[EdwardCoffin]

This is not the first time I've read articles attempting to paint the Culture as a dystopia. I think the best counter is to quote the author's own words, describing how he felt about it, from an interview he did with CNN [1]:

CNN: Would you like to live in the Culture [the society he has created]?

Iain M. Banks: Good grief yes, heck, yeah, oh it's my secular heaven ... Yes, I would, absolutely. Again it comes down to wish fulfillment. I haven't done a study and taken lots of replies across a cross-section of humanity to find out what would be their personal utopia. It's mine, I thought of it, and I'm going home with it -- absolutely, it's great.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/05/15/iain.banks/ind...

[cplanas]

That quote from Banks only tells us that The Culture is his personal utopia. Fair enough, but Banks does not have authority over interpretations on his work. One man's heaven is another man's hell.

[JumpCrisscross]

> That quote from Banks only tells us that The Culture is his personal utopia

Idk, post-scarcity immortal FTL-wielding techno-democracy with benevolent artificial superintelligence doesn’t strike me as some hell.

And the Culture isn’t a galactic monolith. If you want a more traditional existence, there are other societies you can fuck off to.

[drak0n1c]

The Culture intervenes in and steers those other societies and species even when unprovoked. Essentially a neoconservative utopia as envisioned by a young Irving Kristol. Yes, it would be a heaven for all who are pleased to take on its espirit de corps and live in it, casual and decadently low-pressure such might be, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is a healthy influence in the long run on a universe that it is arrogantly homogenizing. There is such a thing as unintended consequences, and The Culture is not yet one of the more advanced, wiser "Sublimed" civilizations.

[UltraSane]

The Culture is absolutely not "neoconservative". I don't think modern political terms can meaningfully apply to a post-scarcity civilization with benevolent AI Gods.

[JumpCrisscross]

> and The Culture is not yet one of the more advanced, wiser "Sublimed" civilizations

I got no indication that Sublimation was a marker of advancement. More just a different state.

[scotty79]

We do what we must because we can.

[nitwit005]

Words are a means of communication. An author can clarify what was intended to be communicated.

[exe34]

in the Culture universe, you don't have to stay in the Culture - you can get defanged and slum it out on some backwater hell hole like the rest of us.

[FireBeyond]

Right. Just because the universe is post-scarcity, doesn't mean you can't build items, and entire production chains. Just because you can live to near immortality, doesn't mean you have to do things to prevent natural aging.

[UltraSane]

One guy became a member of the alien race the Affront, so named because they they have culturally and socially ingrained traits for exploitation, sadism and brutality.

[FrustratedMonky]

Yes. Even today, one mans garbage is another's gold.

Sci-Fi is full of 'Utopias' that can also be viewed as 'Dystopia', depending on the view point. And in a lot of movies, that shifting view point is the story.

[Yeul]

I told a Christian recruiter once that I don't want an afterlife. Their mind basically broke down trying to process it.

[like_any_other]

What makes physical death so special that you do want to exist before it happens, but don't want to after? Why not pick some other arbitrary event, like say, the next New Years?

[rsynnott]

Living _forever_ seems like... not necessarily that attractive an idea.

(Also most of the afterlives on offer don't seem particularly attractive.)

As someone who doesn't believe and never has believed that there was an afterlife, there is something kind of horrifying about the _inescapable, eternal_ nature of such a thing. I think this may be different if it's a concept that you've been sold on as a kid, but from the outside, it's really kind of unsettling.

[scotty79]

The fact that somebody doesn't want afterlife doesn't imply that death is a special moment for them that separates wanting to exist from not wanting.

They could have "picked" another moment. It might be next New Year or a moment in the past or even a moment before they were born. The moment of death is simply the "earliest convenience" to end unwanted existence.

[exe34]

for me it's the fact that I could theoretically end it (modulo quantum immortality, my worst nightmare). the afterlife is usually sold with "guaranteed forever". I've been in so many situations that you might think "oh I wish this could go on forever" and then regretted it, that I want to make sure there's a way to pull the plug.

[Yeul]

Spending the rest of eternity with other human beings is not very appealin.

[like_any_other]

What if you could spend it with cats? What if it didn't have to be forever - if you could end it any time you chose, like after 1000 years or whenever? It seems what you don't want is only a very specific version of an afterlife.

[rsynnott]

Does any major belief system actually have an afterlife in which you can _die again_?

[oasisaimlessly]

Some people enjoy playing games in 'Hardcore' mode (see e.g. Subnautica) where if you die, instead of respawning, the game ends and your save file is deleted.

[UltraSane]

If you REALLY think hard about it truly eternal life is just as scary as none.

[Ekaros]

I would even say it is lot more scary. After your non eternal life ends you know no better. On other hand if you are aware of the eternal life for rest of entire eternity... I will pick up non-eternity each and every time.

[UltraSane]

SCP-7179 is simply being trapped inside a 10km cube filled with a tropical island for eternity. And I find it one of the scariest ones of them all. This is one of the entries in the timeline

[1,000,000,000,000 years]: Hiddleston ceases physical activity, as no experience is able to provide him with new stimuli.

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7179

[UltraSane]

Anyone who really thinks the Culture is hell is not mentally healthy.

[munksbeer]

I wouldn't use those words, but I agree with the sentiment.

I'd go and live as a culture citizen in a heartbeat.

[UltraSane]

I'm not sure how else to phrase it.

Perhaps, anyone who considers The Culture universe to be hell thinks incomprehensibly different to me.

[munksbeer]

Absolutely agree.

[Barrin92]

That's arguably the worst argument given that the author has no special authority over the interpretation of the work. Heinlein with his increasingly militaristic views wrote Starship Troopers as a sincere story, but Paul Verhoeven showed quite compellingly that it might make for better satire.

[falcor84]

That's actually an ironic example, seeing how so many (maybe most) viewers took the intended satire at face value, essentially looping all the way back to Heinlein's intent.

[pessimizer]

The best satire is always convincing to its targets, because it doesn't misrepresent their positions. The Prince may be satire; who knows what was in Machiavelli's head.

[FrustratedMonky]

Exactly. Even today, a lot of satire aimed at the 'right', viewed from the 'right's perspective is not realized as satire and is viewed like someone is trying to make a real point. They can't tell it is satire.

[username332211]

Doesn't the guy have another book - The Discourses on Livy, that confirms the general gist of The Prince? (i.e. autocracies are horrible, to be a successful autocrat you need to be brutal and ruthless)

[BoingBoomTschak]

Didn't Verhoeven famously not read the book? Hard to call it "satire" then, "straw man" might be more accurate.

[justin66]

Perhaps less famously, Edward Neumeier wrote his screenplay.

[johnnyfived]

I hadn't heard that before but I agree with you, it doesn't qualify as satire if he didn't even bother to consume the source material. At least not in the literary sense.

[koverstreet]

You could only think Heinlein had militaristic views if that was the only book of his you read.

Read another book of his and you'd think he was a communist, another an anarchist, et cetera.

He liked to explore ideas. If there's one thing that's reasonably consistent across his work, it's his belief in individual agency.