A Few Notes On The Culture, by Iain M Banks
Вставка
- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- 🎧 Listen to "A Few Notes on the Culture" by Iain M. Banks (Audio Version) 🎧
"A Few Notes on the Culture" is an essay by Iain M. Banks that details the cosmology, history, and organization of The Culture. It was posted to the newsgroup rec.arts.sf.written on August 10th, 1994 by Ken MacLeod on behalf of Iain M. Banks.
Source: www.vavatch.co....
Narration by an elevenlabs text-to-voice AI.
Thank you for uploading this. R.I.P Mr Banks.
Brutal flashback on the moment he posted that his girlfriend has agreed to become his widow. Shattered.
RIP MR. IM BANKS; A GREAT "MIND" gone too soon..
I really like the fact that Banks worked hard to build a utopian future, and made the supremely powerful AI.
What a joy to hear his words again.
! mr Banks is a writer amongst various titles, if yu 'hear' his words while reading his various works fantastic
I really feel that much of the modern discourse around the culture either misunderstands the plot/motivations/meaning of the books or chooses to blatantly ignore it because it doesnt fit into the hierarchical worldview that our society holds so dear.
As is made clear multiple times throughout the books culture citizens take a long time to mature and live long lives (from our perspective). I think this is sometimes mistaken to mean that a culture citizen of say 40 would be less mature than a citizen of one of our nation-states of the same age. I think quite the opposite is what Banks meant. I imagine a child of 10 or 20 years would probably seem disproportionately old and wise from the perspective of someone from earth. It is not that culture citizens mature more slowly but rather they dont stop when they hit "adulthood". The culture has a much higher baseline maturity level to be considered an "adult" than we do on earth.
The whole idea that "power without responsibility" is somehow a critique of the culture is a non-starter. In a world where you understand that your actions have consequences on other people at a young age (this is basically as advanced as our ethics manage to get here in our society. Many people struggle their entire lives not understanding that how you treat other people is the basic building block of society) - people have a deep understanding of responsibility. Its deeply integrated into every aspect of yourself and your interaction with society. Every single choice you make is a choice that influences the entire rest of your society.
The idea that "the culture has power with responsibility so it is actually a dystopia" is the kind of thought that you expect to hear from people who say things like "If i were in the culture I would just gland drugs and play video games all day". These are the kinds of thoughts I imagine a culture child would think. Which is fine it is innocent and probably stems from the cultural trauma we have around pleasure and work and responsibility. An adult though will recognize this as what it is. A simple worldview brought on by an inability or unwillingness to participate as a full person. You wouldnt be criticized or punished for this but someone would probably help you in growing and discovering a new more mature worldview that will give you more satisfaction and pleasure from every aspect of your life.
Some of the most toxic and immature kids I've met were 60+ years old so you right on the money here
This is one of the core themes in Excession specifically.
@@RobinOttens Yes! I was thinking of Excession when reading the comment.
Amazing comment
yea, the last part. it has always shown e that PRotestantism has like limited our imaginations... People truly believe there has to be a hierarchy. To the point that atleast in Western countries attribute shitty behavior to it being human nature. Which is pure cultural brainwashing honestly because Christianity got a lot them believing they are inherently evil therefore evil things are inevitable.. Which isn't true, and it isn't the sole worldview out there on the prospects of human nature. human nature is soo broad, and by and large us being social creatures tends to build communities that are communal and interdependent. And this is absolutely true as the majority of cultures on this planet exist like this whereas Western culture actively pits itself against it. telling the lie that this is peak life they're living.
Anyway The Culture is a great series in exploring post-scarcity societies, it distills things down to exploring what is actually valued, and how a such a society would move, and how individuals see things.
I love the Culture. It's like a more believable Star Trek. AI should be alies. Let's hope that we look on the Culture in the future as we now look on Star Trek
this is the best video on youtube.
How do you know?
@@yvesdoumaI've seen enough ().o
"I Sublime" Mistake Not.
RiP Ian also Rememebering Collin Dresner who introduced me to Ian M Banks and the late night discusions we had before your passing hopeing you 2 legends meet in the sublime
That some humans choose to become AIs makes me wonder if the Minds are actually Conglomerations of Ancestors.
It's such a huge universe. It could be made. The way that Star Wars should have been without CK
Good old Iain
I started with the Wasp Game but soon John and I realized Iain did superb sci-fi alternating his various novels and the Culture in different years. He was prolific and marvellous. Please Arlene (Ms Banks) could we see some of his books on the wide screen. My favourite of his novels is one of his later books “Matter” is a brilliantly complex tale set inside a Shell World with several cores inside these dangerous worlds.
I love this
The best sci fi series ever. Wonder if Amazon will ever touch upon it?
Oh please no, after the LOTR disaster.
It`s not realy a series, more a collection of loosely connected novels and short stories. Given how Apple have handled Asimov`s Foundation series I doubt an adaptation would be any good.
Great! Thanks :)
Haha. The irony of it being read by an AI voice.
They could of at the very least used a male voice with a Scottish burr.
It’s not AI, it’s just an infinite plagiarism program.
@@joshuawilliams9247 It's hard to cope with the implication that all human cognitive function will be rendered insignificant, I get it. But it won't stop. So let's build utopia instead and stop monetizing everything.
@@joshuawilliams9247 Text to speech algorithms aren’t particularly new.
@@joshuawilliams9247- ha!!!
Exactly the way I have long viewed these programs.
At least this one is only reading Banks own words.
Not plagiarising other peoples actual critique of the Culture Novels.
the best go at thinking up a geuine utopia i have encountered yet
i like that
i find this very interesting
mencen8 i like your point about the power without responsibility
that turns "the culture" (which internally might remain utopian) into a sort of dystopia
another point to be made is that this description of this society is consistently gender binary (i am especially thinking about the bit tackling parenthood around the 43(ish) minute mark and the part about the description of the average populous around the 22 minute mark)
[! when gender ist talked about here it seems to be affixed to bodily aspects (and so i will argue that way here too for the sake of simpicity)]
wheras i personally think that, with the level of bodily modification present and possible amidst "the culture", gender wouldn't be a state to be in or switched between rather a concept completely absent or mored varied than male and female.
in this world where genetic manipulation seems so effortless
i dont even think that a justification of the destinction (m&f) via reproductive organs would be valid
as one could probably just grow a biological person even outside of ones own body AND with an arbitrary amount of partners at that (even alone)
why would the destincion of male and female between citicens be made where the qualifying aspects would neither be less nor more arbitrairy than hair colour or style of attire?
i see no reason why the concept of binary gender would be lived, accepted and so widely spread in "the culture"
This is an interesting point and I think it is important to remember, as this essay starts. The culture isnt real. We only have a depiction of the culture to go on. A depiction created by an entirely fallible man raised by a member of the british admiralty. The fact that he was able to envision the culture as completely as he was able to is astonishing considering what type of society and culture he was raised in and surrounded by. So yes the depiction of gender among other things that we get in the culture novels likely misses the mark or is just too simplistic for "how the culture would really be" but I think Banks would very much have encouraged this line of thought.
There are people in The Culture without a gender too. Culture citizens can choose to swap back and forth between male and female all on their own without any help from minds and some stay somewhere in the middle. I reckon the stories we see happen when being one or the other is "in fashion" at the moment. The Culture is something like over 9k years old so I'm sure things change.
Points taken.
@@zirk22 I love it when theres good conversation about these books. Doesnt happen nearly enough tbh
Well, first of all this is fiction. And this is SF, so...from the scientific view of life as we know it, the only reason sexual reproduction exists is evolution (i.e.change), which in turn enables (but does not guarantee) survival (and increasing complexity). The two sexes exist in order to provide the complementary but slightly different genetic information, which thus mixed results in a unique individual. Since sexual reproduction is very expensive in terms of matter, energy and time (with the aforementioned single importance - but do not rash to discard it because if you look at the biodiversity you will find those two sexes in all multicellular organisms and even hermaphrodite species had to come up with adaptations preventing self-fertilisation or lose its advantages) more than two sexes would be highly inefficient, less - would create hegemonising swarms at best, with no need for intelligence as there would be no competition. Before reaching space those humanoid races that formed the Culture (even the Gzilt that didn't add themselves) evolved on planets and are result from the evolutions on them. So binary gender could be seen only as tradition when those species has advanced as described in the series but a tradition that has existed for much much longer than the Culture itself plus there is no real advantage from discarding it. Then the Culture leaves the people to choose how they would self-realise and what greater realisation than creating life? Especially when children are not seen as assets, there is no worry for their upbringing and health? There are people artificially created - those bodies ready to accept someone's mind-state or androids who are or may be their individual, sentient selves, but what is the joy (and the responsibility that comes with it) in that? There are neuters, though, in the Culture if you haven't noticed, and Minds consider themselves as such (H sonata).
Tackar!
"This is Diana from the embassy.."
Mr Banks is an excellent and diligent translator, always has done his best to pertain the absolute minimum of spilling free will and creativity into these works!! which are indeed a brilliant feat, yet me thinks it's perhaps a consideration to adopt a book or two off topic
afterall to even be in contact with a non-Culture species that is Culture is a ferocious ordeal, to be presented with an actual Culture species creature is near always fatal to the creature presented with thats, machine life, bioforms, AI, interdependency,.. whatever that unfortunate creature is!
there have been horrible tragedies a few as of that, me sensesayed one actually, (ya after masque shield)..so, eventually the Culture adapted masque-shield technology to a penultimate level
I agree. I hate AI voices. Too many give aways to tolerate.
Does this spoil the books at all? Read 2.5 of them currently reading phlebas
No not at all
Nope
its all just background, the books are all unconnected by plot and characters often by centuries, only things connecting them is; philosophical themes and that they are about people / drones /minds of the culture civilization, people working for or against them or people connected to the books plot interacting with the culture.
This is written and read by AI
Only read. This was written by Banks.
It’s a text to speech algorithm. Not exactly AI.
Banks is unquestionably a good writer, although here and there material seems to act as "filler" in his books. His universe is well realized (being one of my primary interests in S-F), and is true science fiction, although some of the technology is so advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic to us.
If there is any element of distaste for me in Banks' Culture series, it is the the eponymous culture is what might be described in our time as a "liberal progressive wet dream." All are removed from want or scarcity, and enabled to pursue a complete hedonistic existence with few limitations. The dangers and uncertainties of a complex universe are there, but neatly taken care of by the AIs and persons often labeled as misfits of the Culture who enter the departments of Contact and Special Circumstances- which could be subsumed under a Bureau of Dirty Work.
All the espionage, manipulation, and exigent behavior up to and including outright assassination and war are taken care of by elements of society as invisible as the bulk of Culture citizens want to make them. This is perhaps as close as any author has come to describing a society where overwhelming power has little or no responsibility connected to it. When I read about the Idirian War in another of Banks’ books, at first I could not decide why I was experiencing sympathy and, at times, identification with the aliens. Now.....yeah.
Thank you for explaining so thoroughly how you missed the main theme of all his books. As if sex hurts ppl more than organizations that preach about sex (the r**ist Catholic Church, for example).
The Idirans lose by the way. And by their own logic- our current logic- their deaths were justified and necessary for the survival of the fittest
That’s because it’s taking tropes of sci-fi and turning it on its head
@@joshuawilliams9247 Please expatiate.
It sounds like maybe you missed the entire point of the culture series?
What would the "conservative regressive wet dream' be by comparison? A society where people are forced to work even though basic needs could be met for all with little effort? A society where people can amass vast power and control over their fellow citizens? A society where all the same things or worse happen behind closed doors, but the people doing them get to maintain a public persona of righteousness? Kinda sounds like the MAGA view actually, or the Empire of Azad...
I hate ai voices so much
I love SciFi, I couldn’t stand it.
Terrible. I'll read for myself rather than listen to AI that can't even pronounce 'Iain'. Stopped after 13 seconds.
Elon sent me here button: 👍
You're in for a treat! These books are great. The interviews in no way do them justice.
Elon is not a good source and Banks’ books are the antithesis of that asshole musk.
meh.. grand impressions dim the more i know the guy.