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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday January 28 2021, @11:12PM (4 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday January 28 2021, @11:12PM (#1106334)

    Ian M Banks' The Culture would do me.

    Living on an artificial structure orbiting some star would be amazing. Then I suppose people would just get used to it.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by pdfernhout on Sunday January 31 2021, @11:59PM (2 children)

    by pdfernhout (5984) on Sunday January 31 2021, @11:59PM (#1107345) Homepage

    Culture where skill is automated via Minds

    Chironia (J.P. Hogan Voyage from Yesteryear, contributed to the downfall of the iron curtain, maybe) where skill is personal and a source of status

    Xanadu ("The Skills of Xanadu" by Theodore Sturgeon, inspired Ted Nelson and hypertext and thence the web) where skills are drawn from the community

    Interesting to realize how the three places I might pick from all have different sources from which skill flows....

    Culture with its advancements and essentially almost immortality is more practical for older people but may struggle with purpose, Chironia is closest to human, and Xanadu is potentially the most trans-human in a fundamental way while still being human if that makes any sense.

    --
    The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by theluggage on Tuesday February 02 2021, @04:51PM (1 child)

      by theluggage (1797) on Tuesday February 02 2021, @04:51PM (#1107973)

      Culture with its advancements and essentially almost immortality is more practical for older people but may struggle with purpose

      Yeah, there's a reason most of books involve Contact/Special Circumstances agents and surprisingly often have non-Culture main protagonists...

      Still, if you're bored with all that post-scarcity blandness, go lava rafting, grow an extra pair of arms to play an obscure musical instrument, help build a spaceship, get into board games that make Advanced D&D look like snap...

      (I love that, in Excession, Banks effectively predicted the YouTube Influencer/Kardashian character type a decade or so in advance...)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 23 2021, @08:43PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 23 2021, @08:43PM (#1116591)

        Johnny Silverhand is literally *THE* influencer, albeit assumed more as a punk rocker working from within the corporate media franchise to bring down the system, too big to be killed with rabid fans willing to do anything for him in a cultlike manor.

        The archetype he represented (I forget its name in the RPG) is basically the modern social influencer, or someone like Donald Trump. While he's normally one of the weakest of the 'cyberpunk' archetypes, he's an invaluable asset to a party because unlike them who are usually skilled but individualists, he's akin to a demigod, limited only by the followers his charisma and waxing or waning influence can inspire to acts of loyalty he requests.

        And that is a role playing game dating to the 1980s, based on a fiction genre popularized in the early 80s and dating back a number of years prior (although not under the term 'cyberpunk'.)

        It's really too bad the game taking up the namesake mantle overlooked the full breadth of the RPG in designing its storyline and character options. Being a major character like a social influencer could have had all kinds of interesting opportunities for advancing the plot or changing the landscape of the game world.

  • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday February 05 2021, @04:40AM

    by Mykl (1112) on Friday February 05 2021, @04:40AM (#1109189)

    +1. The Culture would be awesome.

    Anyone choosing to live in Westeros is either a Sadist, Masochist, or insane.