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by arethuza 975 days ago
Not much of a dystopia if you can leave at any point - and in fact be actively supported in leaving if that's your thing. The fact that the Culture seems to be inherently comfortable with people, ships and even chunks of society leaving or joining gives an indicator of how it really is "self consciously rational" as Banks put it.
1 comments
keiferski 975 days ago
Maybe I'm lost here because I haven't read the books, but how does this not lead to a fundamental contradiction?

The article says that the Culture intervenes in places that don't quite live up to their values or are otherwise problematic in some way. So if people leave the Culture and develop in ways that become unacceptable to the Culture and thus get interfered with again, how free are they to actually leave?

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rsynnott 975 days ago
> The article says that the Culture intervenes in places that don't quite live up to their values or are otherwise problematic in some way.

In practice, they mostly intervene against people with, like, slavery and death camps, not minor philosophical differences (or even pretty major ones; many civilisations run artificial afterlives of eternal torment for their people, and the Culture doesn't openly intervene against _that_). A number of breakaway ex-Culture cultures show up in the books, along with various Culture dissidents.

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tivert 975 days ago
> many civilisations run artificial afterlives of eternal torment for their people, and the Culture doesn't openly intervene against _that_

Key word: openly.

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rsynnott 975 days ago
It can probably be assumed that the Culture does meddle to some extent with the Elench, Peace Faction and other ex-Culture offshoots, too.
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arethuza 975 days ago
The galaxy in the Culture novels is a big place full of many societies - a few at the same level of technological development as the Culture. So it wouldn't be that difficult to wander off somewhere and get lost and do your own thing.

However, if you do go off and set up your own fascist dictatorship outside of the Culture there is also no protection should the Grey Area come hunting for you.

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