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Ach I dunno, did you read any of the Culture novels by Banks? His post scarcity human/machine setup the closest thing to a utopia I can think of, but there are

Ach I dunno, did you read any of the Culture novels by Banks? His post scarcity human/machine setup the closest thing to a utopia I can think of, but there are still a good load of novels there :)

detaro 5y ago
A good chunk of those are about the conflicts/interactions of the utopia with the rest of the universe, at least as the backdrop. (Which also works for solarpunk stories)
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  I don’t think it’s possible not to have a bit of a soft spot for the affront..
lazide 5y ago
There are several culture books that feel a lot like dystopias - they are just less popular. Culture also cheats, with most of the popular ones using Contact with it’s fundamentally problematic and ‘messy’ interactions with non-Culture to create the necessary conflict for an interesting story. Since most Utopia descriptions seem to imply that everyone is in the utopia, that is a lot harder. The books that go into what it would be like actually living in a Culture society with other people/interpersonal relations get.. pretty gross pretty fast IMO.
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  Which ones? I’ve read the whole series multiple times and I can’t think of the society as a dystopia. Look to windward is probably my favourite.
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    Where do I start? The humans are essentially pets, kept around by the Minds mostly for nostalgic reasons and because it's a trivial effort for them. People love their pets, but don't allow their pets to make life-altering decisions. All of the main characters are Minds or drones. None of the biologics ever get to influence events, they're just along for the ride. The humans are controlled, both actively and passively. The Minds don't lower themselves to anything as crude as "carrots or sticks". Oh no, they prefer to use a far more subtle forms of "guidance", such as inventing an artificial language (Marain) that influences the way people think. This is the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity The Culture's main opponents, peaceful or not, are all primarily-biologics that reject machine minds and associated technologies such as field manipulation. After reading the series, you start to get the inkling that perhaps they are right, and that the Culture made a mistake in allowing themselves to be ruled by computers. The undercurrent, the persistent theme, in all of Banks' works is betrayal, often of the worst possible sort, the kind that leaves you breathless when fully unveiled in the final chapter. The Culture series has some sort of betrayal in just about every book. Often it is the machines betraying the humans in some way. The drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw in Use of Weapons, for example, was deceiving everyone to some degree, even the protagonist Zakalwe. Some of this deception feels unnecessary, taken to the n-th degree by the drone just because it can. Similarly, the ship Grey Area is notable for being a "meat fucker" in that it abuses (or merely uses?) its godlike power to torture organics it judges as worthy of punishment. This is called out as unusual, but then in A Look to Windward the hub Mind casually strips Quilan's very soul out of his meat body so that he can experience death at the elevated level that only a Mind can. A worse horror is difficult to imagine. Etc, etc...
    - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
      >> All of the main characters are Minds or drones. None of the biologics ever get to influence events, they're just along for the ride. Woa. Hold it right there. It's the other way around. Most of the main characters are flesh people. See The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Consider Phlebas (the main characterr are not from the Culture but are made of meat), Feersum Endjin, Walking on Glass... those are the ones I remember from the top of my head (it's been a while). The two books I can think of with prominent Mind characters are Excession and ... the one with the guil-tripping Mind? Is that Look to Windward? Anyway I think I just listed half of the Culture books (I really need to go back and read everything again... after I've re-read all of Discworld first...). [Continuing to read your comment- it seems we have read the same books in very different ways. The mark of good literature, I believe.]
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        I’ve only read “Consider Phlebas” and it gave me a distinctly dystopian impression of the Culture. Like WTF, I understand why people thought this was a good idea, but I sympathize with the people fighting (and losing) against the Culture more.
        cyberpunk 5y ago
        I highly recommend reading the rest.
      - jiggawatts 5y ago
        The world is viewed primarily through the eyes of human protagonists, but this is to anchor the reader in something familiar. The humans are never in charge. The Minds drive the plots forward, the Minds decide things, and it is the Minds that make decisions that have a material outcome. The humans are pawns at best, and often mere observers or bystanders.
        YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
        This is an idiosyncratic reading that is at odds with Iain M. Banks' own description of the relation between humans and AI in the Culture: It is, of course, entirely possible that real AIs will refuse to have anything to do with their human creators (or rather, perhaps, the human creators of their non-human creators), but assuming that they do - and the design of their software may be amenable to optimization in this regard - I would argue that it is quite possible they would agree to help further the aims of their source civilisation (a contention we'll return to shortly). At this point, regardless of whatever alterations humanity might impose on itself through genetic manipulation, humanity would no longer be a one-sentience-type species. The future of our species would affect, be affected by and coexist with the future of the AI life-forms we create. The Culture reached this phase at around the same time as it began to inhabit space. Its AIs cooperate with the humans of the civilisation; at first the struggle is simply to survive and thrive in space; later - when the technology required to do so has become mundane - the task becomes less physical, more metaphysical, and the aims of civilisation moral rather than material. Briefly, nothing and nobody in the Culture is exploited. It is essentially an automated civilisation in its manufacturing processes, with human labour restricted to something indistinguishable from play, or a hobby. No machine is exploited, either; the idea here being that any job can be automated in such a way as to ensure that it can be done by a machine well below the level of potential consciousness; what to us would be a stunningly sophisticated computer running a factory (for example) would be looked on by the Culture's AIs as a glorified calculator, and no more exploited than an insect is exploited when it pollinates a fruit tree a human later eats a fruit from. http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

Ach I dunno, did you read any of the Culture novels by Banks? His post scarcity human/machine setup the closest thing to a utopia I can think of, but there are still a good load of novels there :)

detaro 5y ago

A good chunk of those are about the conflicts/interactions of the utopia with the rest of the universe, at least as the backdrop. (Which also works for solarpunk stories)

cyberpunk 5y ago
I don’t think it’s possible not to have a bit of a soft spot for the affront..

lazide 5y ago

There are several culture books that feel a lot like dystopias - they are just less popular. Culture also cheats, with most of the popular ones using Contact with it’s fundamentally problematic and ‘messy’ interactions with non-Culture to create the necessary conflict for an interesting story. Since most Utopia descriptions seem to imply that everyone is in the utopia, that is a lot harder. The books that go into what it would be like actually living in a Culture society with other people/interpersonal relations get.. pretty gross pretty fast IMO.

cyberpunk 5y ago
Which ones? I’ve read the whole series multiple times and I can’t think of the society as a dystopia. Look to windward is probably my favourite.
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  Where do I start? The humans are essentially pets, kept around by the Minds mostly for nostalgic reasons and because it's a trivial effort for them. People love their pets, but don't allow their pets to make life-altering decisions. All of the main characters are Minds or drones. None of the biologics ever get to influence events, they're just along for the ride. The humans are controlled, both actively and passively. The Minds don't lower themselves to anything as crude as "carrots or sticks". Oh no, they prefer to use a far more subtle forms of "guidance", such as inventing an artificial language (Marain) that influences the way people think. This is the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity The Culture's main opponents, peaceful or not, are all primarily-biologics that reject machine minds and associated technologies such as field manipulation. After reading the series, you start to get the inkling that perhaps they are right, and that the Culture made a mistake in allowing themselves to be ruled by computers. The undercurrent, the persistent theme, in all of Banks' works is betrayal, often of the worst possible sort, the kind that leaves you breathless when fully unveiled in the final chapter. The Culture series has some sort of betrayal in just about every book. Often it is the machines betraying the humans in some way. The drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw in Use of Weapons, for example, was deceiving everyone to some degree, even the protagonist Zakalwe. Some of this deception feels unnecessary, taken to the n-th degree by the drone just because it can. Similarly, the ship Grey Area is notable for being a "meat fucker" in that it abuses (or merely uses?) its godlike power to torture organics it judges as worthy of punishment. This is called out as unusual, but then in A Look to Windward the hub Mind casually strips Quilan's very soul out of his meat body so that he can experience death at the elevated level that only a Mind can. A worse horror is difficult to imagine. Etc, etc...
  - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
    >> All of the main characters are Minds or drones. None of the biologics ever get to influence events, they're just along for the ride. Woa. Hold it right there. It's the other way around. Most of the main characters are flesh people. See The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Consider Phlebas (the main characterr are not from the Culture but are made of meat), Feersum Endjin, Walking on Glass... those are the ones I remember from the top of my head (it's been a while). The two books I can think of with prominent Mind characters are Excession and ... the one with the guil-tripping Mind? Is that Look to Windward? Anyway I think I just listed half of the Culture books (I really need to go back and read everything again... after I've re-read all of Discworld first...). [Continuing to read your comment- it seems we have read the same books in very different ways. The mark of good literature, I believe.]
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      I’ve only read “Consider Phlebas” and it gave me a distinctly dystopian impression of the Culture. Like WTF, I understand why people thought this was a good idea, but I sympathize with the people fighting (and losing) against the Culture more.
      - cyberpunk 5y ago
        I highly recommend reading the rest.
    - jiggawatts 5y ago
      The world is viewed primarily through the eyes of human protagonists, but this is to anchor the reader in something familiar. The humans are never in charge. The Minds drive the plots forward, the Minds decide things, and it is the Minds that make decisions that have a material outcome. The humans are pawns at best, and often mere observers or bystanders.
      - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
        This is an idiosyncratic reading that is at odds with Iain M. Banks' own description of the relation between humans and AI in the Culture: It is, of course, entirely possible that real AIs will refuse to have anything to do with their human creators (or rather, perhaps, the human creators of their non-human creators), but assuming that they do - and the design of their software may be amenable to optimization in this regard - I would argue that it is quite possible they would agree to help further the aims of their source civilisation (a contention we'll return to shortly). At this point, regardless of whatever alterations humanity might impose on itself through genetic manipulation, humanity would no longer be a one-sentience-type species. The future of our species would affect, be affected by and coexist with the future of the AI life-forms we create. The Culture reached this phase at around the same time as it began to inhabit space. Its AIs cooperate with the humans of the civilisation; at first the struggle is simply to survive and thrive in space; later - when the technology required to do so has become mundane - the task becomes less physical, more metaphysical, and the aims of civilisation moral rather than material. Briefly, nothing and nobody in the Culture is exploited. It is essentially an automated civilisation in its manufacturing processes, with human labour restricted to something indistinguishable from play, or a hobby. No machine is exploited, either; the idea here being that any job can be automated in such a way as to ensure that it can be done by a machine well below the level of potential consciousness; what to us would be a stunningly sophisticated computer running a factory (for example) would be looked on by the Culture's AIs as a glorified calculator, and no more exploited than an insect is exploited when it pollinates a fruit tree a human later eats a fruit from. http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm