andrewducker | Utopia, a poll (with other completely unconnected question)

Indeed.

I think the thing about Culture property rights that I found hardest to work out (I think because they issue is never specifically addressed) is what property rights (legally enforcable or culturally enforceable) are there in objects that have sentimental or pyschological value.

In a society in which all goods including real estate and raw energy are so abundent that all possessions are trivially achievable what do I do about say, the kilt I was wearing when I got married or the picture that my daughter made for me when I was sad about something? Although the object is easily replicable if destroyed or stolen it’s not the same object and that might be important to me.

Property rights in private dwellings also fall into that category. I’m not sure that I’m entirely comfortable with a stranger wandering round my home.

There's a bit where IMB talks about how the only real value in the Culture is sentimental value. Possibly in his essay on it rather than the books.

> I’m not sure that I’m entirely comfortable with a stranger wandering round my home.

People would simply know you to be a person who was quite particular about their privacy, and would respect it. You might be thought... eccentric, but in the Culture, who isn't one way or another?

It's been a while since I read any of Banks'commentary on the Culture.

Would they respect it? How could I be sure that they would respect it enough for me to feel comfortable?

Because doing something that would cause someone to feel uncomfortable in the place where they choose to live would be *frightfully* rude.

The Culture may seem like a hedonistic utopia where anything goes, but it's actually got quiet but pretty strict social codes.

Property rights in private dwellings also fall into that category. I’m not sure that I’m entirely comfortable with a stranger wandering round my home.

In the context of the Culture, this is probably better addressed by privacy rights than property rights... and there are bucketloads of privacy rights. (Not that Minds don't violate them on occasion, but they are there; it's the reason telepathy is essentially banned as Not A Good Idea.)

As far as "same object" goes, I don't think that concept has the same currency in the Culture that it does here. After all, mind-states can be stored for later reconstruction and body forms can be reshaped almost at will... continuity of form is rather slippery in context.

-- Steve does wonder whether there there is such a thing as theft in the Culture, at the very least in the "taking a token to count coup on a rival" sense. Or counterfeiting, for that matter.

What would you counterfeit? They don't have money and art seems to be looked down on as a frippery.

Indeed without property shortages intellectual property probably doesn't exist.

Yeah – privacy rights might be a better way of thinking about this than what we would call property rights.

I think my disquite with the set up still exists. The Culture does appear to have very strong rules on the reading of minds by Minds. I’m not sure how far that extends to issues of personal privacy and personal effects. I’m not sure that reframing the question of one of privacy rights takes me much further forward in respect to what the rules are about my personal stuff and the right to privacy that surrounds personal effects and sentimental property.

(I think there is a real gap in the literature that makes quite a lot of this conversation supposition. We’ve never, for example, seen what happens when one character uses the hairbrush of another character without permission).

What makes me think that the rights (property or privacy) are weak is that they appear to depend on retrospective decisions about what is rude*, the sanctions appear to be mainly social exclusion so the penalty for bad behaviour is both arbitrary and subject to privelege and the enforcement of bad behaviour will vary from case to case and individual to individual. So there is no way of telling in advance where the line is or what happens if you cross it.

If I am an unpopular eccentric with very strange views about people messing with my stuff I wonder if I get the same protection against the real and sincere psychological discomfort from having someone “steal” something from me as someone who is popular and considered mainstream would get for their own personal bugbear .

How eccentric do I have to be before my behaviour is so strange that it is no longer rude for people to interfere with me?

The Culture’s system of jurisprudence seems to favour whomever is prepared to be the biggest asshole or whomever has the winningest smile.

*IIRC in Look To Windward the fate of the cable car system was decided retrospectively by a referendum.

The Culture does appear to have very strong rules on the reading of minds by Minds.
I'm not convinced it does. It has a taboo on it (hence the ship nicknamed "Meatfucker"), but no actual rules, as far as I remember.

And yes, I agree. I don't think that it stands up, because it's not important enough to the story for Iain Banks to have thought about it.

And this is perhaps the nub of my point about weak rights.

I read the book refering to Grey Area has having quite strong rules and if I were a Culture ship I'd be thinking "Rightho, no matter how extreme the situation is the one thing I don't ever, ever do is read someone else's mind. That be the Law."

You're taking a slightly different view and calling it a taboo. Still a very strong normative structure but not quite as the same as the view that I took.

The texture of the norms and their enforcement seems a bit vague and a bit retrospective.

And that's okay because pretty much all we're dealing with are bruised feelilngs and I'd take a vague discomfort over the rules governing how much my feelings are allowed to be bruised over a world where it's perfectly legal for me to starve to death and someone currently actually is but still, it upsets the jurist in me.

Steve does wonder whether there there is such a thing as theft in the Culture, at the very least in the "taking a token to count coup on a rival" sense. Or counterfeiting, for that matter

Both of these examples I think touch on my view of the hightenend importance of unique objects where those objects are unique because of some social cache that attaches to them generally or to some sentimental attachment. Where there is no practical limit to the amount or quality of stuff that one can have the only stuff that matters is the stuff that touches on psychological welfare. Stuff that serves as a reminder of a particular relationship or experience or stuff that indicates *you* were *there* or were considered the right sort by someone who was.

Reputation, family history or brand, appears to be quite important to Cultureniks. Entry to Contact and Special Circumstances seems to be important and there are elected positions of prestige. I think it not an unfair assumption that other considerations of status would be important to them.

I am assuming that the elected President of Masaq Orbital would consider her dignity to impeached if the gown she wore at her inaugaral ball was “stolen” and used as a prop in a soap opera.

So using that object to count coup would be “hilarious” for one of her electoral rivals and presumably an electoral rival so motivated would be interested in a counterfeit.

In a society in which all goods including real estate and raw energy are so abundent that all possessions are trivially achievable what do I do about say, the kilt I was wearing when I got married or the picture that my daughter made for me when I was sad about something?

I don't think either of your examples would really exist in the Culture and, if they did, I doubt the Cultureniks would recognise the concept of sentimental attachment to property. Abundance chances everything.

I’m not sure that I’m entirely comfortable with a stranger wandering round my home.

I'd feel the same but that is a produce of living in a particular time and place; I don't think it is particularly useful to project our own current feelings into an entirely different culture.

I doubt the Cultureniks would recognise the concept of sentimental attachment to property.

They may or may not. I don't think the issues are explored much or in much depth in the Culture books so we're both guessing.

Abundance chances everything

I think that where there is abundance then other markers of status and issues of sentimentallity become more, not less, important in our own culture. Rich men used to kill each other over social slights in many cultures. I think that, rather than abundance making people less attached to objects with sentimental connections it would make them more attached.

If the only truly unique objects are those with sentimental attachment then those objects become the only objects with any value. The theft, destruction or interference with these objects becomes not a property crime but a pyschological assault.

I don't think it is particularly useful to project our own current feelings into an entirely different culture.

IIRC the Culture in origen is not so very different from us. If I read State of the Art correctly (and it's been ten years? since I read it) we are similar enough to the founding cultures of the Culture to be considered as a long run candidate for absorbtion.

But, again, I'm guessing because the issues aren't addressed in any detail.

I'd tend to agree that people will still have attachments to things. I could afford to rebuy my Pratchett books trivially, but having them is a memory key to important parts of my life, and that is more important to me than anything else.

and I would suggest that if you were so ultra-rich that the replacement of your library was so trivial then the difference in upset between losing your valued Pratchett's and the books next to them would be larger than if you were at all concerned about the physical cost.

I don't think the issues are explored much or in much depth in the Culture books so we're both guessing.

I'd agree that they aren't exactly explored but we aren't ever shown sentimental attachment to property and we are often shown people with no property whatsoever how just pick up things as they need them. We are also shown that family attachments are much weaker and less sentimental, particularly with respect to children.

Rich men used to kill each other over social slights in many cultures.

True but at all times in history the culture of rich men has been tiny so a social slight was out of all proportion. The Culture is vast, it isn't a competitive, hothouse environment and such slights carry much less weight.

IIRC the Culture in origen is not so very different from us.

So what? There is no point in projecting cultural attitutes from pre-scarcity times onto the current world. The connection through origin is irrelevant.

I'd agree that they aren't exactly explored but we aren't ever shown sentimental attachment to property and we are often shown people with no property whatsoever how just pick up things as they need them

We're not shown that sentimental attachments aren't present. We never see anyone picking up someone's hairbrush from their bedside table and using it or scribbling a shopping list on a love poem given to someone else.

True but at all times in history the culture of rich men has been tiny so a social slight was out of all proportion. The Culture is vast, it isn't a competitive, hothouse environment and such slights carry much less weight.

Also, poor men have killed each other over social slights. When property is meaningless because abundent or totally absent status seems to become much more important.

So what? There is no point in projecting cultural attitutes from pre-scarcity times onto the current world. The connection through origin is irrelevant.

My point with the behaviour of rich men is that rich men represent as close as we've been to a post-scarcity society and they seemed to spend quite a lot of time and energy fighting each other over status issues, cutting each other dead in public, writing literature, discovering things and demanding credit for it or otherwise boosting their social standing.

So I think it a not unreasonable assumption that status continues to matter (and status is seen to matter in a number of ways in the Culture literature). I think if status continues to matter it not an unfair working assumption that some unique objects will retain sufficient importance to an individual that it becomes, in Culture terms, criminally rude to be messing with them.

But only criminally rude if you are not considered attractive, socially successful and well connected.

BTW did you mean to use the word current?

My point with the behaviour of rich men is that rich men represent as close as we've been to a post-scarcity society

I guess my whole comment boils down to the fact that I think this is completely untrue.

BTW did you mean to use the word current?

Yes. It perhaps isn't very elegant but it does the job, even if "contemporary" would have been better.

I guess my whole comment boils down to the fact that I think this is completely untrue.

I'd be interested in hearing more about that.

Yes. It perhaps isn't very elegant but it does the job, even if "contemporary" would have been better.

I'm a bit confused by the use of current here.

I'd be interested in hearing more about that.

Well, I'm not sure what else there is to say. On the one hand, we have a very small amount of rich men who have a lot of property in a society where most people have very little. On the other hand, you have a huge amount of Cultureniks who all have a functionally infinite amount of property. How can the former be any model for the latter?

I'm a bit confused by the use of current here.

If you want me to explain it to you, you'll have to tell me what is confusing you.

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