CRV463

This episode explores ideas in Ian M. Banks' 1994 essay, "A Few Notes on the Culture." You can find an audiobook version of the essay on The KMO Show feed and on YouTube.

The primary question addressed here is whether future artificial intelligence, perhaps an artificial super intelligence similar to the "Minds" depicted in the Culture novels, could make a planned economy successful in spite of their long track record of failure when implemented by human planners.

More generally, the episode examines whether something approximating a post-scarcity society with roughly equal distribution of benefits and privileges to all inhabitants is possible and what it might look like.

Warning, this episode could send those allergic to hopium into anaphylactic  shock.