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85491ab
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All food, comfort, energy, shelter, space, fuel and sustenance gravitates naturally and easily away from those who need it most and towards those who need it least.
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inequality
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Iain M. Banks |
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f8021ab
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They also," [the drone] said, "refuse to acknowledge machine sentience fully; they exploit proto-conscious computers and claim only human subjective experience has any intrinsic value -- carbon fascists."
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sarcasm
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Iain M. Banks |
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2bf2123
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Well," the voice said, seemingly oblivious, "one thing that does happen when you live a long time is that you start to realise the essential futility of so much that we do, especially when you see the same patterns of behaviour repeated by succeeding generations and across different species. You see the same dreams, the same hopes, the same ambitions and aspirations, reiterated, and the same actions, the same courses and tactics and strateg..
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Iain M. Banks |
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7b2475a
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M]y determined and strenuous endeavours to take in absolutely nothing of what I had regarded as entirely the most irrelevant part of my schooling had patently not met with total success
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learning
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Iain M. Banks |
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6164ad3
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B]ecause of all his previous attempts to integrate with the rest of society and what he had learned about himself through them - he wanted to be who he was, not the person he would become if he lost the one trait that distinguished him from everybody else, no matter how perverse that decision seemed to others.
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truth-to-self
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Iain M. Banks |
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f3b0d8e
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A]ll her hardships had been self-inflicted and recreational in the past.
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Iain M. Banks |
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2593a26
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no matter how intelligent, perceptive and gifted you were, no matter how entirely you lived for the ascetic rewards of the intellect and eschewed the material world and the ignobility of the flesh, if your heart just gave out . . . That
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Iain M. Banks |
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de70453
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The trick, he supposed, was never to lose sight of the theoretical possibility while not for a moment taking the idea remotely seriously.
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theory
reality
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Iain M. Banks |
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9ff28a3
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Just because that was the start of a thousand sentimental stories didn't mean that it didn't actually happen.
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Iain M. Banks |
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db6983d
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The usual bizarre bio-mix of who-knew-how-many planetary-original blood-lines, all tangled inextricably together with those from an equally unfathomable number of others, boosted with genetech, aug., dashes of chimeric and a hint of some machine in there too, depending. And it didn't doubt that every single one of them would find it absolutely fascinating to stare into a fire, even if that was one thing they were unlikely ever to encounter ..
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Iain M. Banks |
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7666e7e
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Yes," I said. "Temudjin Oh." I'd long got used to the fact that my Mongolian-extraction surname could cause some amusement amongst English speakers determined to extract a toll of discomfiture from somebody whose name was not as banal or as ugly as theirs. However, there was something about the way she pronounced it that immediately brought a blush to my cheeks. Perhaps the sunset would cover my embarassment." --
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Iain M. Banks |
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bb88de8
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Una verdad aparentemente tan trascendental que uno se asombra de que los oprimidos de la Tierra no se subleven envueltos en llamas y rabia. Pero no lo hacen, porque estan tan infectados con el mito del fomento de los propios intereses, o con el veneno de la aceptacion religiosa, que o lo unico que quieren es subir hasta el escalon mas alto para poder cagarse en todos los demas,
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Iain M. Banks |
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d2c2479
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Neeporlax presented something of a contrast.
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Iain M. Banks |
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c4e68d1
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Marain, the Culture's quintessentially wonderful language (so the Culture will tell you), has, as any schoolkid knows, one personal pronoun to cover females, males, in-betweens, neuters, children, drones, Minds, other sentient machines, and every life-form capable of scraping together anything remotely resembling a nervous system and the rudiments of language (or a good excuse for not having either). Naturally, there are ways of specifying ..
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Iain M. Banks |
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8120779
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She'd asked him what it was like to be in there, doing nothing but then being woken up to speak to somebody you couldn't see. He'd said that it was like being woken from a deep and satisfying sleep, to be asked questions while you kept your eyes closed. He was quite happy. Sight was over-rated anyway.
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sarcasm
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Iain M. Banks |
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2ed803e
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Nice people who are beginning to live to a great age - as it were - react with such revulsion to the burgeoning horrors that confront them, they generally prefer suicide. It's only us slightly malevolent types who are able to survive that realisation and find a kind of pleasure - or at least satisfaction - in watching how the latest generation or most recently evolved species can re-discover and beat out afresh the paths to disaster, ignomi..
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Iain M. Banks |
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fe5b071
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A federated disgust, a galaxy of scorn. Us with our busy, busy little lives, finding no better way to pass our years than in competitive disdain.
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Iain M. Banks |
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5437bf5
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Still, the underlying point held; experience as well as common sense indicated that the most reliable method of avoiding self-extinction was not to equip oneself with the means to accomplish it in the first place.
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Iain M. Banks |
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24849dd
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Zakalwe, in all the human societies we have ever reviewed, in every age and every state, there has seldom if ever been a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this simple fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots."' He"
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Iain M. Banks |
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9d7dd55
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But such consummate skill, such ability, such adaptability, such numbing ruthlessness, such a use of weapons when anything could become weapon . . .
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Iain M. Banks |
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035b5a9
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I just think people overvalue argument because they like to hear themselves talk.
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Iain M. Banks |
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bd039bd
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Most people are not prepared to have their minds changed,
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Iain M. Banks |
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81b051a
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I strongly suspect the things people believe in are usually just what they instinctively feel is right; the
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Iain M. Banks |
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39749e7
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That's why you can destroy them, win an argument, prove the other person wrong, and still they believe what they did in the first place." He"
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Iain M. Banks |
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bfc0644
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All you ever were was a piece of the universe thinking to itself
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Iain M. Banks |
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9aed1f1
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genuinely annoyed that the woman could use even something so obviously a testament to the power of intelligence and hard work as an argument for her own system of irrational belief.
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Iain M. Banks |
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02a89ae
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Silence) This from that very pit of night, naked in the wasteland, the ice-wind moaning his only covering, alone in the freezing darkness under a sky of chill obsidian:)
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Iain M. Banks |
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8f5b35e
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It was a beautiful voice. He wanted to reply to it. But he couldn't work out how to. It was very dark. 'Cheradenine?' A very patient voice. Concerned, somehow, but a hopeful voice; a cheerful, even loving voice. He tried to remember his mother. 'Cheradenine?' the voice said again.
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Iain M. Banks |
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6452899
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The very way you think places you among its enemies. This might not be your fault, because every society imposes some of its values on those raised within it, but the point is that some societies try to maximize that effect, and some try to minimize it. You come from one of the latter and you're being asked to explain yourself to one of the former. Prevarication will be more difficult than you might imagine; neutrality is probably impossibl..
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Iain M. Banks |
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3b0aa50
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Concerned, somehow, but a hopeful voice; a cheerful, even loving voice. He tried to remember his mother. 'Cheradenine?' the voice said again.
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Iain M. Banks |
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8d80e13
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one may be partially owned by another or others by having to sell one's labor or talents to somebody with the means to buy them. In
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Iain M. Banks |
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a12d56b
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the rich just bribe their way out. So yes, as far as the rulers are concerned, it works.
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Iain M. Banks |
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a7d35ba
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there was a relief in not being listened to, sometimes. Power meant responsibility. Advice unacted upon almost always have been right
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Iain M. Banks |
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add9c80
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it was the night when people got paid and didn't have to work the next day, and so by tradition went out to get drunk and into fights. Then
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Iain M. Banks |
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41f0e06
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A very patient voice. Concerned, somehow, but a hopeful voice; a cheerful, even loving voice. He tried to remember his mother. 'Cheradenine?' the voice said again. Trying to get him to wake up. But he was awake. He tried moving his lips.
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Iain M. Banks |
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073e8bd
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bipedal, oxygen-breathing carboniform
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Iain M. Banks |
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2e232c2
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Three; - and this would be sufficient reason by itself - what are we supposed to be about, Sma? What is the Culture? What do we believe in, even if it hardly ever is expressed, even if we are embarrassed about talking about it? Surely in freedom, more than anything else. A relativistic, changing sort of freedom, unbounded by laws or laid-down moral codes, but - in the end - just because it is so hard to pin down and express, a freedom of a ..
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Iain M. Banks |
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7b864fb
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So how many infants have to grow up under the shadow of the mushroom cloud, and just possibly die screaming inside the radioactive rubble, just for us to be sure we're doing the right thing? How certain do we have to be? How long must we wait? How long must we make them wait? Who elected us God?
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Iain M. Banks |
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8169157
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Earth is a silly and boring planet. If not, then it is too deeply unpleasant to be allowed to exist! Dammit, there's something wrong with those people! They are beyond redemption and hope! They are not very bright, they are incredibly bigoted, and unbe-fucking-lievably cruel, both to their own kind and any other species that has the misfortune to stray within range, which of course these days means damn nearly every species; and they're slo..
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Iain M. Banks |
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575f34c
|
H]e was one of those people who got to the top of an organisation through luck, connections, the indulgence of superiors and that sort of carelessness towards others that the easily impressed termed ruthlessness and those of a less gullible nature called sociopathy. But sometimes, just through his sheer unthinking brusqueness and inability to think through the consequences of a remark, he said what everybody else was only thinking. A comic ..
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incompetence
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Iain M. Banks |
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21b0c1f
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Sometimes heroics revolted him; they seemed like an insult to the soldier who weighed the risks of the situation and made calm, cunning decisions based on experience and imagination, the sort of unshowy soldiering that didn't win medals but wars.
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war
|
Iain M. Banks |
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237b8b3
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But I don't know what the right thing to do is; I sometimes think I know too much, I've studied too much, learned too much, remembered too much. It all seems to average out, somehow; like dust that settles over... whatever machinery we carry inside us that leads us to act, and puts the same weight everywhere, so that always you can see good and bad on each side, and always there are arguments, precedents for every possible course of action...
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wisdom
|
Iain M. Banks |
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6fa28ca
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Do you want to work with us?" "Everybody seems to think I should; they believe you're fighting the good fight. It's just that... I get suspicious when everybody agrees about something."
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Iain M. Banks |
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94112ba
|
Behind it, still expanding, still radiating, still slowly dissolving in the system to which it had given its name, the unnumbered twinkling fragments of the Orbital called Vavatch blew out toward the stars, drifting on a stellar wind that rang and swirled with the fury of the world's destruction.
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Iain M. Banks |