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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I don't know that politics is completely out of place in this thread, given that these same issues come up in every Culture novel and are even central in several of them (Use of Weapons, Surface Detail, and Look to Windward particularly.) In Surface Detail and Hydrogen Sonata being a super cool funny badass solves everything.
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Jan 7, 2014 22:50
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gender illusionist posted:In Surface Detail and Hydrogen Sonata being a super cool funny badass solves everything. I have a somewhat unconventional reading of Surface Detail; check my post history if you're interested. (The short version is that even though the Culture's methods work, it's still an indictment of them because they willfully destroy a peaceful conflict-resolution system through cheating, espionage, and murder because they're convinced of the rightness of their cause. It's an interesting book because Banks go out of his way to show that their cause really is right, but as Look to Windward proves, the Culture isn't infallible and their attitude re: their own power and goodness isn't a healthy one.)
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Jan 7, 2014 22:54
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gender illusionist posted:In Surface Detail and Hydrogen Sonata being a super cool funny badass solves everything. I have found this to be true in my life, and in my posting. Tuxedo Catfish posted:I have a somewhat unconventional reading of Surface Detail; check my post history if you're interested. I honestly thought Surface Detail was Banks' least ambiguous Culture book by far, but there ya go.
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Jan 7, 2014 22:56
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WeAreTheRomans posted:I honestly thought Surface Detail was Banks' least ambiguous Culture book by far, but there ya go. Well, I don't know that you're wrong. My opinion of it is as much based on me scratching my head and going "one of these things is not like the others" as it is on the book itself. The only way I could accept a villain as comically and one-dimensionally evil as Veppers is if there's a larger thematic reason for it. That said, it's not like there's no textual basis for it. Hell is the ultimate expression of revenge, which the Culture opposes on a macro scale. Meanwhile, the book's main plot deals with a character who wants revenge for personal reasons, and how the Culture expresses superficial moral distaste for her intentions while winking and going out of its way to enable her.
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Jan 7, 2014 23:03
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What did I say about demonstrating the value of violence? Are you saying that America's involvement in the second World War was 'murderously barbaric and comically ineffectual'? Cops carry guns in all our societies. Can you articulate what you think here? I'm not arguing for the death penalty, the whole point is I'm from a place that I can't even comprehend it, it seems so ridiculous to me and our society at large. I also understand about the internal conflict within the States about it. I believe you're just black-and-whiting the question of social responsibility, dismissing this question because it was presented in the context of violence. You can't honestly think I want to enact public floggings or citizenship via the military.. I'm just interested by the idea of a meritocracy.. I always have been. We are still at a feudal stage on this planet. As a species, as a whole. Troopers is one of the books that actually talks in terms of what this means and (and your debt to your tribe because of it) and a possible solution to it, however outdated it seems to our modern ideals of harmony. It's just interesting rather than waving it all away and saying 'we're the Culture now, we have everything and can do anything and everyone lives in relaxed tranquility or not, it's all up to you as the individual'. Troopers was written before the ideas of mass communication and globalization. It's what if we just continued down the paths we'd been going down and eventually one tribe won (militarily) and ruled all. It's a different viewpoint to Trek or the Culture or so many others.
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Jan 7, 2014 23:05
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Tony Montana posted:What did I say about demonstrating the value of violence? Are you saying that America's involvement in the second World War was 'murderously barbaric and comically ineffectual'? Cops carry guns in all our societies. Can you articulate what you think here? Actually, there are a number of societies where cops don't carry guns under normal circumstances, the UK among them. Same with Iceland, New Zealand, and Norway, going by a cursory search of wikipedia. I don't think World War II was ineffectual or even unjustified on the Allies' part (although there may have been specific actions during the war that were). That said, all war is barbaric. Tony Montana posted:I believe you're just black-and-whiting the question of social responsibility, dismissing this question because it was presented in the context of violence. You can't honestly think I want to enact public floggings or citizenship via the military.. I'm just interested by the idea of a meritocracy.. I always have been. This is where you misunderstand me, then. I'm not opposed to the idea of mandatory service to the state just because violence is involved; I'm opposed to it, period. The (ideal) state exists to serve its citizens, not the other way around. (EDIT: Personal responsibility towards society is a bit more complicated, but the salient point here is that society and the state are not interchangeable.) A more peaceful, civil society is not a silly, unrealizable dream, even if the exaggerated examples you cite are. On the other hand meritocracy is an incredibly suspect idea in any context because it favors whoever gets to define merit, almost by definition. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Jan 7, 2014 |
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Jan 7, 2014 23:14
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:The (ideal) state exists to serve its citizens, not the other way around. But the state is comprised of it's citizens! If you and your like want to be served, who is doing the serving? We don't have the Minds, yet. Also the service to the state in Troopers is not mandatory! Being a legal resident is perfectly normal and infact the majority of people live this way, it is merely the option to vote that citizenship entitles you to. We could even talk about just that, about the right to vote. In the US it is not compulsory, right? Isn't there large campaigns about trying to get people to vote, and the huge majority simply doesn't bother? While in my country, Australia, it's actually legally mandated all must vote and we'll fine you if you don't. What is the impact of these policy decisions? I can tell you in Australia we have the 'donkey vote' which is deliberately voting for someone you know has no chance of election so you fulfill your responsibility as a citizen but also don't have to bother yourself with having to think about the good of the society around you. There is nothing mandatory about what is in Troopers or what I've been saying, if there is any strawman then it is this. The concept is that to access certain privileges you are required to fulfill certain obligations and they do not come automatically, but we are certainly not talking about such things as basic human rights. This is how immigration works right now, in your country and mine. For citizenship and the right to vote you must do certain things and continue to do them, your responsibilities as a citizen. In fact the right to live, work.. they also require a form of citizenship in our socities, or at least a temporary one. The Troopers society didn't seem to care about that, it's only if you want to vote. As basic human rights go somewhere to live and some way to feed yourself come before the right to participate in national election, surely. edit: let me just add something. The violence is the sideshow in Troopers, I think, the flashy manifestation of sacrifice and conviction. I'll find the passage if you really want but there is a section about the level an individual can attain, where their ability, development and attitude enables them to rise to. The base is individualism, taking care of yourself, then higher up the tree is having a family and taking care of that, being responsible for your children and wife/husband. The top of this tree is presented as one that takes responsibility for his entire society, such as the statesman that endures the rigors of a public life to improve the plight of his fellow men or the solider that physically puts his body between the socity and those that wish to do it harm. I just like that, man. It is inspiring and gives me hope, it is utopian and in a way relevant to the world we are in now. Tony Montana fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Jan 7, 2014 |
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Jan 7, 2014 23:30
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Tony Montana posted:But the state is comprised of it's citizens! Man I'd love to live in the world you seem to think you do.  Anyways, conflating the right to vote with whether people actually exercise that vote is a red herring. The vote represents political enfranchisement, having a say in the direction your state and society take. In practice the vote represents very little real control over that direction, which is one of the reasons people are apathetic towards it, but that doesn't mean that enfranchisement itself isn't valuable. That's why Heinlein values it and puts it up as a reward in Starship Troopers. Anyone who is subject to the rule of a state deserves to be enfranchised in it -- I might even say especially the ones who disagree with it too strongly to want to serve it, because how else is it ever supposed to change? Tony Montana posted:edit: let me just add something. The violence is the sideshow in Troopers, I think, the flashy manifestation of sacrifice and conviction. I'll find the passage if you really want but there is a section about the level an individual can attain, where their ability, development and attitude enables them to rise to. The base is individualism, taking care of yourself, then higher up the tree is having a family and taking care of that, being responsible for your children and wife/husband. The top of this tree is presented as one that takes responsibility for his entire society, such as the statesman that endures the rigors of a public life to improve the plight of his fellow men or the solider that physically puts his body between the socity and those that wish to do it harm. I just like that, man. It is inspiring and gives me hope, it is utopian and in a way relevant to the world we are in now. Service to your fellow man and service to the state can be radically different things, which is what turns this from a nice sentiment into something genuinely frightening and wrong. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Jan 7, 2014 |
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Jan 7, 2014 23:42
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Man I'd love to live in the world you seem to think you do. I don't live in your world, what do you mean by this? You can stop with the smilies because I have a different view than you, if you don't mind. edit: oooohh hang on. This is that American 'government is evil' stuff again, isn't it? Communism is the worst. 'The State' is some 60s idea of the USSR or something. I don't think that way, I am the Government and I know good people that work in it. To get to your utopian Trek or Culture, you're going to have trust the people in charge at some point. For me and many of the people I know, the 'State' or the people in charge and the 'common man' are one in the same. We run our own affairs and we are accountable to each other. It's not all perfect.. but it's a long way from Us and Them. Tony Montana fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Jan 7, 2014 |
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Jan 7, 2014 23:48
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Tony Montana posted:I don't live in your world, what do you mean by this? You can stop with the smilies because I have a different view than you, if you don't mind. Your view of state power and the relationship between citizen and state is very, uh, clean. I don't think it's a view that holds up to the actualities of the world we live in. Citizens who, in your words, take responsibility for their whole society are either used and discarded or coopted into programs of defensive power accrual to safeguard the elite. e: From what I know of Australia, that's an equally rosy and hagiographical take on Australian politics. And believe me, modern American skepticism about state power has nothing to do with communism and everything to do with the last 13 years.
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Jan 7, 2014 23:54
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Tony Montana posted:I don't live in your world, what do you mean by this? You can stop with the smilies because I have a different view than you, if you don't mind. I'm making fun of you because "a state is comprised of its citizens" is a silly thing to say. A state is an organization that rules over its citizens through a local monopoly on force. It can do so justly or unjustly, with their full consent and involvement or without it. It generally includes citizens as part of its apparatus, but they aren't the whole of it, and they certainly aren't interchangeable with it. Tony Montana posted:edit: oooohh hang on. This is that American 'government is evil' stuff again, isn't it? Communism is the worst. 'The State' is some 60s idea of the USSR or something. I don't think that way, I am the Government and I know good people that work in it. To get to your utopian Trek or Culture, you're going to have trust the people in charge at some point. For me and many of the people I know, the 'State' or the people in charge and the 'common man' are one in the same. We run our own affairs and we are accountable to each other. It's not all perfect.. but it's a long way from Us and Them. Implicitly trusting the people in charge is one of the worst lessons you can teach anyone in any state, regardless of its dominant political philosophy. I am a communist*, if perhaps a more pessimistic one than you might have found in the 19th century, but you'd better believe I'd still approach a self-declared communist government with the same suspicion and wariness because that's the only sensible way to treat any government. * And so is Iain Banks, if memory serves. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jan 8, 2014 |
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Jan 7, 2014 23:57
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Tony Montana posted:But the state is comprised of it's citizens! If you and your like want to be served, who is doing the serving? Starship Troopers' state isn't comprised of its citizens. Or rather, it isn't comprised of those who haven't earned citizenship, aka the majority. They have no influence on the state and can't be considered a part of it. The state is imposed on them by a military elite. And if they do want to be part of it, they first have to serve their rulers without any say in what they're ordered to do (commit genocide against sentient races, etc). Disagree with that genocide bit? Tough, you have to do your part before you can have any political voice to speak up for the race you just wiped out. And while a modern democracy is much fairer, can you really say it's comprised of its citizens when some completely dominate and others have barely any voice at all? Tony Montana posted:The Troopers society didn't seem to care about that, it's only if you want to vote. As basic human rights go somewhere to live and some way to feed yourself come before the right to participate in national election, surely. And this would make sense if it wasn't political representation on the line. But as it is, without the right to vote, Troopers' non-citizens have no way to protect themselves. They have their human rights now, sure, but those could be taken away at any point by the citizens. And the majority can mount no constitutional opposition to it because, whoops, you have to earn that right  .While a perfect free society with no need for force is fantasy, so is the idea that the citizens wouldn't marginalise and oppress the rest. As is the idea that, without any representation, the non-citizens wouldn't eventually erupt in a bout of pointless violence and impose a different lovely state on everyone. But only the right kind of people get to control this one of course. You have to at least serve in the
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Jan 8, 2014 00:04
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The Second World War is a fantastic example of violence not solving a problem. Hitler and allies started a war based on their delusional aesthetic admiration of violence and achieved nothing except the destruction of their own countries and many others. What violence achieved in WW2 was to negate the use of it by someone else. The problem violence was introduced to solve, it was a total failure in addressing. The real problem of competition inside Europe was then solved by decades of NATO and the Warsaw Pact not going to war, but waiting for one or the other to lose the economic competition while working towards international cooperation. That's now under a lot of strain in the wake of the economic crisis, but you'll note that war on continental Europe is still out of the question. This could be considered a general model for the role of violence in our increasingly nonviolent modern states. The use of violence is tightly restrained and deployed only when necessary to negate the introduction of violence, and the general incidence of violence continues to decrease. There are problems with this picture - America's militarised police and barbaric prison system are violent to its citizens out of all proportion, for example - but those things aren't solving problems, they are the problem. fake edit: Banks wasn't a communist, or at least not a revolutionary marxist. His suggested utopian is similar to a communist utopia but his path there is pretty cyber-utopian and frankly rather dated. Ken Macleod (an actual communist) knew him and wrote about his politics: http://internationalsocialistnetwork.org/index.php/ideas-and-arguments/analysis/193-ken-macleod-on-iain-banks-use-of-calculators Peel fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Jan 8, 2014 |
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Jan 8, 2014 00:14
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Peel posted:fake edit: Banks wasn't a communist, or at least not a revolutionary marxist. His suggested utopian is similar to a communist utopia but his path there is pretty cyber-utopian and frankly rather dated. Ken Macleod (an actual communist) knew him and wrote about his politics: http://internationalsocialistnetwork.org/index.php/ideas-and-arguments/analysis/193-ken-macleod-on-iain-banks-use-of-calculators Cool, thanks. I was probably thinking of Mieville. Anyways, it's not really important that I get to claim Banks as a member of my own particular ideology. The idea of skepticism and distrust towards authority + the ideal state being a classless one where everyone is provided for is plenty. (His faith in technology as a liberating force seems a bit quaint or at least one-sided but show me a politically conscious nerd who hasn't been through that phase at some point.) Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Jan 8, 2014 |
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Jan 8, 2014 00:20
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Well, I don't know that you're wrong. My opinion of it is as much based on me scratching my head and going "one of these things is not like the others" as it is on the book itself. The only way I could accept a villain as comically and one-dimensionally evil as Veppers is if there's a larger thematic reason for it. Surface Detail shows that the Culture will not hesitate to resort to violence when violence offers the best solution to a problem. Not simply the fastest, or easiest, but best. They will bend over backwards to enact some overly complicated but non-violent scheme, but if that fails they will shrug and start killing the people who they think need to be killed. In the Culture's opinion The Hells are immoral because torturing ghosts for eternity is not the best solution to the problems that the Hells are supposed to solve. The Pro-Hell factions believes that punishment is the will of the Gods, or that fear of Hell will prevent the living from committing crimes. The Culture may believe in Gods, but it's perfectly willing to tell them to gently caress off. The Culture sees better options for preventing bad behavior among the living, and sees little point in hurting people after the crime has been committed. See: Hydrogen Sonata spoilers: The destruction of the Beats Working and the Ronte fleet by the Liseiden. Culture warships arrive late to the fight, and let the Liseiden fleet go unpunished, despite the fact that they just killed a Culture LCU. Back to Surface Detail, the Culture understands that Veppers hurt Y'breq badly, even before he murdered her. They see her quest for revenge as a necessary catharsis, and the only way to heal the damage that was done to her. It also helps that they have their own reasons to want the guy out of the way, and no reason to want him alive. The above is only my opinion, and the generalizations I make are intended to apply to the Culture as a whole, and not individuals. Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints lives up to its name.
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Jan 8, 2014 00:21
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The culture is incredibly, incredibly liberal-imperialist, frankly. For all Banks liked to tear up his passport, their logic is the same as you see all over our op-eds. We're objectively better, and we know it'll work out due to our enlightened civilised wisdom. The Culture actually is smart enough to pull it off on average, but that's a copout. Anyone can declare that his heroes doing X problematic thing happen to be right. The Orcs really are always chaotic evil, the king really is divinely imbued with ruling ability, the Culture really does know what it's doing. There's also a part in every Culture book where some nasty piece of work gets a graphic or horrific comeuppance and it's always a little superfluous and a little creepy and juvenile.
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Jan 8, 2014 00:30
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General Battuta posted:Citizens who, in your words, take responsibility for their whole society are either used and discarded or coopted into programs of defensive power accrual to safeguard the elite. Man, that is a dark view of things. They're not my words, they are Heinlein's words and one of the core themes of Troopers. Of course, you are mostly right, the Australian common sentiment toward those 'bloody politicians' is pretty much disgusting.. so ready to criticize but no-one willing to step forward. But that's perhaps why the Troopers utopia appeals to me so! It's a place where it isn't like this.. however impossible that might be.. it's an idea that it could actually work to the betterment of us all. FTL travel, AI that easily jokes and insults humans, Ships that talk and joke.. I guess that's why I'm reading scifi when I do rather than just non-fiction. I need something to believe in, man! Tuxedo Catfish posted:I'm making fun of you because "a state is comprised of its citizens" is a silly thing to say. A state is an organization that rules over its citizens through a local monopoly on force. It can do so justly or unjustly, with their full consent and involvement or without it. It generally includes citizens as part of its apparatus, but they aren't the whole of it, and they certainly aren't interchangeable with it. 'of the people and for the people'.. it is really just so much bullshit? That is bleak  Tuxedo Catfish posted:Implicitly trusting the people in charge is one of the worst lessons you can teach anyone in any state, regardless of its dominant political philosophy. I am a communist*, if perhaps a more pessimistic one than you might have found in the 19th century, but you'd better believe I'd still approach a self-declared communist government with the same suspicion and wariness because that's the only sensible way to treat any government. Not implicitly, I didn't say that (strawman!  ), but you also need to be able to trust on some level. I don't know enough about the US but the trust is really eroded there, like the whole Obamacare thing seemed to be 'because the Govt wants to do healthcare, and we all know what the Govt is like!'. You hamstring your own ability to enact change, such is the level of distrust. All, or many of, the future super societies in scifi are past this and they build another Starbase in Trek because Starfleet know what they're doing or the Culture chooses in intervene in one place and not another because their citizens trust them to do that.I'm all with you on not being blind and 'faith' is a dirty word for me too, but you also need to have some trust in someone or something to allow it to perform for you. Strategic Tea posted:Starship Troopers' state isn't comprised of its citizens. Or rather, it isn't comprised of those who haven't earned citizenship, aka the majority. They have no influence on the state and can't be considered a part of it. The state is imposed on them by a military elite. And if they do want to be part of it, they first have to serve their rulers without any say in what they're ordered to do (commit genocide against sentient races, etc). Disagree with that genocide bit? Tough, you have to do your part before you can have any political voice to speak up for the race you just wiped out. Yeah, I was saying about the violence before, it's the sideshow. Obviously I'm at the disadvantage here as I'm the one talking for doctrine from the 50s framed by some pretty horrific practices. Yes, I do see the imbalance though. However, there are opportunities where I am from. Education and health are not things reserved for the rich. Any Australian from any background can go to University and will be taken care of medically, all of which they will not be charged for (until they can pay some back). I really do think if you choose to become one of those with a strong voice in our society, if you're willing to do the work you can do it! Strategic Tea posted:And this would make sense if it wasn't political representation on the line. But as it is, without the right to vote, Troopers' non-citizens have no way to protect themselves. They have their human rights now, sure, but those could be taken away at any point by the citizens. And the majority can mount no constitutional opposition to it because, whoops, you have to earn that right That is the utopia of the Troopers society though, it is one where the citizens with all their education and moral superiority do not oppose the rest. Unrealistic, sure, but so is the Culture or Starfleet. Also the non-citizens can't erupt because it's the citizens that are all ex-military and have access to all the weapons I do see your point about the right to vote being integral to personal safety however. I guess in Troopers those non-citizens actually just trust their safety, entirely, to their ruling military elite (and it works). This is Animal Farm time again, but if we could imagine a place where humans could rise above their base instinct for greed.. I guess that's what Troopers is asking us to do. I'm going to bed guys, I'll be back tomorrow. Thanks for the great discussion. Scifi owns.
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Jan 8, 2014 00:30
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Peel posted:The culture is incredibly, incredibly liberal-imperialist, frankly. For all Banks liked to tear up his passport, their logic is the same as you see all over our op-eds. We're objectively better, and we know it'll work out due to our enlightened civilised wisdom. True, but I think the Culture is consistently characterized as arrogant and juvenile even if they have the raw computing power to make it work most of the time. They cheerfully sit down and cooperate with the Affront; they represent themselves in Azad with Gurgeh because of his character flaws; many of the Minds who participated in the Idiran war come out of it aghast at what they did, etc. And that's not even getting into outright screw-ups like the events of Use of Weapons or the background behind Look to Windward. At least, there's enough imperfection in what they do for a contrarian interpretation to be on the table.
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Jan 8, 2014 00:40
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Star Ship Troopers system would be utterly broken if you actually tried to implement it. Either people are able to gain citizenship with relative ease, at which point why bother? You're not doing anything but filling two years of productive time for each citizen or it's not, at which point you have a vast number of disenfranchized people and it's basically a military dictatorship, with all that implies.
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Jan 8, 2014 00:45
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Tony Montana posted:Not implicitly, I didn't say that (strawman! Okay, then let me rephrase: you should never trust the state's motivations. Government is a necessary evil because it's the best way to enforce the law and have universal social programs, but that's just its function, not its essence; any time I hear someone start talking about the state as if it were the will of the people made manifest the hair on the back of my neck stands up. The Tea Party and most anti-public healthcare rhetoric in the US has more to do with misguided faith in the free market and the private sector, which is even worse than excessive faith in the government, because the government at least has a mandate to do good. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Jan 8, 2014 |
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Jan 8, 2014 00:49
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:True, but I think the Culture is consistently characterized as arrogant and juvenile even if they have the raw computing power to make it work most of the time. They cheerfully sit down and cooperate with the Affront; they represent themselves in Azad with Gurgeh because of his character flaws; many of the Minds who participated in the Idiran war come out of it aghast at what they did, etc. And that's not even getting into outright screw-ups like the events of Use of Weapons or the background behind Look to Windward. The stories do all focus on problems, since that's what makes good writing (and it is good writing, I love the series), but it never overrides the implication or outright statements that the Culture is the bestest place in the whole world and a force for good. Which it is. But it definitely gives me the same vibe I get from a lot of modern liberal commentary and media on things like the Iraq war which he despised. 'Sometimes things go wrong and this is sad and we should feel sad for a bit... but we're still the best and basically good-natured and everything is great overall.' I do actually think modern social democracies are probably the best large societies in history overall despite all their exported violence and social alienation and etc. etc., but I think people are making an error when they identify the Culture as communist or the series as a communist text. The whole thing feels very liberal to me, for lack of a better term, which aligns with Banks's own politics. 'We achieved this because we had good enough technology and appointed the best administrators and everything just sort of worked out because people were nice (mostly)'. There's no class struggle in the culture, just it dealing with inferior opponents and sometimes feeling sad about this on a personal level. None of this prevents a deliberate reading against that grain to criticise the Culture of course. This is just how I felt after rereading the series up to Look to Windward recently. Now I have Hydrogen Sonata to read for the first time to close it out ( ).
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Jan 8, 2014 01:09
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Peel posted:There's no class struggle in the culture, just it dealing with inferior opponents and sometimes feeling sad about this on a personal level. This is part of why Inversions is my favorite Culture novel, because there is class struggle of a sorts in it and the interfering Culture agent can't see it coming until it's too late because it's completely outside his experience. Speaking of DeWar and Perrund, of course.
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Jan 8, 2014 01:19
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Peel posted:What violence achieved in WW2 was to negate the use of it by someone else. The problem violence was introduced to solve, it was a total failure in addressing. The real problem of competition inside Europe was then solved by decades of NATO and the Warsaw Pact not going to war, but waiting for one or the other to lose the economic competition while working towards international cooperation. That's now under a lot of strain in the wake of the economic crisis, but you'll note that war on continental Europe is still out of the question. For that last statement to be true, you have to ignore these: 2001 Insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia 2002 Perejil Island crisis 2004 Unrest in Kosovo 2004 Georgia, Adjara crisis 2006 Georgia, Kodori crisis 2007–present Civil war in Ingushetia 2008 Unrest in Kosovo 2008 Russia–Georgia war 2009–present Insurgency in the North Caucasus 2011–present North Kosovo crisis And that's just the 21st century.
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Jan 10, 2014 20:36
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uXs posted:For that last statement to be true, you have to ignore these: Or, if we're not being pedantic, we can hold that up to both WWII and the 'what could have been' that was WWIII. Anywhoo, I've always felt that, starting with Consider Phlebas, the imperializing nature of the Culture has been addressed and wrestled with by the text. I think Banks had some real issues with it. On the one hand, bad exists, on the other, it's a bad thing to intervene... unnessarily. Or at least unwisely. This drives a lot of the books: Player, Surface Detail, even Excession in some ways.
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Jan 10, 2014 23:17
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I have a somewhat unconventional reading of Surface Detail; check my post history if you're interested.  don't get me wrong they seem to be good posts but still!
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Jan 11, 2014 11:01
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awesmoe posted:I'm interested, but it doesn't appear to be in this thread and you have 89 pages of posts so it would be great if you could a) find it and repost and b) consider taking a break and going outside for a bit maybe? Because that's a lot of posts dude It was in this thread, it just turns out I was misremembering and it wasn't any longer or more detailed than what I posted on this page to begin with.
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Jan 11, 2014 11:13
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Peel posted:The culture is incredibly, incredibly liberal-imperialist, frankly. For all Banks liked to tear up his passport, their logic is the same as you see all over our op-eds. We're objectively better, and we know it'll work out due to our enlightened civilised wisdom. I've always thought that, weirdly, Banks' books are an unintentional (?) argument against his professed Marxism/Anarchism ever working in reality since it literally needs benevolent gods to make it work. And yeah, the revenge porn aspect is always icky.
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Jan 11, 2014 13:16
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In UoW I'm pretty sure that would have been the scene where he breaks into that dudes bedroom, scares the poo poo out of him for a few pages talking quitely to him while holding a gun at him and eventually promises to do something other than kill him (take him to the Culture's meanie place) and then shoots him in the face anyway because.. gently caress him. Yeah, that was pretty.. what the hell. Actually following that you think 'geez, he really screwed up that planet AND was profiting from selling on Culture tech which is pretty cheeky' but the Culture in all their wisdom once again says 'gently caress it' and the story rolls on, forgetting all that poo poo which you read and tried to fathom for a few chapters. Hey a question. Is Zalawake a creation just for UoW? Is he a running character? The end of UoW where Sma obviously recruits the next Zalawake (did he survive Skaffen's hasty brain surgery? that was pretty loving fantastic by the way and another reason I can't just be mad at UoW and discount it) would suggest not. Tony Montana fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Jan 11, 2014 |
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Jan 11, 2014 13:37
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the JJ posted:Or, if we're not being pedantic, we can hold that up to both WWII and the 'what could have been' that was WWIII. Sure. But it's still war and it's still in continental Europe. Just assuming that it won't ever happen again is foolish. Continued dialogue and cooperation between nations is needed to keep us in the relatively happy place we are in now.
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Jan 11, 2014 13:40
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There is a thread on here, I think in D&D (abandon all hope, ye who enter here.. etc), called 'The rise of Fascism in Europe'. It's talking about the crazy neo-Nazi poo poo happening in Greece and how Russia and Putin are seemingly regressing and removing human rights and generally a whole stack of current, happening stuff that is loving scary. Combine it with a lovely, lovely economic dogpile with broke countries lending money to other broke countries and everyone being broke and it's a nice, bubbling pot of despair and hatred which is not ridiculous to think may lead to physical action. We have the UN now and all.. but yeah, all is not well in Europe, that is for surely.
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Jan 11, 2014 13:45
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Avulsion posted:Surface Detail shows that the Culture will not hesitate to resort to violence when violence offers the best solution to a problem. Not simply the fastest, or easiest, but best. Tony Montana posted:Hey a question. Is Zalawake a creation just for UoW? Is he a running character? The end of UoW where Sma obviously recruits the next Zalawake (did he survive Skaffen's hasty brain surgery? that was pretty loving fantastic by the way and another reason I can't just be mad at UoW and discount it) would suggest not. What do you mean obviously recruits the next zalawake? What specific scene are you talking about? The one in the cold planet? That's the same guy, dude. It was happening in the past.
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Jan 11, 2014 13:55
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Naw, mang, the cold planet was pretty obvious. Lemme get the book.. Hang on, gently caress, so it's after the Epilogue but it's labeled Prologue.. so it comes before.. goddamn it this book haha. Actually it's labelled 'States of War'.. is that another book or something? This is sort of an ad for another novel? Sma finds a war veteran called Mr Escoerea and quite obviously drops the 'how would you like a real job?' after inferring she can give him back his legs that were taken by a tank. You'd think that was the replacement Zakalwe (there.. I had to check how to spell the stupid name) perhaps, but you can't ever tell because the Culture just have magic medicines so there are no boundaries established on what they can and can't do. Which actually hurts the tension a bit, I think. The real question, besides what is that chapter about then if it's not what I think it is, is if Zakalwe is a running thing or he's just for UoW. The twist at the end of UoW, the way the book is really around him and the Culture and it's methods/tech takes a back seat (very frustrating for a first time Banks reader.. don't read UoW first! Learn a bit about the setting before wading knee deep through metaphor and confusion) would suggest UoW is the Zakalwe book and he doesn't appear elsewhere. Then again you could just have Zak soldiering in some other book, doing some Contact work, earlier in his life and you'd just know 'ooh you dirty Chairmaking sod'
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Jan 11, 2014 14:35
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sebmojo posted:I've always thought that, weirdly, Banks' books are an unintentional (?) argument against his professed Marxism/Anarchism ever working in reality since it literally needs benevolent gods to make it work. Not unintentional, Banks is (was) very desparing of human nature, and the culture citizens are pretty disgusted at Earth human behaviour when they encounter them in The State of the Art. I think he was also acutely aware of the fact that we are unlikely to hand the reigns over to benevolent AI's; a running theme in his books is that AI's are misunderstood, hated and hunted or simply not utilised their best effect in non-Culture societies (Against a Dark Background and The Algebraist being the most prominent two.) The question that has always bugged me- Is Zakalwe our good friend Za from The Player of Games? Shelvocke fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Jan 11, 2014 |
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Jan 11, 2014 14:37
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Tony Montana posted:There is a thread on here, I think in D&D (abandon all hope, ye who enter here.. etc), called 'The rise of Fascism in Europe'. It's talking about the crazy neo-Nazi poo poo happening in Greece and how Russia and Putin are seemingly regressing and removing human rights and generally a whole stack of current, happening stuff that is loving scary. Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Taking peace for granted is naive. And dangerous.
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Jan 11, 2014 14:46
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Shelvocke posted:The question that has always bugged me- Is Zakalwe our good friend Za from The Player of Games? Probably not, because of this Q&A with Banks: quote:Q: Imagine you've agreed to write a novella; the only two provisos are that the story must be set in the Culture and it must feature a character from a previous Culture novel. It doesn't have to be a main character, and the events in the novella can take place before or after those of the original book in which they appear. Who would you pick, and why? edit: Now I'm sad that this novella will never exist 
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Jan 11, 2014 15:21
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Tony Montana posted:Hey a question. Is Zalawake a creation just for UoW? Is he a running character? Zakalwe is alive from the time Use of Weapons takes place all the way up to Surface Detail, where he's the "old ghost" used in the Hell / Anti-Hell war simulation.
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Jan 11, 2014 22:29
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Any ideas on that Epilogue that was a Prologue stuff I mentioned? Is that just another agent?
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Jan 11, 2014 22:42
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Tony Montana posted:Any ideas on that Epilogue that was a Prologue stuff I mentioned? Is that just another agent? Edit: More details. Escoerea talks about going to Balzeit city, which is one of the places involved in Zakalwe's conflicts earlier in the book. Definitely seems like it's him. Less Fat Luke fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Jan 11, 2014 |
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Jan 11, 2014 22:58
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Naw, because she recruited him on the cold planet. The ice loving glacier wasteland shitheap, more like.. cold planet really doesn't do it justice. Remember he did some poo poo and said some lippy crap and one of his fellow pilots shot him. Then as he was recovering in hospital they decided to do away with him and they took him out into the goddamn frozen fuckedness (SO COLD) and left him here (straight away you're thinking.. nice.. classic 'lets kill the good guy but not really kill him so he can escape somehow and continue to be the good guy'). Then Sma comes walking out of the blizzard as his loving skin is coming off his fingers because he had them bare against the ice ground. Also, the sister.. um.. not Dark.. Livutea. Or however it's spelled, I've put the book away. She says 'I traced him onto the sleeper ship and then the trail went cold on the ice planet' because that's when he was snatched up by the Culture and began his work. I liked that sleeper ship chapter by the way, the idea of a dude waking up and just saying gently caress it, I'm not going back to sleep and where is the booze? You wouldn't want to go back to sleep knowing that fucker was up still, screwing around with the ship which he thinks he knows all about but you just know he could press the wrong thing and space you all. I think I'd have to get violent in the end.. I know, I know.. no I'm not getting all Troopers on you here.. I'm just saying if I couldn't reason with him and he insisted on not going back into his tray.. he is a loving risk and gently caress him. Wait till he's nicely soused on whatever he was drinking and belt him over the head with something. Viva humanity and all that.. also just self preservation. gently caress that guy. I think I said gently caress 8 times in like 100 words. I need to stop doing that. Tony Montana fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Jan 11, 2014 |
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Jan 11, 2014 23:09
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Are you saying, naw it's not the same agent or are you agreeing with me? I can't tell
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Jan 11, 2014 23:23
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