early culture is Bush doctrine in space right? Except the Idirans were really equiv-tech and not three civilizational eras behind
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Replying to @danlistensto
I was thinking more of foreign policy in the middle east. "These people are desperate for enlightened democracy and we're going to give it to them by meddling in the region like the enlightened Minds we are. Oh, and bombing anyone we don't like."
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Replying to @ColumPaget
Yes, but that's not exclusive to the Middle East by any means. But again, like, the whole point is that they _aren't_ the good guys. There are no good guys. They just have really nice stuff.
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Replying to @danlistensto
I don't think I've ever met anyone outside of you who took that away from the series. I think it is very dependant on having read the much later works.
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Replying to @ColumPaget
I know, I'm very heterodox. The series is almost universally held up as the example par excelence of fully automated luxury space communism with enlightened humanist characteristics.
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Replying to @danlistensto
Which is exactly my problem with it. Although I love the series as a read, the things most people take away from it give me the creeps.
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Replying to @ColumPaget
most people give me the creeps. Banks was particularly clear about the moral ambiguity and grey areas though. I mean, one of his most memorable Minds is named "Grey Area" (aka Meatfucker)
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Replying to @danlistensto
I'm not sure that's true, tbh. As I recall the 'Gray Area' is looked down upon by other Minds, and I think most people would see this as further proof that the Culture was enlightened and wise, though some of it's members (even Minds) weren't, and were thus ostracised.
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Replying to @ColumPaget
Grey Area is the one who understood that the Minds in the ITG were high on their own righteousness, and he was the only one with the courage to actually engage directly with the anomaly that was causing the whole situation in the first place
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Replying to @danlistensto
ah, what you're saying is "Gray Area did nothing wrong"?
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Gray Area was exactly as wrong as human(oid) history is wrong, which is to say, very wrong, in millions of fascinating new ways, which was Banks' point right?
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