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Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel
#25
(05-10-2018, 05:37 AM)stevebowers Wrote: I disagree, actually. The concept of 'primtech' is significantly different to Modotech, since it implies that any culture that adopts primtech is deliberately avoiding the use of a wide range of capabilities that would otherwise be freely available to them. Maybe only a minor fraction of all cultures would adopt such a lifestyle, less than one in a thousand, perhaps, but there would be many of them in the Terragen Sphere and I would like to write about more of them.

The idea of primitive reserves was first suggested by Anders Sandberg in the early days of the project, probably inspired by Neverness and other stories by David Zindell. M. Alan Kazlev was also enthusiastic for the idea. I think that the Prim lifestyle would be a choice made by a non-trivial number of people, and this number might increase significantly as the complexity of normal modosophont life increases.

I have nothing at all against writing more about primtech and lo-tech societies in the setting. In fact, we have two distinct Topics for just that purpose that could definitely use some additional articles:

Primitive Tech Societies

Low Tech Societies

That said, it should be noted that:

a) The vast majority of (if not virtually all) such societies described in the setting to date have been written about within the framework of a description of a specific place (usually a planet) and thus appear under the Galactography section. Which is probably a major reason why the two Topics above are so empty. I suppose we could generate links to current and future articles and place them under these Topics - but is that really necessary or wise? Coming at this from the other direction - I have something of a sense that these two Society pages, as well as the other related Topics (Middle, Hi, and Transapientech Societies) are not really serving a clearly defined function or contain clearly defined Articles (much of what is there seems to be a duplicate of articles likely found on the Technology pages. Not arguing to remove them per se - just that we should consider looking into this.

b) The technology pages on the site by and large deal with specific devices and processes that are presumed to found within the setting. Given that we are a high tech/future tech setting and that such devices have extensive articles in RL, including on Wikipedia and elsewhere (or even websites in some cases I'm sure) do we really want to set up articles in the EG on things like bows and arrows, knapping flint, and birchbark canoes? While the prim/lo-tech sophonts of Terragen civ may use those things and much else besides, there are extensive RL online resources for anyone who wants to learn about them - and they do not really do much to describe anything unique about the OA setting (unless you're suggesting some uniquely 'OAish' takes on such things, either on general principles or due to the specific needs of some race or clade).

My 2c worth,

Todd
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Messages In This Thread
Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel - by Drashner1 - 04-08-2018, 08:31 AM
RE: Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel - by selden - 04-09-2018, 04:04 AM
RE: Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel - by Rynn - 04-13-2018, 06:49 PM
RE: Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel - by Rynn - 05-09-2018, 04:32 AM
RE: Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel - by Vaktus - 05-10-2018, 03:07 AM
RE: Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel - by Drashner1 - 05-10-2018, 11:34 AM
RE: Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel - by selden - 05-10-2018, 06:38 AM
RE: Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel - by Vaktus - 05-23-2018, 01:53 PM
RE: Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel - by selden - 06-24-2018, 04:46 AM
RE: Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel - by selden - 07-01-2018, 10:55 PM
RE: Giving the EG a Bit of a Remodel - by selden - 07-22-2018, 03:30 AM

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