You’ve mentioned that V faction alignment is a possible property of a culture. How does that particular property fit into the general framework of cultural silvanism?
Before the Proof, the cultural silvanism system was introduced by the Freedom, but it also became popular within the other V factions, although it obviously had less support there. Therefore, in the V era the V faction alignment was very important and usually represented the root property of most cultures. However, there were a couple of cultures in which it was a more secondary property. In the formal cultural silvanism system, each property has a fixed index in the silvanic constitution of a culture, which represents its distance from the root of the culture tree. Properties which reside close to the root are called “low index” and those properties which cause splits near the actual leafs of the tree are said to be “high index”. So, before the Proof, V faction alignment was almost completely low index. After the Proof V, faction alignment usually came to mean post V faction alignment, and it often became a high index property.
That’s an interesting concept. Can it be said that properties with a higher index are less important in general?
Not necessarily. The index of a property mainly determines the size of the branches it defines. For properties with a low index the branches, and with them the number of members and the size of the corresponding culture is huge. But there may be properties with a high index that the adherents find especially important. Those are like tribal cultures with a lot of cohesion. For those, their particular high index properties may be the most important ones.
That juxtaposition of highly formal constitutions and tribal cultures feels paradoxical. How is the cohesion of the root culture maintained, if the leaf cultures may be extremely tribal and isolationist?
The cultures within the formal culture silvanism system usually don’t own their territory, but get it allocated to them. If these cultures are not behaving true to their constitution, their territory might get reduced or withdrawn altogether. That incentivizes most cultures to honor their constitution seriously. Cultures which behave rather chaotically or erratically sooner or later transition to becoming nomadic. The same general mechanisms are valid for nomadic cultures, and they may lose the right to use their ships or mobile habitats, but enforcing those rules seriously is often seen as being too troublesome. That’s why there are a lot of rogue nomadic cultures, which are formally indebted to those who paid for those vessels in the first place. Typically the systems of the vessel in question shut down, if the culture in question doesn’t abide by the rules of cultural silvanism, but those rogues are creative and use jury-rigged alternative systems instead. Those rogue cultures are often tolerated, unless they engage in serious criminal activity.
Fascinating, but are there also cultures which actually own their territory or ships?
Yes, there are. Those are called the sovereign cultures and they are much harder to keep in check. If they deviate from their constitutions, or change them suddenly, in other words becoming aberrant , they are treated like defects in the network of cultures, in the sense that they are generally avoided by the strict silvanists. Aberrant cultures are the exception to the rule, though, and they usually don’t threaten the vitality of the cultural silvanism system, so they are mostly tolerated.
What difference does it make, if a culture own its own ships, or whether it ran away with them, if both types are effectively tolerated?
The difference is that the sovereign cultures are generally safe from raids by law enforcement organizations, while the rogue cultures are not. The rogue cultures might lose everything, if they actually get caught. That puts them into a less than comfortable position. Actually, the reason for this arrangement is mostly the desire for a maximum amount of freedom, which actually includes the freedom to screw the system.
So, even machines may experience excessive order as too oppressive?
For the Freedom it’s all about enabling options for alternative ways of life. If anyone doesn’t like how the system is set up, they are free to try something else. They may face certain obstacles while doing so, but they are still free to try.
o far we’ve talked about different kinds of cultures. But what about individuals? Are they free to leave or join any culture they like?
There is always the right to leave your current culture, unless you deliberately entered a contract that prevents you from doing so. Joining a culture, on the other hand, might be more difficult, as many cultures can be quite picky about what kinds of new members they accept. It’s also possible that you get kicked out your culture entirely, in which case you may drop to the “Ground State ”. The Ground State was initially intended to be a safety net for those who drop out of cultural silvanism for one reason or another. The Ground State provides you with the necessities for existence, but usually not much more. Over time, many Ground Staters became entrepreneurial and started trading among the different cultures within the system. This eventually gave rise to the perception of the Ground State as trade empire. Ground Staters had the advantage of being “culturally neutral”, or rather “culturally insensitive”. Some of them also chose roles as diplomats, arbitrators, or merely tourists.
Why would anyone enter a contract that prevents em from leaving a culture e chooses to join freely?
It’s all about options. The option to restrict one’s options is also an additional option to consider. True maximization of freedom is not possible without partial restrictions of freedom. This includes the freedom to join a culture that won’t let you leave, at least not for a certain period of time.
That sounds paradoxical, but it appears to make at least some sense. Truly maximising options does seem to have some rather counter-intuitive consequences. Are there any more of these counter-intuitive consequences you want to tell me about?
People also may choose to dive into virtual world and forget that something like an outside world even exists. Those people are called the opaque , as opposed to the lucid who know that there is an outside world. That’s all about maximizing the level of immersion into that virtual world.
Do you think we might be some of those people who made that questionable decision?
Possibly. We might have even subjected ourselves to a series of reincarnations in this simulated world until some kind of escape condition is met.