My reading of the Culture is that it is at best morally ambiguous. The Culture would extinguish entire civilizations that were no threat to it, simply because it was cheaper to do it before they'd developed further in a direction that could be a threat. If I was supposed to be cheering for the Culture I missed it.

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wat10000 18 hours ago | parent [-]

Is there some other Culture than the one I’m familiar with? The one in Banks’ novels isn’t like that at all.

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jeremyjh 16 hours ago | parent [-]

They did it in book two, Player of Games. They destroyed the Empire of Azad because they considered it a distant ideological threat.

	▲	wat10000 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I never got the impression they thought Azad could ever be any sort of threat. They destroyed the power structure because it was horrifically abusive.