www.ditl.org

Way to derail my rant about socio-economic inequality, Graham.

Good work on 611-RT'ing the thread, though.

I wouldn't call the humans "pets" of the Minds in the Culture. They seem to have free rein to do what they will; many Minds serve the whims of humans; and when Minds require certain actions from humans, they seem to use (superior) subtlety and manipulation, rather than orders or "training."

If only a small fraction of the population worked it could be very possible for everyone else to slob around. And if people could have the possibility to do any job they wanted I think a lot of people would work. If you got free training and help in training in what ever field you wanted you would take it, thats what the Federation offers.

I like the idea that people do get paid, but not in money.

As I suggested in the other thread this topic came up in, if you work A hours at job B you get X replicator rations and Y amount of time in a holodeck as payment. That way there's incentive for people to work, while still keeping money out of the equation.

Thats pointless as you are just changing the type of money. Its still the same concept but needlessly complicated.

Like I said, it's not the same at all if people no longer have to scramble to pay rent, or wonder how they're going to pay for electricity. People would only have to work to pay for extra things like vacations, holodeck time, and other fancy, extraneous bullsh*t.

Thats pointless as you are just changing the type of money. Its still the same concept but needlessly complicated.

Since when has something like that ever stopped the Feds?
It's the only way I can see people stil willing to work while not being paid in money.

Mikey wrote:I wouldn't call the humans "pets" of the Minds in the Culture. They seem to have free rein to do what they will; many Minds serve the whims of humans; and when Minds require certain actions from humans, they seem to use (superior) subtlety and manipulation, rather than orders or "training."

Minds serve the whims of humans in a trivial fashion, certainly; supply them with material goods, transport them around. But then people do that for their pets, too.

But how much actual say do Humans have in the running of the Culture? There's a book that makes mention of votes being held according to intelligence rating, on a log scale. So a Mind 1,000,000,000 times more intelligent than a Human gets 9 votes to the Human's one. Given how many drones are around with human level intelligence, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that the machines had the majority vote. In Excession we get a look at how the Culture responds to a crisis, and as I recall it not one Mind so much as asked any Human for his or her advice on the situation.

True. I'd regard that more as a guardianship, although I guess the difference is merely a matter of semantics. However, also in Excession, we saw ships altering long-time plans in order to suit the needs or wants of humans. I think the "reality" of it is that the Minds regard humans as sapient beings, with particular needs and wants that must be met, but relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

That's just my impression, though. Take it as you will.

I suspect it varies from Mind to Mind of course; the Gray Area sure didn't seem to have a high regard for Humans, didn't even like talking to his own passengers. But most Minds seem to quite like Humans, and enjoy taking care of them. It's even been said that having Humans leaving your ship/orbital in larger than average numbers is a good way for a Mind to lose face amongst its peers.

The Sleeper Service sure seemed to try and accomodate its humans, as well as using them for its historical dioramas.

Even if humans are merely pets in the Culture, I think I could live with that.

Me too, actually. The Culture would be an absolutely fantastic place to live!

GrahamKennedy wrote:Me too, actually. The Culture would be an absolutely fantastic place to live!

Imagine... being able to be in constant access of DITL.org through your neural lace...

I like the idea of drug glands myself