Page 1 of 3

How many cultures?

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:05 pm
by Infected Mushroom
Please consider the following hypothetical:

You are a deity and you are building a new Earth. In populating the Earth, you’ve decided that your creations (10 million of them) will start with altered memories of the past. Your 10 million people will believe that the land, the country, the traditions have always been there and they are part of a longer history and heritage, that they’ve had non existent childhoods and pasts. The planet’s geology, existing buildings, and memories... everything is carefully set to promote this.

Unlike current Earth, this Earth will only have One Nation.

Your original plan was that all 10 million will believe they are part of the same culture, one nation, one race, one version of history.

However, someone else suggests that this will make for a boring world and one where the full range of human potential (as brought about by different cultures, different races, different traditions, religions, ways of looking at the world) won’t be realized. They suggest you alter the memories and appearances so that you start with a multicultural rather than uni cultural society.

The rules are that once you set the ball in motion, you have to leave (you can watch but you can’t intervene).

So then what do you do?

Do you make the One Nation a multiracial and multicultural society at the start? One that starts with a tolerant consensus maybe (though there’s no guarantee it would last)?

Or do you just make everyone one culture, one religion, one tradition, one race?

Consider the advantages of multiculturalism vs homogeneity.

I’d make everyone One. I think this creates the most unified society; I don’t see inherent value in making things pluralistic by default. History is full of breakdowns (ex Austria-Hungary breaking apart and the UK in danger of dissolution) because politicians will exploit the differences.


Please assume that human nature cannot be changed and use what you know about human nature from IRL history and personal observation.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:07 pm
by Borderlands of Rojava
Step 1. Plant the seed in the mind of many men to try to reach God.

Step 2. The people begin constructing a tower to try to get to me.

Step 3. Change the language of men into many different ones so they can't understand each other.

Step 4. https://youtu.be/T1xEyQgTWCA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:09 pm
by Heloin
Your one culture people begins building a tower.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:27 pm
by Infected Mushroom
Heloin wrote:Your one culture people begins building a tower.


Towers will be built yes.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:31 pm
by Jestar Falls
Hard to say. if you had only one culture, race, etc. it would get boring. However, multiculturalism can cause a lot of conflicts as it does in our world. religious wars, racism, and other stuff that is not too good. But overall I'd say a multi-culture would be better.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:32 pm
by Disgraces
Only one.
Uniformity = boring world = utopia

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:35 pm
by Heloin
Infected Mushroom wrote:
Heloin wrote:Your one culture people begins building a tower.


Towers will be built yes.

No... one tower... nevermind.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:39 pm
by Kowani
Heloin wrote:
Infected Mushroom wrote:
Towers will be built yes.

No... one tower... nevermind.

quit babbling, hel :p

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:40 pm
by Loeje
Heloin wrote:Your one culture people begins building a tower.

I was going to make that joke.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:43 pm
by Qwertyuiopa
Easy, infect within them several different ideas on that their ideology is the best and let them have it

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:03 pm
by Infected Mushroom
Qwertyuiopa wrote:Easy, infect within them several different ideas on that their ideology is the best and let them have it


I don’t think we want to replicate NSG on Earth 2... right?

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:17 pm
by Disgraces
Infected Mushroom wrote:
Qwertyuiopa wrote:Easy, infect within them several different ideas on that their ideology is the best and let them have it


I don’t think we want to replicate NSG on Earth 2... right?

Isn't that the world already?

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:20 pm
by Suriyanakhon
I'm pretty much fine with giving them all a monoculture, and the idea that there isn't huge variations in single cultures is untrue.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:22 pm
by Heloin
Infected Mushroom wrote:
Qwertyuiopa wrote:Easy, infect within them several different ideas on that their ideology is the best and let them have it


I don’t think we want to replicate NSG on Earth 2... right?

Give a group of people a week and they’ll find they have a difference between a identical group of people of the same size and make up who’s only real difference is not being them. The idea of a mono culture only exists so long as there is another culture to compare it to. Without that then a single group will always become many. This is what will always happen. Unless you lobotomise them all I guess...

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:26 pm
by The Free Joy State
I mean... even if you began with one culture, there would be divisions over whether the God said this or said that, or what his actions meant. As the OP says:

Infected Mushroom wrote:The rules are that once you set the ball in motion, you have to leave (you can watch but you can’t intervene).


Since such schisms occur entirely naturally and trying to prevent them -- clearly, just look at the real world -- falls beyond the remit of God, I see there being little point in creating a new world with only one culture.

May as well create different cultures from the start and create a more interesting world.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:27 pm
by Great Algerstonia
I will make every human have completely different and contrasting cultural values. Everyone's culture values will be unique to themselves. Then I will watch the chaos.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:46 pm
by Dakini
In your singular culture world, I don't think what you'd have are humans. Humans make their own cultures even when starting from the same general background (not that you've necessarily started everyone with the same background since having a shared history and initial culture doesn't mean that everything is the same (e.g. does everyone have the same sexual orientation in your world?).

I mean, look at LGBT+ culture or the various music cultures or fashion cultures. Look at language dialects and accents that gradually evolved apart over time. Without rigid enforcement of cultural norms, humans tend to do their own thing.

Now if you're talking about some non-human creatures then maybe they tend toward sameness or something, which sounds boring, but maybe these non-humans are fine with that.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:51 pm
by Tsaivao
Make exactly 9,183 cultures.

If the number sounds arbitrary, it's fine. It's gonna diverge/converge anyway, so the starting seed honestly doesn't matter too much.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:51 pm
by Infected Mushroom
Dakini wrote:In your singular culture world, I don't think what you'd have are humans. Humans make their own cultures even when starting from the same general background (not that you've necessarily started everyone with the same background since having a shared history and initial culture doesn't mean that everything is the same (e.g. does everyone have the same sexual orientation in your world?).

I mean, look at LGBT+ culture or the various music cultures or fashion cultures. Look at language dialects and accents that gradually evolved apart over time. Without rigid enforcement of cultural norms, humans tend to do their own thing.

Now if you're talking about some non-human creatures then maybe they tend toward sameness or something, which sounds boring, but maybe these non-humans are fine with that.


I was thinking of culture in terms of ethnic, religious and linguistic based cultures (ex Korean culture, Punjabi culture)

So the sexual orientations wouldn’t be encapsulated as I see it as a non-racial biological differences/variation more so than a culture

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:53 pm
by -Astoria-
Infected Mushroom wrote:
Qwertyuiopa wrote:Easy, infect within them several different ideas on that their ideology is the best and let them have it


I don’t think we want to replicate NSG on Earth 2... right?

Too late.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:09 pm
by Infected Mushroom
Tsaivao wrote:Make exactly 9,183 cultures.

If the number sounds arbitrary, it's fine. It's gonna diverge/converge anyway, so the starting seed honestly doesn't matter too much.


And you hope they will get along? And be friends?

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:30 pm
by Tsaivao
Infected Mushroom wrote:
Tsaivao wrote:Make exactly 9,183 cultures.

If the number sounds arbitrary, it's fine. It's gonna diverge/converge anyway, so the starting seed honestly doesn't matter too much.


And you hope they will get along? And be friends?

I hope that, as their god, I'll give them the brainpower to make up their own mind. But if I cannot actively enforce cooperation, then I think it would be impossible for any starting condition to guarantee total cooperation, at least as far as humans are concerned.

So I'll just spit out an arbitrarily large number and see what funky stuff happens

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:53 pm
by The Free Joy State
Heloin wrote:
Infected Mushroom wrote:
I don’t think we want to replicate NSG on Earth 2... right?

Give a group of people a week and they’ll find they have a difference between a identical group of people of the same size and make up who’s only real difference is not being them. The idea of a mono culture only exists so long as there is another culture to compare it to. Without that then a single group will always become many. This is what will always happen. Unless you lobotomise them all I guess...

Technically, even after a (modern) lobotomy, people are still supposed to be able to feel things -- (formerly, when it was performed with an ice-pick... not so much; they did basically leave people incapable of independent thought).

But, suppose a deity did decide to create humanity incapable of any idea that hadn't been implanted at creation, feeling nothing that had not been ordained, and incapable of truly free-will... would such a creation, designed for none of the species to be sapient (for reason, for independent thought, for new ideas) or even fully sentient, be human beings, as we understand them?

And what kind of God would remove free-will in this way?

PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:04 am
by Heloin
The Free Joy State wrote:
Heloin wrote:Give a group of people a week and they’ll find they have a difference between a identical group of people of the same size and make up who’s only real difference is not being them. The idea of a mono culture only exists so long as there is another culture to compare it to. Without that then a single group will always become many. This is what will always happen. Unless you lobotomise them all I guess...

Technically, even after a (modern) lobotomy, people are still supposed to be able to feel things -- (formerly, when it was performed with an ice-pick... not so much; they did basically leave people incapable of independent thought).

But, suppose a deity did decide to create humanity incapable of any idea that hadn't been implanted at creation, feeling nothing that had not been ordained, and incapable of truly free-will... would such a creation, designed for none of the species to be sapient (for reason, for independent thought, for new ideas) or even fully sentient, be human beings, as we understand them?

And what kind of God would remove free-will in this way?

Wasn't that the plot to the Lego Movie :p

PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:05 am
by Infected Mushroom
Tsaivao wrote:
Infected Mushroom wrote:
And you hope they will get along? And be friends?

I hope that, as their god, I'll give them the brainpower to make up their own mind. But if I cannot actively enforce cooperation, then I think it would be impossible for any starting condition to guarantee total cooperation, at least as far as humans are concerned.

So I'll just spit out an arbitrarily large number and see what funky stuff happens


While I don’t think there’s a way to reduce conflict probability to absolute zero, you can delay/minimize that probability in some ways

Two ways to approach the hypothetical:

1. Focus on the intrinsic/artistic/ideological value of multiculturalism vs homogeneity (ex viewing linguistic plurality as an inherent capital g Good regardless of effects on conflict)

Or

2. Focus on trying to minimize the probability of conflicts and divisions for as many years as possible and to the greatest extent as believed possible