I've said before that Musk must have read Surface Detail and assumed Veppers was some kind of 'tragic hero'.
It is remarkable because Banks, as much as I love his writing, is __rarely subtle__ about his beliefs and who the "good guys" are.
(Yes there is a lot of exploration of the grey areas and inhumanities, and thereby legitimately critical questions of the titular society- but Bank's himself has said that he would very much like to live in the Culture, even considering all the uglier parts.)
kelseyfrog · 6h ago
There was a large section of The Boys viewership that didn't understand that Homelander was a bad guy until season four, or that Walter White was Breaking Bad's biggest villain.
Time after time, an astonishingly large number of readers and watchers assume that main characters are good and are unable to fathom that a main character can be bad. Luckily for the rest of us, this is emotional shibboleth that once identified serves as a high-accuracy litmus test for personal engagement.
ghufran_syed · 1h ago
Do you have some kind of reference for this phenomenon? If so it would be very interesting to read. If not, what is this statement based on?
Nursie · 53m ago
See also - A number of fans of "The Man in the High Castle" series on amazon a few years back were expecting it to somehow be a redemption story for the actual chief nazi.
alabastervlog · 6h ago
> It is remarkable because Banks, as much as I love his writing, is __rarely subtle__ about his beliefs and who the "good guys" are.
My wife writes some fiction, and one thing I've learned from observing her interaction with test readers is that no matter how heavy-handed the writing, a fair proportion of readers will still misunderstand it. It's practically impossible to make anything so explicit that nobody will get it wrong, even with a bunch of repetition.
Though, most egregious misreading activity does seem to be confined to the same set of readers, across discussion of her test-reads, other writers she knows' test reads by the same readers, and just general conversation about other published fiction—that is, certain readers struggle to follow seemingly every damn thing they read, while others almost never make these kinds of errors. I find it hard to relate to wanting to continue reading books while being so constantly confused by their content, but they do it anyway. Completely alien to me, their experience of reading must be rather impressionistic and seems unpleasant, but to each their own.
mncharity · 3h ago
> observing her interaction with test readers [...] a fair proportion of readers will still misunderstand it
I did some exploratory education videos, and associated user testing. A hobby project. And I got bitten by what I'm told was a noob mistake - a cartoon character reads a simple sign aloud. Shortly afterward, I'd stop the video for feedback, and get confusion as if the scene wasn't even there. I'd sometimes then replay it, and get "oh yes, this version is much better". Even firm disbelief that they'd already seen it seconds earlier. Apparently the cognitive load spike of having simultaneous reading and listening to do, is known to hammer comprehension of both.
I wonder if there's a body of similar insights for fiction writing. Or transferable insights from say, how to disrupt misunderstandings in science education content. And then, of course, whether these might be made available as automated editor or ghostwriter tooling.
simpaticoder · 6h ago
I'm not so sure about the author's thesis. One quote alone explains it, "it increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence." If indeed Musk believes this, then his actions now matter not at all, except insofar as it either helps or harms the birth of "digital superintelligence". This is a similar "ends justify the means" argument to the "effective altruists" and the general idea to "not miss the forest for the trees", the forest being long-term viability of humanity, the trees being individual well-being.
During peacetime, making such an argument justifies the selfish and destructive action they wanted to take anyway. The framing of the assertion is impossible to make an objective assessment of the success of an action, since such an assessment may take a hundred, or a thousand, years. So really there is no way for anyone to judge whether an act is good or bad in this framework, leaving it only as a matter of judgement of the actor. In this sense, Musk's invocation of Banks is simple megalomania with more steps.
hsshhshshjk · 6h ago
> it increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence.
Isn't this just a restatement of Christianity? Created by an unknowable, all powerful deity with the goal of becoming one with that deity during the rapture?
So I guess it's just super intelligent turtles all the way down?
giraffe_lady · 2h ago
It's just a similarity between millenarian religious movements, which christianity is and this is also. But it isn't the only, most immediate, or most similar predecessor imo.
jiggawatts · 6h ago
Ironically the author of this article missed the key theme that runs throughout the Culture novels: Humans are mere pets in a world where superhuman artificial intelligence exists.
Anyone that wants this future for humanity, wants to be a pet, simple as that.
mpalmer · 42m ago
I think you're going to want some super intelligence on your side eventually
0_gravitas · 6h ago
Calling it _the_ key theme is stretching it quite a bit imo
euroderf · 5h ago
Agreed. The Minds keep us as pets if you want to view it that way, but they have their own "Society of Minds" to keep each other amused and engaged, and it takes very little of their bandwidth to maintain human concentrations and the general regional-galactical operating environment.
jiggawatts · 5h ago
Unlike everything else like the sex changing, it’s in every book and is a plot element instead of mere “background colour”.
All of the big decisions are made by the Minds, and every time a human thinks they’re doing something of their own accord, it is implied (or explicitly stated) that they’re being manipulated by a Mind.
Several of the novels state this outright, including mentioning that Marain, the language of the culture, was explicitly designed to “guide” the thoughts of its human speakers in the “right way” as decided by the Minds that worked on its design. Handcuffs for the human mind so integrated that nobody even realises they’re shackled.
The humans aren’t prisoners, they’re pets allowed to roam “outside”, but they’re not the agents of their future in any real sense.
PS: Horrific betrayal by a highly trusted character in a position of father-like authority is a running theme in Banks’ works. The more utopian and idealistic the scenario, the greater the horror the reader can experience when that is shattered by the realisation that it was all a manipulation.
The Wasp Factory, one of his earlier works, makes this the most explicit with the betrayal of the protagonist’s sexual identity by their own father, but since that book Banks has learned to make this theme less explicit and more implicit, waiting for the reader to discover it on their own and have the “Oh. Ohhhh! Oh God.” moment. Clearly many people missed it in the later Culture books…
AlotOfReading · 3h ago
There's actually a scene in one of the books (Consider Phlebas I think?) where the SC character explicitly has a hobby of mountain climbing without all the safety devices the culture has to take away fatal consequences, against the advice and wishes of the minds.
There are other books too where people leave the culture (including entire worlds) and do whatever. Banks is careful to write very meaningful agency into the culture to make it a utopia rather than some paternalistic pet thing.
The only case where that kind of doesn't apply is special circumstances and the interesting times gang, which are heavily controversial within the culture and are explicitly pointed out as solutions that exist outside the normal moral fabric of society.
jiggawatts · 3h ago
> There are other books too where people leave the culture (including entire worlds) and do whatever.
The direct analogy is a pet that ran away into the forest.
This is the “exception that proves the rule”.
sidibe · 4h ago
A pet who gets whatever they want and is encouraged to find and do what makes them happy. Feeling important and actually doing things that feel important is nice but if AI is better than you at everything its the best we can expect we can expect with AI.
I get how it can be dystopian to people who live for competition or just need to feel useful but we need to adapt if AI is going to be better than us at any jobs to feel fulfilled with recreation and hobbies. It's doable, retirees have to face this situation with a bunch of additional stress they don't have in the Culture
giraffe_lady · 2h ago
I think you missed the key theme that human lives still have meaning on their own terms even in a world where personal achievement & competitive excellence do not. The stories are about the struggles of individual humans to discover those terms for themselves, but the work doesn't attempt to show that this quest is impossible or futile.
theothertimcook · 7h ago
“If you must know, I am a utopian anarchist of the kind best described by Iain Banks,”
aloisdg · 7h ago
I guest Musk cant difference between anarchism and libertarianism
jbu · 6h ago
“That's libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.” - Kim Stanley Robinson
krapp · 6h ago
To be fair, I've always considered libertarians to be, for the most part, anarchists who won't commit.
euroderf · 5h ago
This seems fair+true. "Libertarian anarchists" is like "jumbo olives".. they want to build their castles in the sky in a free-floating environment that is only free in the particular way that they want; violators will be persecuted.
It is remarkable because Banks, as much as I love his writing, is __rarely subtle__ about his beliefs and who the "good guys" are.
(Yes there is a lot of exploration of the grey areas and inhumanities, and thereby legitimately critical questions of the titular society- but Bank's himself has said that he would very much like to live in the Culture, even considering all the uglier parts.)
Time after time, an astonishingly large number of readers and watchers assume that main characters are good and are unable to fathom that a main character can be bad. Luckily for the rest of us, this is emotional shibboleth that once identified serves as a high-accuracy litmus test for personal engagement.
My wife writes some fiction, and one thing I've learned from observing her interaction with test readers is that no matter how heavy-handed the writing, a fair proportion of readers will still misunderstand it. It's practically impossible to make anything so explicit that nobody will get it wrong, even with a bunch of repetition.
Though, most egregious misreading activity does seem to be confined to the same set of readers, across discussion of her test-reads, other writers she knows' test reads by the same readers, and just general conversation about other published fiction—that is, certain readers struggle to follow seemingly every damn thing they read, while others almost never make these kinds of errors. I find it hard to relate to wanting to continue reading books while being so constantly confused by their content, but they do it anyway. Completely alien to me, their experience of reading must be rather impressionistic and seems unpleasant, but to each their own.
I did some exploratory education videos, and associated user testing. A hobby project. And I got bitten by what I'm told was a noob mistake - a cartoon character reads a simple sign aloud. Shortly afterward, I'd stop the video for feedback, and get confusion as if the scene wasn't even there. I'd sometimes then replay it, and get "oh yes, this version is much better". Even firm disbelief that they'd already seen it seconds earlier. Apparently the cognitive load spike of having simultaneous reading and listening to do, is known to hammer comprehension of both.
I wonder if there's a body of similar insights for fiction writing. Or transferable insights from say, how to disrupt misunderstandings in science education content. And then, of course, whether these might be made available as automated editor or ghostwriter tooling.
During peacetime, making such an argument justifies the selfish and destructive action they wanted to take anyway. The framing of the assertion is impossible to make an objective assessment of the success of an action, since such an assessment may take a hundred, or a thousand, years. So really there is no way for anyone to judge whether an act is good or bad in this framework, leaving it only as a matter of judgement of the actor. In this sense, Musk's invocation of Banks is simple megalomania with more steps.
Isn't this just a restatement of Christianity? Created by an unknowable, all powerful deity with the goal of becoming one with that deity during the rapture?
Ironically, many of the alien species in Banks's novels have "sublimation" as their goal. Their idea is to transcend space and time. https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sublimed
So I guess it's just super intelligent turtles all the way down?
Anyone that wants this future for humanity, wants to be a pet, simple as that.
All of the big decisions are made by the Minds, and every time a human thinks they’re doing something of their own accord, it is implied (or explicitly stated) that they’re being manipulated by a Mind.
Several of the novels state this outright, including mentioning that Marain, the language of the culture, was explicitly designed to “guide” the thoughts of its human speakers in the “right way” as decided by the Minds that worked on its design. Handcuffs for the human mind so integrated that nobody even realises they’re shackled.
The humans aren’t prisoners, they’re pets allowed to roam “outside”, but they’re not the agents of their future in any real sense.
PS: Horrific betrayal by a highly trusted character in a position of father-like authority is a running theme in Banks’ works. The more utopian and idealistic the scenario, the greater the horror the reader can experience when that is shattered by the realisation that it was all a manipulation. The Wasp Factory, one of his earlier works, makes this the most explicit with the betrayal of the protagonist’s sexual identity by their own father, but since that book Banks has learned to make this theme less explicit and more implicit, waiting for the reader to discover it on their own and have the “Oh. Ohhhh! Oh God.” moment. Clearly many people missed it in the later Culture books…
There are other books too where people leave the culture (including entire worlds) and do whatever. Banks is careful to write very meaningful agency into the culture to make it a utopia rather than some paternalistic pet thing.
The only case where that kind of doesn't apply is special circumstances and the interesting times gang, which are heavily controversial within the culture and are explicitly pointed out as solutions that exist outside the normal moral fabric of society.
The direct analogy is a pet that ran away into the forest.
This is the “exception that proves the rule”.
I get how it can be dystopian to people who live for competition or just need to feel useful but we need to adapt if AI is going to be better than us at any jobs to feel fulfilled with recreation and hobbies. It's doable, retirees have to face this situation with a bunch of additional stress they don't have in the Culture
Anarchosyndicalism or GTFO. YMMV.