[ExI] Iain M Banks' Culture Novels [WAS Re: Usages of the term libertarianism]
Anders Sandberg
anders at aleph.se
Sun May 22 14:50:58 UTC 2011
Keith Henson wrote:
>
> I don't know how you can make a case for stagnation from the Culture novels.
>
The Culture has clearly changed over the span of its history, and there
are mentions of periods when it has been more posthuman than at present,
and offshoots that have developed into new directions. It is just that
the focus of the books is on a scant few thousand years when the Culture
has been in a particular way.
The galaxy at large seems to be in some kind of steady state (and the
Culture is just one player among many among the Involved), although
civilizations change and sometimes sublime over long timescales (or
encounter Excessions). But in "Surface Detail" it looks like there is
some actual global moral progress.
(spoiler, to some extent)
Maybe the resolution of the conflict will be just temporary. There is an
internal micro-essay delineating why emerging technological
civilizations sometimes implement Hells, so in the long run maybe new
Hells from new civilizations will replace the lost Hell-network. But it
is not inconceivable that a galaxy where few or none of the dominant
civilizations condone Hells will make the formation of new Hell-networks
unlikely, producing a fairly permanent state.
--
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
James Martin 21st Century School
Philosophy Faculty
Oxford University
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