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No mention of The Culture? I suppose it's not "history" per se, it's quite recent. For interested people, a short description of The Culture, as written by the

No mention of The Culture? I suppose it's not "history" per se, it's quite recent. For interested people, a short description of The Culture, as written by the author, can be found here: http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm In short, it's literally "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism" and it's viewed by many as a perfect utopia. A few take a dimmer view, in my opinion because it exposes the underlining meaninglessness and purposelessness of the universe. The Culture forms the background for a excellent series of books written by Scottish author Iain M Banks; I fully recommend it.

huytersd 3y ago
There’s nothing particularly gay about it aside from a few instances spread across the series. Why attempt to poison a well that has such a devoted following?
- at_a_remove 3y ago
  That's literally what "the kids" call it. You can look that phrase up.
- GeoAtreides 3y ago
  The Culture doesn't have gendered pronouns and you can change your sex by thinking really hard (really); there's a social expectation that each individual should sire a child and be pregnant with one during their lifetime. Most people in the XXI century would agree that's at least a bit gay :)
  - huytersd 3y ago
    Of course there are pronouns, that’s how everyone is referred to (he, she, him, her etc.). Every book in the series uses them, even for some of the minds. There is an ability for an actual sex change, the genetic changes for which can be kicked of by wanting to change. No expectation whatsoever. That whole sequence is touched on in one book for about 3 pages and this is a series with 12+ books.
- Modified3019 3y ago
  It’s a meme phrase, which The Culture series actually fits extremely well. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/fully-automated-luxury-gay-space-communism https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/fully-automated-luxu... Basically the phrase humorously sums up explorations of what happens when everything is so advanced that among other things, someone can just flippantly choose however they want their body to be. Which means lots of things that we intuitively consider as static go right out the airlock.
n4r9 3y ago
Imo it's Banks' attempt to portray "as close as you can get to utopia, whilst still having humans". What stops it short of perfection is the Minds (especially Special Circumstances) and their power to direct events. They never directly limit the freedoms of Culture citizens, but they happily use them as unwitting pawns in their galactic power games (e.g. the subtly titled Player of Games). The imbalance of intelligence and strength between humans and Minds means that the Minds are effectively dictators, albeit benevolent ones.
- GeoAtreides 3y ago
  I mean, there's always the choice of splitting from The Culture and taking with you non-sentient AIs... In one of the books there's a guy who did just that, but he keeps talking to the air, perfectly convinced the Minds were still monitoring them (which they might or might not do). As for Special Circumstances... it's Special Circumstances.
- subtlepseudonym 3y ago
  I would argue that the Minds enable The Culture's utopia. Special Circumstances may theoretically have the capacity to direct events within The Culture, but their efforts are near-exclusively directed without and in the only example to the contrary, those efforts fail rather spectacularly (Excession).
  - GeoAtreides 3y ago
    Special Circumstances was not involved in the Excession mess, that was a sub-group of Minds who had _ideas_ and _principles_ (I somehow agree with them, the Affront are, well... an affront) I was going to bring up the Chelgrians (as a fuck-up), but that was Contact fault, if I recall correctly.
    - n4r9 3y ago
      Been a while since I read Excession but SC was definitely involved to some degree. > The Interesting Times Gang (ITG), an informal group of Minds loosely connected with Special Circumstances, try to manage the Culture's response to the Excession. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession > Whilst it appeared that the Sleeper Service had been Eccentric for 4 decades, it had in fact been a dedicated, if secret, military resource acting on behalf of a sub-set of Special Circumstances Minds known as the Interesting Times Gang https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/Sleeper_Service https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/Sleeper_Service
deleted 3y ago
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philipkglass 3y ago
The Culture is a utopia made of unobtainium. It has FTL travel and communications, strong AI, teleportation, molecular nanotechnology, advanced biological engineering, immortality, replicators, and effectively unlimited access to energy, materials, and living space. This places it well off into science fantasy territory, but I enjoy contemplating just how much of its liberation from want could be realized within the constraints of known physics. I love to compare the Culture to Star Trek because Star Trek's Federation has almost identical fictional technologies available to it. The first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas, was published in 1987 -- the same year that Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered. The Federation just gets a lot less utility out of its imaginary technologies. In-universe this is somewhat explained by the Federation being incredibly conservative about technologies like genetic engineering due to historical scars. The deeper explanation is that Banks wrote for a print audience but Star Trek writers had to write for broadcast TV. If the TNG writers used their imagined technologies as well as Banks did, the Federation too would be full of immortal transhuman pets gently nudged around by their AI minders, enjoying lots of parties and occasional adventures. Almost every Culture conflict is an ethical problem at its core, because they have systematically eliminated problems of material deprivation and conflict over property. But that would be harder to sell as a TV series, especially in the 1980s.

huytersd 3y ago

There’s nothing particularly gay about it aside from a few instances spread across the series. Why attempt to poison a well that has such a devoted following?

at_a_remove 3y ago
That's literally what "the kids" call it. You can look that phrase up.
GeoAtreides 3y ago
The Culture doesn't have gendered pronouns and you can change your sex by thinking really hard (really); there's a social expectation that each individual should sire a child and be pregnant with one during their lifetime. Most people in the XXI century would agree that's at least a bit gay :)
- huytersd 3y ago
  Of course there are pronouns, that’s how everyone is referred to (he, she, him, her etc.). Every book in the series uses them, even for some of the minds. There is an ability for an actual sex change, the genetic changes for which can be kicked of by wanting to change. No expectation whatsoever. That whole sequence is touched on in one book for about 3 pages and this is a series with 12+ books.
Modified3019 3y ago
It’s a meme phrase, which The Culture series actually fits extremely well. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/fully-automated-luxury-gay-space-communism https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/fully-automated-luxu... Basically the phrase humorously sums up explorations of what happens when everything is so advanced that among other things, someone can just flippantly choose however they want their body to be. Which means lots of things that we intuitively consider as static go right out the airlock.

n4r9 3y ago

Imo it's Banks' attempt to portray "as close as you can get to utopia, whilst still having humans". What stops it short of perfection is the Minds (especially Special Circumstances) and their power to direct events. They never directly limit the freedoms of Culture citizens, but they happily use them as unwitting pawns in their galactic power games (e.g. the subtly titled Player of Games). The imbalance of intelligence and strength between humans and Minds means that the Minds are effectively dictators, albeit benevolent ones.

GeoAtreides 3y ago
I mean, there's always the choice of splitting from The Culture and taking with you non-sentient AIs... In one of the books there's a guy who did just that, but he keeps talking to the air, perfectly convinced the Minds were still monitoring them (which they might or might not do). As for Special Circumstances... it's Special Circumstances.
subtlepseudonym 3y ago
I would argue that the Minds enable The Culture's utopia. Special Circumstances may theoretically have the capacity to direct events within The Culture, but their efforts are near-exclusively directed without and in the only example to the contrary, those efforts fail rather spectacularly (Excession).
- GeoAtreides 3y ago
  Special Circumstances was not involved in the Excession mess, that was a sub-group of Minds who had _ideas_ and _principles_ (I somehow agree with them, the Affront are, well... an affront) I was going to bring up the Chelgrians (as a fuck-up), but that was Contact fault, if I recall correctly.
  - n4r9 3y ago
    Been a while since I read Excession but SC was definitely involved to some degree. > The Interesting Times Gang (ITG), an informal group of Minds loosely connected with Special Circumstances, try to manage the Culture's response to the Excession. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession > Whilst it appeared that the Sleeper Service had been Eccentric for 4 decades, it had in fact been a dedicated, if secret, military resource acting on behalf of a sub-set of Special Circumstances Minds known as the Interesting Times Gang https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/Sleeper_Service https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/Sleeper_Service

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

philipkglass 3y ago

The Culture is a utopia made of unobtainium. It has FTL travel and communications, strong AI, teleportation, molecular nanotechnology, advanced biological engineering, immortality, replicators, and effectively unlimited access to energy, materials, and living space. This places it well off into science fantasy territory, but I enjoy contemplating just how much of its liberation from want could be realized within the constraints of known physics. I love to compare the Culture to Star Trek because Star Trek's Federation has almost identical fictional technologies available to it. The first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas, was published in 1987 -- the same year that Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered. The Federation just gets a lot less utility out of its imaginary technologies. In-universe this is somewhat explained by the Federation being incredibly conservative about technologies like genetic engineering due to historical scars. The deeper explanation is that Banks wrote for a print audience but Star Trek writers had to write for broadcast TV. If the TNG writers used their imagined technologies as well as Banks did, the Federation too would be full of immortal transhuman pets gently nudged around by their AI minders, enjoying lots of parties and occasional adventures. Almost every Culture conflict is an ethical problem at its core, because they have systematically eliminated problems of material deprivation and conflict over property. But that would be harder to sell as a TV series, especially in the 1980s.