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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I suppose various types of reincarnations might be that. Or afterlife is just temporary state in between. I suppose reincarnating just to die again is something in some belief systems. Sometimes with goal of being liberated from the cycle.
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.
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.
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.
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.