattering conceit that we're so interesting that a super-AI couldn't model our behaviour with ease. This comes up a couple of times; the AIs have a fairly strong taboo against either perfectly simulating people, or looking too directly at their thoughts. Usually. There are exceptions, but they’re ostracised.

zabzonk 6y ago

> But it's not much of a foundation for a popular SF series. And yet it was the foundation for an enormously popular (deservedly so, IMHO) SF series.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

I think that you may be missing that Banks' series is actually about this very contradiction. He continually explores just how hypocritical, contradictory, and partial the "utopia" in the Culture actually is. His Minds are clever, but they have built-in biases. The majority of citizens are "happy" but his books explore the corner cases and there are plenty of characters shown to have ennui or some sense of resent. The first of the series (Consider Phlebas) involves a non-Culture character who despises the Culture for precisely this groundlessness. And all of his books in the Culture involve the "Special Circumstances" organization in some aspect, poking their fingers in places where they arguably should not be (but sometimes should be). In his books the Culture is simultaneously a "good guy" but also an overbearing preachy and hypocritical and sometimes ethically dubious plot foil. The actual "bad guys" (imperialist hierarchical tyrannical aliens, etc.) are shown in a very bad light, but in the process of dealing with them, the ugly side of the Culture is constantly shown.

bouvin 6y ago

Regarding humans surprising Minds: if memory serves, modelling human minds, while obviously trivial for Minds, is not a Done Thing, as The Culture, of which the the Minds are the premiere manifestation, holds a high ethical standard in which software simulations of sufficient high fidelity have rights. If you model a human mind, you have created a human, and you then have responsibilities for that human, tiny as it may be. Similarly, it would be trivial for a Mind to scan or manipulate an organic brain, yet the only known Mind to do so (Grey Area aka Meatfucker) was held in contempt by its peers. While the human level characters do not have any material worries to contend with, they do worry quite a bit about their social standing. You can choose to do nothing in The Culture, but then you are probably not going to be invited to the interesting parties.

rsynnott 6y ago

> It's a flattering conceit that we're so interesting that a super-AI couldn't model our behaviour with ease. This comes up a couple of times; the AIs have a fairly strong taboo against either perfectly simulating people, or looking too directly at their thoughts. Usually. There are exceptions, but they’re ostracised.