Comment by ThrowawayR2
2 days ago
It might be Banks utopia but the Culture seems more like Calhoun's rat utopia experiment to me or Douglas Adams' "long dark teatime of the soul". There's nothing to strive for, there's nothing one could do that hasn't been done better by a quadrillion other beings and utterly eclipsed by the Minds. It's so spiritually sterile that a ships crew collectively gives themselves a cold (normally prevented by their medical tech) just for the sake of the experience and breaking the monotony of their existence.
ah, you now understand: we live in an meaningless universe. Your mistake is thinking struggle, or suffering, gives it meaning.
It doesn't.
Edgy but I would agree that struggle doesn't give existence meaning in any cosmic, philosophical, or mathematical sense. However, the need for it seems to be something hardwired into living beings, without which they wither away. Struggle and suffering might be considered a necessary, if unpleasant, nutrient of sorts.
Nothing edgy about existentialism, which the Culture always forces us to confront up close.
>struggle [...] hardwired into living beings, without which they wither away
The reason Sisyphus is happy (or so we imagine) is not because he's struggling for all eternity
You’re getting down-voted when this premise is the core theme of The Hydrogen Sonata!
Both Vyr Cossont and Ngaroe QiRia are so bored with their meaningless existence that they have to go out of their way to invent “life tasks” and other challenges to immerse themselves in.
Not to mention the scene where a ship mind casually crushes the spirits of Vyr by perfectly playing a piece on its first attempt that she struggled with for years!
> Both Vyr Cossont and Ngaroe QiRia are so bored with their meaningless existence that they have to go out of their way to invent “life tasks” and other challenges to immerse themselves in.
While there are some types of people that would be bored and would struggle in Culture-style utopia, I think for overwhelming majority of people it would still be a massive improvement over today's world.