The Culture is a fictional interstellar post-scarcity civilisation or society created by the Scottish writer Iain Banks and features in a number of his space opera novels and works of short fiction , collectively called the Culture series .
78-513: In the series, the Culture is composed primarily of sentient beings of the humanoid alien variety, artificially intelligent sentient machines, and a small number of other sentient "alien" life forms. Machine intelligences range from human-equivalent drones to hyper-intelligent Minds. Artificial intelligences with capabilities measured as a fraction of human intelligence also perform a variety of tasks, e.g. controlling spacesuits . Without scarcity,
156-575: A "slap-drone", a robotic follower who ensures that the person in question doesn't continue to endanger the safety of others. As well as humans and other biological species, sentient artificial intelligences are also members of the Culture. These can be broadly categorised into drones and Minds. Also, by custom, as described in Excession , any artefact (be it a tool or vessel) above a certain capability level has to be given sentience. Drones are roughly comparable in intelligence and social status to that of
234-450: A Culture citizen who becomes dysfunctional enough to pose a serious nuisance or threat to others would be offered (voluntary) psychological adjustment therapy and might potentially find themself under constant (non-voluntary) oversight by representatives of the local Mind. In extreme cases, as described in Use of Weapons and Surface Detail , dangerous individuals have been known to be assigned
312-474: A GSV Mind is described in Consider Phlebas as 10 bytes (1 million yottabytes ). The Culture is a society undergoing slow (by present-day Earth standards) but constant technological change, so the stated capacity of Minds is open to change. In the last 3000 years the capacity of Minds has increased considerably. By the time of the events of the novel Excession in the mid 19th century, Minds from
390-622: A Mind is an ellipsoid object roughly the size of a bus and weighing around 15,000 tons. A Mind is in fact a 4-D entity , meaning that the ellipsoid is only the protrusion of the larger four dimensional device into our 3D 'real space'. In the Culture universe, Minds have become an indispensable part of the prevailing society, enabling much of its post-scarcity amenities by planning and automating societal functions, and by handling day-to-day administration with mere fractions of their mental power. The main difference between Minds and other extremely powerful artificial intelligences in fiction
468-477: A Mind's personality becoming defined at least partially before its creation or 'birth'. Warships, as an example, are designed to revel in controlled destruction; seeing a certain glory in achieving a 'worthwhile' death also seems characteristic. The presence of human crews on board warships may discourage such recklessness, since in the normal course of things, a Mind would not risk beings other than itself. With their almost godlike powers of reasoning and action comes
546-496: A choice in lifestyle. Indeed, some are eventually deemed psychologically unsuitable as agents (for example as Mawhrin-Skel notes about itself in The Player of Games ) and must choose either mental reprofiling or demilitarisation and discharge from Special Circumstances. Physically, drones are floating units of various sizes and shapes, usually with no visible moving parts. Drones get around the limitations of this inanimation with
624-670: A form of sexual intercourse for pleasure, called being "in thrall", though this is an intellect-only interfacing with another sympathetic drone. While civilian drones do generally match humans in intelligence, drones built especially as Contact or Special Circumstances agents are often several times more intelligent, and imbued with extremely powerful senses, powers and armaments (usually forcefield and effector-based, though occasionally more destructive weaponry such as lasers or, exceptionally, "knife-missiles" are referred to) all powered by antimatter reactors. Despite being purpose-built, these drones are still allowed individual personalities and given
702-417: A grasp of technology that is advanced relative to most other civilisations with which it shares the galaxy. Most of the Culture's citizens do not live on planets but in artificial habitats such as orbitals and ships, the largest of which are home to billions of individuals. The Culture's citizens have been genetically enhanced to live for centuries and have modified mental control over their physiology, including
780-406: A hallmark of the Culture is its ambiguity. In contrast to the many interstellar societies and empires which share its fictional universe, the Culture is difficult to define, geographically or sociologically, and "fades out at the edges". The Culture is characterized as being a post-scarcity society, having overcome most physical constraints on life and being an egalitarian , stable society without
858-470: A human or even humanoid body altogether, opting to take on the appearance of one of the myriad other galactic sentients (perhaps in order to live with them) or even non-sentient objects as commented upon in Matter (though this process can be irreversible if the desired form is too removed from the structure of the human brain). Certain eccentrics have chosen to become drones or even Minds themselves, though this
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#1732787318455936-481: A hypothetical self-replicating version of such a machine known as a RepRap , have also been predicted to help create the abundance of goods needed for a post-scarcity economy. Advocates of self-replicating machines such as Adrian Bowyer , the creator of the RepRap project, argue that once a self-replicating machine is designed, then since anyone who owns one can make more copies to sell (and would also be free to ask for
1014-438: A lower price than other sellers), market competition will naturally drive the cost of such machines down to the bare minimum needed to make a profit, in this case just above the cost of the physical materials and energy that must be fed into the machine as input, and the same should go for any other goods that the machine can build. Even with fully automated production, limitations on the number of goods produced would arise from
1092-435: A point where all people would have significant amounts of leisure time to pursue science, the arts, and creative activities; a state some commentators later labeled as "post-scarcity". Marx argued that capitalism—the dynamic of economic growth based on capital accumulation —depends on exploiting the surplus labor of workers, but a post-capitalist society would allow for: The free development of individualities, and hence not
1170-664: A recurring role in the series, including issues #108-110, #181-183, #251-256, #289-290, and Fantastic Four Unlimited #3. 12. https://thetvdb.com/series/mork-and-mindy Post-scarcity Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely . Post-scarcity does not mean that scarcity has been eliminated for all goods and services but that all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services. Writers on
1248-437: A sentient's mind without permission (something the Culture is technologically easily capable of) is also strictly taboo. The whole plot of Look to Windward relies on a Hub Mind not reading an agent's mind (with certain precautions in case this rule gets violated). Minds that do so anyway are considered deviant and shunned by other Minds (see GCU Grey Area ). At one point it is said that if the Culture actually had written laws,
1326-771: A slightly distasteful view of SC procedure associated with M32, one Ship Mind going so far as to object to the standard SC attitude of "Full scale, stark raving M32 don't-talk-about-this-or-we'll-pull-your-plugs-out-baby paranoia" on the use of the encryption. There are no laws as such in the Culture. Social norms are enforced by convention (personal reputation, "good manners", and by, as described in The Player of Games , possible ostracism and involuntary supervision for more serious crimes). Minds generally refrain from using their all-seeing capabilities to influence people's reputations, though they are not necessarily themselves above judging people based on such observations, as described in Excession . Minds also judge each other, with one of
1404-641: A sort of fashion statement of somewhat dubious taste. Almost all Culture citizens are very sociable, of great intellectual capability and learning, and possess very well-balanced psyches. Their biological make-up and their growing up in an enlightened society make neuroses and lesser emotions like greed or (strong) jealousy practically unknown, and produce persons that, in any lesser society, appear very self-composed and charismatic. Character traits like strong shyness, while very rare, are not fully unknown, as shown in Excession . As described there and in Player of Games ,
1482-477: A temptation to bend (or break) Cultural norms of ethical behaviour, if deemed necessary for some greater good. In The Player of Games , a Culture citizen is blackmailed, apparently by Special Circumstances Minds, into assisting the overthrow of a barbaric empire, while in Excession , a conspiracy by some Minds to start a war against an oppressive alien race nearly comes to fruition. Yet even in these rare cases,
1560-627: A wide selection of synthetic drugs, from the merely relaxing to the mind-altering: "Snap" is described in Use of Weapons and The Player of Games as "The Culture's favourite breakfast drug". "Sharp Blue" is described as a utility drug, as opposed to a sensory enhancer or a sexual stimulant, that helps in problem solving. "Quicken", mentioned in Excession , speeds up the user's neural processes so that time seems to slow down, allowing them to think and have mental conversation (for example with artificial intelligences) in far less time than it appears to take to
1638-423: Is a posthuman society, which originally arose when seven or eight roughly humanoid space-faring species coalesced into a quasi-collective (a group-civilisation) ultimately consisting of approximately thirty trillion ( short scale ) sentient (more properly, sapient) beings (this includes artificial intelligences). In Banks's universe, a good part (but by no means an overwhelming percentage) of all sentient species
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#17327873184551716-545: Is also regarded as an aesthetically pleasing language by the Culture. The symbols of the Marain alphabet can be displayed in three-by-three grids of binary (yes/no, black/white) dots and thus correspond to nine-bit wide binary numbers . Related comments are made by the narrator in The Player of Games regarding gender-specific pronouns , which Marain speakers do not use in typical conversation unless specifying one's gender
1794-522: Is close to omniscient about the physical universe, where every ailment has been cured, and where every thought can be read. Many of the Culture novels in fact contain characters (from within or without the Culture) wondering how far-reaching the Minds' dominance of the Culture is, and how much of the democratic process within it might in fact be a sham: subtly but very powerfully influenced by the Minds in much
1872-678: Is considered greatly inferior to a contemporary Mind. That said, It is possible for Minds to have upgrades, improvements and enhancements given to them since construction, to allow them to remain up to date. Humanoid alien This list of humanoid aliens is a collection of various notable extraterrestrial humanoid characters that appear in various works of fiction. Humanoid aliens have traits similar to that of human beings including upright stance, bipedalism , opposable thumbs, facial features, etc. The character first appears in Fantastic Four Annual #6 (1968). He had
1950-400: Is considered rude and possibly even insulting by most humans and AIs alike. While the Culture is generally pan-humanoid (and tends to call itself "human"), various other species and individuals of other species have become part of the Culture. As all Culture citizens are of perfect genetic health, the very rare cases of a Culture citizen showing any physical deformity are almost certain to be
2028-421: Is considered to be what is known as an Unusual Life Choice). All members are also free to join, leave, and rejoin, or indeed declare themselves to be, say, 80% Culture. Within the novels, opponents of the Culture have argued that the role of humans in the Culture is nothing more than that of pets, or parasites on Culture Minds, and that they can have nothing genuinely useful to contribute to a society where science
2106-539: Is described as being constructed before the use of auras, and refuses to be retrofitted with them, preferring to remain inscrutable. In size drones vary substantially: the oldest still alive (eight or nine thousand years old) tend to be around the size of humans, whereas later technology allows drones to be small enough to lie in a human's cupped palm; modern drones may be any size between these extremes according to fashion and personal preference. Some drones are also designed as utility equipment with its own sentience, such as
2184-439: Is necessary, and by general reflection on the fact that Marain places much less structural emphasis on (or even lacks) concepts like possession and ownership, dominance and submission, and especially aggression. Many of these concepts would in fact be somewhat theoretical to the average Culture citizen. Indeed, the presence of these concepts in other civilization signify the brutality and hierarchy associated with forms of empire that
2262-459: Is noted that Minds still find humans fascinating, especially their odd ability to sometimes achieve similarly advanced reasoning as their much more complex machine brains. To a large degree, the freedoms enjoyed by humans in the Culture are only available because Minds choose to provide them. The freedoms include the ability to leave the Culture when desired, often forming new associated but separate societies with Culture ships and Minds, most notably
2340-622: Is of the "pan-human" type, as noted in Matter . Although the Culture was originated by humanoid species, subsequent interactions with other civilisations have introduced many non-humanoid species into the Culture (including some former enemy civilisations), though the majority of the biological Culture is still pan-human. Little uniformity exists in the Culture, and its citizens are such by choice, free to change physical form and even species (though some stranger biological conversions are irreversible, and conversion from biological to artificial sentience
2418-572: Is still important). The Culture rejects all forms of economics based on anything other than voluntary activity. "Money implies poverty" is a common saying in the Culture. Marain is the Culture's shared constructed language . The Culture believes the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis that language influences thought, and Marain was designed by early Minds to exploit this effect, while also "appealing to poets, pedants, engineers and programmers". Designed to be represented either in binary or symbol-written form, Marain
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2496-416: Is that they are highly humanistic and benevolent. They are so both by design, and by their shared culture. They are often even rather eccentric. Yet, by and large, they show no wish to supplant or dominate their erstwhile creators. On the other hand, it can also be argued that to the Minds, the human-like members of the Culture amount to little more than pets, whose wants are followed on a Mind's whim. Within
2574-503: The Culture does have the occasional "crime of passion" (as described by an Azadian) and the punishment was to be "slap-droned", or to have a drone assigned to follow the offender and "make sure [they] don't do it again". While the enforcement in theory could lead to a Big Brother -style surveillance society, in practice social convention among the Minds prohibits them from watching, or interfering in, citizens' lives unless requested, or unless they perceive severe risk. The practice of reading
2652-615: The Culture had covertly visited the planet in the 1970s in The State of the Art . The Culture itself is described as having been created when several humanoid species and machine sentiences reached a certain social level, and took not only their physical, but also their civilisational evolution into their own hands. In The Player of Games , the Culture is described as having existed as a space-faring society for eleven thousand years. In The Hydrogen Sonata , one of these founding civilisations
2730-457: The Culture has a 'legal system'), each is a Culture citizen. Some Minds are more aggressive, some more calm; some don't mind mischief, others simply demonstrate intellectual curiosity. But above all they tend to behave rationally and benevolently in their decisions. As mentioned before, Minds can serve several different purposes, but Culture ships and habitats have one special attribute: the Mind and
2808-402: The Culture has no need for money; instead, Minds voluntarily indulge humanoid and drone citizens' pleasures, leading to a largely hedonistic society. Many of the series' protagonists are humanoids who have chosen to work for the Culture's diplomatic or espionage organs, and interact with other civilisations whose citizens act under different ideologies, morals, and technologies. The Culture has
2886-633: The Culture implicitly, by the way they are simple, efficient and aesthetic. The main outright symbol of the Culture is its language, Marain, which is used far beyond the Culture itself. It is often employed in the galaxy as a de facto lingua franca among people who don't share a language. Marain has a similar purpose to other constructed languages encountered in utopian and dystopian fiction including Pravic in The Dispossessed and Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four . The Culture
2964-432: The Culture is by no means eugenically uniform. Human members in the Culture setting vary in size, colour and shape as in reality, and with possibly even further natural differences: in the novella The State of the Art , it is mentioned that a character "looks like a Yeti", and that there is variance among the Culture in minor details such as the number of toes or of joints on each finger. It is mentioned in Excession that:
3042-417: The Culture itself. It tends to make major decisions based on the consensus formed by its Minds and, if appropriate, its citizens. In one instance, a direct democratic vote of trillions – the entire population – decided The Culture would go to war with a rival civilisation. Those who objected to the Culture's subsequent militarisation broke off from the meta-civilisation, forming their own separate civilisation;
3120-474: The Culture strives to avoid. Marain itself is also open to encryption and dialect-specific implementations for different parts of the Culture. M1 is basic Nonary Marain, the three-by-three grid. All Culture citizens can communicate in this variant. Other variants include M8 through M16, which are encrypted by various degrees, and are typically used by the Contact Section. Higher level encryptions exist,
3198-457: The Culture's biological members. Their intelligence is measured against that of an average biological member of the Culture; a so-called "1.0 value" drone would be considered the mental equal of a biological citizen, whereas lesser drones such as the menial service units of Orbitals are merely proto-sentient (capable of limited reaction to unprogrammed events, but possessing no consciousness, and thus not considered citizens; these take care of much of
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3276-402: The Mind is apparently enabled by thought processes (and electronics) being constantly in hyperspace (thus circumventing the light speed limit in computation). Minds do have back-up capabilities functioning with light-speed if the hyperspace capabilities fail - however, this reduces their computational powers by several orders of magnitude (though they remain sentient). The storage capability of
3354-400: The Mind's character defines the ship's purpose. Minds do not end up in roles unsuited to them; an antisocial Mind simply would not volunteer to organise the care of thousands of humans, for example. On occasion groupings of two or three Minds may run a ship. This seems normal practice for larger vehicles such as GSV s, though smaller ships only ever seem to have one Mind. Banks also hints at
3432-567: The Series, this dynamic is played on more than once. In 'Excession', it is also played on to put a Mind in its place—in the mythology, a Mind is not thought to be a god, still, but an artificial intelligence capable of surprise, and even fear. Although the Culture is a type of utopian anarchy , Minds most closely approach the status of leaders , and would likely be considered godlike in less rational societies. As independent, thinking beings, each has its own character, and indeed, legally (insofar as
3510-494: The Zetetic Elench and the ultra-pacifist and non-interventionist Peace Faction. Techniques in genetics have advanced in the Culture to the point where bodies can be freed from built-in limitations. Citizens of the Culture refer to a normal human as "human-basic" and the vast majority opt for significant enhancements: severed limbs grow back, sexual physiology can be voluntarily changed from male to female and back (though
3588-548: The ability to introduce a variety of psychoactive drugs into their systems, change biological sex, or switch off pain at will. Culture technology is able to transfer individuals into vastly different body forms, although the Culture standard form remains fairly close to human. The Culture holds peace and individual freedom as core values, and a central theme of the series is the ethical struggle it faces when interacting with other societies – some of which brutalise their own members, pose threats to other civilisations, or threaten
3666-571: The ability to project "fields": both those capable of physical force, which allow them to manipulate objects, as well as visible, coloured fields called "auras", which are used to enable the drone to express emotion. There is a complex drone code based on aura colours and patterns (which is fully understood by biological Culture citizens as well). Drones have full control of their auras and can display emotions they're not feeling or can switch their aura off. The drone, Jase, in Consider Phlebas ,
3744-509: The abundance provided by automation. The fully developed communist economic system is postulated to develop from a preceding socialist system. Marx held the view that socialism—a system based on social ownership of the means of production—would enable progress toward the development of fully developed communism by further advancing productive technology. Under socialism, with its increasing levels of automation, an increasing proportion of goods would be distributed freely. Marx did not believe in
3822-547: The availability of raw materials and energy, as well as ecological damage associated with manufacturing technologies. Advocates of technological abundance often argue for more extensive use of renewable energy and greater recycling in order to prevent future drops in availability of energy and raw materials, and reduce ecological damage. Solar energy in particular is often emphasized, as the cost of solar panels continues to drop (and could drop far more with automated production by self-replicating machines), and advocates point out
3900-407: The elimination of most physical labor through technological advancements alone in a capitalist society, because he believed capitalism contained within it certain tendencies which countered increasing automation and prevented it from developing beyond a limited point, so that manual industrial labor could not be eliminated until the overthrow of capitalism. Some commentators on Marx have argued that at
3978-428: The essentially benevolent intentions of Minds towards other Culture citizens is never in question. More than any other beings in the Culture, Minds are the ones faced with the more complex and provocative ethical dilemmas. While Minds would likely have different capabilities, especially seeing their widely differing ages (and thus technological sophistication), this is not a theme of the books. It might be speculated that
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#17327873184554056-413: The first millennium BCE are referred to jocularly as minds, with a small 'm'. Their capacities only allow them to be considered equivalent to what are now known as AI Cores, small (in the literal physical sense) Artificial intelligences used in shuttles, trans-light modules, Drones, and other machines not large enough for a full scale Mind. While still considered sentient, a mind's power at this point
4134-498: The fringes of the Culture: diplomats, spies, or mercenaries; those who interact with other civilisations, and who do the Culture's dirty work in moving those societies closer to the Culture ideal, sometimes by force. In this fictional universe, the Culture exists concurrently with human society on Earth. The time frame for the published Culture stories is from 1267 CE to roughly 2970 CE, with Earth being contacted around 2100 CE, though
4212-584: The functions of a ship or habitat, while holding potentially billions of simultaneous conversations with the citizens that live aboard them. To allow them to perform at such a high degree, they exist partially in hyperspace to get around hindrances to computing power such as the speed of light. Some inhabited planets and all orbitals have their own Minds: sapient, hyperintelligent machines originally built by biological species, which have evolved, redesigned themselves, and become many times more intelligent than their original creators. According to Consider Phlebas ,
4290-416: The gelfield protective suit described in Excession . By contrast to drones, Minds are orders of magnitude more powerful and intelligent than the Culture's other biological and artificial citizens. Typically they inhabit and act as the controllers of large-scale Culture hardware such as ships or space-based habitats. Unsurprisingly, given their duties, Minds are tremendously powerful: capable of running all of
4368-625: The highest of these being M32. M32 and lower level encrypted signals are the province of Special Circumstances (SC). Use of M32 is reserved for extremely secret and reserved information and communication within Special Circumstances. That said, M32 has an air of notoriety in the Culture, and in the thoughts of most may best be articulated as "the Unbreakable, Inviolable, Holy of Holies Special Circumstances M32" as described by prospective SC agent Ulver Seich. Ships and Minds also have
4446-425: The main objectives for any being, including Minds, is to have fun rather than to be "useful"). Also, Minds are constructed, by convention, to care for and value human beings. While a General Contact Unit (GCU) does not strictly need a crew (and could construct artificial avatars when it did), a real human crew adds richness to its existence, and offers distraction during otherwise dull periods. In Consider Phlebas it
4524-531: The menial work in the Culture). The sentience of advanced drones has various levels of redundancy, from systems similar to that of Minds (though much reduced in capability) down to electronic, to mechanical and finally biochemical back-up brains. Although drones are artificial, the parameters that prescribe their minds are not rigidly constrained, and sentient drones are full individuals, with their own personalities, opinions and quirks. Like biological citizens, Culture drones generally have lengthy names. They also have
4602-551: The more relevant criteria being the quality of their treatment of sentients in their care. Hub Minds for example are generally nominated from well-regarded GSV (the largest class of ships) Minds, and then upgraded to care for the billions living on the artificial habitats. The only serious prohibitions that seem to exist are against harming sentient beings, or forcing them into undertaking any act (another concept that seems unnatural to and is, in fact, almost unheard of by almost all Culture citizens). As mentioned in The Player of Games ,
4680-465: The need to exercise. The degree of enhancement found in Culture individuals varies to taste, with certain of the more exotic enhancements limited to Special Circumstances personnel (for example, weapons systems embedded in various parts of the body). Most Culture individuals opt to have drug glands that allow for hormonal levels and other chemical secretions to be consciously monitored, released and controlled. These allow owners to secrete on command any of
4758-499: The notion that obstructions such as the state , social hierarchy , and vanguard political parties are necessary in the struggle for freedom of the working classes can be dispelled as a myth. Karl Marx , in a section of his Grundrisse that came to be known as the "Fragment on Machines", argued that the transition to a post-capitalist society combined with advances in automation would allow for significant reductions in labor needed to produce necessary goods, eventually reaching
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#17327873184554836-412: The older Minds are upgraded to keep in step with the advances in technology, thus making this point moot. It is also noted in Matter that every Culture Mind writes its own OS , thus continually improving itself and, as a side benefit, becoming much less vulnerable to outside takeover by electronic means and viruses, as every Mind's processing functions work differently. The high computing power of
4914-607: The only capital expenditure would be a single self-replicating unit (whether robotic or nanotechnological), after which the unit could replicate at no further cost, limited only by the available raw materials needed to build more. A World Future Society report looked at how historically capitalism takes advantage of scarcity. Increased resource scarcity leads to increase and fluctuation of prices, which drives advances in technology for more efficient use of resources such that costs will be considerably reduced, almost to zero. They thus claim that following an increase in scarcity from now,
4992-402: The outside observer. "Sperk", as described in Matter , is a mood- and energy-enhancing drug, while other such self-produced drugs include "Calm", "Gain", "Charge", "Recall", "Diffuse", "Somnabsolute", "Softnow", "Focal", "Edge", "Drill", "Gung", "Winnow" and "Crystal Fugue State". The glanded substances have no permanent side-effects and are non-habit-forming. For all their genetic improvements,
5070-476: The possibility of devices that can automatically manufacture any specified goods given the correct instructions and the necessary raw materials and energy, and many nanotechnology enthusiasts have suggested it will usher in a post-scarcity world. In the more near-term future, the increasing automation of physical labor using robots is often discussed as means of creating a post-scarcity economy. Increasingly versatile forms of rapid prototyping machines, and
5148-440: The process takes time), sexual stimulation and endurance are strongly heightened in both sexes (something that is often the subject of envious debate among other species), pain can be switched off, toxins can be bypassed away from the digestive system, autonomic functions such as heart rate can be switched to conscious control, reflexes like blinking can be switched off, and bones and muscles adapt quickly to changes in gravity without
5226-420: The reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them. Marx's concept of a post-capitalist communist society involves the free distribution of goods made possible by
5304-485: The same ways Contact and Special Circumstances influence other societies. Also, except for some mentions about a vote over the Idiran-Culture War, and the existence of a very small number of "Referrers" (humans of especially acute reasoning), few biological entities are ever described as being involved in any high-level decisions. On the other hand, the Culture can be seen as fundamentally hedonistic (one of
5382-564: The sanctity of one's own thoughts against the intrusion of others would be the first on the books. This gives some measure of privacy and protection; though the very nature of Culture society would, strictly speaking, make keeping secrets irrelevant: most of them would be considered neither shameful nor criminal. It does allow the Minds in particular to scheme amongst themselves in a very efficient manner, and occasionally withhold information. The Culture has no flag, symbol or logo. According to Consider Phlebas , people can recognize items made by
5460-412: The ship or habitat are perceived as one entity; in some ways the Mind is the ship, certainly from its passengers' point of view. It seems normal practice to address the ship's Mind as "Ship" (and an Orbital hub as "Hub"). However, a Mind can transfer its 'mind state' into and out of its ship 'body', and even switch roles entirely, becoming (for example) an Orbital Hub from a warship. More often than not,
5538-403: The social and cultural potentialities latent in a technology of abundance". Bookchin claims that the expanded production made possible by the technological advances of the twentieth century were in the pursuit of market profit and at the expense of the needs of humans and of ecological sustainability . The accumulation of capital can no longer be considered a prerequisite for liberation, and
5616-401: The tenor of the time had generally turned against... outlandishness and people had mostly returned to looking more like people over the last millennium... (previously) as the fashions of the intervening times had ordained – people... had resembled birds, fish, dirigible balloons, snakes, small clouds of cohesive smoke and animated bushes. Some Culture citizens opt to leave the constraints of
5694-548: The topic often emphasize that some commodities will remain scarce in a post-scarcity society. Futurists who speak of "post-scarcity" suggest economies based on advances in automated manufacturing technologies, often including the idea of self-replicating machines , the adoption of division of labour which in theory could produce nearly all goods in abundance, given adequate raw materials and energy. More speculative forms of nanotechnology such as molecular assemblers or nanofactories , which do not currently exist, raise
5772-662: The total solar power striking the Earth's surface annually exceeds our civilization's current annual power usage by a factor of thousands. Advocates also sometimes argue that the energy and raw materials available could be greatly expanded by looking to resources beyond the Earth. For example, asteroid mining is sometimes discussed as a way of greatly reducing scarcity for many useful metals such as nickel . While early asteroid mining might involve crewed missions, advocates hope that eventually humanity could have automated mining done by self-replicating machines. If this were done, then
5850-414: The use of any form of force or compulsion, except where necessary to protect others. That being said, some citizens, including the extremely powerful artificial intelligences , Minds , sometimes engage in the manipulation of others. This can include influencing or controlling the development of alien societies, through the group known as Contact . The novels of the Culture cycle mostly deal with people at
5928-424: The work out of free choice). As such, the Culture is a post-scarcity society, where technological advances ensure that no one lacks any material goods or services. Energy is farmed from a fictitious "energy grid", and matter to build orbitals is collected mostly from asteroids. As a consequence, the Culture has no need of economic constructs such as money (as is apparent when it deals with civilisations in which money
6006-408: The world will enter a post-scarcity age between 2050 and 2075. Murray Bookchin's 1971 essay collection Post-Scarcity Anarchism outlines an economy based on social ecology , libertarian municipalism , and an abundance of fundamental resources, arguing that post-industrial societies have the potential to be developed into post-scarcity societies. Such development would enable "the fulfillment of
6084-577: Was named as the Buhdren Federality. The Culture is a symbiotic society of artificial intelligences (AIs) (Minds and drones), humanoids and other alien species who all share equal status. All essential work is performed (as far as possible) by non-sentient devices, freeing sentients to do only things that they enjoy (administrative work requiring sentience is undertaken by the AIs using a bare fraction of their mental power, or by people who take on
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