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A Few Questions About the Culture: An Interview with Iain Banks

154 points by strlen 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
cpeterso 12y ago
Perfect timing! I just finished Surface Detail about thirty minutes ago. :)
mbillie1 12y ago
I've always found the Culture a fascinating and refreshing alternative to the extremely played-out and commonplace dystopic visions of AI as exist in virtually all other science fiction. It's also interesting to think about how a post-scarcity society would function, particular as our society moves (ever so slowly) toward at least the full automation of labor, if not post-scarcity itself.
- cstuder 12y ago
  The funniest thing about the books: They are mostly not about the Culture itself. Because it's boooooring. The fringes are much more interesting.
  - Tloewald 12y ago
    Very true. Indeed several of the books are about the culture dealing with some kind of (generally not serious) crisis. Most enlightening: the Culture was created initially as a setting for Use of Weapons
  - api 12y ago
    "They are mostly not about the Culture itself. Because it's boooooring." This is why if we had the technology for a post-scarcity society on Earth there would be sets of people who would use this level of technology to do things like try to colonize Mars -- to the abject horror of the latte-sippers who would pen endless screeds about how foolish it is as they sit and sip latte. Wait... did I even make up that last part?
  - ChillyWater 12y ago
    I think the funniest thing about the books are the names of the ships. Things like: The 'Probably Not a Good Idea' dropped into orbit around the fourth planet.
    - mbillie1 12y ago
      The Mistake Not...'s unveiling of its name in The Hydrogen Sonata is one of the funnier ship name moments I can think of.
- Toenex 12y ago
  It's also worth trying his contemporary fiction which is just as good. Most people are aware of "The Wasp Factory" which can probably also be classed as science fiction (although not SciFi). He also wrote the excellent "Crow Road" which has probably one of the greatest opening lines in any book I've ever read.
  - mercurial 12y ago
    "The Bridge" is a masterpiece. They're not all equally good, but his style is such that even the less good ones are still worth reading.
  - ChillyWater 12y ago
    "Song of Stone" was written in an interesting style to me. It is some sort of post-apocalyptic The Stand kind of situation. He alternates between normal modern prose and some very dense poetry-prose. I would have to read and re-read those passages to get the meaning, but it was enjoyable.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    IMHO Banks manages to do his best opening in Espedair Street: Two days ago I decided to kill myself. I would walk and hitch and sail away from this dark city to the bright spaces of the wet west coast, and there throw myself into the tall, glittering seas beyond Iona (with its cargo of mouldering kings) to let the gulls and seals and tides have their way with my remains, and in my dying moments look forward to an encounter with Staffa’s six-sided columns and Fingal’s cave; or I might head south to Corryvrecken, to be spun inside the whirlpool and listen with my waterlogged deaf ears to its mile-wide voice ringing over the wave-race; or be borne north, to where the white sands sing and coral hides, pink-fingered and hard-soft, beneath the ocean swell, and the rampart cliffs climb thousand-foot above the seething acres of milky foam, rainbow-buttressed. Last night I changed my mind and decided to stay alive. Everything that follows is . . . just to try and explain.
Eric_WVGG 12y ago
related: A Few Notes on Marain (as it is written and coded) http://trevor-hopkins.com/banks/a-few-notes-on-marain.html http://trevor-hopkins.com/banks/a-few-notes-on-marain.html Love these books. Re-read Surface Detail myself last month, now slogging through Algebraist and seeing if I actually like it or not…
- wpietri 12y ago
  I ended up loving The Algebraist. It's a very different book that the various Culture novels, but I love the world-building and so many of the little details.
jwatte 12y ago
"Selfishness is the the new black and I despise it." That. Right there. He sees it; we (collectively) don't.
- eevilspock 12y ago
  My favorite part: I pretty much despise American Libertarianism. Have these people seriously looked at the problems of the world and thought, 'Hmm, what we need here is a bit more selfishness'? . . . I beg to differ. This is not say that Libertarianism can't represent a progressive force, in the right circumstances, and I don't doubt there will be significant areas where I would agree with Libertarianism. But, really; which bit of not having private property, and the absence of money in the Culture novels, have these people missed? The Culture is hippy commies with hyper-weapons and a deep distrust of both Marketolatry and Greedism. One rests one's case.
  - isomorphic 12y ago
    This is because American Libertarianism conflates the two ideas "I should be free to do almost anything I want" with "I owe nothing to other humans (and vice-versa)." The Culture is absolutely about the former and absolutely not about the latter.
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      >This is because American Libertarianism conflates the two ideas "I should be free to do almost anything I want" with "I owe nothing to other humans (and vice-versa)." Not quite. It confuses freedom with ownership, and thus reasons, "I can only become free by acquiring ownership of more and more of the world around me", with the ultimate conclusion "I can only be free by owning others before they own me." (That's baked in from the start, since the proprietarian ethic was originally designed for a slave society!)
    - meric 12y ago
      Which one of these values, when in-grained into society, offers the most utility: "I give a lot to my fellow human beings, because they are obligations enshrined by law." "I give a lot to my fellow human beings, out of the goodness of my heart." And that's what "Anti-Libertarianists" don't get.
dalanmiller 12y ago
"The Player of Games" is one of my favorite books. It's such a shame that we lost him last year while still quite young - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks
- isomorphic 12y ago
  He was my favorite author (and not just for the science fiction). He is sorely missed.
- girvo 12y ago
  Only in the past year did I pick up the Culture series, and I agree entirely; "The Player of Games" is one of my all-time favourite books. Absolutely brilliant.
- danieltillett 12y ago
  Player of Games is really good, but his best Culture book is probably "The Use of Weapons".
  - eco 12y ago
    My favorite is Excession. The minds are often more interesting than the humans.
    - danieltillett 12y ago
      Excess is definitely a great book. The problem of choosing the best Iain Banks book is like a parent choosing their favourite child :)
    - joshvm 12y ago
      Excession is basically Mind-porn. It's the one you read once you have some understanding of how the Culture operates and then by god it's good. I imagine people who read it early on are disappointed or annoyed by all the jargon - the very beginning in particular, even though it does get explained simply to you later on in the book.
Panino 12y ago
I'm about halfway through the Culture novels. The stories provide so much to consider/discuss and I highly recommend them. The thought Banks continually returns to in this interview is how as a species to overcome xenophobia. I think this problem should be overcome before people start building true AI, because just imagine xenophobic AI. A great interview. Now I can't wait to pick up the next Culture book!
- XorNot 12y ago
  I'd argue that overcoming xenophobia is more important for us as a species so we can relate to true AI.
  - danieltillett 12y ago
    I would argue not developing xenophobic AI is more critical. If we hate the AI's their feeling will just be hurt, but if they hate us...
    - undersuit 12y ago
      >but if they hate us... Then we give them a pat on the back for being so perceptive.
  - misnome 12y ago
    I'd argue that overcoming xenophobia is more important for us as a species so we can relate to each other.
cletus 12y ago
I think I read my first Culture book more than 20 years ago. I still remember the delight at the chase scene through the GSV. It reminds me of the shopping mall chase from the Blues Brothers in a way (and I am by no means the first to make that comparison). Some of the ideas expressed are just amazing. I still use and love the phrase "Outside Context Problem". Excession, while not as universally popular as the (excellent) Player of Games, is still one of my favourite books. I haven't read the last one yet. I almost can't bring myself to, in a way. Because after that, that's it. It's incredibly sad that we lost Banks so soon, obviously for his friends and family, but I would've loved to continue reading what he would have written. Other commenters mention the dystopian future many authors project. The other end of the spectrum is dominated by nauseating projections of America utopias like in Star Trek. For a very different yet immersive world I'd highly recommend people pick up either the Merchanter or the Foreigner series by CJ Cherryh.
- kristianp 12y ago
  The chase scene is in "Consider Phlebas", in case anyone is wondering.
- HCIdivision17 12y ago
  I can understand your feelings, but i suspect you'll find The Hydrogen Sonata a fitting book to cap the series. There's a neat demonstration of what fairness really is worth at the end that's just ... I don't know, poetical. There's a sense of finality and closing that fits nicely. But perhaps I just need to revisit the books again, if only to revisit Sleeper Service.
  - midhir 12y ago
    That's cool, I've never seen anyone recommend The Hydrogen Sonata so left it to last, along with Inversions. For all the fixation on his comment about American Libertarianism, Banks's politics seem fairly standard post-Thatcher Scottish to me. After what that PM did to Scottish communities many Scots apparently feel they have little in common with the direction English conservatives are taking the UK. Banks was a supporter of Independence and famously cut up his British Passport and sent it to Downing Street in protest of the Iraq invasion. IMO you can see his politics all over the Culture; from the entire tragedy of Look To Windward to the wee things.
cstuder 12y ago
This interview has been published as a goodie for the donation drive Strange Horizons is currently doing. If you liked it, consider donating a couple of bucks: http://strangehorizons.com/fund_drives/2014/main.shtml http://strangehorizons.com/fund_drives/2014/main.shtml (No affiliation, I just love how much stuff there is to read for free on that page...)
topbanana 12y ago
Amusing pronunciation guide in the Marain page: http://trevor-hopkins.com/banks/a-few-notes-on-marain.html http://trevor-hopkins.com/banks/a-few-notes-on-marain.html > 'll' as in Welsh In fact, ll is pronounced as 'y' in the Welsh language
ufmace 12y ago
I started reading the Culture series based on a few recommendations here, and I've really been enjoying it so far. The stories make for good reading, though the nature of the society hasn't been explored that well, and I guess never will now, leaving a lot of open questions about the nature of humanity and AI. A few that it's brought me to ponder: Are humans capable of living in a society where we know that machines rule us unquestionably, we can never do anything as well as a machine can, and anything we could ever want is provided to us free, so much so that there isn't even any point to the existence of money? Would we all just collectively flip out or something? For that matter, what happens if an ordinary Culture person decides to take a trip to some foreign capitalist society? Presumably the trip would have to be approved by Contact or something, which seems kind of ominous by itself. Where would they get money to go do touristy things in that society? Does the culture make money in that society somehow, and give anybody who wants to visit an unlimited pile of it? Or is it limited somehow? Exactly what makes the Mind AIs free from all of the mental issues and personality flaws that have caused Human-led societies so many issues? Especially when we see that the human-level drones seem to have a rather ordinary level of positive and negative personality traits. Exactly how does this society go about deciding which Minds decide what? Do the Minds vote or something? If so, how is it decided which Minds get a vote? Which Minds decide when and how to produce more Minds, and how to train/educate them? Essentially, what is the structure of the Mind-government? Do the humans keep track of the going-ons of the Mind government, however it works, and how do they feel about having zero say about what happens there?

154 points by strlen 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

cpeterso 12y ago

Perfect timing! I just finished Surface Detail about thirty minutes ago. :)

mbillie1 12y ago

I've always found the Culture a fascinating and refreshing alternative to the extremely played-out and commonplace dystopic visions of AI as exist in virtually all other science fiction. It's also interesting to think about how a post-scarcity society would function, particular as our society moves (ever so slowly) toward at least the full automation of labor, if not post-scarcity itself.

cstuder 12y ago
The funniest thing about the books: They are mostly not about the Culture itself. Because it's boooooring. The fringes are much more interesting.
- Tloewald 12y ago
  Very true. Indeed several of the books are about the culture dealing with some kind of (generally not serious) crisis. Most enlightening: the Culture was created initially as a setting for Use of Weapons
- api 12y ago
  "They are mostly not about the Culture itself. Because it's boooooring." This is why if we had the technology for a post-scarcity society on Earth there would be sets of people who would use this level of technology to do things like try to colonize Mars -- to the abject horror of the latte-sippers who would pen endless screeds about how foolish it is as they sit and sip latte. Wait... did I even make up that last part?
- ChillyWater 12y ago
  I think the funniest thing about the books are the names of the ships. Things like: The 'Probably Not a Good Idea' dropped into orbit around the fourth planet.
  - mbillie1 12y ago
    The Mistake Not...'s unveiling of its name in The Hydrogen Sonata is one of the funnier ship name moments I can think of.
Toenex 12y ago
It's also worth trying his contemporary fiction which is just as good. Most people are aware of "The Wasp Factory" which can probably also be classed as science fiction (although not SciFi). He also wrote the excellent "Crow Road" which has probably one of the greatest opening lines in any book I've ever read.
- mercurial 12y ago
  "The Bridge" is a masterpiece. They're not all equally good, but his style is such that even the less good ones are still worth reading.
- ChillyWater 12y ago
  "Song of Stone" was written in an interesting style to me. It is some sort of post-apocalyptic The Stand kind of situation. He alternates between normal modern prose and some very dense poetry-prose. I would have to read and re-read those passages to get the meaning, but it was enjoyable.
- arethuza 12y ago
  IMHO Banks manages to do his best opening in Espedair Street: Two days ago I decided to kill myself. I would walk and hitch and sail away from this dark city to the bright spaces of the wet west coast, and there throw myself into the tall, glittering seas beyond Iona (with its cargo of mouldering kings) to let the gulls and seals and tides have their way with my remains, and in my dying moments look forward to an encounter with Staffa’s six-sided columns and Fingal’s cave; or I might head south to Corryvrecken, to be spun inside the whirlpool and listen with my waterlogged deaf ears to its mile-wide voice ringing over the wave-race; or be borne north, to where the white sands sing and coral hides, pink-fingered and hard-soft, beneath the ocean swell, and the rampart cliffs climb thousand-foot above the seething acres of milky foam, rainbow-buttressed. Last night I changed my mind and decided to stay alive. Everything that follows is . . . just to try and explain.

Eric_WVGG 12y ago

related: A Few Notes on Marain (as it is written and coded) http://trevor-hopkins.com/banks/a-few-notes-on-marain.html http://trevor-hopkins.com/banks/a-few-notes-on-marain.html Love these books. Re-read Surface Detail myself last month, now slogging through Algebraist and seeing if I actually like it or not…

wpietri 12y ago
I ended up loving The Algebraist. It's a very different book that the various Culture novels, but I love the world-building and so many of the little details.

jwatte 12y ago

"Selfishness is the the new black and I despise it." That. Right there. He sees it; we (collectively) don't.

eevilspock 12y ago
My favorite part: I pretty much despise American Libertarianism. Have these people seriously looked at the problems of the world and thought, 'Hmm, what we need here is a bit more selfishness'? . . . I beg to differ. This is not say that Libertarianism can't represent a progressive force, in the right circumstances, and I don't doubt there will be significant areas where I would agree with Libertarianism. But, really; which bit of not having private property, and the absence of money in the Culture novels, have these people missed? The Culture is hippy commies with hyper-weapons and a deep distrust of both Marketolatry and Greedism. One rests one's case.
- isomorphic 12y ago
  This is because American Libertarianism conflates the two ideas "I should be free to do almost anything I want" with "I owe nothing to other humans (and vice-versa)." The Culture is absolutely about the former and absolutely not about the latter.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    >This is because American Libertarianism conflates the two ideas "I should be free to do almost anything I want" with "I owe nothing to other humans (and vice-versa)." Not quite. It confuses freedom with ownership, and thus reasons, "I can only become free by acquiring ownership of more and more of the world around me", with the ultimate conclusion "I can only be free by owning others before they own me." (That's baked in from the start, since the proprietarian ethic was originally designed for a slave society!)
  - meric 12y ago
    Which one of these values, when in-grained into society, offers the most utility: "I give a lot to my fellow human beings, because they are obligations enshrined by law." "I give a lot to my fellow human beings, out of the goodness of my heart." And that's what "Anti-Libertarianists" don't get.

dalanmiller 12y ago

"The Player of Games" is one of my favorite books. It's such a shame that we lost him last year while still quite young - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks

isomorphic 12y ago
He was my favorite author (and not just for the science fiction). He is sorely missed.
girvo 12y ago
Only in the past year did I pick up the Culture series, and I agree entirely; "The Player of Games" is one of my all-time favourite books. Absolutely brilliant.
danieltillett 12y ago
Player of Games is really good, but his best Culture book is probably "The Use of Weapons".
- eco 12y ago
  My favorite is Excession. The minds are often more interesting than the humans.
  - danieltillett 12y ago
    Excess is definitely a great book. The problem of choosing the best Iain Banks book is like a parent choosing their favourite child :)
  - joshvm 12y ago
    Excession is basically Mind-porn. It's the one you read once you have some understanding of how the Culture operates and then by god it's good. I imagine people who read it early on are disappointed or annoyed by all the jargon - the very beginning in particular, even though it does get explained simply to you later on in the book.

Panino 12y ago

I'm about halfway through the Culture novels. The stories provide so much to consider/discuss and I highly recommend them. The thought Banks continually returns to in this interview is how as a species to overcome xenophobia. I think this problem should be overcome before people start building true AI, because just imagine xenophobic AI. A great interview. Now I can't wait to pick up the next Culture book!

XorNot 12y ago
I'd argue that overcoming xenophobia is more important for us as a species so we can relate to true AI.
- danieltillett 12y ago
  I would argue not developing xenophobic AI is more critical. If we hate the AI's their feeling will just be hurt, but if they hate us...
  - undersuit 12y ago
    >but if they hate us... Then we give them a pat on the back for being so perceptive.
- misnome 12y ago
  I'd argue that overcoming xenophobia is more important for us as a species so we can relate to each other.

cletus 12y ago

I think I read my first Culture book more than 20 years ago. I still remember the delight at the chase scene through the GSV. It reminds me of the shopping mall chase from the Blues Brothers in a way (and I am by no means the first to make that comparison). Some of the ideas expressed are just amazing. I still use and love the phrase "Outside Context Problem". Excession, while not as universally popular as the (excellent) Player of Games, is still one of my favourite books. I haven't read the last one yet. I almost can't bring myself to, in a way. Because after that, that's it. It's incredibly sad that we lost Banks so soon, obviously for his friends and family, but I would've loved to continue reading what he would have written. Other commenters mention the dystopian future many authors project. The other end of the spectrum is dominated by nauseating projections of America utopias like in Star Trek. For a very different yet immersive world I'd highly recommend people pick up either the Merchanter or the Foreigner series by CJ Cherryh.

kristianp 12y ago
The chase scene is in "Consider Phlebas", in case anyone is wondering.
HCIdivision17 12y ago
I can understand your feelings, but i suspect you'll find The Hydrogen Sonata a fitting book to cap the series. There's a neat demonstration of what fairness really is worth at the end that's just ... I don't know, poetical. There's a sense of finality and closing that fits nicely. But perhaps I just need to revisit the books again, if only to revisit Sleeper Service.
- midhir 12y ago
  That's cool, I've never seen anyone recommend The Hydrogen Sonata so left it to last, along with Inversions. For all the fixation on his comment about American Libertarianism, Banks's politics seem fairly standard post-Thatcher Scottish to me. After what that PM did to Scottish communities many Scots apparently feel they have little in common with the direction English conservatives are taking the UK. Banks was a supporter of Independence and famously cut up his British Passport and sent it to Downing Street in protest of the Iraq invasion. IMO you can see his politics all over the Culture; from the entire tragedy of Look To Windward to the wee things.

cstuder 12y ago

This interview has been published as a goodie for the donation drive Strange Horizons is currently doing. If you liked it, consider donating a couple of bucks: http://strangehorizons.com/fund_drives/2014/main.shtml http://strangehorizons.com/fund_drives/2014/main.shtml (No affiliation, I just love how much stuff there is to read for free on that page...)

topbanana 12y ago

Amusing pronunciation guide in the Marain page: http://trevor-hopkins.com/banks/a-few-notes-on-marain.html http://trevor-hopkins.com/banks/a-few-notes-on-marain.html > 'll' as in Welsh In fact, ll is pronounced as 'y' in the Welsh language

ufmace 12y ago

I started reading the Culture series based on a few recommendations here, and I've really been enjoying it so far. The stories make for good reading, though the nature of the society hasn't been explored that well, and I guess never will now, leaving a lot of open questions about the nature of humanity and AI. A few that it's brought me to ponder: Are humans capable of living in a society where we know that machines rule us unquestionably, we can never do anything as well as a machine can, and anything we could ever want is provided to us free, so much so that there isn't even any point to the existence of money? Would we all just collectively flip out or something? For that matter, what happens if an ordinary Culture person decides to take a trip to some foreign capitalist society? Presumably the trip would have to be approved by Contact or something, which seems kind of ominous by itself. Where would they get money to go do touristy things in that society? Does the culture make money in that society somehow, and give anybody who wants to visit an unlimited pile of it? Or is it limited somehow? Exactly what makes the Mind AIs free from all of the mental issues and personality flaws that have caused Human-led societies so many issues? Especially when we see that the human-level drones seem to have a rather ordinary level of positive and negative personality traits. Exactly how does this society go about deciding which Minds decide what? Do the Minds vote or something? If so, how is it decided which Minds get a vote? Which Minds decide when and how to produce more Minds, and how to train/educate them? Essentially, what is the structure of the Mind-government? Do the humans keep track of the going-ons of the Mind government, however it works, and how do they feel about having zero say about what happens there?