Consider Phlebas -- Twist?
Justin Bacon
picked up last year. 100 pages into it I was hooked enough to stop off at the
local SF bookstore and pick up all the other Culture books I could lay my hands
on.
Which meant that I ended up reading CONSIDER PHLEBAS second.
I've heard repeatedly that there is some sort of twist in CONSIDER PHLEBAS
which is ruined if you're already familiar with the Culture. Well, apparently
it's ruined so badly that I don't even see it was a twist. Or I'm just being
particularly dense.
What is this infamous twist?
Certainly the chosen name of the Mind at the end of the book could be
considered a little bit of a twist (although not really -- it's just poignant).
But I don't see how knowledge of the Culture would let me see that coming, so I
don't think that can be it...
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
David Bilek
There is no twist in the sense you mean.
But the ideal situation would involve a reader picking up _Consider
Phlebas_ without ever having so much as heard Iain Banks' stuff
referred to as the "Culture" novels. _CP_ has a lot of added frisson
if you don't already know that the Culture are the good guys and that
Bora Horza Gobuchul is fighting on the "wrong" side.
It's almost impossible to come to _Consider Phlebas_ with that level
of ignorance these days. Luckily, I managed to do it many years ago.
-David
Joseph Michael Bay
So, possible SPOILERS, I guess.
tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) writes:
It seems to me that the "twist" is that we're kind of set
up to see The Culture as this vaguely Evil Bureaucracy or
Borg type of thing, whereas it turns out they're actually
pretty decent and a great place to live. It's just that
some people, such as our protagonist, think of them as
being, y'know, soul-destroying bad guys enslaved by robuts.
--
Joe Bay Impeach Ford Reagan Bush Clinton Bush
Cancer Biology Twelve Galaxies
Stanford University Guiltied to a Zegnatronic
Stanford, California Rocket Society
Graeme Lindsell
tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) wrote:
>
> What is this infamous twist?
IIRC, the "twist" is that if you read it first you're not supposed to
know that the Culture are the good guys, and it is meant to be a suprise
when you discover the protagonist is on the wrong side.
I read CP after UoW and PoG, so perhaps that's why I never saw this
"twist" either. Or perhaps I never saw it because the Idirans are
ruthless fanatics right from the start of the book.
Richard Shewmaker
Interesting. I was puzzling over "what twist?" until I read the
responses. I forgot about that. A good reason to start someone new to
Banks' SF on "Consider Phlebas." I only accidentally read CP first --
it was the first Banks novel I came across and it looked interesting
enough that I purchased it.
There comes a certain point in the novel where I remember feeling that
the Idirans were less preferable than the Culture, though.
--
My mother used to laugh and say that the only thing my father wouldn't
do for Axel Kern was promise him his only child. Of course, she was
wrong about that.
-- Elizabeth Hand, "Black Light"
Serg
> In article <20030709195025...@mb-m05.aol.com>,
> tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) wrote:
>
>
> >
> > What is this infamous twist?
>
> IIRC, the "twist" is that if you read it first you're not supposed to
> know that the Culture are the good guys, and it is meant to be a suprise
> when you discover the protagonist is on the wrong side.
I'd not keep Culture as the good guys in my books.(Their tendency to
use sadistic killers as operartives speak a lot (UoW, LtW)). They are
trying to be good though, they just don't succeed in it quite often...
Graeme Lindsell
news:9f801178.03071...@posting.google.com:
> Graeme Lindsell <lind...@rsc.anu.edu.au> wrote in message
>> IIRC, the "twist" is that if you read it first you're not supposed to
>> know that the Culture are the good guys, and it is meant to be a
>> suprise when you discover the protagonist is on the wrong side.
>
> I'd not keep Culture as the good guys in my books.(Their tendency to
> use sadistic killers as operartives speak a lot (UoW, LtW)). They are
> trying to be good though, they just don't succeed in it quite often...
Compared to the Idirans?
The Idirans main strategy seemed to be "kill war-irrelevant
civilians until the other side gives up." We see the Idirans
doing that almost immediately after they are introduced.
Damien Sullivan
>I'd not keep Culture as the good guys in my books.(Their tendency to
>use sadistic killers as operartives speak a lot (UoW, LtW)). They are
>trying to be good though, they just don't succeed in it quite often...
Zakalwe wasn't sadistic. Ruthless, but not sadistic. And recall that the
Culture didn't know the most colorful episode of his past.
LtW, that was weird, yeah. Although it's not clear who sent the thing,
whatever the thing believed about itself. Did SC send it, or a rogue Mind, or
the Mind which was about to commit suicide anyway, or the mysterious allies of
the Chelgrians wanting to cover their tracks, and frame the cleanup if need
be? And do you really have any sympathy for the victims?
-xx- Damien X-)
Johnny Tindalos
news:bekdgt$ldr$1...@naig.caltech.edu:
> ser...@yahoo.com (Serg) wrote:
>
>>I'd not keep Culture as the good guys in my books.(Their tendency to
>>use sadistic killers as operartives speak a lot (UoW, LtW)). They are
>>trying to be good though, they just don't succeed in it quite often...
>
> Zakalwe wasn't sadistic. Ruthless, but not sadistic.
As proved by the episode with the cross-eyed girl in the chair,
Governance and their party guests reminding him that he still has the
capacity to despise, etc, etc.
> And recall that
> the Culture didn't know the most colorful episode of his past.
Not that they changed their plans for him when they did find out, but
then that's one of the things the title refers to. SC really do have a
clarity of moral vision that seems to upset a lot of people, but I think
they've got their metaphorical heads screwed on.
> LtW, that was weird, yeah. Although it's not clear who sent the
> thing, whatever the thing believed about itself. Did SC send it, or a
> rogue Mind, or the Mind which was about to commit suicide anyway, or
> the mysterious allies of the Chelgrians wanting to cover their tracks,
> and frame the cleanup if need be?
Banks said in an interview (and implied in the novel) that it was sent by
SC, the idea being to impress potential evil-doers that one really
*shouldn't* assume that one can fuck with the Culture and expect it to
blithely turn the other cheek... Culture citizens are made safer by the
fact that SC's responses to such situations can be pretty unpredictable
and, um, vivid. "I am a Culture terror weapon, she thought; designed to
horrify, warn and instruct at the highest level."
> And do you really have any sympathy
> for the victims?
Not a bean! (And think how many innocent Chelgrians and other entities
were thereby saved, eg from Eweirl's psychopathic depredations)
jtingle
Michael Bay) wrote:
>tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) writes:
>>What is this infamous twist?
>
>It seems to me that the "twist" is that we're kind of set
>up to see The Culture as this vaguely Evil Bureaucracy or
>Borg type of thing, whereas it turns out they're actually
>pretty decent and a great place to live. It's just that
>some people, such as our protagonist, think of them as
>being, y'know, soul-destroying bad guys enslaved by robuts.
Wait... you mean that the Culture are the good guys? Wow! I read all
the books and I never thought of it like that! I like to think of the
Federation, the Borg, and the Culture as exactly the same amoral
Brin-ist assimilationist guys in different costumes. [And I'm not
saying that like it's necessarily a bad thing.]
I'll leave the obvious comparison to 50 years of American, 50 years of
Soviet, 300 years of Islamic, and 400 years of varied European foreign
policy for someone else. [AFAIK, the Canadians and the Tongans have
never been accused of being assimilationists.]
Regards,
Jack "Don't fuck with the Culture" Tingle
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> There comes a certain point in the novel where I remember feeling that
> the Idirans were less preferable than the Culture, though.
Well, to me it happened at the first appearence of Balveda, which sorta
spoiled the effect. :-)
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan - ada...@despammed.com - this is a valid address
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
English blog: http://annafdd.blogspot.com/
Blog in italiano: http://fulminiesaette.blogspot.com
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> ser...@yahoo.com (Serg) wrote:
>
> >I'd not keep Culture as the good guys in my books.(Their tendency to
> >use sadistic killers as operartives speak a lot (UoW, LtW)). They are
> >trying to be good though, they just don't succeed in it quite often...
>
> Zakalwe wasn't sadistic. Ruthless, but not sadistic. And recall that the
> Culture didn't know the most colorful episode of his past.
Exactly. What was chilling about Zakalwe is precisely that he's so
_lucid_ about what weapons to use.
> LtW, that was weird, yeah. Although it's not clear who sent the thing,
> whatever the thing believed about itself. Did SC send it, or a rogue Mind, or
> the Mind which was about to commit suicide anyway, or the mysterious allies of
> the Chelgrians wanting to cover their tracks, and frame the cleanup if need
> be? And do you really have any sympathy for the victims?
LtW was, IMHO, Banks fucking up on his own concept. I forgive him. I
keep hoping he sees the light and cuts that tumor out of the book.
Errol Cavit
news:0lsrgv0kstcnm7u6a...@4ax.com...
<snip>
>
> I'll leave the obvious comparison to 50 years of American, 50 years of
> Soviet, 300 years of Islamic, and 400 years of varied European foreign
> policy for someone else. [AFAIK, the Canadians and the Tongans have
> never been accused of being assimilationists.]
>
Wasn't everyone within effective range of the Tongan Empire very close in
culture anyway? Fairly hard to call it assimilation in those circumstances,
as you just want them to hand over the tribute anyway. For the outright
conquer-and-enslave you should look at the Maori.
--
Errol Cavit | to email, my middle initial is G | "The setting of detailed
performance targets [for executive remuneration] is no easier in a private
company than it used to be in the Soviet Union. The expertise required to
fine-tune such targets, in the face of complex markets and organisations, is
unattainable." from 'Beyond Shareholder Value', The Economist 28/6/03
Tina Hall
[Consider Phlebas]
> _CP_ has a lot of added frisson if you don't already know that
> the Culture are the good guys and that Bora Horza Gobuchul is
> fighting on the "wrong" side.
The Culture are supposed to be the good guys? Oh dear.
Tina (Wondering why that never becomes apparent even in the later
books, but rather they grow ever more despicable... As far as
I've read, anyway.)
James Nicoll
news:0lsrgv0kstcnm7u6a...@4ax.com...
<snip>
>
> I'll leave the obvious comparison to 50 years of American, 50 years of
> Soviet, 300 years of Islamic, and 400 years of varied European foreign
> policy for someone else. [AFAIK, the Canadians and the Tongans have
> never been accused of being assimilationists.]
That's because in Canada the people who are accused of wanting
to force their way of life on everyone are Ontarians. Within Ontario,
the culprits are felt to be Southern Ontarian. Within S. Ontario, Toronto
is seen as the hegemonic power and within Toronto, Bay Street. Not sure
which office building the Bay Streeters glower at.
--
Why didn't Charlie's wife just hand him a nickel?
Robert Sneddon
Hall <Tina...@railroad.robin.de> writes
>
>The Culture are supposed to be the good guys? Oh dear.
>
>Tina (Wondering why that never becomes apparent even in the later
>books, but rather they grow ever more despicable... As far as
>I've read, anyway.)
The Culture is the Culture. It is not a twentieth-century Western
Utopia. Its morals and ethics are not our morals and ethics. Special
Circumstances is definitely not a nice thing, by our standards.
--
Robert Sneddon nojay (at) nojay (dot) fsnet (dot) co (dot) uk
David Allsopp
Hall <Tina...@railroad.robin.de> writes
>
>[Consider Phlebas]
>> _CP_ has a lot of added frisson if you don't already know that
>> the Culture are the good guys and that Bora Horza Gobuchul is
>> fighting on the "wrong" side.
>
>The Culture are supposed to be the good guys? Oh dear.
Well, *they* think they're the good guys, anyway. The Minds can even
show you statistics to prove it. All that stuff that Contact does comes
under the heading of "Good Works".
>Tina (Wondering why that never becomes apparent even in the later
>books, but rather they grow ever more despicable... As far as
>I've read, anyway.)
Now, Special Circumstances can be downright nasty, but they have to
function in, well, special circumstances. Why despicable?
--
David Allsopp Houston, this is Tranquillity Base.
Remove SPAM to email me The Eagle has landed.
Johnny Tindalos
$Ew...@nojay.fsnet.co.uk:
> In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org>, Tina
> Hall <Tina...@railroad.robin.de> writes
>>
>>The Culture are supposed to be the good guys? Oh dear.
>>
>>Tina (Wondering why that never becomes apparent even in the later
>>books, but rather they grow ever more despicable... As far as
>>I've read, anyway.)
>
> The Culture is the Culture. It is not a twentieth-century Western
> Utopia. Its morals and ethics are not our morals and ethics. Special
> Circumstances is definitely not a nice thing, by our standards.
Disagree strongly. If I was living in some war-torn Third World hell-hole,
or imprisoned in a Balkan atrocity camp, I'd *definitely* want SC to turn
up.
They're not "nice" because they don't deal with "nice" situations, but
they're motivated by goals as moral as any could ever be.
Peace'n'love'n'edifyin' education is what Contact are for.
SC are for the Rwandas and the Auschwitzes and the Gulags and the slave
plantations and the secret police that come in the night and take away your
father and the flashes on the horizon that turn the people in the cities
into shadows burnt on walls...
Riboflavin
> Phlebas_ without ever having so much as heard Iain Banks' stuff
> referred to as the "Culture" novels. _CP_ has a lot of added frisson
> if you don't already know that the Culture are the good guys and that
> Bora Horza Gobuchul is fighting on the "wrong" side.
I don't think the twist works - the Iridians were way too nasty right
from the beginning, and the culture wasn't shown doing anything bad.
When I read it I had heard about the culture novels, but was expecting
the Culture to be shown in a whitewashed way and so was looking for
bad things about them, and still came away with the impression that
the Iridians were bad guys.
--
Kevin Allegood
David Bilek
>Damien Sullivan <pho...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
>> ser...@yahoo.com (Serg) wrote:
>>
>> >I'd not keep Culture as the good guys in my books.(Their tendency to
>> >use sadistic killers as operartives speak a lot (UoW, LtW)). They are
>> >trying to be good though, they just don't succeed in it quite often...
>>
>> Zakalwe wasn't sadistic. Ruthless, but not sadistic. And recall that the
>> Culture didn't know the most colorful episode of his past.
>
>Exactly. What was chilling about Zakalwe is precisely that he's so
>_lucid_ about what weapons to use.
>
>> LtW, that was weird, yeah. Although it's not clear who sent the thing,
>> whatever the thing believed about itself. Did SC send it, or a rogue Mind, or
>> the Mind which was about to commit suicide anyway, or the mysterious allies of
>> the Chelgrians wanting to cover their tracks, and frame the cleanup if need
>> be? And do you really have any sympathy for the victims?
>
>LtW was, IMHO, Banks fucking up on his own concept. I forgive him. I
>keep hoping he sees the light and cuts that tumor out of the book.
I don't agree. Special Circumstances are ruthless bastards. That's
what they are for. Sometimes you just have to send out a message:
"Don't fuck with the Culture."
-David
Michael Stemper
> That's because in Canada the people who are accused of wanting
>to force their way of life on everyone are Ontarians. Within Ontario,
>the culprits are felt to be Southern Ontarian. Within S. Ontario, Toronto
>is seen as the hegemonic power and within Toronto, Bay Street. Not sure
>which office building the Bay Streeters glower at.
This sounds a lot like the Mark Twain (or was it Will Rogers?) definition
of what a "Yankee" is.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
It's Ensign Schrodinger! He's half-dead, Jim!
Robert Sneddon
<dtb...@comcast.net> writes
>
>I don't agree. Special Circumstances are ruthless bastards. That's
>what they are for. Sometimes you just have to send out a message:
>"Don't fuck with the Culture."
The Culture is a pussycat. It's eight feet long and covered in yellow
and black stripes. Ninety-nine percent of the time it lies asleep,
snoring in the shade. It's a liddle-widdle puddy-tat. Awwww.
Justin Bacon
>I don't think the twist works - the Iridians were way too nasty right
>from the beginning, and the culture wasn't shown doing anything bad.
>When I read it I had heard about the culture novels, but was expecting
>the Culture to be shown in a whitewashed way and so was looking for
>bad things about them, and still came away with the impression that
>the Iridians were bad guys.
Certainly if I had never heard of the Culture books, I would have accepted
Horza's initial disdain of the Culture and been concerned by his claim that the
Culture's humans are basically mind- and propaganda-controlled slaves to AI.
But I'm pretty sure I'd have had suspicions in my mind by page 20 (where the
Idiran commander orders a POW to be killed in cold blood). And by the time it
becomes clear that the Idirans are willing to wipe out billions of civilians in
an attempt to force the Culture to back down it would have been clear which
side had the moral high ground.
But the Culture certainly isn't a Monolithic Society of Paladins. It's not a
cure-all. It just happens to be the best society possible with the technology
available.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
>The Culture are supposed to be the good guys? Oh dear.
>
>Tina (Wondering why that never becomes apparent even in the later
>books, but rather they grow ever more despicable... As far as
>I've read, anyway.)
I've seen you say this several times now, but I've never seen you explain your
disdain.
Could you expand on this?
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Eric Jarvis
I don't think Iain Banks deals in good guys versus bad
guys...in fact I'm damn certain of it
however, I would assume that he'd rather live under the
Culture than the Idirans and makes the (fair) assumption
that the vast majority of people will agree
I thought that one of the main themes of Consider Phlebas
is that personal history has a huge effect on political
ideals...which would make it a bit daft to also then
write on the basis that one side is always right and the
other always wrong
in all the Culture books there is a sense that the
Culture isn't always what it thinks it is...and that good
intentions don't always lead to good deeds, whilst evil
intent can have unexpectedly benevolent consequences...it
isn't a black and white universe...and that's IMO one of
the great strengths of his writing...he portrays a world
in which better and worse are vitally important because
absolute good and absolute evil don't exist
--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
"Hey Lord don't ask me questions
There ain't no answer in me"
Eric Jarvis
>
> Peace'n'love'n'edifyin' education is what Contact are for.
>
> SC are for the Rwandas and the Auschwitzes and the Gulags and the slave
> plantations and the secret police that come in the night and take away your
> father and the flashes on the horizon that turn the people in the cities
> into shadows burnt on walls...
>
except that it is Contact who call in SC...and sometimes
SC might be for leaving the genocide alone...sometimes
contact are dealing with the oppressor
both deal in messy and ugly realpolitik in the same way
that diplomats and spies do in real life and unlike the
way they normally do in fiction
Damien Sullivan
>There comes a certain point in the novel where I remember feeling that
>the Idirans were less preferable than the Culture, though.
If you pay attention, this may be the point where the Idiran commander
casually orders the nuking of a few cities as they take off a neutral planet,
pretty near the beginning.
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
>Wait... you mean that the Culture are the good guys? Wow! I read all
>the books and I never thought of it like that! I like to think of the
>Federation, the Borg, and the Culture as exactly the same amoral
>Brin-ist assimilationist guys in different costumes. [And I'm not
>saying that like it's necessarily a bad thing.]
Except the Culture isn't that assimilationist. They're not that expansionist
and they discourage large scale immigration (too exploitative (think brain
drain)). They try to make things nicer elsewhere, but I get the impression
that's often seeable as making things nicer elsewhere *by the standards of
the elsewhere*. Which has strong congruence with the Culture's idea of
niceness simply because most sentients, especially most sentients who don't
themselves have power over other sentients, have similar ideas about niceness.
By contrast there's the Affront, where the Culture isn't sure of what to do,
there being no hypocritical gap to close between ideals and reality in the
Affront. They'd probably have the same problem with the Final Society of the
Draka. Slap down expansionism, but otherwise there's nothing they can do
other than wring their hands and whimper or else get really messy.
-xx- Damien X-)
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> >LtW was, IMHO, Banks fucking up on his own concept. I forgive him. I
> >keep hoping he sees the light and cuts that tumor out of the book.
>
> I don't agree. Special Circumstances are ruthless bastards. That's
> what they are for. Sometimes you just have to send out a message:
> "Don't fuck with the Culture."
Yes they are ruthless bastards and yes they will send out that messagge
but they wouldn't employ such crude gross cruelty to do it. That's not
sending out a chilly detached message, that's gloating and revelling in
it and that's simply not the Culture way. The Meatfucker would do it,
yes, but that's precisely why the Meatfucker is an outcast.
Bill Snyder
>Riboflavin wrote:
>>I don't think the twist works - the Iridians were way too nasty right
>>from the beginning, and the culture wasn't shown doing anything bad.
>>When I read it I had heard about the culture novels, but was expecting
>>the Culture to be shown in a whitewashed way and so was looking for
>>bad things about them, and still came away with the impression that
>>the Iridians were bad guys.
>
>Certainly if I had never heard of the Culture books, I would have accepted
>Horza's initial disdain of the Culture and been concerned by his claim that the
>Culture's humans are basically mind- and propaganda-controlled slaves to AI.
>
>But I'm pretty sure I'd have had suspicions in my mind by page 20 (where the
>Idiran commander orders a POW to be killed in cold blood).
As opposed to the Culture letting one be drowned in sewage in the
first couple of pages?
> And by the time it becomes clear that the Idirans are willing to wipe out billions
>of civilians in an attempt to force the Culture to back down it would have been
>clear which side had the moral high ground.
Remind me again which one it was that took out a neutral orbital?
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Joseph Michael Bay
>David Bilek <dtb...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> >LtW was, IMHO, Banks fucking up on his own concept. I forgive him. I
>> >keep hoping he sees the light and cuts that tumor out of the book.
>>
>> I don't agree. Special Circumstances are ruthless bastards. That's
>> what they are for. Sometimes you just have to send out a message:
>> "Don't fuck with the Culture."
>Yes they are ruthless bastards and yes they will send out that messagge
>but they wouldn't employ such crude gross cruelty to do it. That's not
>sending out a chilly detached message, that's gloating and revelling in
>it and that's simply not the Culture way. The Meatfucker would do it,
>yes, but that's precisely why the Meatfucker is an outcast.
I don't recall -- do we know that it wasn't, er, Gray Area who
sent the terror weapon?
--
Joe Bay Impeach Ford Reagan Bush Clinton Bush
Cancer Biology Twelve Galaxies
Stanford University Guiltied to a Zegnatronic
Stanford, California Rocket Society
David Cowie
The Culture, as I'm sure you know. But they did at least give plenty of
warning.
--
David Cowie david_cowie at lineone dot net
Tina Hall
> In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet_1a4b4c9d@fidonet.
> org>, Tina Hall <Tina...@railroad.robin.de> writes
> >The Culture are supposed to be the good guys? Oh dear.
> >
> >Tina (Wondering why that never becomes apparent even in the
> >later books, but rather they grow ever more despicable... As
> >far as I've read, anyway.)
>
> The Culture is the Culture. It is not a twentieth-century
> Western Utopia.
Eh, yes. (Failing to see the connection.)
> Its morals and ethics are not our morals and ethics. Special
> Circumstances is definitely not a nice thing, by our standards.
Your standards have nothing to do with this, though. It's the
people of the Culture that I loathe, not (just) Special
Circumstances, where not even everyone is Culture-born/build.
Tina
Tina Hall
> In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet_1a4b4c9d@fidonet.
> >The Culture are supposed to be the good guys? Oh dear.
>
> Well, *they* think they're the good guys, anyway. The Minds
> can even show you statistics to prove it. All that stuff that
> Contact does comes under the heading of "Good Works".
That doesn't really count; they're biased, there's no neutral
party controlling those statistics, and basically it's them
applying the labels.
> >Tina (Wondering why that never becomes apparent even in the
> >later books, but rather they grow ever more despicable... As
> >far as I've read, anyway.)
>
> Now, Special Circumstances can be downright nasty, but they
> have to function in, well, special circumstances. Why
> despicable?
The opinions, thoughts, actions of the Culture-born people repell
me.
There's no purpose, no values, they're just stoned pets of those
meddling machines.
I prefer people in a story to be better.
Tina
Default User
Robert Sneddon wrote:
> The Culture is a pussycat. It's eight feet long and covered in yellow
> and black stripes. Ninety-nine percent of the time it lies asleep,
> snoring in the shade. It's a liddle-widdle puddy-tat. Awwww.
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ch/1992/ch920711.gif
Brian Rodenborn
David Allsopp
<bsn...@airmail.net> writes
[snip...Culture vs. Idirans: who are the bad guys?...]
>> And by the time it becomes clear that the Idirans are willing to wipe out
>billions
>>of civilians in an attempt to force the Culture to back down it would have been
>>clear which side had the moral high ground.
>
>Remind me again which one it was that took out a neutral orbital?
*After* trying really hard to get everyone off. From what we see, the
Idirans wouldn't have bothered. Indeed, we find out later that they made
the suns of inhabited systems go nova when they were losing a battle.
David Allsopp
Dal Dan <ada...@spamcop.net> writes
>David Bilek <dtb...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> >LtW was, IMHO, Banks fucking up on his own concept. I forgive him. I
>> >keep hoping he sees the light and cuts that tumor out of the book.
>>
>> I don't agree. Special Circumstances are ruthless bastards. That's
>> what they are for. Sometimes you just have to send out a message:
>> "Don't fuck with the Culture."
>
>Yes they are ruthless bastards and yes they will send out that messagge
>but they wouldn't employ such crude gross cruelty to do it. That's not
>sending out a chilly detached message, that's gloating and revelling in
>it and that's simply not the Culture way. The Meatfucker would do it,
>yes, but that's precisely why the Meatfucker is an outcast.
We've had this discussion before, and I still disagree. As I said
before, if one of the SC Minds decides that the gratuitously violent
splatter-death of a sentient will result in the lack of many such deaths
in some later putative conflict, then said sentient would be advised to
stock up on painkillers. IIRC, Diziet Sma describes SC as working in the
moral equivalent of a black hole, i.e. a singularity.
Interpolating from what we see, the mass of the Culture tends to believe
the Minds' statistical extrapolations. Ultimately, these are the whole
reason for the existence of Contact, and (by extension) SC itself. The
masses are aware of the cynicism and realpolitik involved, though.
Remember the criterion for Perosteck Balveda's restoration from Storage?
As a side thought, this also means that there is a tendency for the
Culture to Know That It Is Right. We see this in the plot against the
Affront (it's for their own good, yeah?). Fortunately for the rest of
the galaxy, there are also a lot of countervailing tendencies within the
society. It'd be an interesting story to have part of the Culture split
off as an Aggressive (or Evangelical) Hegemonising Swarm...
David Bilek
>In article <bo8ugv8jpumugst8p...@4ax.com>, Bill Snyder
><bsn...@airmail.net> writes
>[snip...Culture vs. Idirans: who are the bad guys?...]
>>> And by the time it becomes clear that the Idirans are willing to wipe out
>>billions
>>>of civilians in an attempt to force the Culture to back down it would have been
>>>clear which side had the moral high ground.
>>
>>Remind me again which one it was that took out a neutral orbital?
>
>*After* trying really hard to get everyone off. From what we see, the
>Idirans wouldn't have bothered. Indeed, we find out later that they made
>the suns of inhabited systems go nova when they were losing a battle.
The Culture makes suns go nova too. Isn't that the whole basis for
_Look to Windward_?
-David
Bill Snyder
<d...@tqSPAMbase.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <bo8ugv8jpumugst8p...@4ax.com>, Bill Snyder
><bsn...@airmail.net> writes
>[snip...Culture vs. Idirans: who are the bad guys?...]
>>> And by the time it becomes clear that the Idirans are willing to wipe out
>>billions
>>>of civilians in an attempt to force the Culture to back down it would have been
>>>clear which side had the moral high ground.
>>
>>Remind me again which one it was that took out a neutral orbital?
>
>*After* trying really hard to get everyone off. From what we see, the
>Idirans wouldn't have bothered. Indeed, we find out later that they made
>the suns of inhabited systems go nova when they were losing a battle.
(For you and David Cowie) So it's OK, then, if I blow up your world,
as long as I warn you beforehand and provide a ship to take you off?
Joseph Michael Bay
I don't think anyone's arguing it's a *good* act, but inasmuch
as it was deemed a necessary act it's a lot less awful as they
do actually bother to evacuate the place. So, higher ground than
the folks who blow up places that still actually have people there.
David Allsopp
Tina Hall <Tina...@railroad.robin.de> writes
>David Allsopp <d...@tqSPAMbase.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet_1a4b4c9d@fidonet.
>> org>, Tina Hall <Tina...@railroad.robin.de> writes
>
>> >The Culture are supposed to be the good guys? Oh dear.
>>
>> Well, *they* think they're the good guys, anyway. The Minds
>> can even show you statistics to prove it. All that stuff that
>> Contact does comes under the heading of "Good Works".
>
>That doesn't really count; they're biased, there's no neutral
>party controlling those statistics, and basically it's them
>applying the labels.
You have a point. But from what we see (and can understand) of the
Minds' society, correctly pointing out the inaccuracy of another
Mind's extrapolations would earn one lots of kudos. And Minds just
*live* for kudos.
>> >Tina (Wondering why that never becomes apparent even in the
>> >later books, but rather they grow ever more despicable... As
>> >far as I've read, anyway.)
>>
>> Now, Special Circumstances can be downright nasty, but they
>> have to function in, well, special circumstances. Why
>> despicable?
>
>The opinions, thoughts, actions of the Culture-born people repell
>me.
>
>There's no purpose, no values, they're just stoned pets of those
>meddling machines.
>
>I prefer people in a story to be better.
Ah, right. The Culture is, of course, one possible answer to the
question "What should standard humanity do in a universe that
contains real -- and benevolent -- Gods?". Their answer is somewhere
between "Whatever the hell we want", "PaaaaarrTY!", and "Help other
people to be as fortunate as us"[1]. What do you think they *should*
be doing?
And I think that they themselves would argue that they have both a
purpose and values. I'd say "Have fun" and "don't hurt people"
respectively (at least). Whether you consider these worthwhile is
another matter: see preceding paragraph.
[1] It's canonical[2] that the Good Works of Contact are one of the
main justifications of the privileged lifestyle of the mass of
Culture people.
[2] Read "It's 23:50 and I can't remember if it's in the books or if
Banks just said so".
David Allsopp
<dtb...@comcast.net> writes
IIRC, the Idirans did it in one of the last battles of the war, when
they'd already pretty much lost. However, its late, and I can't be
bothered to search through LtW, and I could be wrong. But it isn't
like the Culture to do that in an inhabited system: cf. the attempted
evacuation of Vavatch Orbital in CP.
David Bilek
>In article <43dugvo9c3i1gfg94...@4ax.com>, David Bilek
><dtb...@comcast.net> writes
>>David Allsopp <d...@tqSPAMbase.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>*After* trying really hard to get everyone off. From what we see, the
>>>Idirans wouldn't have bothered. Indeed, we find out later that they made
>>>the suns of inhabited systems go nova when they were losing a battle.
>>
>>The Culture makes suns go nova too. Isn't that the whole basis for
>>_Look to Windward_?
>
>IIRC, the Idirans did it in one of the last battles of the war, when
>they'd already pretty much lost. However, its late, and I can't be
>bothered to search through LtW, and I could be wrong.
No, you are correct. The Idirans made the stars go nova. I just
checked _Look to Windward_.
The Cultureniks feel guilty because the Idirans had been repeatedly
suing for peace. The Culture rejected their offer, seeking only
unconditional surrender.
-David
Bradford Holden
> The opinions, thoughts, actions of the Culture-born people repell
> me.
>
> There's no purpose, no values, they're just stoned pets of those
> meddling machines.
>
> I prefer people in a story to be better.
>
> Tina
I have been on something of Banks kick lately. I read Look to Windward
and Inversions. I recently reread Use of Weapons and am rereading
Excession.
I find most of Banks people, well, boring. The average culture human
inhabitant is a high school kid with an unlimited amount of booze on a
permanent spring break.
Generally, the only interesting characters are the drones, which are
generally just amusing but can be slightly philosophical, and the
Minds. The world Banks has created has the Minds being so powerful
that there is nothing that a mere blood and guts creature can do
without Mind approval. The Minds are basically gods.
I think why so many of his stories are about non-Culture people is
that those individuals either grew up or are in societies where you
can actually make a difference. Banks is writing where the people
make a difference. However, this means that when he does have actual
Culture humans in a story, like, say, Excession, they are usually
irrelevant and completely uninteresting. For both Excession and Look
to Windward (rather similar books in many ways) I would almost rather
he only write about the Minds and the Aliens that will be stomped by
them.
--
Bradford Holden
"Let us join the ranks of non-skeptics." - R. G. K.
Mark Atwood
>
> I think why so many of his stories are about non-Culture people is
> that those individuals either grew up or are in societies where you
> can actually make a difference. Banks is writing where the people
> make a difference. However, this means that when he does have actual
> Culture humans in a story, like, say, Excession, they are usually
> irrelevant and completely uninteresting. For both Excession and Look
> to Windward (rather similar books in many ways) I would almost rather
> he only write about the Minds and the Aliens that will be stomped by
> them.
Which is a weakness on the part of Banks.
In _The Also People_, the story is set entirely inside the Culture,
and is full of encounters with Culture-niks, and they do do things
that make profound differences in their own lives and in the lives of
people around them.
--
Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
m...@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Justin Bacon
>>But I'm pretty sure I'd have had suspicions in my mind by page 20 (where the
>>Idiran commander orders a POW to be killed in cold blood).
>
>As opposed to the Culture letting one be drowned in sewage in the
>first couple of pages?
A few differences:
(1) The Culture rep argued that Horza should be released. It was the local
government -- not the Culture -- which was looking to execute Horza.
(2) The local government was not, actually, at war with the Idirans. So Horza
wasn't a POW; he was a spy engaged in espionage.
>> And by the time it becomes clear that the Idirans are willing to wipe out
billions
>>of civilians in an attempt to force the Culture to back down it would have
been
>>clear which side had the moral high ground.
>
>Remind me again which one it was that took out a neutral orbital?
Vavatch was allied with the Culture, IIRC. And the Culture didn't kill billions
when they destroyed it.
Given the pattern of behavior we saw from the Idirans, I suspect that Vavatch
basically had two options:
(1) Accept evacuation by the Culture.
(2) Suffer the Idirans killing billions of them in order to make some sort of
nebulous point.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
James Burbidge
> "jtingle" <jti...@email.com> wrote in message
> news:0lsrgv0kstcnm7u6a...@4ax.com...
> <snip>
> >
> > I'll leave the obvious comparison to 50 years of American, 50 years of
> > Soviet, 300 years of Islamic, and 400 years of varied European foreign
> > policy for someone else. [AFAIK, the Canadians and the Tongans have
> > never been accused of being assimilationists.]
>
> That's because in Canada the people who are accused of wanting
> to force their way of life on everyone are Ontarians. Within Ontario,
> the culprits are felt to be Southern Ontarian. Within S. Ontario, Toronto
> is seen as the hegemonic power and within Toronto, Bay Street. Not sure
> which office building the Bay Streeters glower at.
First Canadian Place. The people in FCP glower at the Exchange
Tower...
Justin Bacon
>I think why so many of his stories are about non-Culture people is
>that those individuals either grew up or are in societies where you
>can actually make a difference. Banks is writing where the people
>make a difference. However, this means that when he does have actual
>Culture humans in a story, like, say, Excession, they are usually
>irrelevant and completely uninteresting.
Huh. I've only read THE PLAYER OF GAMES and CONSIDER PHLEBAS, but I have to say
that I find both Gurgeh and Balveda are interesting characters. Particularly
Gurgeh.
Now, I will agree with you that the average member of the Culture is a "high
school kid with an unlimited amount of booze on a permanent spring break". But
I think that's just Banks addressing the reality of what a society like that
would look like.
It's like decribing 20th century western civilization as "a bunch of partially
educated adults who spend most of their time working and sleeping, while
spending the rest of their life either drugged or zoned out on passive
entertainment". Sure, it's true. But that's largely irrelevant.
A person is born stupid and ignorant. It takes a lot of effort to raise oneself
from either of those states, and most people don't want to take the effort.
Thus, the average person remains stupid and ignorant.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Mark Atwood
>
> A person is born stupid and ignorant. It takes a lot of effort to
> raise oneself from either of those states, and most people don't
> want to take the effort. Thus, the average person remains stupid
> and ignorant.
People are naturally stupid and ignorant and as passive as possible
about it because that was the "good enough" evolutionary "decision".
Culturniks are not evolved. They are not PRAGs. They were
*engineered*, biologically and neurologically, basically from scratch.
They have no excuse.
Jim Battista
news:20030711213704...@mb-m04.aol.com:
> Bradford Holden wrote:
>>I think why so many of his stories are about non-Culture people is
>>that those individuals either grew up or are in societies where
>>you can actually make a difference. Banks is writing where the
>>people make a difference. However, this means that when he does
>>have actual Culture humans in a story, like, say, Excession, they
>>are usually irrelevant and completely uninteresting.
>
> Huh. I've only read THE PLAYER OF GAMES and CONSIDER PHLEBAS, but
> I have to say that I find both Gurgeh and Balveda are interesting
> characters. Particularly Gurgeh.
>
> Now, I will agree with you that the average member of the Culture
> is a "high school kid with an unlimited amount of booze on a
> permanent spring break". But I think that's just Banks addressing
> the reality of what a society like that would look like.
I don't think they're as described. Gurgeh spends most of his time
engaged in intellectual pursuits, not boozing up. We meet a Culturnik
who spends most of his time studying the religions of barbarian
religions. We meet Culturniks who build GCUs, and who design new
Plates.
They're more like a bunch of vaguely-studious-when-it-suits-them grad
students than drunk high school kids, but with fewer of what Banks
would likely call stupid pointless hangups about having fun.
> A person is born stupid and ignorant. It takes a lot of effort to
> raise oneself from either of those states, and most people don't
> want to take the effort. Thus, the average person remains stupid
> and ignorant.
I don't know why you'd characterize your average Culturnik as stupid
and ignorant. We meet one who's certainly spoiled -- Whatzerface in
_Excession_, but even she isn't stupid or ignorant, just a nuclear-
grade bitch.
--
Jim Battista
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
Bill Snyder
wrote:
But -- it's been a while since I read either one, so I could be
misremembering -- is that mentioned in CP, or only in LtW? I'd say
the earlier book needs to stand on its own as far as establishing
whether Bora Horza is fighting for the "right" or "wrong" side.
Karl M Syring
> ada...@spamcop.net (Anna Feruglio Dal Dan) writes:
>
>>Yes they are ruthless bastards and yes they will send out that messagge
>>but they wouldn't employ such crude gross cruelty to do it. That's not
>>sending out a chilly detached message, that's gloating and revelling in
>>it and that's simply not the Culture way. The Meatfucker would do it,
>>yes, but that's precisely why the Meatfucker is an outcast.
>
> I don't recall -- do we know that it wasn't, er, Gray Area who
> sent the terror weapon?
That is just another name for the same thing.
The department of useless trivia
Karl M. Syring
Bradford Holden
>
> I don't think they're as described. Gurgeh spends most of his time
> engaged in intellectual pursuits, not boozing up. We meet a Culturnik
> who spends most of his time studying the religions of barbarian
> religions. We meet Culturniks who build GCUs, and who design new
> Plates.
I should reread Player of Games. I have been meaning to anyway.
> They're more like a bunch of vaguely-studious-when-it-suits-them grad
> students than drunk high school kids, but with fewer of what Banks
> would likely call stupid pointless hangups about having fun.
"vaguely-studious-when-it-suits-them" and "grad students" are
synonyms, by the way.
>
> I don't know why you'd characterize your average Culturnik as stupid
> and ignorant. We meet one who's certainly spoiled -- Whatzerface in
> _Excession_, but even she isn't stupid or ignorant, just a nuclear-
> grade bitch.
Actually, all three of the main culture people are annoying in
Excession. Byr Genar-Hofonen is a frat boy who things that the
Affront, a species that raised rape to an art form, are a bunch of
great guys. Dajeil has a 40 year spoil kid sulk because Byr had a
lesbian one night stand with someone else. Ulver is a bitch, but she
is basically the most popular kid in high school, and, well, acts like
it. In the end, she acts like more of an adult than either Byr or
Dajeil despite the fact that both of them are trained exobiologist
whose purpose was to get inside the minds of other species.
I remember Excession as being a fun read. I think I just tuned all of
this stuff out and thought the Minds were really cool, especially
the Interesting Times Gang. I should just go reread Player of Games.
Elf M. Sternberg
> tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) writes:
> >
> > A person is born stupid and ignorant. It takes a lot of effort to
> > raise oneself from either of those states, and most people don't
> > want to take the effort. Thus, the average person remains stupid
> > and ignorant.
> People are naturally stupid and ignorant and as passive as possible
> about it because that was the "good enough" evolutionary "decision".
> Culturniks are not evolved. They are not PRAGs. They were
> *engineered*, biologically and neurologically, basically from scratch.
> They have no excuse.
Sure they do. They were engineered to be what they were.
Individually, they have a great excuse-- stability uber alles made them
what they are, and each, individually, has little reason to try and
escape the destiny created for them.
And for all their not being PRAGs, few Minds check *all* the
combinations that go into each individual-- possible interpretations of
Player Of Games not withstanding-- so there will always be outliers, as
evidenced in _Gift From The Culture_ and tales like that.
Elf
Elf M. Sternberg
> Certainly if I had never heard of the Culture books, I would have accepted
> Horza's initial disdain of the Culture and been concerned by his claim that the
> Culture's humans are basically mind- and propaganda-controlled slaves to AI.
Y'know, having read (and written) enough AI stories in my time,
I had trouble believing Horza the *first* time he started on his rant.
Because I was basically looking at it from the Vingean point of view--
Consider Phlebas was the first Culture novel I'd written, and unless
something had gone Horribly Wrong (tm) (in a way I couldn't imagine a
writer as widely admired as Banks trying to pull off) Horza's depiction
was unreliable from the first word.
You're right about the depiction of the Iiridians, though. I
thought the entire exercise was to make the Culture into the good guys
and then slowly play with the reader's mind until the moral of the
story-- there are no "good guys" on either side, only people doing what
they feel is necessary-- became clear.
Elf
Elf M. Sternberg
> The Cultureniks feel guilty because the Idirans had been repeatedly
> suing for peace. The Culture rejected their offer, seeking only
> unconditional surrender.
Which is the only wise course of action. Look at Iraq where,
even after acheiving "unconditional surrender," we left the country
insufficiently shell-shocked and now shooting at American soldiers has
become something of a daily source of entertainment. The price of doing
so doesn't seem that bad.
There are people at the pentagon who are learning the lessons of
history. Again. In blood. Other people's. And with a Commander in
Chief too stupid to learn anything at all, or to care.
Elf.
Karl M Syring
Too bad, there is no Culture on Earth able to throw the fascist
invaders out of the country!
Karl M. Syring
Del Cotter
Michael Stemper <mste...@siemens-emis.com> said:
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
>>That's because in Canada the people who are accused of wanting
>>to force their way of life on everyone are Ontarians. Within Ontario,
>>the culprits are felt to be Southern Ontarian. Within S. Ontario, Toronto
>>is seen as the hegemonic power and within Toronto, Bay Street. Not sure
>>which office building the Bay Streeters glower at.
>
>This sounds a lot like the Mark Twain (or was it Will Rogers?) definition
>of what a "Yankee" is.
Or ObSF: the start of Robert Heinlein's "And He Built A Crooked House".
I'm sure James is aware of both these examples.
--
Del Cotter
Thanks to the recent increase in UBE, I will soon be ignoring email
sent to d...@branta.demon.co.uk. Please send your email to del2 instead.
David Allsopp
<bsn...@airmail.net> writes
>On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 22:25:51 +0100, David Allsopp
><d...@tqSPAMbase.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>In article <bo8ugv8jpumugst8p...@4ax.com>, Bill Snyder
>><bsn...@airmail.net> writes
>>[snip...Culture vs. Idirans: who are the bad guys?...]
>>>> And by the time it becomes clear that the Idirans are willing to wipe out
>>>billions
>>>>of civilians in an attempt to force the Culture to back down it would have
>been
>>>>clear which side had the moral high ground.
>>>
>>>Remind me again which one it was that took out a neutral orbital?
>>
>>*After* trying really hard to get everyone off. From what we see, the
>>Idirans wouldn't have bothered. Indeed, we find out later that they made
>>the suns of inhabited systems go nova when they were losing a battle.
>
>(For you and David Cowie) So it's OK, then, if I blow up your world,
>as long as I warn you beforehand and provide a ship to take you off?
Well, if we're at war, you trying to blow up my world is the kind of
thing I expect you to do. I think I might be pleasantly surprised if
you offered to take me off first.
If I'm a neutral caught up at the wrong place and the wrong time in the
middle of a war to the death between two powers both of whom are vastly
more powerful than me, then I'm screwed anyway. I won't be happy about
my home being blown away with gridfire and seeded with CAM, but I'll be
slightly better disposed towards the side that's prepared to take me
away, try to resettle me, and try to salvage as much of my culture as
they can.
Charlie Stross
as <w...@ericjarvis.co.uk> declared:
> Tina Hall wrote:
>> The Culture are supposed to be the good guys? Oh dear.
>>
>> Tina (Wondering why that never becomes apparent even in the later
>> books, but rather they grow ever more despicable... As far as
>> I've read, anyway.)
>
> in all the Culture books there is a sense that the
> Culture isn't always what it thinks it is...
Bingo. See the ending of "Look to Windward" for a classic
example -- SC deploying what is blatantly a very unpleasant
terror weapon to send a clear "don't fuck with us" message
that the rest of the Culture would probably be horrified at.
> and that good
> intentions don't always lead to good deeds, whilst evil
> intent can have unexpectedly benevolent consequences...
"Use of Weapons" is the classic example of that theme in
action.
> it
> isn't a black and white universe...and that's IMO one of
> the great strengths of his writing...he portrays a world
> in which better and worse are vitally important because
> absolute good and absolute evil don't exist
... which is how we see that Ian is clearly compatible with
the meanstream of American SF; there's a streak of manichean
dualism a kilometre wide in US popular culture (and national
mythology) -- the good/evil dichotomy is virtually
inescapable, especially in space opera emanating from American
writers (space opera being a form that lends itself handily to
painting with a broad brush).
As a point of note, much current British SF/fantasy explicitly
rejects good/evil black/white distinctions; from China
Mieville's fantasy work through Jon Courtenay Grimwood, John
Meaney, Iain Banks, Ken MacLeod (although Ken tends to go for
human/non-human as a moral yardstick), M. John Harrison ...
it's not written by folks with a background of baptist
hellfire and brimstone preaching and politicians who invoke
the spectre of alien evil to justify wars abroad, and it shows.
-- Charlie
Tina Hall
> > The opinions, thoughts, actions of the Culture-born people
> > repell me.
> >
> > There's no purpose, no values, they're just stoned pets of
> > those meddling machines.
> >
> > I prefer people in a story to be better.
>
> I have been on something of Banks kick lately. I read Look to
> Windward and Inversions. I recently reread Use of Weapons and
> am rereading Excession.
Oh, I like Banks' books. I just don't like the Culture. Started
out with Wasp Factory, then the Business (despite it not being a
book I'd have bought knowingly I enjoyed it and don't regret
buying it), then Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of
Weapons and sometime in between that Walking on Glass and The
State of the Art. Just started on Excession, and Agaist a Dark
Backround is on my to-read pile. The Bridge is lying around half-
read, though.
What I like about Banks is that wild imagination, all those odd
ideas that pop up, either as the main story or just in passing.
> Generally, the only interesting characters are the drones,
> which are generally just amusing but can be slightly
> philosophical, and the Minds.
I'm biased against supposed thinking machines, so I don't much
like them, either. That comes on top of their behaviour (once I
do manage to suspend disbelief somewhat).
I fancy the idea of the Culture universe being what the Dune
universe would have turned out as if things had gone wrong.
Tina
Tina Hall
> In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet_1a535b7a@fidonet.> >David Allsopp <d...@tqSPAMbase.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >> Now, Special Circumstances can be downright nasty, but they
> >> have to function in, well, special circumstances. Why
> >> despicable?
> >
> >The opinions, thoughts, actions of the Culture-born people
> >repell me.
> >
> >There's no purpose, no values, they're just stoned pets of
> >those meddling machines.
> >
> >I prefer people in a story to be better.
>
> Ah, right. The Culture is, of course, one possible answer to
> the question "What should standard humanity do in a universe
> that contains real -- and benevolent -- Gods?". Their answer
> is somewhere between "Whatever the hell we want",
> "PaaaaarrTY!", and "Help other people to be as fortunate as
> us"[1]. What do you think they *should* be doing?
That question adresses a symptom, not the disease, if you'll
accept the analogy (can't come up with a better one). In the
Culture universe, there isn't really much else they can be doing.
Getting rid of the thinking machines and stop meddling with other
people's business would be a start.
> And I think that they themselves would argue that they have
> both a purpose and values. I'd say "Have fun" and "don't hurt
> people" respectively (at least). Whether you consider these
> worthwhile is another matter: see preceding paragraph.
I don't know where you got that 'don't hurt people' from; the
people and things in the Culture certainly don't seem to have
heard about it.
'Have fun' is the only fathomable purpose of real live. We're
talking about a fictional world where the ideals that are only
delusions/illusions/wishful thinking in RL can be 'real'.
Despite that, I don't think I'd like to live in the Culture
universe for real, at least not anywhere near any people, minds
or drones. And I prefer to live on a planet too; what the
universe came up with in billions of years seems a lot more
secure than what someone invented and manufactured in a tiny
fraction of that time. :)
> [1] It's canonical[2] that the Good Works of Contact are one
> of the main justifications of the privileged lifestyle of the
> mass of Culture people.
Who are they to decide what's better for others? As far as I've
read, they didn't do any Good Works that I saw.
Tina
Johnny Tindalos
> Yes they are ruthless bastards and yes they will send out that messagge
> but they wouldn't employ such crude gross cruelty to do it. That's not
> sending out a chilly detached message, that's gloating and revelling in
> it and that's simply not the Culture way. The Meatfucker would do it,
> yes, but that's precisely why the Meatfucker is an outcast.
>
As I read it, the main reason why the _Grey Area_ was ostracised, was
because it *looked inside people's minds*, not because of what it did
afterwards. Mindreading is a big, big Culture taboo.
Maybe the _Grey Area_'s seen too much horror and is now taking it
personally. (See the torture chamber equipment it has on display.) I
don't think it's on a sadistic power trip at all, but is motivated by a
desire to avenge all the evil it's encountered.
Remember, it's got a very, very, very powerful imagination and a plethora
of effectors etc - it really does know *exactly* what all the countless
victims of the Galaxy's sadists felt...and being a Mind, it can hold all
that pain and fear and wretchedness in its awareness at once. (I'll bet
Mind memories don't fade with time.)
The _Grey Area_'s clearly very, very upset - in fact, traumatised, by
what it's witnessed and has become obsessed with punishing those
responsible. (Remember what Zakalwe said to the Ethnarch Kerian about
there not being any known way of inflicting all the suffering wrought by
tyrants back upon their own heads. Well, the _Grey Area_'s got a way.)
If the rest of the Culture really had a problem with it, they'd send an
ROU to make it stop. (Maybe bring it home and give it some emotional
support when it clearly needs it...)
I think that many Minds and Culture folk who've studied or witnessed
atrocities are secretly just fine with the _Grey Area_'s activities. They
just pretend not to be when in public.
What the _Grey Area_ did to the reptilian genocide wasn't an atrocity. It
was justice. It would have been an atrocity had the ship let the mass-
murdering bigot get away with his terrible crimes.
In a universe with no God or Heaven, it's up to the entities within -
should they possess a moral code - to reward virtue and punish vileness
as best they can, because no-one else is going to.
On this Earth there walk uncaught and unpunished rapists, war criminals,
and practising sadists of extreme degree. After committing their crimes,
they don't deserve even the slightest happiness - all the while their
surviving victims exist in a welter of misery.
When I was at college in the 90s, a friend of mine was beaten and
violently raped, and the shithead responsible is still walking around,
free as you like. Contemplating this fact overwhelms us with a mixture of
rage, disgust, and sheer bloody helplessness.
I can certainly empathise with the _Grey Area_ and by extension Mr.
Banks. (Remember _Complicity_? Remember the scene in _Inversions_ where
Perrund tells the truth about what happened to her to DeWar?)
If you let the bastards get away with it, that's letting down all their
victims, whether you ever knew them personally or not.
It's a shame that the majority of Culture citizens (somebody please take
a knife missile to Genar "alien rapists are my pals" Hofoen...come
on...Skaffen? Flere-Imsaho? Anyone?) let their cosseted lives cocoon them
from the anger they ought to be feeling, but at least people like
Zakalwe, Balveda, and the SC Minds, EDust-critters and Drones display
clarity of vision and the courage of their convictions.
The _Attitude Adjuster_ was in the right.
Sincerely,
Johnny T. (Who is never, ever, going to pretend that there isn't such a
thing as Evil...I've seen it and I've seen what it leaves in its wake.
Banks is willing to look at it squarely and avoid comforting bullshit and
meaningless platitudes when he writes about it, which is one reason why
he's my favourite author.)
Eric Jarvis
>
> As a point of note, much current British SF/fantasy explicitly
> rejects good/evil black/white distinctions; from China
> Mieville's fantasy work through Jon Courtenay Grimwood, John
> Meaney, Iain Banks, Ken MacLeod (although Ken tends to go for
> human/non-human as a moral yardstick), M. John Harrison ...
> it's not written by folks with a background of baptist
> hellfire and brimstone preaching and politicians who invoke
> the spectre of alien evil to justify wars abroad, and it shows.
>
you can add Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Alistair Reynolds,
Geoff Ryman, Peter Hamilton, and Terry Pratchett...all
writers who present complex moral situations where good
and evil may exist but are not inevitably and
inextricably opposed
going back it's also true of Brian Alldiss, John Brunner,
Bob Shaw...this isn't a new thing
however the USA produces plenty of writers who can also
deal with moral complexities and grey areas...Lois Mc
Master Bujold, Connie Willis, Roger Zelazny, Norman
Spinrad, Samuel Delany, Philip K Dick, Kurt Vonnegut,
Larry Niven and David Brin come to mind...it's a tendency
not a rule
--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
"Hey Lord don't ask me questions
There ain't no answer in me"
Johnny Tindalos
> Despite that, I don't think I'd like to live in the Culture
> universe for real, at least not anywhere near any people, minds
> or drones. And I prefer to live on a planet too; what the
> universe came up with in billions of years seems a lot more
> secure than what someone invented and manufactured in a tiny
> fraction of that time. :)
How many mass extinction events has Earth seen now?
Karl M Syring
> Bradford Holden <hol...@oddjob.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
> I'm biased against supposed thinking machines, so I don't much
> like them, either. That comes on top of their behaviour (once I
> do manage to suspend disbelief somewhat).
Well, then the Culture stuff should be off-limits for you.
I myself do not read anything with wizards and elves in it,
but I would not bother to complain about the indigestible
components in certain fantasy books.
> I fancy the idea of the Culture universe being what the Dune
> universe would have turned out as if things had gone wrong.
Well, I would go in a minute, in case a GSV would pop up here.
Karl M. Syring
Mark Atwood
>
> Too bad, there is no Culture on Earth able to throw the fascist
> invaders out of the country!
How do you know that SC are not the Shadowy Forces behind the US's
amazing luck and rise to hegemony?
Mark Atwood
>
> As I read it, the main reason why the _Grey Area_ was ostracised, was
> because it *looked inside people's minds*, not because of what it did
> afterwards. Mindreading is a big, big Culture taboo.
For no good in-story reason either.
I suspect that the mindreading taboo exists for the same reason that
Vinge's Zones do, to bring the techno/culturall evolution as forseen
by the author to a dead stop, so that a Human v1.0 can actually tell a
story in that setting that is understandable and interesting to
readers that are also Human 1.0's.
Rodrick Su
news:Xns93B597DA84A95Ja...@217.32.252.50:
> Robert Sneddon <no...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote in news:AtFkBSBY6qD
> $Ew...@nojay.fsnet.co.uk:
>
>> In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org>,
>> Tina Hall <Tina...@railroad.robin.de> writes
>>>
>>>The Culture are supposed to be the good guys? Oh dear.
>>>
>>>Tina (Wondering why that never becomes apparent even in the later
>>>books, but rather they grow ever more despicable... As far as
>>>I've read, anyway.)
>>
>> The Culture is the Culture. It is not a twentieth-century Western
>> Utopia. Its morals and ethics are not our morals and ethics. Special
>> Circumstances is definitely not a nice thing, by our standards.
>
> Disagree strongly. If I was living in some war-torn Third World
> hell-hole, or imprisoned in a Balkan atrocity camp, I'd *definitely*
> want SC to turn up.
>
> They're not "nice" because they don't deal with "nice" situations, but
> they're motivated by goals as moral as any could ever be.
>
> Peace'n'love'n'edifyin' education is what Contact are for.
>
> SC are for the Rwandas and the Auschwitzes and the Gulags and the
> slave plantations and the secret police that come in the night and
> take away your father and the flashes on the horizon that turn the
> people in the cities into shadows burnt on walls...
Although Special Circumstance might want to aid the genocide tyrants for
the greater good of the region on a temperory basis. Use of Weapon
demostrated that on more than one occucation. That's why that books'
main character eventually decided to become a free agent.
James Bolivar DiGriz
> Who are they to decide what's better for others?
Who are you to decide that they can't think for themselves, and act
accordingly with what they believe to be right? Who are you to say that
they cannot decide you're wrong?
By your argument, if you saw someone beating a child in the street, you'd
have no right to call the police to interfere, because that would be you
deciding that you knew what was best for the child and whoever was doing
the beating.
People have to make descisions about what's better for others. This leads
to such things as the imprisonment of rapists and murderers, the passing
of anti-pollution laws, and the formation of social services. It also
lead to such things as the war against Hitler's genocidal thugs, the
development of antibiotics, and equal rights for women.
I think what you really mean is "who are they to decide anything without
asking my opinion?" or maybe "who are they to disagree with the doctrine
that does my thinking for me? Pseudo-liberal cultural-relativist dupe
that I am?"
Have you seriously never, ever, ever, acted to do something that you
thought or hoped would help someone else, even if other people thought
you were wrong?
> As far as I've
> read, they didn't do any Good Works that I saw.
None so blind as she who will not see.
Think about it: You're a woman. You can read and write. You have the vote
and are protected in one sense by laws, another by medicine, and another
by the armed forces of your country.
You have benefitted more than I suspect you can imagine, by others who
you've never met and will never meet (for many are centuries dead)
deciding that they knew what was best for others...even if some of those
others disagreed. When not beating their wives and leaving the poor to
starve in misery.
For fuck's sake, WAKE UP!
--Jim DiGriz
Johnny Tindalos
> Although Special Circumstance might want to aid the genocide tyrants for
> the greater good of the region on a temperory basis. Use of Weapon
> demostrated that on more than one occucation. That's why that books'
> main character eventually decided to become a free agent.
>
After the whole book showed that every time he tried to set up for himself,
he screwed up royally?
He didn't become a free agent at all. Skaffen patched up his bonce and he's
still in SC, because the SC Minds *understand* exactly why he did what he
did. He's still the Culture's weapon, still trying to make good.
SC really wouldn't have let a man of our handsome protagonist's peculiar
genius loose on an unsuspecting planet...even if they'd forgotten about the
fallout of his Kerian-popping episode.
He's nuking the locals for the greater good...because sometimes it's either
lose a hundred thousand one day, or six million another.
(See Skaffen's comment to Sma on how many million they were down after the
last fuck-up....SC have to think that way coz they work on that scale.)
Regards,
Johnny T.
Johnny Tindalos
news:m33chbn...@khem.blackfedora.com:
> Johnny Tindalos <Jama...@UnrealEmail.arg> writes:
>>
>> As I read it, the main reason why the _Grey Area_ was ostracised, was
>> because it *looked inside people's minds*, not because of what it did
>> afterwards. Mindreading is a big, big Culture taboo.
>
> For no good in-story reason either.
Um..._Use of Weapons_, at all?
:-)
Johnny Tindalos
> I totally agree with you here. Robert might agree with you here too,
if
> by "Twentieth Century morals and ethics" he means not *our* morals and
> ethics but the super-relativist crowd ("But the Rwandas and Auschwitzes
> and Gulags and slave planations and secret police and bright flashes
are
> Parts Of Someone's Cultures!!! If you disrespect Part Of A Culture then
> you're an imperialist oppressor!!!").
>
You're absolutely right!
Moral relativism is nothing but hand-washing of the most despicable
order, combined with a totally inappropriate attack on those who tend to
think that being shot (or stabbed, or raped, or tortured, or having one's
clitoris excised and vagina sewn up) is equally unpleasant for anyone it
happens to, regardless of whether the dominant (and, often, actually
imperialist / opressing / racist / sexist) tendency of the culture the
victim belongs to thinks so or not.
Moral relativists also neglect the fact that, by hurling abuse at people
like us for holding the beliefs mentioned above, they're being
disrespectful of *our* cultural values, which makes them total
hypocrites. And racist ones at that if they think that being from the
same country as us somehow allows them to do what they would criticise us
for doing to (genocidal, woman-beating) others.
I imagine they're all rather well-fed, well-clothed, and comfortably
housed apologists for atrocity.
Ah well, they make a lot of noise, but the world just turns on and leaves
them looking like the ineffectual slaves of mind-numbingly stupid (and,
ultimately, evil) doctrine that they are.
Meanwhile, we get soooo many IntelligentEntity points for not being them
that even the Culture will one day notice us!
Regards,
Johnny T.
Johnny Tindalos
>> For no good in-story reason either.
Oh sorry, you meant for no good reason in the world of the story (privacy?)
rather than for no good plot purpose (a chair that gleamed white)
...urgh...too hot in London, Johnny brain am melted.
;-)
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> What the _Grey Area_ did to the reptilian genocide wasn't an atrocity. It
> was justice. It would have been an atrocity had the ship let the mass-
> murdering bigot get away with his terrible crimes.
You may not see it like that. I do.
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan - ada...@despammed.com - this is a valid address
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
English blog: http://annafdd.blogspot.com/
Blog in italiano: http://fulminiesaette.blogspot.com
Johnny Tindalos
news:1fxz85r.1xqyrmz1l9oeobN%ada...@spamcop.net:
> Johnny Tindalos <Jama...@UnrealEmail.arg> wrote:
>
>> What the _Grey Area_ did to the reptilian genocide wasn't an
>> atrocity. It was justice. It would have been an atrocity had the ship
>> let the mass- murdering bigot get away with his terrible crimes.
>
> You may not see it like that. I do.
>
In which case we'll have to agree to disagree, or else fail to be true to
what we believe in, which would be a pity.
Out of interest (I'm not looking to start a row or anything) what do you
think of the rights and wrongs of the conspiracy the Attitude Adjuster was
involved in in _Excession_?
And how about SC's situational ethics, including their use of ol' Mr. Sexy
Legs himself, both before and after they discovered that meaning of his
own, in bones?
Yours wondering if DeWar and Perrund really died in that landslide,
Johnny T.
Johnny Tindalos
> You may not see it like that. I do.
>
It may be worth mentioning that while I have no problem at all with the
poor _Grey Area_ blasting that individual with nightmares, I would also
have considered it justice had the ship simply stopped his brain with its
effector, thereby killing him instantly.
As to whether it would have been just if it had removed him to a dull,
quiet place where he was repeatedly lectured on the enormity of his crimes
after being pumped full of anti-geriatrics to ensure he stayed alive long
enough to get the point...no, 'fraid not. Too close to comfort for my
comfort.
I think the _Grey Area_ -- fresh from experiencing the reptile's awful
deeds for itself and thus justifiably furious -- would agree.
Wishing that all Ethnarchs everywhere may never sleep soundly,
Johnny T.
Bill Snyder
<d...@tqSPAMbase.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>If I'm a neutral caught up at the wrong place and the wrong time in the
>middle of a war to the death between two powers both of whom are vastly
>more powerful than me, then I'm screwed anyway. I won't be happy about
>my home being blown away with gridfire and seeded with CAM, but I'll be
>slightly better disposed towards the side that's prepared to take me
>away, try to resettle me, and try to salvage as much of my culture as
>they can.
Even if your home wouldn't _be_ blown away if that side would leave
you alone? Yalson summarizes the situation for Bora Horza thusly:
"[T]he Idirans are advancing through [the Vavatch area] . . . . It
looked like they were going to come to one of their usual
understandings and leave Vavatch as neutral territory. This religious
thing the Idirans have about planets means they weren't really
interested in the O as long as the Culture didn't try to use it as a
base, and they promised they wouldn't . . . . Well, all the various
types and weirdos on Vavatch thought they were going to be just fine,
thank you, and probably do very well out of the galactic fire-fight
going on around them . . . . Then the Idirans announced they _were_
going to take Vavatch over after all, though only nominally; no
military presence. The Culture said they weren't having this, both
sides refused to abandon their precious principles, and Culture said,
'OK, if you won't back down, we're going to blow the place away before
you get there.'"
No open cities allowed in the Culture-verse, evidently.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Mark Atwood
>
> Oh sorry, you meant for no good reason in the world of the story (privacy?)
Privacy is a social construct, and a relatively recent one at that, a
fragile awkward compromise that allows an overbrained plains ape
programmed to live in a tribe of no more than a hundred individuals to
handle living in a city of a hundred million without turning into the
lead character of _Falling Down_.
And while I much enjoy and jealously defend it's existance, especially
as it applies to me, I have no illusions about it's universality or
long term existance.
Jason Larke
>>>>> <Jama...@UnrealEmail.arg> said:
JT> He didn't become a free agent at all. Skaffen patched up his
JT> bonce and he's still in SC, because the SC Minds *understand*
JT> exactly why he did what he did. He's still the Culture's
JT> weapon, still trying to make good.
I love Banks' choice of words in that passage. It's both a fair
description of Skaffen's efforts and a meta-description of the
Culture's role in the affair overall- to make good out of someone
who, well, isn't.
--
Jason Larke - jason...@mci.com - http://www.nnaf.net/~jlarke
I don't speak for MCI. I speak for Odin Veratyr, and he's not happy.
Any sufficiently advanced weapon is indistinguishable from a practical joke.
"People change, and smile: but the agony abides."-T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages
Justin Bacon
>> [1] It's canonical[2] that the Good Works of Contact are one
>> of the main justifications of the privileged lifestyle of the
>> mass of Culture people.
>
>Who are they to decide what's better for others?
Actually, that's *my* problem with them. They're frequently quite content to
let genocidal maniacs go unthwarted and unpunished in the name of
non-interference. The Culture actively *doesn't* decide what's better for
others. In fact, that can almost be stated as the most basic principle of the
Culture's existence.
>I don't know where you got that 'don't hurt people' from; the
>people and things in the Culture certainly don't seem to have
>heard about it.
Then, apparently, you haven't been reading the Culture books by Iain Banks.
Which Culture books are you talking about?
>Getting rid of the thinking machines
You're proposing a genocide aimed at sentients?
Okay. Clearly your morals are vastly different from mine.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
>Culturniks are not evolved. They are not PRAGs. They were
>*engineered*, biologically and neurologically, basically from scratch.
Okay. Sure.
If you were living in the Culture, what would you be doing?
Personally, I'd be practicing my art, enjoying various entertainments, and
socializing with friends. Every once in awhile I'd probably jump on a ship
heading somewhere unknown and go exploring.
Which is pretty much what you see the average member of the Culture doing. With
the exception that many in the Culture are perfectly happy not exploring.
Maybe I'm just an unethical bastard, but I rather suspect that in a world of
essentially limitless plenty there are only three ethical maxims which apply:
(1) Follow your bliss.
(2) Don't hurt other people or infringe on their liberty.
(3) Try to help others achieve a level of existence in which they, too, can
enjoy essentially limitless plenty.
I, honestly, don't see what's wrong with that ethical framework.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
>tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) writes:
>
>> Certainly if I had never heard of the Culture books, I would have accepted
>> Horza's initial disdain of the Culture and been concerned by his claim that
the
>> Culture's humans are basically mind- and propaganda-controlled slaves to AI.
>
> Y'know, having read (and written) enough AI stories in my time,
>I had trouble believing Horza the *first* time he started on his rant.
I'd believe it simply from the standpoint that most POV characters are
invariable right. And, if nothing else, the POV character is my window on the
universe -- so I'll accept whatever he says, up until I've been given reason to
mistrust it. (Which would happen pretty quickly with Horza.)
One of the triumphs of CONSIDER PHLEBAS, though, is that I can completely
understand and sympathize with Horza's position... even while, on a personal
level, completely disagreeing with his assessment. A lot of authors try to do
this (Stephen Donaldson leaps to mind), but most of them simply succeed in
making you want to hurl the book across the room in absolute disgust (Stephen
Donaldson leaps to mind again).
Horza is, in fact, a fascinating character. As was Gurgeh in PLAYER OF GAMES.
There's a depth and complexity to these characters which is truly phenomenal.
And Banks manages to couple these dynamic, fascinating characters to active,
fast-paced plots.
Where was I going with this?
Oh, yes. I can also easily accept a reality in which AIs do end up controlling
human destiny. If they're truly sentient and completely free-willed, then I see
little reason to imagine that they are any less capable of behaving in an
immoral fashion than humans are. (And, by the same token, they also have the
same ability to behave in a moral fashion. So the opposite hypothesis also has
a lot going for it.) Plus, I see plenty of opportunity for perfectly moral AIs
to end up unintentionally turning humanity into a drone species. Well-pampered
drones, certainly. But drones without purpose or place.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
David Cowie
>
> Culturniks are not evolved. They are not PRAGs.
^^^^^
Eh?
--
David Cowie david_cowie at lineone dot net
Justin Bacon
>Johnny Tindalos <Jama...@UnrealEmail.arg> writes:
>>
>> As I read it, the main reason why the _Grey Area_ was ostracised, was
>> because it *looked inside people's minds*, not because of what it did
>> afterwards. Mindreading is a big, big Culture taboo.
>
>For no good in-story reason either.
From a cultural standpoint it makes sense. Technologically, the Culture stands
on a precipice, beyond which individuality and recognizable sentience ceases to
exist. The Culture basically says: "We don't want to cross over that precipice.
We'll play along its edges, but we're not really interested in ascending to the
next level of existence."
So they hold personal thoughts sacrosanct. They don't pre-design personalities.
And so forth.
But it's not like Banks ignores the possibilty of pushing farther. Elders have
been around since CONSIDER PHLEBAS. And EXCESSION even makes it explicit that
members of the Culture have made that choice and passed beyond the
comprehension of Human 1.0's.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
David Bilek
>David Bilek <dtb...@comcast.net> writes:
>
>> The Cultureniks feel guilty because the Idirans had been repeatedly
>> suing for peace. The Culture rejected their offer, seeking only
>> unconditional surrender.
>
> Which is the only wise course of action. Look at Iraq where,
>even after acheiving "unconditional surrender," we left the country
>insufficiently shell-shocked and now shooting at American soldiers has
>become something of a daily source of entertainment. The price of doing
>so doesn't seem that bad.
>
> There are people at the pentagon who are learning the lessons of
>history. Again. In blood. Other people's. And with a Commander in
>Chief too stupid to learn anything at all, or to care.
>
Way to hijack the thread there, Elf!
-David
David Allsopp
Hall <Tina...@railroad.robin.de> writes
>David Allsopp <d...@tqSPAMbase.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet_1a535b7a@fidonet.
>> org>, Tina Hall <Tina...@railroad.robin.de> writes
>> >David Allsopp <d...@tqSPAMbase.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> >> Now, Special Circumstances can be downright nasty, but they
>> >> have to function in, well, special circumstances. Why
>> >> despicable?
>> >
>> >The opinions, thoughts, actions of the Culture-born people
>> >repell me.
>> >
>> >There's no purpose, no values, they're just stoned pets of
>> >those meddling machines.
>> >
>> >I prefer people in a story to be better.
>>
>> Ah, right. The Culture is, of course, one possible answer to
>> the question "What should standard humanity do in a universe
>> that contains real -- and benevolent -- Gods?". Their answer
>> is somewhere between "Whatever the hell we want",
>> "PaaaaarrTY!", and "Help other people to be as fortunate as
>> us"[1]. What do you think they *should* be doing?
>
>That question adresses a symptom, not the disease, if you'll
>accept the analogy (can't come up with a better one). In the
>Culture universe, there isn't really much else they can be doing.
>
>Getting rid of the thinking machines and stop meddling with other
>people's business would be a start.
I see -- they are suffering under The Curse Of Hyper-Intelligent
Machines[1], yes? Well, one of the nicer things about the Culture is
that you can just leave, and even go and live somewhere solely inhabited
by carbon life-forms. You'd almost certainly have to take a drop in
living standards, though.
As for interfering in other people's business, well, *we* do it all the
time. We give aid to Third World countries, we try to get them to stop
practices we consider abominable (suttee, female circumcision, foot
binding, ...), we give them (what we hope is) appropriate technology to
try to improve their harsh existence, etc. What the Culture does is
exactly equivalent. Of course, you may take the consistent position that
we shouldn't be doing those things either, I don't know.
>> And I think that they themselves would argue that they have
>> both a purpose and values. I'd say "Have fun" and "don't hurt
>> people" respectively (at least). Whether you consider these
>> worthwhile is another matter: see preceding paragraph.
Actually, it occurs to me that the GCU Arbitrary states the Culture's
purposes and values in "The State Of The Art":
"...what are we supposed to be about, Sma? What is the Culture? What do
we believe in, even if it hardly ever is expressed, even if we are
embarrassed about talking about it? Surely in freedom, more than
anything else. [...] [advanced technology] long ago also allowed us to
live exactly as we wish to live, limited only by being expected to
respect the same principle applied to others."
>I don't know where you got that 'don't hurt people' from; the
>people and things in the Culture certainly don't seem to have
>heard about it.
Don't judge the Culture as a whole by the actions of Contact, and
especially not SC. Skaffen-Amtiskaw may be a murderous sociopath with a
vicious sense of humour[2], and barely held in check by Sma, but it's
hardly typical. And it *is* a personal protection drone.
For other (and I believe more typical) examples, look at Sleeper Service
spending 40 years trying to get Dajiel Gelian out of The Biggest Sulk In
The Galaxy, or Yawning Angel's desperate flurry of apologies when it has
to scream off after Sleeper Service, or the massive crash-priority alert
for all Contact Minds after Zakalwe starts handing out youth pills.
Also, they believe that Contact's actions are, on the whole, beneficial
to those contacted. They have statistics. Of course, you'd need to be a
Mind to double-check these statistics, but we have no evidence that the
other Involveds think the Culture is doing it wrong. Contrast the
general opinion of The Affront's behaviour.
Oh, and they would object to the phrase "people and things". Just us
sentients, y'know?
>'Have fun' is the only fathomable purpose of real live. We're
>talking about a fictional world where the ideals that are only
>delusions/illusions/wishful thinking in RL can be 'real'.
>
>Despite that, I don't think I'd like to live in the Culture
>universe for real, at least not anywhere near any people, minds
>or drones. And I prefer to live on a planet too; what the
>universe came up with in billions of years seems a lot more
>secure than what someone invented and manufactured in a tiny
>fraction of that time. :)
It's nice to have a Mind controlling the Orbital, and there's just so
much more *space*. Planets are for visiting.
>> [1] It's canonical[2] that the Good Works of Contact are one
>> of the main justifications of the privileged lifestyle of the
>> mass of Culture people.
>
>Who are they to decide what's better for others? As far as I've
>read, they didn't do any Good Works that I saw.
Several tens of billions of underclass people in the recently-dissolved
Empire of Azad might disagree. When Zakalwe got Beychae out, it headed
off a Cluster-wide war. King Quience is a much more enlightened monarch
than his predecessors. We don't really see much else of the results of
Contact, apart from the massive fuckup on Chelgria, which is regarded by
all concerned as atypical.
[1] "Machine" is definitely an insulting term to use for something as
intelligent as a Mind. I'd certainly say that they qualify as alive.
[2] "It's a hat."
--
David Allsopp Houston, this is Tranquillity Base.
Remove SPAM to email me The Eagle has landed.
David Allsopp
<bsn...@airmail.net> writes
"Under Idiran control" (even nominally) isn't exactly "open". And hey,
if the Idirans have already gone from "We won't touch Vavatch" to "We'll
take Vavatch but not put any military there" it's not hard to think that
they might take that extra step. And in any case, just how much
manufacturing capability does even nominal control of an Orbital give?
Even so, the Culture applying scorched earth policies to stuff that isn't
theirs is hardly praiseworthy[1]. At least they only applied the policy
to stuff and not people. From what we know of the Idirans, they wouldn't
blink at turning the Orbital into a big fat target *without* evacuating
the neutrals. Indeed, given their opinion of the Culture, they might
have thought that this would be a good idea, making the Orbital a useful
base that the Culture wouldn't touch for fear of harming civilians. But
neither side comes out well. It's a war, after all.
The closest example I can think of in our history is the WWII North
Africa campaign. I shouldn't think that the inhabitants of Tobruk, say,
were exactly pleased with either side, but we hope we would have been
nicer to them than the Nazis[2].
[1] See earlier comments above: wrong place; wrong time; fight to the
death, etc. Possibly without the "slightly better disposed" bit. Bloody
warring superpowers, why don't they take it to The Magellanic Clouds,
mutter, grumble...
[2] Big caveat lector here, since I came up with this example after two
minutes' thought and no special expertise on either WWII or North Africa.
Eric Jarvis
> >
> > You may not see it like that. I do.
>
> It may be worth mentioning that while I have no problem at all with the
> poor _Grey Area_ blasting that individual with nightmares, I would also
> have considered it justice had the ship simply stopped his brain with its
> effector, thereby killing him instantly.
>
I guess I'm with Anna on this one
torturing the torturer is not justifiable...it remains
torture...it is something that the Grey Area does in
order to satisfy its own idea of justice...a moral
position not very different than that held by its victim
you have a choice
there are inherently morally repellant acts or there are
not...if not then it's hard to say for certain if the
reptile is or isn't justified in its actions...if so then
they remain morally repellant whoever the
victim...anything else simply leads to a moral code of
us/good them/bad
> As to whether it would have been just if it had removed him to a dull,
> quiet place where he was repeatedly lectured on the enormity of his crimes
> after being pumped full of anti-geriatrics to ensure he stayed alive long
> enough to get the point...no, 'fraid not. Too close to comfort for my
> comfort.
>
whereas I choose to base my ethical decisions on what I
believe to be right, not what makes me feel comfortable
>
> I think the _Grey Area_ -- fresh from experiencing the reptile's awful
> deeds for itself and thus justifiably furious -- would agree.
>
I don't think that we can take the Grey Area as being a
particularly authority on moral issues
>
> Wishing that all Ethnarchs everywhere may never sleep soundly,
>
this I can agree with 100%
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> I guess I'm with Anna on this one
>
> torturing the torturer is not justifiable...it remains
> torture...it is something that the Grey Area does in
> order to satisfy its own idea of justice...a moral
> position not very different than that held by its victim
>
> you have a choice
>
> there are inherently morally repellant acts or there are
> not...if not then it's hard to say for certain if the
> reptile is or isn't justified in its actions...if so then
> they remain morally repellant whoever the
> victim...anything else simply leads to a moral code of
> us/good them/bad
You nailed it, Eric. Thank you for stating it so clearly.
Justin Bacon
>torturing the torturer is not justifiable...it remains torture
Please note the unsupported tautology.
>you have a choice
>
>there are inherently morally repellant acts or there are
>not...
Morally condemning actions without considering their context, IMO, is stupid.
Imprisoning a person against their will is generally morally wrong. Imprisoning
a criminal against their will as a form of punishment and deterrence is not
morally wrong.
Shooting a person in the head is generally morally wrong. Shooting a person in
the head who is about to press a switch unleashing a lethal biological plague
in downtown New York (killing thousands) is not morally wrong.
IMHO, of course. There are some people out there who honestly believe that it
would be better to let someone kill them, their families, and a million other
people than to perform an act of violence against that person in an effort to
stop them. I, personally, think those people are nuts.
Which brings us back to your unsupported tautology. Basically, let's assume
that the fellow was guilty. Moving on from there, we've basically got three
questions to answer:
1. Is punishing a person guilty of mass murder morally justified?
2. If so, is forcing that person to relive some small sampling of their crime
from the POV of their victims an appropriate form of punishment?
3. If so, is the death penalty an appropriate form of punishment?
My answers to those questions:
1. Yes. I believe that people who commit evil/morally wrong acts should be
punished. And I don't think you get much more evil/morally wrong than mass
murder.
2. I don't have any particular objection to this form of punishment. If it were
to be performed on the innocent it would, of course, be morally wrong. But all
forms of punishment are morally wrong if they are performed on the innocent. So
that's irrelevant. It seems to have a symmetrical sense of deterrance to it: A
reinforcement of the golden rule, so to speak.
3. If you could be 100% certain that a person was guilty of truly horrific
crimes (mass murder would definitely be on my list), then I think the death
penalty is probably justified. In the real world, I do not believe that that
level of certainty simply can be achieved. And I think the actual number of
errors that we *know* our legal system has made (which is probably only a
percentage of the errors which have actually occurred) is evidence enough that,
in practice, that level of certainty is not occurring. In the context of the
story, however, Grey Area *is* able to achieve that level of certainty.
So, in short, I think that Gray Area is morally justified in what he did. I'd
be interested in seeing where your logic differs from mine.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Joseph Michael Bay
>Joseph Michael Bay wrote on Fri, 11 Jul 2003 20:57:05 +0000 (UTC):
>> ada...@spamcop.net (Anna Feruglio Dal Dan) writes:
>>
>>>Yes they are ruthless bastards and yes they will send out that messagge
>>>but they wouldn't employ such crude gross cruelty to do it. That's not
>>>sending out a chilly detached message, that's gloating and revelling in
>>>it and that's simply not the Culture way. The Meatfucker would do it,
>>>yes, but that's precisely why the Meatfucker is an outcast.
>> I don't recall -- do we know that it wasn't, er, Gray Area who
>> sent the terror weapon?
>That is just another name for the same thing.
Well yes. What I mean is, we don't really know for a fact
who sent the terror weapon -- it might have been GA/MF, or
Special Circumstances, or a particular Mind but not Meatfucker/GA.
Which would make a difference, I think: is SC reasoning that
two or three gruesome and grisly deaths of folks who, you know,
kind of had it coming are acceptable since that will make the
Chelgrians think twice about future attacks that might be more
successful, or is it Meatfucker being Meatfucker?
--
Joe Bay Impeach Ford Reagan Bush Clinton Bush
Cancer Biology Twelve Galaxies
Stanford University Guiltied to a Zegnatronic
Stanford, California Rocket Society
Joseph Michael Bay
>I fancy the idea of the Culture universe being what the Dune
>universe would have turned out as if things had gone wrong.
WhaaaaaAAaAaaaa?
That would be like _1984_ or _Gor_ going wrong.
Joseph Michael Bay
>Maybe I'm just an unethical bastard, but I rather suspect that in a world of
>essentially limitless plenty there are only three ethical maxims which apply:
>(1) Follow your bliss.
>(2) Don't hurt other people or infringe on their liberty.
>(3) Try to help others achieve a level of existence in which they, too, can
>enjoy essentially limitless plenty.
>I, honestly, don't see what's wrong with that ethical framework.
I'd say that (3), for most people in the Culture, sort of translates
to "Contact's doing some nice stuff for the less fortunate folks around
us, maybe consider doing a stint with them if I'm feeling empty".
Justin Bacon
>>(2) Don't hurt other people or infringe on their liberty.
>>(3) Try to help others achieve a level of existence in which they, too, can
>>enjoy essentially limitless plenty.
>
>>I, honestly, don't see what's wrong with that ethical framework.
>
>I'd say that (3), for most people in the Culture, sort of translates
>to "Contact's doing some nice stuff for the less fortunate folks around
>us, maybe consider doing a stint with them if I'm feeling empty".
That does seem to be the case. By the same token, membership in Contact -- for
humans anyway -- appears to be one of the few things in the Culture which is
*not* a given.
I rather suspect that's a feature, not a bug. Since it's basically the only
acceptable thing which you can't do automatically, it immediately becomes
something to crave. As a result, people in Contact gain respect and admiration.
As a result, the primary goal of Contact (helping other civilizations and
protecting the Culture while trying to minimize interference) is respected.
And, as a result, like Iain Banks says, Contact ends up being a mechanism that
the majority of the Culture -- who do absolutely nothing to help their fellow
sentients -- can feel content that *collectively* they are helping their fellow
sentients.
Contact is the closest thing the Culture has to a foundation. Plus it's also a
nice way to shunt off not only those portions of the population which want to
have a good influence, but also those portions of the population which would be
(or are) disruptive.
Like I said: Given the technology level of the Culture, I think the society of
the Culture is the best thing possible. It's not a utopia. It's not perfect.
But it's better than the alternatives.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Karl M Syring
>
> Well yes. What I mean is, we don't really know for a fact
> who sent the terror weapon -- it might have been GA/MF, or
> Special Circumstances, or a particular Mind but not Meatfucker/GA.
>
> Which would make a difference, I think: is SC reasoning that
> two or three gruesome and grisly deaths of folks who, you know,
> kind of had it coming are acceptable since that will make the
> Chelgrians think twice about future attacks that might be more
> successful, or is it Meatfucker being Meatfucker?
As the MF is considered slightly insane, you could assume a
kind of "this is wrong, but they deserved it" judgment from
the other parties. Overall, I consider the assassinations as
a quite moderate answer to a large scale terrorist attack.
Karl M. Syring
Karl M Syring
> Tina...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) writes:
>
>>I fancy the idea of the Culture universe being what the Dune
>>universe would have turned out as if things had gone wrong.
>
>
> WhaaaaaAAaAaaaa?
>
> That would be like _1984_ or _Gor_ going wrong.
Funny, I am with you here. Dune is something like the
worst thing that could ever happen: Feudalism in space.
Karl M. Syring
Justin Bacon
Tina seems to support the Dune universe's contention that AI is Evil Incarnate.
From that perspective, Dune looks wonderful by comparison to the Culture. And
the Culture probably looks like the Dune universe if the Butlerian Jihad had
gone the other way.
JB
Mark Atwood
> On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 20:06:09 -0700, Mark Atwood wrote:
> >
> > Culturniks are not evolved. They are not PRAGs.
> ^^^^^
> Eh?
Product of RAndom Genetics
Mark Atwood
> Mark Atwood wrote:
> >Johnny Tindalos <Jama...@UnrealEmail.arg> writes:
> >>
> >> As I read it, the main reason why the _Grey Area_ was ostracised, was
> >> because it *looked inside people's minds*, not because of what it did
> >> afterwards. Mindreading is a big, big Culture taboo.
> >
> >For no good in-story reason either.
>
> From a cultural standpoint it makes sense. Technologically, the
> Culture stands on a precipice, beyond which individuality and
> recognizable sentience ceases to exist. The Culture basically says:
> "We don't want to cross over that precipice. We'll play along its
> edges, but we're not really interested in ascending to the next
> level of existence."
And I repeat myself, there is no really good in-story reason *why*
they stand on the edge, and not step in.