The human experiences and human interpersonal conflicts that exist within the universe of the Culture (and do not involve being a member of Contact or Special C

The human experiences and human interpersonal conflicts that exist within the universe of the Culture (and do not involve being a member of Contact or Special Circumstances) are already well-covered by many, many stories that do not need the Culture, or sci-if in general, as a backdrop to be told. Money (and therefore jobs) and death are two of the biggest differences between that universe and ours. I cannot off the top of my head think of non-SF fiction or memoirs/biographies where these two things don’t have some bearing on the story, but there are plenty where they are not central to it. Many fascinating stories could be wrapped in the Culture mythos without compromise. In exchange, IMO, you’d have a lot more personal experiences of people pursuing and achieving the things they are interested in doing with a lot fewer roadblocks along the way. The juicy parts are still juicy; they just achieve much higher levels than they could when “I had to work a shit job and compromise myself for 10 years to save up enough to do X.” That person may not bother writing about it; they’d just tell their friends over drinks (or on a forum when it came up!) because finding personal fulfillment would be more normalized than it is here and now. I think that’s a good thing.