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![]() | The Involved was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 04 September 2009 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into The Culture. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
What's the matter with butchering the whole topic of Bank's Culture on Wikipedia?!? Cannot "editors" who are not interested in something leave it well alone? Wikipedia is becomming irrelevant in all topics except STEM and perhaps geography. -- bonzi ( talk) 12:59, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
At the beginning of the article,the Culture is referred to as an anarchist utopia. Later in the article under Issues Raised, it is called: "The Culture itself is an "ideal-typical" liberal society; that is, as pure an example as one can reasonably imagine"... I'm confused, is it anarchist or liberal? It can't be both. Anarchism -- with the exception of right wing deviations -- is a form of stateless socialism. Liberalism is a representative state based on capitalism. So the article is incoherent.
For this reason, I added a temporary edit to issues raised, noting that the culture is not liberal and is closer to libertarian socialism or post scarcity anarchism. Because it is a functionally stateless, classless, and lacks wage slavery. (Ideals of libertarian socialists and not of liberals). Ian M Banks, in turn, called it: " socialism within, anarchy without"
For people confused by the concept of libertarian socialism, see my links on the socialist discussion below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sizemore101 ( talk • contribs) 23:41, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
Neither liberal nor anarchist. Banks is speculating on the communist utopia envisaged by Marx and Engels. The theory goes that socialism is simply a step to this utopia - where the means of production evolves to the point where nobody wants and nobody need work.
That pretty much sums up the culture.
When this happens the state is expected to wither away - again the culture.
Banks is speculating on what such a society would look like - but with particular reference to its edges where it interacts with other societies. Clientscope ( talk) 12:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Just to explain my revert. I can't remember where it's said now, but I'm certain that the aesthetic value of Marain is discussed in one of his novels (along the lines in the article). I did think it was in his "A Few Notes On The Culture", but it's not. Can anyone recall where this comes up? -- Plumbago 11:05, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
"Another change, [Flere-Imsaho] thought. [Gurgeh] had altered. ... One reason was that Gurgeh was speaking Eächic all the time. ... when Culture people didn't speak Marain for some time they ... lost the carefully balanced structure of the Culture language, its subtle shifts of cadence, tone and rhythm behind for, in virtually every case, something much cruder."
86.129.83.14
Tonywalton |
Talk
09:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I have produced a free font based on the description of the Marain langauge at [1], font is TrueType and posted at [2]. I'd like to add this link to the article, any comments?
Tomcully 15:58, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any reference to the culture inhabiting any planets. In Use Of Weapons, there is an environmental issue in a Contactee civilisation where the culture backs space habitats rather than terraforming -It appears the culture ethically prefers to build its worlds rather than colonise a naturally existing one -much like we have green belts and national parks. I think if there are any culture planets, they may only be those of hstorical significance (homeworlds of the pre-culture civilisations). I'm going to go ahead and change this, because things take long enough around here and I'm in a doing mood, but if anyone knows of a ref. otherwise (maybe in Phlebas) don't hesitate to correct me.
Zepheriah 11:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I've read all the Culture books, and I'm fairly sure planets are mentioned, in a passage
listing all the types of place Culturniks live. To be honest tho I couldn't quote it. Certainly
they're less prolific than artificial habitats are.
Regarding Orbitals, they have a lot of faith in their force fields, don't they? Perhaps there's levels of dumb backup, simple automated systems with no intelligent controller.
-- Greenaum —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.171.129.69 ( talk) 18:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I think it was Consider Phlebas where planets were mentioned.
Anyway, the Masaq Orbital (Look to Windward) is home to 56 billion people. I think it's just easier to build orbitals. They hold more people, there's no gravity well to climb out of and they have complete control of it.
--
Mrmaigo (
talk)
09:34, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The Morthanveld are mentioned in the section on Spheres and it is not made clear that the Morthanveld are not part of the Culture but a separate civilisation. 194.78.217.240 ( talk) 21:37, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
how about a section on these things?
Uther Dhoul 14:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
It is stated that "combat drones equipped with knife missiles do appear in Descendant" in the section on Behaviour in war. I don't remember a novel with that title, nor a short story. A clearer reference would be nice. 194.78.217.240 ( talk) 21:43, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I moved this note from the page -- something of a to-do list:
Moving the minds/ships listing talk to Talk:Mind (The Culture) where I think it belongs... -- Blueshade 00:11, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Re: the remark about the Culture's position on the Kardashev scale - as far as I am aware, the Culture have not ventured far outside their home galaxy (the Milky Way, which they share with us). So it's possibly not the case that they qualify for a level 4 placing. However, (among other sources) they also access energy from the "grid" which essentially allows unlimited energy use. Is this what was meant by placing them at level 4? If so, an even higher rating (at least by the article on the scale) might be more appropriate. Care to comment? -- Plumbago 08:49, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
The source and overall directedness of the gravitational field in an airsphere is unspecified, but when Zlepe dropped his stylus in _Look to Windward_, it definitely went in a direction he considered "down". -- Jonrock 22:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Can someone verify: in _Look To Windward_ Airspheres were not commonly used as habitats by the Culture. This might have been because a common Culture technology, fields, made some Airsphere inhabitants uncomfortable. The way I read it, Zlepe's presence in the Airsphere had some of the formality and preparation of a diplomatic exchange, not merely a movement of a Culture citizen to another habitat. -- 195.127.52.141 12:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Of course Airspheres have gravity. That's why the behemosaurs are built like blimps. (For a non-G world, I can recommend Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder; top notch steam punk.) And no, they are not Culture, it is made unmistakably clear! Zlepe is FAR away from home, no Minds around to help or advise him, he doesn't even have email. /roger.duprat.copenhagen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.243.127.162 ( talk) 22:18, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
If its a basic sphere of gas, then it will have mass, and the gravity at a given radius will be due to the mass within that radius, the gravitational effect of the mass above that radius neatly cancelling out. This does mean that at the centre there will be zero gravity (if a perfect sphere). Question what the curve of pressure as a function of radius would be - it may also drop to zero at the core, as pressure is the weight of the atmosphere above and weight is a function of gravity. Sawatts ( talk) 14:00, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
I suggest we build a section entitled "Culture Technology" perhaps listed as Section 4 underneath habitats shifting the other sections down one number.
Suggestions please for subsections, i have a nice piece on "Culture Weaponry" I intend to expand it referring to specific weapons mentioned in the books used by key characters. Tactics of Drones and Culture (Contact) Hand-to-Hand combat.
Basically i have descriptions of the following to add under "Culture Weaponry" I intend to merge ship and personal weaponry together as there are both large-scale and handheld/drone versions of many of the general categories here. I am debating whether to add my description of "Knife Missiles" here or under a section on Drones.
Gridfire, Nanohole Bombs, CAMs, Lineguns, Plasma Charges, CREWS, Effectors, Pancakers
Can we have some volunteers to build other sections underneath "Culture Technology" (Personally i think we should leave Ships still under "Habitats"
-- Darkpowder
Late in the discussion, but I'd suggest adding knife missiles to Drones if it hasn't been done already. In Use of Weapons, there is a reference to Zakalwe slagging a knife missile with a ".9" rating, and I seem to recall something in that book suggesting that the .9 was a reference to human intelligence (90% as intelligent as a human?) I don't have a copy now, just a suggestion. BaikinMan 14:27, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
There should also be a subsection of culture tech on culture weapons, gridfire, and the others. The snare 19:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
the idea that Culture exists at the same time as us was new to me. Reference? -- Alvestrand 19:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
The appendix to Consider Phlebas says that the Culture-Idiran War ended in 1375AD. Excession is set 500 years later, so around the end of the 19th Century. Look To Windward is set 800 years after Consider Phlebas, so around the end of the 22nd Century. The events in The State of the Art are set out in a letter from Diziet Sma to an academic named (or from a place called) Petrain. Before setting off to find Zakalwe in Use Of Weapons Sma tells her drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw to "write a stalling letter to that Petrain guy", so putting that stream of Use of Weapons sometime in the future, and Sma's writing the letter further ahead. (The GCU Arbitrary's visit to Earth is in the spring of 1977.)
Nice to have somewhere to share that nerdy thinking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.182.93 ( talk) 14:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Excession includes a reference to heightened signals security following the "Azadian Matter" from The Player of Games, putting PoG somewhere between Phlebas and Excession. (Displacement technology is also mentined in PoG; thus I have changed the article slightly with regards to that technology's earliest use.)
I'd like to add this, with a link to The Bridge. I've a feeling there are some others. Thoughts? Guinnog 21:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I changed "bodies can be gender reassigned according to whim" to "sexual organs can change from male to female with a mental command".
Earth gender politics aside, what actually happens when a Culture human changes from wo/man to wo/man is exactly what I describe above: he or she activates a different set of gonads. Apparently they have both sorts and what Banks has referred to as a "rotary system"- to move them about presumably. I think it was in "The State of the Art" in fact (where the guy who goes native has his removed to resemble the locals better). I seem to remember something about how nothing else much needs to change, since the Culture humans are all drop dead gorgeous so man, woman, it doesn't really make a difference, but I don't have the books at hand (they 're half a continent away) and I can't check for sure, sorry. Stassa 21:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
I've just reverted what looked like OR to me. From "A few notes on the Culture" Banks says :
While it appears true that in wartime the Minds make a lot of the immediate decisions (though they are most often in the best position to do so), they're treated equally with humans and drones in Culture political life. So the edit suggesting the Minds were in charge is somewhat misleading. Cheers, -- Plumbago 08:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
04:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Does it really seem socialistic to anyone? I would like to remove that, but want a second opinion first? Anarchistic I can buy. - cohesion 01:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Socialism has absolutely nothing to do with statism, though a lot of statists have used the socialist label for propaganda purposes -- Stalin, Lenin, etc. If you look at the first international, there were two primary strains of socialist thought. One by the Marxists/communists, who wanted to gradually do away with the state; and the other by Bakuninists/anarchists who wanted to do abolish the state immediately. It should be noted, that the Marxists never wanted to increase the power of the state, they actually wanted a more democratic and more libertarian state, they just wanted to maintain some state powers temporarely. So people who are saying that the Culture isn't socialist, because it's libertarian have absolutely no understanding of socialism.
You could question that the Culture is run by AIs, and has some authoritarian aspects, so it might not technically be socialist/anarchist. However, it clearly has some common socialist elements. People have complete control of their work environment, complete economic and social equality -- money and classes don't exist. These are the basic principles of socialism.
Here are some links for people who are confused.
Marxist Concept: Withering away of the state
The Civil War in France (A heavily Libertarian text by Marx)
Paris Commune (Example of a Libertarian Socialist society)
Libertarian Etymology (Libertarian was actually first used in a political since by Anarcho communists.
Revolutionary Catalonia (Example of a Libertarian Socialist society)
Homage to Catalonia (George Orwell's writing about the above society. George Orwell would later suggest that "The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." Why I Write http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_I_Write)
Russian Free Territory (Example of a Libertarian Socialist society)
I hope this helps. The Culture is clearly partially based on this common socialist tradition. Regardless of whether people are under the misconception that socialism is an antonym for statism.
71.160.20.139 ( talk) 22:31, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
To the people who have read all novels already: Are the Dra'zon a sublimed species, or something else? I'm not sure yet... MadMaxDog 09:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
In the third case it sets up teams to study a civilization that is not threatening but is thought to have eliminated civilizations that attacked it. Which novel makes reference to this? 24.128.157.168 ( talk) 00:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I've been thinking about whether images might be a good idea for this article. But how to get some? Obvious idea would be to get some of the books, but that fair use is only allowed on the book articles - would it be acceptable to photograph a set of books similar to this: Image:Gibson sprawl.jpg What do people think? MadMaxDog 07:26, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
The article says:
Seen from Earth, the time frame for the published Culture stories is from roughly AD 1300 to AD 2100, with Earth being Contacted during the end of the time frame, though the Culture had previously visited the planet.
In State of the Art, Earth is visited by the Culture (around 1970), but at the end of the story, the culture decides not to interfere or make its presence known. Is there some other work which involves Earth in which Contact is involved? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Krazdon ( talk • contribs) 05:34, August 21, 2007 (UTC).
I am not aware that the Earth was contacted other than in The State Of The Art, if there is evidence to the contrary then a clear reference and perhaps a quote needs to be included in the relevant section. To state "see discussion on The Algebraist" as a reference is simply not good enough. I would like to see this section changed as it based on nothing but conjecture. 80.229.162.156 ( talk) 23:19, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
I'm going to start a separate article The "Culture" stories of Ian M. Banks to handle history of the series (e.g. the published version of some are re-writes), themes, literary style, place in science fiction (incl the "British Boom"), critical appraisal - because The Culture is large enough already and there's more that could be written about it as a fictional civilisation. -- Philcha ( talk) 15:52, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Hopefully useful: -- Philcha ( talk) 15:52, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Isn't The Culture a very neoconservative society?
Give a fervently idealistic liberal society post-scarcity technology and you have The Culture.
Quoted from the Wikipedia page on Neoconservatism:
"Neoconservatism is a political philosophy that emerged in the United States of America, and which supports using American power, including military force, to bring democracy and human rights to other countries.[1][2][3] Unlike traditional conservatives, neoconservatives are generally comfortable with a minimally-bureaucratic welfare state; and, while generally supportive of free markets, they are willing to interfere for overriding social purposes.[4]"
The article IS full of material of doubtable notability - I love it, and have in fact created much of it, but I am worried about someone coming along and reducing it to (in effect) the lede, a three para summary and the "real world" section. What can we do to improve notability of the material? Any scholarly work about The Culture out there?
I made a stab at cutting the cruft down, then reverted myself, because I got unsure. In any case, even my significant deletions would have only halved the cruft, rather than removing it. Ingolfson ( talk) 08:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
-S- or –Z- words. Words such as “civilisation / civilization” the Oxford English Dictionary favours the -z- form, but sometimes tolerates the –s- version. The British English leans towards the -s- forms, American English to -z- forms.
can we please have one but not both thru out this article? I have yet to read the books was looking over this site and found this page so what ever version the author uses i would think would be the best but can we at least use one but not both... Avarince ( talk) 09:26, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Been No updates so I am going to go and change them all to z and if some one does not like it they can revert the change -- Avarince ( talk) 09:23, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm requesting a partial protect of the page due to the endemic "within tubes" sophomoric humor discussing the nestworld. Although the vandalism is identical - appending "within tubes" redundantly - the socks rotate so it could be more than one person. Timmccloud ( talk) 00:42, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
The Culture (a wiki page based on Ian M. banks novels) lists all the books related to the series. It omits a book called "Against a Dark Background" published in 1993. Please add a ref to this book. Thanks 97.121.95.151 ( talk) 03:37, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
{{edit semi-protected}}
In the section: Banks on the Culture.
Paragraph currently reads:
Banks informed listeners on BBC Radio 4 programme "Open Book" on 27 August 2009 that he would start writing a new Culture novel, Surface Detail, in January 2010, and announced he had finished it just before Easter 2010. [1]
Suggested Update:
Banks informed listeners on BBC Radio 4 programme "Open Book" on 27 August 2009 that he would start writing a new Culture novel, Surface Detail, in January 2010, and announced he had finished it just before Easter 2010. [2]. The novel was released on the 7th October 2010.
Reason for update:
Paragraph talks about a future event which has now taken place. The event (the publication of the novel "Surface Detail") has now happened, and a wikipedia page about it now exists. The paragraph should, therefore, conclude with a note that the novel announced has been published. The publication date is the earliest date from the Wikipedia page on the novel (which happens to be the UK publication) - the novel page lists publication dates in multiple jurisdictions.
MarkHarrisonUK (
talk)
20:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
References
From article - "make backup copies of their personalities, allowing them to be resurrected in case of death, although as these are merely copies, consciousness is not continued, and the original individual is not truly reborn, just replaced"
I don't think that's true. Surely when you're replaced from a backup, your consciousness continues from just before the backup was taken. You're genuinely reborn, and if the backup's recent enough (like they try when things look a bit bad in Excession), you're going to come back from just a few seconds before you died. While there's philosophical questions of provenance, and if a perfect copy is the same as the original, from the view of the books, a restored backed-up person is completely their old self. Does the above need removing? 188.28.201.82 ( talk) 07:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
The above needds changing or removing since it is clearly stated or implied numerous times in the series that the clear majority of the Culture considers these reborn individuals to be 100% the same as the originals with just a few memories missing (if that). This is particularly pertinent as drones and Minds are considered to be perfect replicas and it si rare for them to have any missing memories either due to being able to replace them with other sources if so desired by the individual. So, in universe, the copy is considered the original and where this is not true specific individuals discuss the philosophical problem (which most others don't understand) or two "originals" (as in the case of one Mind) exist and are both considered to be the same person... from memory there were a number of Mind instances of this during the war and most were reintegrated into one Mind excepting those who had been apart too long when they became, in effect the Mind version of identical twins. 2019/11/05 14:50 (JST) *<:@) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.125.41.18 ( talk) 05:50, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Is it correct that the novels " Feersum Endjinn" and "Against a dark Background" appear in the Novels section of the The Culture page? My understanding was that neither of these novels occur in the culture "universe". This is explicitly mentioned in the introduction on the Feersum Endjinn page. Mike talk 22:46, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
It seems to me that the Overview section of this article is (a) inadequate as a summary of the topic and, (b) inappropriately argumentative as an introduction to the subject. I think the article would be improved by adding more summary material to the section and moving the quote to another place in the article. 174.91.141.19 ( talk) 14:26, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
See the move request for the result. -- Mirokado ( talk) 13:44, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Re: change of article title "The Culture" to "Culture (fictional civilisation)" Comment was "(Erc moved page The Culture to Culture (fictional civilisation): Using parenthetical disambiguation per WP:TITLE and remove indefinite article in front of name (it's Culture, not The Culture) per WP:THE)"
Without "The" a disambiguation was indeed necessary. But there was no need to remove "The". WP:THE says:
If a word without a definite article would have a general meaning, while the same word has a specific and identifiable meaning, understood by all, if adding the article, and if there is justification to have separate articles for both meanings, the specific meaning can be explained on a separate page, with a page title including the article. Example: "crown" means the headgear worn by a monarch, other high dignitaries, divinities et cetera; while "The Crown" is a term used to indicate the government authority and the property of that government in a monarchy.
That exactly describes the situation. "The Culture" is correct and does not need disambiguation. In discussion, the disambiguation used is always "The Culture". No one says "Culture (fictional civilisation)" and no one is ever going to type that in a search box. It destroys the simple linking The Culture and now every single link requires this long winded version as well I also note that the same person made The Culture redirect to Culture (series), meaning the books, so all existing links would have been wrong. Thus I reverted that last change. 02:40, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
The result of the proposal was move per request.-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 01:42, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Culture (fictional civilisation) → The Culture – I think we have consensus for a move back to The Culture, but a non-admin move-over-redirect isn't possible, so let's get some actual proposal structure behind it.
Is five to two over three days consensus? Tony (talk) 04:38, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Since "The Culture" changed to "Culture (fictional civilisation)" contains many of the contributions forming part of the move discussion I have closed it too, with links to the main discussion and this section. -- Mirokado ( talk) 13:51, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
I have updated some of the references and corrected a couple of problems as a result. Just to explain some of the changes in more detail:
{{
cite doi}}
for a journal article with doi number: the PDF is behind a paywall and that template provides a nice standardised citation matching the othersComments welcome. -- Mirokado ( talk) 16:57, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Something we try to do is to have a single citation for each cited work, to avoid having lengthy details duplicated in the references list and so we only have to maintain one place in and article to make a change consistently). I have thus referred to a named ref transcluded along with the table from
Culture series and used {{
rp}}
for the page number. There is a comment in the reflist explaining where the ref definition comes from. The rp template is sort-of for emergency use, see the documentation. I will try to design a better solution, for this and other problems caused by the transcluded references, but that will require longer and I will "probably" post here again... --
Mirokado (
talk)
18:07, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
A link to "The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks", an article by Alan Jacobs, was added as an external ref, later deleted. I put it here as a possible source. Barsoomian ( talk) 18:39, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
I does not seem to be anarchist since the Minds are de facto rulers. I'd opt for communist instead. What is the difference between a Mind planning everything and Stalin doing the same? Stilgar27 ( talk) 15:04, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
The Culture is clearly democratic with numerous mentions of voting so I have changed anarchic to democratic. Darmot and gilad ( talk) 10:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Democracy and anarchism are not opposite concepts. Anarchism denotes a lack of governing force, not chaos. The Culture's lack of formal law denotes an anarchist society. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.186.66.49 ( talk) 00:17, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Again, numerous votes are mentioned, including the vote to enter war with the Idirans. To suggest that there is a lack of formal law is strange though as it is clear that murder is not allowed along with many other types of violence against others (at least in the Culture at large, Contact and SC are a different kettle of fish and that is also clearly stated numerous times). The fact that actually doing violence to thers without their consent is almost impossible due to the watchfulness of the Minds does not mean there is no formal law, just that breaching said law is nigh on impossible so trials, etc. are few and far between. It might also be noted that it is likely that libel and slander are probably also not allowed but are also nigh on impossible to commit due to the ease with which false information in all but the most difficult of situations is so easily available - especially later in the series. Lies without consent (e.g. playing poker is consenting to information withholding and possibly lying) are likely to be disprovable almost instantly and so almost no benefit might ever be accrued from it and so no damage is likely to ever be achieved except in exceptional (or special) circumstances... Given the voting and that Minds themselves work out consensus before acting (and that when a breakaway group does it they are considered to be a conspiracy) the Culture is clearly a democracy and possibly even an unitary democracy (drones of far greater intelligence and resources routinely look for compromise with biological Culture citizens or even defer to them, sometimes without even an argument so clearly one citizen, one vote is close to how things work). Part of the difficulty of deciding, however, seems likely to be because the consensus of the masses is that the Minds should run things while everyone else gets to have a good time (which, given that many of the Minds seem to enjoy micromanaging (from their point of view), lets the Minds have a good time too), makes everyone happy... but this consensus is very unitary democracy like so, lacking other words to decribe it, that is what I would go for in English terms. 2019/11/05 14:40 (JST) *<:@) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.125.41.18 ( talk) 05:40, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
I propose the Culture series be merged into The Culture. The rationale is a strong overlap: any content from Culture series whether is a copy of The Culture content (including the section Novels), whether is a literary analysis of the cycle, which would be appropriated to have in The Culture. As Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, we don't need to get a copy of the information in both pages. The content of the Culture series to move in The Culture would so be both the sections Literary techniques, Genesis of the series. Dereckson ( talk) 13:35, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Does the series explain anywhere how (or if) the population control is achieved? If all members are basically immortals and each decides to reproduce once per century this already leads to exponential population growth. It can't be explained by simple social responsibility, not to mention people actually do seem to still be born regularly. Errarel ( talk) 15:18, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:The Culture (series) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 11:16, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
I came here to do some research and identify which particular one of the Culture books had a species i could only recall as basically being in universe "psychotic culture fans". Much to my surprise, the very long article that would have helped me got snap deleted a month or so ago, and none of the information was duplicated anywhere else first. As far as i can tell that was the only list of its type on the internet, and it's removal removed information that can only be duplicated by going and reading all the books again, because the information was not adequately duplicated into the books individual plot summaries prior to deletion. I'm not sure what to do about that, but searching for "List of civilisations in the Culture series" still leads there and shows a preview of the now deleted page. I'm not sure if it is possible to restore that information (seeing as it is still linked here under a subheading), or to simply restore it as it was, but the destruction and obscuring of information does not seem in keeping with the purpose of the encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sappow ( talk • contribs) 04:07, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
User:Sappow If the information was in this article, then it's not destroyed, you just have to find the right date in the history to copy from. If it was in another article that was deleted, then it's still not destroyed, an admin like me can undelete it temporarily to migrate it elsewhere. — Omegatron ( talk) 17:12, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
The orbital description makes sense except for one aspect:
Like a ringworld, the orbital rotates to provide an analog of gravity on the inner surface. A Culture orbital rotates about once every 24 hours and has gravity-like effect about the same as the gravity of Earth, making the diameter of the ring about 3,000,000 kilometres (1,900,000 mi), and ensuring that the inhabitants experience night and day.
Ok, so it is a ring surrounding a star which rotates to generate pseudo-gravity, so the inhabitants live on the inner surface. So far so good. (We will assume technology exists to prevent atmosphere flowing off the outer edges and so on.) But how does that give night and day? The inner surface is always facing the star so wouldn't it always be day? Or is the description unclear or omitting something? 2601:140:C000:2700:DCA9:C57A:1AED:4946 ( talk) 06:04, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
This section is for the discussion of apparent similarities between the internal community and culture of Wikipedia, and the fictional Culture-- in particular our idealism and chronic politeness, our decentralized leadership, the zaney eccentricity of our admins, our various semi-secret Cabals of illustrious and aged editors, and our penchant for in-jokes. Thoughts (GSV) Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall ?
"The Sublime" or "Sublimation" is used multiple times in the article without defining it anywhere. It is a relatively well known — if not well defined — concept by culture fans, but external readers might find this quite confusing... For what it's worth, Sublimation is actually a disambiguation page and doesn't refer to anything regarding the culture phenomemon, from what i understand. TheAnarcat ( talk) 14:47, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
This whole article is WAY too detailed and looks straight out of a fan wiki. I don't have time right now to go through it all, but if someone else could, it would be greatly appreciated. Veilure ( talk) 05:47, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
I can't even read this. It's a lost cause. get rid of it.
![]() | Mind (The Culture) was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 4 December 2019 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into The Culture. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
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![]() | The Involved was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 04 September 2009 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into The Culture. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
What's the matter with butchering the whole topic of Bank's Culture on Wikipedia?!? Cannot "editors" who are not interested in something leave it well alone? Wikipedia is becomming irrelevant in all topics except STEM and perhaps geography. -- bonzi ( talk) 12:59, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
At the beginning of the article,the Culture is referred to as an anarchist utopia. Later in the article under Issues Raised, it is called: "The Culture itself is an "ideal-typical" liberal society; that is, as pure an example as one can reasonably imagine"... I'm confused, is it anarchist or liberal? It can't be both. Anarchism -- with the exception of right wing deviations -- is a form of stateless socialism. Liberalism is a representative state based on capitalism. So the article is incoherent.
For this reason, I added a temporary edit to issues raised, noting that the culture is not liberal and is closer to libertarian socialism or post scarcity anarchism. Because it is a functionally stateless, classless, and lacks wage slavery. (Ideals of libertarian socialists and not of liberals). Ian M Banks, in turn, called it: " socialism within, anarchy without"
For people confused by the concept of libertarian socialism, see my links on the socialist discussion below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sizemore101 ( talk • contribs) 23:41, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
Neither liberal nor anarchist. Banks is speculating on the communist utopia envisaged by Marx and Engels. The theory goes that socialism is simply a step to this utopia - where the means of production evolves to the point where nobody wants and nobody need work.
That pretty much sums up the culture.
When this happens the state is expected to wither away - again the culture.
Banks is speculating on what such a society would look like - but with particular reference to its edges where it interacts with other societies. Clientscope ( talk) 12:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Just to explain my revert. I can't remember where it's said now, but I'm certain that the aesthetic value of Marain is discussed in one of his novels (along the lines in the article). I did think it was in his "A Few Notes On The Culture", but it's not. Can anyone recall where this comes up? -- Plumbago 11:05, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
"Another change, [Flere-Imsaho] thought. [Gurgeh] had altered. ... One reason was that Gurgeh was speaking Eächic all the time. ... when Culture people didn't speak Marain for some time they ... lost the carefully balanced structure of the Culture language, its subtle shifts of cadence, tone and rhythm behind for, in virtually every case, something much cruder."
86.129.83.14
Tonywalton |
Talk
09:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I have produced a free font based on the description of the Marain langauge at [1], font is TrueType and posted at [2]. I'd like to add this link to the article, any comments?
Tomcully 15:58, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any reference to the culture inhabiting any planets. In Use Of Weapons, there is an environmental issue in a Contactee civilisation where the culture backs space habitats rather than terraforming -It appears the culture ethically prefers to build its worlds rather than colonise a naturally existing one -much like we have green belts and national parks. I think if there are any culture planets, they may only be those of hstorical significance (homeworlds of the pre-culture civilisations). I'm going to go ahead and change this, because things take long enough around here and I'm in a doing mood, but if anyone knows of a ref. otherwise (maybe in Phlebas) don't hesitate to correct me.
Zepheriah 11:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I've read all the Culture books, and I'm fairly sure planets are mentioned, in a passage
listing all the types of place Culturniks live. To be honest tho I couldn't quote it. Certainly
they're less prolific than artificial habitats are.
Regarding Orbitals, they have a lot of faith in their force fields, don't they? Perhaps there's levels of dumb backup, simple automated systems with no intelligent controller.
-- Greenaum —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.171.129.69 ( talk) 18:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I think it was Consider Phlebas where planets were mentioned.
Anyway, the Masaq Orbital (Look to Windward) is home to 56 billion people. I think it's just easier to build orbitals. They hold more people, there's no gravity well to climb out of and they have complete control of it.
--
Mrmaigo (
talk)
09:34, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The Morthanveld are mentioned in the section on Spheres and it is not made clear that the Morthanveld are not part of the Culture but a separate civilisation. 194.78.217.240 ( talk) 21:37, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
how about a section on these things?
Uther Dhoul 14:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
It is stated that "combat drones equipped with knife missiles do appear in Descendant" in the section on Behaviour in war. I don't remember a novel with that title, nor a short story. A clearer reference would be nice. 194.78.217.240 ( talk) 21:43, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I moved this note from the page -- something of a to-do list:
Moving the minds/ships listing talk to Talk:Mind (The Culture) where I think it belongs... -- Blueshade 00:11, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Re: the remark about the Culture's position on the Kardashev scale - as far as I am aware, the Culture have not ventured far outside their home galaxy (the Milky Way, which they share with us). So it's possibly not the case that they qualify for a level 4 placing. However, (among other sources) they also access energy from the "grid" which essentially allows unlimited energy use. Is this what was meant by placing them at level 4? If so, an even higher rating (at least by the article on the scale) might be more appropriate. Care to comment? -- Plumbago 08:49, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
The source and overall directedness of the gravitational field in an airsphere is unspecified, but when Zlepe dropped his stylus in _Look to Windward_, it definitely went in a direction he considered "down". -- Jonrock 22:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Can someone verify: in _Look To Windward_ Airspheres were not commonly used as habitats by the Culture. This might have been because a common Culture technology, fields, made some Airsphere inhabitants uncomfortable. The way I read it, Zlepe's presence in the Airsphere had some of the formality and preparation of a diplomatic exchange, not merely a movement of a Culture citizen to another habitat. -- 195.127.52.141 12:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Of course Airspheres have gravity. That's why the behemosaurs are built like blimps. (For a non-G world, I can recommend Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder; top notch steam punk.) And no, they are not Culture, it is made unmistakably clear! Zlepe is FAR away from home, no Minds around to help or advise him, he doesn't even have email. /roger.duprat.copenhagen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.243.127.162 ( talk) 22:18, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
If its a basic sphere of gas, then it will have mass, and the gravity at a given radius will be due to the mass within that radius, the gravitational effect of the mass above that radius neatly cancelling out. This does mean that at the centre there will be zero gravity (if a perfect sphere). Question what the curve of pressure as a function of radius would be - it may also drop to zero at the core, as pressure is the weight of the atmosphere above and weight is a function of gravity. Sawatts ( talk) 14:00, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
I suggest we build a section entitled "Culture Technology" perhaps listed as Section 4 underneath habitats shifting the other sections down one number.
Suggestions please for subsections, i have a nice piece on "Culture Weaponry" I intend to expand it referring to specific weapons mentioned in the books used by key characters. Tactics of Drones and Culture (Contact) Hand-to-Hand combat.
Basically i have descriptions of the following to add under "Culture Weaponry" I intend to merge ship and personal weaponry together as there are both large-scale and handheld/drone versions of many of the general categories here. I am debating whether to add my description of "Knife Missiles" here or under a section on Drones.
Gridfire, Nanohole Bombs, CAMs, Lineguns, Plasma Charges, CREWS, Effectors, Pancakers
Can we have some volunteers to build other sections underneath "Culture Technology" (Personally i think we should leave Ships still under "Habitats"
-- Darkpowder
Late in the discussion, but I'd suggest adding knife missiles to Drones if it hasn't been done already. In Use of Weapons, there is a reference to Zakalwe slagging a knife missile with a ".9" rating, and I seem to recall something in that book suggesting that the .9 was a reference to human intelligence (90% as intelligent as a human?) I don't have a copy now, just a suggestion. BaikinMan 14:27, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
There should also be a subsection of culture tech on culture weapons, gridfire, and the others. The snare 19:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
the idea that Culture exists at the same time as us was new to me. Reference? -- Alvestrand 19:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
The appendix to Consider Phlebas says that the Culture-Idiran War ended in 1375AD. Excession is set 500 years later, so around the end of the 19th Century. Look To Windward is set 800 years after Consider Phlebas, so around the end of the 22nd Century. The events in The State of the Art are set out in a letter from Diziet Sma to an academic named (or from a place called) Petrain. Before setting off to find Zakalwe in Use Of Weapons Sma tells her drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw to "write a stalling letter to that Petrain guy", so putting that stream of Use of Weapons sometime in the future, and Sma's writing the letter further ahead. (The GCU Arbitrary's visit to Earth is in the spring of 1977.)
Nice to have somewhere to share that nerdy thinking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.182.93 ( talk) 14:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Excession includes a reference to heightened signals security following the "Azadian Matter" from The Player of Games, putting PoG somewhere between Phlebas and Excession. (Displacement technology is also mentined in PoG; thus I have changed the article slightly with regards to that technology's earliest use.)
I'd like to add this, with a link to The Bridge. I've a feeling there are some others. Thoughts? Guinnog 21:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I changed "bodies can be gender reassigned according to whim" to "sexual organs can change from male to female with a mental command".
Earth gender politics aside, what actually happens when a Culture human changes from wo/man to wo/man is exactly what I describe above: he or she activates a different set of gonads. Apparently they have both sorts and what Banks has referred to as a "rotary system"- to move them about presumably. I think it was in "The State of the Art" in fact (where the guy who goes native has his removed to resemble the locals better). I seem to remember something about how nothing else much needs to change, since the Culture humans are all drop dead gorgeous so man, woman, it doesn't really make a difference, but I don't have the books at hand (they 're half a continent away) and I can't check for sure, sorry. Stassa 21:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
I've just reverted what looked like OR to me. From "A few notes on the Culture" Banks says :
While it appears true that in wartime the Minds make a lot of the immediate decisions (though they are most often in the best position to do so), they're treated equally with humans and drones in Culture political life. So the edit suggesting the Minds were in charge is somewhat misleading. Cheers, -- Plumbago 08:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
04:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Does it really seem socialistic to anyone? I would like to remove that, but want a second opinion first? Anarchistic I can buy. - cohesion 01:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Socialism has absolutely nothing to do with statism, though a lot of statists have used the socialist label for propaganda purposes -- Stalin, Lenin, etc. If you look at the first international, there were two primary strains of socialist thought. One by the Marxists/communists, who wanted to gradually do away with the state; and the other by Bakuninists/anarchists who wanted to do abolish the state immediately. It should be noted, that the Marxists never wanted to increase the power of the state, they actually wanted a more democratic and more libertarian state, they just wanted to maintain some state powers temporarely. So people who are saying that the Culture isn't socialist, because it's libertarian have absolutely no understanding of socialism.
You could question that the Culture is run by AIs, and has some authoritarian aspects, so it might not technically be socialist/anarchist. However, it clearly has some common socialist elements. People have complete control of their work environment, complete economic and social equality -- money and classes don't exist. These are the basic principles of socialism.
Here are some links for people who are confused.
Marxist Concept: Withering away of the state
The Civil War in France (A heavily Libertarian text by Marx)
Paris Commune (Example of a Libertarian Socialist society)
Libertarian Etymology (Libertarian was actually first used in a political since by Anarcho communists.
Revolutionary Catalonia (Example of a Libertarian Socialist society)
Homage to Catalonia (George Orwell's writing about the above society. George Orwell would later suggest that "The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." Why I Write http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_I_Write)
Russian Free Territory (Example of a Libertarian Socialist society)
I hope this helps. The Culture is clearly partially based on this common socialist tradition. Regardless of whether people are under the misconception that socialism is an antonym for statism.
71.160.20.139 ( talk) 22:31, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
To the people who have read all novels already: Are the Dra'zon a sublimed species, or something else? I'm not sure yet... MadMaxDog 09:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
In the third case it sets up teams to study a civilization that is not threatening but is thought to have eliminated civilizations that attacked it. Which novel makes reference to this? 24.128.157.168 ( talk) 00:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I've been thinking about whether images might be a good idea for this article. But how to get some? Obvious idea would be to get some of the books, but that fair use is only allowed on the book articles - would it be acceptable to photograph a set of books similar to this: Image:Gibson sprawl.jpg What do people think? MadMaxDog 07:26, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
The article says:
Seen from Earth, the time frame for the published Culture stories is from roughly AD 1300 to AD 2100, with Earth being Contacted during the end of the time frame, though the Culture had previously visited the planet.
In State of the Art, Earth is visited by the Culture (around 1970), but at the end of the story, the culture decides not to interfere or make its presence known. Is there some other work which involves Earth in which Contact is involved? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Krazdon ( talk • contribs) 05:34, August 21, 2007 (UTC).
I am not aware that the Earth was contacted other than in The State Of The Art, if there is evidence to the contrary then a clear reference and perhaps a quote needs to be included in the relevant section. To state "see discussion on The Algebraist" as a reference is simply not good enough. I would like to see this section changed as it based on nothing but conjecture. 80.229.162.156 ( talk) 23:19, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
I'm going to start a separate article The "Culture" stories of Ian M. Banks to handle history of the series (e.g. the published version of some are re-writes), themes, literary style, place in science fiction (incl the "British Boom"), critical appraisal - because The Culture is large enough already and there's more that could be written about it as a fictional civilisation. -- Philcha ( talk) 15:52, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Hopefully useful: -- Philcha ( talk) 15:52, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Isn't The Culture a very neoconservative society?
Give a fervently idealistic liberal society post-scarcity technology and you have The Culture.
Quoted from the Wikipedia page on Neoconservatism:
"Neoconservatism is a political philosophy that emerged in the United States of America, and which supports using American power, including military force, to bring democracy and human rights to other countries.[1][2][3] Unlike traditional conservatives, neoconservatives are generally comfortable with a minimally-bureaucratic welfare state; and, while generally supportive of free markets, they are willing to interfere for overriding social purposes.[4]"
The article IS full of material of doubtable notability - I love it, and have in fact created much of it, but I am worried about someone coming along and reducing it to (in effect) the lede, a three para summary and the "real world" section. What can we do to improve notability of the material? Any scholarly work about The Culture out there?
I made a stab at cutting the cruft down, then reverted myself, because I got unsure. In any case, even my significant deletions would have only halved the cruft, rather than removing it. Ingolfson ( talk) 08:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
-S- or –Z- words. Words such as “civilisation / civilization” the Oxford English Dictionary favours the -z- form, but sometimes tolerates the –s- version. The British English leans towards the -s- forms, American English to -z- forms.
can we please have one but not both thru out this article? I have yet to read the books was looking over this site and found this page so what ever version the author uses i would think would be the best but can we at least use one but not both... Avarince ( talk) 09:26, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Been No updates so I am going to go and change them all to z and if some one does not like it they can revert the change -- Avarince ( talk) 09:23, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm requesting a partial protect of the page due to the endemic "within tubes" sophomoric humor discussing the nestworld. Although the vandalism is identical - appending "within tubes" redundantly - the socks rotate so it could be more than one person. Timmccloud ( talk) 00:42, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
The Culture (a wiki page based on Ian M. banks novels) lists all the books related to the series. It omits a book called "Against a Dark Background" published in 1993. Please add a ref to this book. Thanks 97.121.95.151 ( talk) 03:37, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
{{edit semi-protected}}
In the section: Banks on the Culture.
Paragraph currently reads:
Banks informed listeners on BBC Radio 4 programme "Open Book" on 27 August 2009 that he would start writing a new Culture novel, Surface Detail, in January 2010, and announced he had finished it just before Easter 2010. [1]
Suggested Update:
Banks informed listeners on BBC Radio 4 programme "Open Book" on 27 August 2009 that he would start writing a new Culture novel, Surface Detail, in January 2010, and announced he had finished it just before Easter 2010. [2]. The novel was released on the 7th October 2010.
Reason for update:
Paragraph talks about a future event which has now taken place. The event (the publication of the novel "Surface Detail") has now happened, and a wikipedia page about it now exists. The paragraph should, therefore, conclude with a note that the novel announced has been published. The publication date is the earliest date from the Wikipedia page on the novel (which happens to be the UK publication) - the novel page lists publication dates in multiple jurisdictions.
MarkHarrisonUK (
talk)
20:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
References
From article - "make backup copies of their personalities, allowing them to be resurrected in case of death, although as these are merely copies, consciousness is not continued, and the original individual is not truly reborn, just replaced"
I don't think that's true. Surely when you're replaced from a backup, your consciousness continues from just before the backup was taken. You're genuinely reborn, and if the backup's recent enough (like they try when things look a bit bad in Excession), you're going to come back from just a few seconds before you died. While there's philosophical questions of provenance, and if a perfect copy is the same as the original, from the view of the books, a restored backed-up person is completely their old self. Does the above need removing? 188.28.201.82 ( talk) 07:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
The above needds changing or removing since it is clearly stated or implied numerous times in the series that the clear majority of the Culture considers these reborn individuals to be 100% the same as the originals with just a few memories missing (if that). This is particularly pertinent as drones and Minds are considered to be perfect replicas and it si rare for them to have any missing memories either due to being able to replace them with other sources if so desired by the individual. So, in universe, the copy is considered the original and where this is not true specific individuals discuss the philosophical problem (which most others don't understand) or two "originals" (as in the case of one Mind) exist and are both considered to be the same person... from memory there were a number of Mind instances of this during the war and most were reintegrated into one Mind excepting those who had been apart too long when they became, in effect the Mind version of identical twins. 2019/11/05 14:50 (JST) *<:@) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.125.41.18 ( talk) 05:50, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Is it correct that the novels " Feersum Endjinn" and "Against a dark Background" appear in the Novels section of the The Culture page? My understanding was that neither of these novels occur in the culture "universe". This is explicitly mentioned in the introduction on the Feersum Endjinn page. Mike talk 22:46, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
It seems to me that the Overview section of this article is (a) inadequate as a summary of the topic and, (b) inappropriately argumentative as an introduction to the subject. I think the article would be improved by adding more summary material to the section and moving the quote to another place in the article. 174.91.141.19 ( talk) 14:26, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
See the move request for the result. -- Mirokado ( talk) 13:44, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Re: change of article title "The Culture" to "Culture (fictional civilisation)" Comment was "(Erc moved page The Culture to Culture (fictional civilisation): Using parenthetical disambiguation per WP:TITLE and remove indefinite article in front of name (it's Culture, not The Culture) per WP:THE)"
Without "The" a disambiguation was indeed necessary. But there was no need to remove "The". WP:THE says:
If a word without a definite article would have a general meaning, while the same word has a specific and identifiable meaning, understood by all, if adding the article, and if there is justification to have separate articles for both meanings, the specific meaning can be explained on a separate page, with a page title including the article. Example: "crown" means the headgear worn by a monarch, other high dignitaries, divinities et cetera; while "The Crown" is a term used to indicate the government authority and the property of that government in a monarchy.
That exactly describes the situation. "The Culture" is correct and does not need disambiguation. In discussion, the disambiguation used is always "The Culture". No one says "Culture (fictional civilisation)" and no one is ever going to type that in a search box. It destroys the simple linking The Culture and now every single link requires this long winded version as well I also note that the same person made The Culture redirect to Culture (series), meaning the books, so all existing links would have been wrong. Thus I reverted that last change. 02:40, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
The result of the proposal was move per request.-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 01:42, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Culture (fictional civilisation) → The Culture – I think we have consensus for a move back to The Culture, but a non-admin move-over-redirect isn't possible, so let's get some actual proposal structure behind it.
Is five to two over three days consensus? Tony (talk) 04:38, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Since "The Culture" changed to "Culture (fictional civilisation)" contains many of the contributions forming part of the move discussion I have closed it too, with links to the main discussion and this section. -- Mirokado ( talk) 13:51, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
I have updated some of the references and corrected a couple of problems as a result. Just to explain some of the changes in more detail:
{{
cite doi}}
for a journal article with doi number: the PDF is behind a paywall and that template provides a nice standardised citation matching the othersComments welcome. -- Mirokado ( talk) 16:57, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Something we try to do is to have a single citation for each cited work, to avoid having lengthy details duplicated in the references list and so we only have to maintain one place in and article to make a change consistently). I have thus referred to a named ref transcluded along with the table from
Culture series and used {{
rp}}
for the page number. There is a comment in the reflist explaining where the ref definition comes from. The rp template is sort-of for emergency use, see the documentation. I will try to design a better solution, for this and other problems caused by the transcluded references, but that will require longer and I will "probably" post here again... --
Mirokado (
talk)
18:07, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
A link to "The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks", an article by Alan Jacobs, was added as an external ref, later deleted. I put it here as a possible source. Barsoomian ( talk) 18:39, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
I does not seem to be anarchist since the Minds are de facto rulers. I'd opt for communist instead. What is the difference between a Mind planning everything and Stalin doing the same? Stilgar27 ( talk) 15:04, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
The Culture is clearly democratic with numerous mentions of voting so I have changed anarchic to democratic. Darmot and gilad ( talk) 10:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Democracy and anarchism are not opposite concepts. Anarchism denotes a lack of governing force, not chaos. The Culture's lack of formal law denotes an anarchist society. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.186.66.49 ( talk) 00:17, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Again, numerous votes are mentioned, including the vote to enter war with the Idirans. To suggest that there is a lack of formal law is strange though as it is clear that murder is not allowed along with many other types of violence against others (at least in the Culture at large, Contact and SC are a different kettle of fish and that is also clearly stated numerous times). The fact that actually doing violence to thers without their consent is almost impossible due to the watchfulness of the Minds does not mean there is no formal law, just that breaching said law is nigh on impossible so trials, etc. are few and far between. It might also be noted that it is likely that libel and slander are probably also not allowed but are also nigh on impossible to commit due to the ease with which false information in all but the most difficult of situations is so easily available - especially later in the series. Lies without consent (e.g. playing poker is consenting to information withholding and possibly lying) are likely to be disprovable almost instantly and so almost no benefit might ever be accrued from it and so no damage is likely to ever be achieved except in exceptional (or special) circumstances... Given the voting and that Minds themselves work out consensus before acting (and that when a breakaway group does it they are considered to be a conspiracy) the Culture is clearly a democracy and possibly even an unitary democracy (drones of far greater intelligence and resources routinely look for compromise with biological Culture citizens or even defer to them, sometimes without even an argument so clearly one citizen, one vote is close to how things work). Part of the difficulty of deciding, however, seems likely to be because the consensus of the masses is that the Minds should run things while everyone else gets to have a good time (which, given that many of the Minds seem to enjoy micromanaging (from their point of view), lets the Minds have a good time too), makes everyone happy... but this consensus is very unitary democracy like so, lacking other words to decribe it, that is what I would go for in English terms. 2019/11/05 14:40 (JST) *<:@) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.125.41.18 ( talk) 05:40, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
I propose the Culture series be merged into The Culture. The rationale is a strong overlap: any content from Culture series whether is a copy of The Culture content (including the section Novels), whether is a literary analysis of the cycle, which would be appropriated to have in The Culture. As Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, we don't need to get a copy of the information in both pages. The content of the Culture series to move in The Culture would so be both the sections Literary techniques, Genesis of the series. Dereckson ( talk) 13:35, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Does the series explain anywhere how (or if) the population control is achieved? If all members are basically immortals and each decides to reproduce once per century this already leads to exponential population growth. It can't be explained by simple social responsibility, not to mention people actually do seem to still be born regularly. Errarel ( talk) 15:18, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:The Culture (series) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 11:16, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
I came here to do some research and identify which particular one of the Culture books had a species i could only recall as basically being in universe "psychotic culture fans". Much to my surprise, the very long article that would have helped me got snap deleted a month or so ago, and none of the information was duplicated anywhere else first. As far as i can tell that was the only list of its type on the internet, and it's removal removed information that can only be duplicated by going and reading all the books again, because the information was not adequately duplicated into the books individual plot summaries prior to deletion. I'm not sure what to do about that, but searching for "List of civilisations in the Culture series" still leads there and shows a preview of the now deleted page. I'm not sure if it is possible to restore that information (seeing as it is still linked here under a subheading), or to simply restore it as it was, but the destruction and obscuring of information does not seem in keeping with the purpose of the encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sappow ( talk • contribs) 04:07, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
User:Sappow If the information was in this article, then it's not destroyed, you just have to find the right date in the history to copy from. If it was in another article that was deleted, then it's still not destroyed, an admin like me can undelete it temporarily to migrate it elsewhere. — Omegatron ( talk) 17:12, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
The orbital description makes sense except for one aspect:
Like a ringworld, the orbital rotates to provide an analog of gravity on the inner surface. A Culture orbital rotates about once every 24 hours and has gravity-like effect about the same as the gravity of Earth, making the diameter of the ring about 3,000,000 kilometres (1,900,000 mi), and ensuring that the inhabitants experience night and day.
Ok, so it is a ring surrounding a star which rotates to generate pseudo-gravity, so the inhabitants live on the inner surface. So far so good. (We will assume technology exists to prevent atmosphere flowing off the outer edges and so on.) But how does that give night and day? The inner surface is always facing the star so wouldn't it always be day? Or is the description unclear or omitting something? 2601:140:C000:2700:DCA9:C57A:1AED:4946 ( talk) 06:04, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
This section is for the discussion of apparent similarities between the internal community and culture of Wikipedia, and the fictional Culture-- in particular our idealism and chronic politeness, our decentralized leadership, the zaney eccentricity of our admins, our various semi-secret Cabals of illustrious and aged editors, and our penchant for in-jokes. Thoughts (GSV) Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall ?
"The Sublime" or "Sublimation" is used multiple times in the article without defining it anywhere. It is a relatively well known — if not well defined — concept by culture fans, but external readers might find this quite confusing... For what it's worth, Sublimation is actually a disambiguation page and doesn't refer to anything regarding the culture phenomemon, from what i understand. TheAnarcat ( talk) 14:47, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
This whole article is WAY too detailed and looks straight out of a fan wiki. I don't have time right now to go through it all, but if someone else could, it would be greatly appreciated. Veilure ( talk) 05:47, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
I can't even read this. It's a lost cause. get rid of it.