the Culture

TRX
May 23, 2012
39:
@5:
- What kind of society would the hippies have built if they'd all had smartphones?
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Assuming a stereotypical hippie of uniform density... I don't think it would have worked out any different. The hippies were parasites on a wealthy society; when the economy went down and stayed down, they wound up having to go mainstream to survive.

Some of the hippies tried ashrams and communes, but few of those lasted for long. Moving down the technology curve freed them from "the Man", but agriculture by hand is hard, dirty work, far different from smoking dope and wearing funky clothes.

TRX
May 24, 2012
236:
@76:
I always considered the "Culture" to be a rather horrific dystopia.
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There are still one of two of those I haven't read, so it's possible I haven't yet encountered the answer to the question I've had since the first book: "Why do biological beings exist in the Culture at all?" The AIs run the means of production and transport, manage whatever system substitutes for an economy, and serve as a government in case of war, where they're also the main military force.

It could be that Banks has simply ignored the question for the sake of creating a story, but it causes problems in the "exactly why is this happening?" department...

TRX
May 24, 2012
238:
@104:
How does the idea of parents hacking their children not seem terrifying to you?
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Parental selection determines the child's genetic material, right off the bat.

If the embryo shows up with any of several anomalies, they may choose to abort and start over.

After birth, they may choose to have any birth defects corrected surgically.

Then, assuming the parents are diligent, they attempt to program the child to conform to current social and ethical standards.

How's that not "hacking"?

If you're talking about fine-level genetic manipulation, I fervently wish it had been possible for my own parents to edit out the allergies that make my life a misery for half of every year, and I'm still curious about this "color vision" thing which, frankly, sounds like some sort of mass delusion.

TRX
May 24, 2012
277:
@108:
I've also long been fascinated by the dismissive criticism of escapism.
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"Star Trek" was escapist, because it was popular entertainment. "The Lord of the Rings" was literature, because it was taught in college courses.

TRX
May 24, 2012
278:
@132:
In the 1950s, building trades workers were middle class.
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Back up to the early 1950s, "salesman" was considered to be a desirable, high- status job, white collar with a fast track into upper management.

We're not talking about the sullen clerk at the department store, but something now considered to be a step lower than that - "traveling salesman."

When people were mostly stuck on the farm, the idea of being paid to go out in the world and talk to people was quite the thing. And the old-style markups between manufacturing, distributing, wholesaling, and retailing meant there was a nice cut of the profits for a successful salesman.

TRX
May 24, 2012
282:
@241:
Science fiction is all you say it is -- and also all you say it isn't.

Analogy: Let's say the works of the Marquis de Sade, romance novels, Christian fiction, fiction about kangaroos, and several other kinds of fiction were lumped into one category/genre.
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I don't know what you'd call it, but looking at the stuff that falls under the "romance" genre these days, I bet it would sell...

TRX
May 27, 2012
523:
> spam

Almost every flat surface of Pompeii was covered with it. And there were probably people following non-readers around, trying to shill them into the various bistros and scams.