# Fictional societal structure/system



## key13 (May 28, 2016)

Is there, in opinions of course, any fictional society structure or system that would really work? Can one even ever exist long term? What would be closest to being perfect for you? Maybe a combination of a few different ones?
what is/are the inevitable downfalls to almost every system ever, no matter what?


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## Aetius (May 28, 2016)

Almost any system can work for a generation, history shows that people will do any amount of innordinate crap if prestened with the right leader and good reason. Their kids and the leaders next replacements carrying on...well that's tricky.

The Catholic church hasn't managed and they get to chose their kin, North Korea struggles for three generations and that's with some major changes.

The truth you take from the past, the lies you tell and the bits you ignore to explain a society are more important that the details or how society works long term because chances are it doesn't.


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## Ray McCarthy (May 29, 2016)

key13 said:


> any fictional society structure or system that would really work?


I can't think of any human suited ones in SF&F (without magic, psychic powers or star travel) that are not actually ones we have or have had.


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## AnyaKimlin (May 29, 2016)

The trouble is one that really works would make for a rubbish story.  They have to be believable rather than realistic.


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## psikeyhackr (May 29, 2016)

I think one of the most interesting is in *Voyage From Yesteryear* by James P. Hogan.
Voyage from Yesteryear - James P. Hogan

One issue in sci-fi is how does this future society "evolve" from the existing society no matter how good or bad it becomes.  Not only is it a thought experiment but it affects the realism of the story.   Hogan has a starship equipped with all of the equipment necessary to raise babies from scratch to a habitable planet and the children are raised by robots.  So they grow up without centuries of cultural baggage and develop their own society with high technology.

But then a larger ship with live colonists is sent decades later and the cultural conflict ensues.

So there is lots to think about in what this story has to say.  It is kind of like pre versus post singularity to a degree.  How do we trash the cultural baggage without leaving the planet?

psik


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## key13 (May 30, 2016)

AnyaKimlin said:


> The trouble is one that really works would make for a rubbish story.  They have to be believable rather than realistic.



True, and now I'm wondering, has there been one created in a fictional story that made you think, you know what? that could really work long term! I think there is also the question of what would be best for the society, or the human race in our instance, in the long term, as in hundreds or thousands of years, vs what we want in the here and now. But then, who, and how, do we decide what is best for the human race for the next thousand years, and begin planning how we get there.
We rarely, if ever, as a society look beyond our own lifetimes, or perhaps our children's, and certainly don't do much to plan beyond that.
Were a group to quietly and gradually break from all current societies, laws, etc to form their own self sustaining community with the sole purpose of advancing mankind....and now to define advanced...LOL


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## Ray McCarthy (May 30, 2016)

key13 said:


> has there been one created in a fictional story that made you think, you know what? that could really work long term!


Yes, but possibly not with people of European or African or South American or Arab or Muslim cultures, though failing for different reasons. You can't erase people's Culture as Japanese found in Korea, UK found in India, French found in Syria, Italians in various places, American's have found more recently in Middle East.


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## psikeyhackr (May 30, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> I can't think of any human suited ones in SF&F (without magic, psychic powers or star travel) that are not actually ones we have or have had.



That is one of the annoying but entertaining things about lots of sci-fi.

Bujold's Vorkosiverse is supposedly 700 years in the future but it looks like they are still doing a 9 to 5 work week.  Sometimes that really annoys me and sometimes I can ignore it and get on with the story and sometimes it is hilarious.  Like the kid going to school in *Komarr*, and the "social commentary" she stuck in there.  Ain't school just psychological conditioning for the 9-to-5?  Of course I didn't think of it that way when I was 10 years old, it was just how things were done and adults knew what they were doing.

We are adults now. Are we supposed to just accept this bullsh!t!?

Does science fiction have a social function?

psik


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## Ray McCarthy (May 30, 2016)

psikeyhackr said:


> We are adults now. Are we supposed to just accept this bullsh!t!?


You going to overthrow our capitalist overlords, Comrade?
At least I won't have to worry about the mortgage when I'm on the pension. It should be paid off about then


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## psikeyhackr (May 31, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> You going to overthrow our capitalist overlords, Comrade?
> At least I won't have to worry about the mortgage when I'm on the pension. It should be paid off about then



LOL

That is the trouble with changing society.  It is something *WE* have to do.  But it seems most people do not understand how important what we think is.  That is why television is so important.  It is our brainwashing technology.  That is why *1984* is important.  But we need to decentralize correctly.  What would a Vulcan society really be like?

Someone told me a few days ago that he got kicked out of an economics class because of this:

Economic Wargames

But how can science fiction fans and futurists not recognize the signicance of technology and economics?

psik


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## psikeyhackr (May 31, 2016)

Ray McCarthy said:


> You going to overthrow our capitalist overlords, Comrade?



That statement advertises the Capitalist/Communist intellectual rut.  If Communist economists are so smart shouldn't they have noticed the Capitalist economists not talking about the depreciation of durable consumer goods in the 50s and told everyone?  The PhD economist Raymond Goldsmith noticed and wrote about it in the 50s but the information disappeared andhe died in 1988.

Supposedly there were one billion cars on the planet in 2010.  Does it make sense to add allofthat junk to GDP and not subtract it when it gets trashed.  Does physics care about economic theory?  Do SF readers know physics?  

psik


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## Ray McCarthy (May 31, 2016)

psikeyhackr said:


> Do SF readers know physics?


Most SF writers either don't or are ignoring it!


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