3 ms·

> I get the impression that most of the people are essentially dumb little lap dogs, who have little idea of how anything works, occupying themselves with socia

by t-3 12d ago

> I get the impression that most of the people are essentially dumb little lap dogs, who have little idea of how anything works, occupying themselves with social-media-tier stuff. There are still "people" who have to get the work done, but they're non-human which means the society is really a non-human one. Is that really any different from our modern society other than the robots freeing the more capable or more dutiful humans from the chores? The central critique of most human systems of governance is that they place power in the hands of the idle/corrupt rather than the productive (left and right, they just disagree on which parts of society are productive). Putting all the power in the hands of the people doing all the work is the ideal solution for most people, we just don't have self-sacrificing civic-minded slaves to force the drudgery on.

palmotea 12d ago
> Is that really any different from our modern society other than the robots freeing the more capable or more dutiful humans from the chores? Yes it is, because our modern society is still a human society. Humans in culture society are more the like dogs in ours, perhaps loved and cared for, but it's not their story. > Putting all the power in the hands of the people doing all the work is the ideal solution for most people, we just don't have self-sacrificing civic-minded slaves to force the drudgery on. The problem in the Culture is that they effectively put all the power in the hands of the "Minds." I have no problem with a Roomba or toilet-cleaning robot handling true drudgery. But the interesting or important shit should be for people. In the Culture novels, there was some pretty radical genetic engineering going on (to the point of enabling alien reproductive compatibility). You'd think they could have done some of that to make "self-sacrificing civic-mindedness" very fun and satisfying, instead of going all-in on vapid hedonism stuff (which what you see whenever you catch glimpses of the bulk of culture citizens).
- TheCoelacanth 11d ago
  It's not explicitly stated, but I get the impression that Culture citizens are generally very pro-social and willing to sacrifice for others' benefits and may well have been engineered with that aim. They were willing to sacrifice nearly a trillion lives in the Idiran war, which was voted on by the entire population. Even after that vote, it was very easy to opt-out and I get the sense that most of those who did were motivated by genuine pacifism rather than personal fear. The most dangerous and uncomfortable jobs like Special Circumstances and Contact seem to have an enormous surplus of volunteers and it's even hinted that there might not be any need for humans to do most of those jobs; they exist just because humans want to do them.

by t-3 12d ago

palmotea 12d ago

> Is that really any different from our modern society other than the robots freeing the more capable or more dutiful humans from the chores? Yes it is, because our modern society is still a human society. Humans in culture society are more the like dogs in ours, perhaps loved and cared for, but it's not their story. > Putting all the power in the hands of the people doing all the work is the ideal solution for most people, we just don't have self-sacrificing civic-minded slaves to force the drudgery on. The problem in the Culture is that they effectively put all the power in the hands of the "Minds." I have no problem with a Roomba or toilet-cleaning robot handling true drudgery. But the interesting or important shit should be for people. In the Culture novels, there was some pretty radical genetic engineering going on (to the point of enabling alien reproductive compatibility). You'd think they could have done some of that to make "self-sacrificing civic-mindedness" very fun and satisfying, instead of going all-in on vapid hedonism stuff (which what you see whenever you catch glimpses of the bulk of culture citizens).

TheCoelacanth 11d ago
It's not explicitly stated, but I get the impression that Culture citizens are generally very pro-social and willing to sacrifice for others' benefits and may well have been engineered with that aim. They were willing to sacrifice nearly a trillion lives in the Idiran war, which was voted on by the entire population. Even after that vote, it was very easy to opt-out and I get the sense that most of those who did were motivated by genuine pacifism rather than personal fear. The most dangerous and uncomfortable jobs like Special Circumstances and Contact seem to have an enormous surplus of volunteers and it's even hinted that there might not be any need for humans to do most of those jobs; they exist just because humans want to do them.