Pets can't leave though? A number of the Culture stories (e.g. "The State of the Art") describe Culture citizens who left the Culture - in that story for 1970s Earth.

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marssaxman 3 hours ago | parent [-]

My wife's pet cat leaves and returns whenever he wants to. While he may not share our capacity for language, his communication of his preferences - nay, requirements - was clear, forceful, sustained, and (eventually) effective.

If a Culture mind were faced with human behavior equivalent to pissing on everything but the litterbox and bolting for the door at every opportunity, I imagine they'd eventually get tired of playing jailer and let their pets go, too.

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arethuza 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The stories make it pretty clear that if you want to leave you can just leave (maybe slightly different if you are an SC operative)? Similarly the Culture is fairly open minded about immigration to the Culture - but they worry about that looking like a form of colonialism so it's not like they advertise it...

	▲	marssaxman 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's certainly true - the minds obviously do care what their humans want, and go to some effort to help them get it. I just thought the idea that "pets can't leave" was funny and not entirely true, given some of the experiences I've had with them.