Questions tagged [social-norms]
For questions asking about current or future normal behavior in a given society.
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Could a humantaur in the US be accepted to West Point and/or have a career in the US Military?
For the last seventeen years, Kerner Syndrome children, known colloquially as humantaurs (as in the image below, having a fully functional second abdomen and second pair of legs, plus a horse-like ...
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Why would a society persecute people who are antisocial misanthropes (sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists, and sadists)? [closed]
An alternate-historical story is set in a third-world country in 1977 of the Gregorian calendar (the year George Lucas' masterpiece, Star Wars, was released). The country is a Costa Rica pastiche (...
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How would California Child Protective Services deal with a feral humantaur child?
For the last thirteen years, Kerner Syndrome children, known colloquially as humantaurs (as in the image below, having a fully functional second abdomen and second pair of legs, plus a horse-like tail ...
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How fast can you radically change society without violence? (And when has it happened?)
The Backstory (Actually important)
From the current day to an unspecified number of decades in the future, a brutally efficient, totalitarian dystopia-state rises and runs basically all of humanity ...
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What psychological strategies could be used for keeping an anti-military crew as close to military doctrine as possible?
I hope this question isn't too broad to be answered and clear enough (which I have a hard time figuring out by myself).
Context:
In this Earth-like world the society is still quite retrograde in the ...
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Why would an advanced civilization keep slavery? [closed]
In my world, there is a country made up of mostly demons (a species) and ghouls. Their economy is both capitalistic and mercantilistic, and their government is a constitutional dictatorship. Currently,...
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Is it reasonable to assume the near-extinction of women?
The world of Ruquelis has some problems. It is populated by men, women and winged lilim as in this question: How to get the Lilim to breed true?. People on Ruquelis reincarnate according to the ...
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Impacts of matricentric reproductive laws [closed]
My world is a matricentric America that holds men legally responsible for unplanned pregnancies. Roughly, the idea is that if an unplanned pregnancy occurs and the woman does not get an abortion, the ...
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Is it reasonable that a nation reject reincarnation?
On my world, a magical device known as a Reincarnation Anchor (RA) was invented. The effect of a RA is that any human who spends a significant portion of their life within sight range of a RA becomes ...
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A subtle war between the sexes
In this question, I detail a world with a third human sex, lilim, who have bat-like wings and taloned feet like a bird's. The TL;DR is that lilim give birth to equal numbers of men, women and lilim (...
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How complex can racism get? [closed]
In my world, there are humans and a variety of fantasy races. Of course, due to instinct, there is going to be racism and forms of discrimination. For realism, and just tired of the usual fantasy ...
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Why would murids (such as rats and mice) be sacred animals?
In a future web-series I want to create, there is a species of massive humanoids named giants (Homo gigas) (technically, there are still humans, just not Homo sapiens). They are less social than ...
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How does interspecies romance work between fantasy races? [closed]
In my world, most of the fantasy races are very different from the typical. While there are some like ghouls, trolls, etc., there are animal people races instead of elves and dwarves. At some point, ...
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What would be the differences between our society and one where almost everyone is half-sisters? [closed]
Imagine a medieval society composed entirely of women, with some small number of machines (let's say 7) which can take material from two women and combines it to create an embryo that's implanted in ...
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What would social media look like in a setting where communication wasn't instant, and where content quality might be deliberately downgraded?
It's the near future, humanity has discovered a new element in the asteroid field that allows faster than light travel and communication through a brute force methods that's largely handwaved away at ...
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Could it ever become a custom for human women to breed with ogres?
I'm in the process of constructing a fantasy world that resembles our world and is predominantly inhabited by humans just like us, but which also contains ogres. The ogres in this world are between ...
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How can i make my worldbuilding magical, fun and a little dark, but still maintain realism? [closed]
I'm trying to make a character, and I'm first creating their world, but I'm can't figure out whether I want it to be all magical or more realistic. Helluva Boss did this great. It took place in hell, ...
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Would an extra-terrestrial human settlement rely on their endogenous or environmental rhythmic cycles to set their routines?
Setting: We have settled a planet with days and years not even approximately like earth. The settlers must decide what their workday is and their week, year, etc.
Premise: Colonists will establish ...
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How to design a realistic school with coed rooms?
I am trying to design a "progressive", every high schooler's dream high school/boarding school where grades 9-12 attend (but could make it just the more senior years if that would work ...
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Why would great white sharks be sacred animals?
In a future web-series I want to create, there is a species of massive humanoids named giants (Homo maximus) (technically, they are still humans, just not Homo sapiens). They are less social than ...
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If a civilization has biotechnology, why do they still prefer mechanical augmentations?
Background
This is a sci-fi setting. People there have advanced biotechnologies, being able to edit the genetic code of embryos (governmentally enforced to be strictly regulated and only for medical ...
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How do werewolves cope with integration into human society with tough ban on transformation? [closed]
In my world werewolves are humans but would transform into part man part wolf when they stares at round and shiny object such as a full moon, the humans knew about it and even extended their welcome ...
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Why is there a universal (both de jure and de facto) ban on necromancy in the world despite xenophobia and distrust between countries?
The world consist of several different countries who are no strangers to being at war with each other. Even more, some countries are ruled by different races, like humans, elves, dwarves, etc. Racism ...
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What would realistically be the secret base for someone who can teleport?
In this world, mutant animals and humans exist on earth, along with regular people. The MC can instantly teleport anywhere on earth freely (his super-power) no matter the distance, and can teleport ...
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What would be the societal effects of a human subspecies that can live for 200-500 years, and look young until death? [closed]
The basic conceit is this: the human subspecies in question has some magical abilities, and thanks to them every single member of their society has extreme ability to stay young and healthy until ...
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Creating a Society of Warrior Nymphs
Yep, it's another Nymph-related question!
Recap:
Nymphs are "born" when large amounts of residual life force (say, in a town cemetery or slaughterhouse) build up and combine with the magic ...
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Could a group of nobles in a tolkienesque society repress knowledge belonging to their children?
With reference to how society works in a classical idea of tolkienesque worlds, could a group of nobles stop a warning reaching the king, from the peasant children?
Assume that the nobles don't want ...
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How Would A Society of PCs Deal With Overpowered Individuals? [closed]
Background: Through use of a reality-altering force, people were brought into a fantasy-style MMORPG (as PCs) on a whole new continent made just for them and formed a society. These people all hold ...
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What Would The Result of Tangible Chaos Be On The Military?
Backup Information:
This world is similar to ours, but it has a substance called Desonia that acts as a manifestation of chaos. Once damaged, Desonia integrates itself into whatever damaged it. If an ...
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A functional fatalistic daredevil civilization in history?
I have been reading about fatalism: the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable. It made me consider designing a fictional civilization based around fatalism, but with the ...
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What would lead an entire country to systematically ignore home invasion, theft and vandalism from 1 particular person? [closed]
Evie is reading a book, when L. runs into her house, smashes all the pots, rifles through her wardrobe and runs off with her life savings and a bottle of red liquid. She doesn't even look up.
Carl is ...
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Why does fantasy racism exist in my world if there isn't a reason for it? [closed]
In order for you to be able to hate a certain group of people, they must fulfill two criteria:
They're within your vicinity
You have some a (real or perceived) conflict of interests with them
In my ...
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What circumstances would lead art and artisan works to be considered 'worthless' or detrimental in society?
Context: I'm looking for justification of the above in my story so I can have clandestine artists.
But I'm having a little dificulty finding a situation in which art becomes to inherenty detrimental ...
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AGII Virus broke out, how does world surrive?
I am planning to start a post apocalypse centered web comic, however apocalypse is more social in nature, i.e no zombies or nukes for you.
In near future AGII (Acute Gerontophobia Inducing Infection, ...
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Linguistics in a society with contrapositive thermodynamic philosophy
Our philosophy is based on the concept of energy as a positive, because we generally live on a planet in a low energy state which does work via fuel. As such, we don’t really have articulate language ...
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Societal implications of a portion of the population possessing immortality?
Background Info: All human beings possess magic in some way, shape, or form. This magic can express itself in a variety of ways, which is where the different types of magic-users come into play (...
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Books about Insults Across Cultures
I am trying to come up with insults and swears for some fictional races. Their cultures pretty well mapped out, but I am still having some trouble. I figured the best source of inspiration would be to ...
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What would happen to transgender culture/identity if sex were trivially chanageable? [closed]
This is a specific followup to the question 'How would society be different in a world where sex/gender is trivially changable?': in a future (Human, earth) society where (like in the Culture novels), ...
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Alternatives to a modern world that uses unemployed as a resource [closed]
In a human, modern, developed, technological world, the benefits of modernism begin to deliver bad results. It takes a huge force to concentrate in large cities, housing is unaffordable, jobs have ...
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What work is there to do in the sky?
So, it's the future and society has long since became divided upon distinct lines of rich and poor. The rich upper-class living a life of luxury and the poor lower-classes living each day at a time, ...
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Why do the rich want to live on the ground?
So, it's the future and society has long since became divided upon distinct lines of rich and poor. The rich upper-class living a life of luxury and the poor lower-classes living each day at a time, ...
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What's the best way to store genetic material in a dystopian environment?
In this setting, the family unit is based around a clan system. An individual's wealth and status is related to the clan they are born in, and its ancestry is based on matrilineal lines. Due to ...
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How can society based on strict gender roles be "fair and balanced"?
House Kardashian is a large clan in westeros that is made up of different clans, each further broken down into different families. Members of this house have genes which allows them to access Mana ...
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What role can lineage play when males have no legitimate heirs?
House Kardashian is a large clan in westeros that is made up of different clans, each further broken down into different families. Members of this house have genes which allows them to access Mana ...
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Rite of Winter: How to Stop Crescian Couples from Mutual Assassination
Crescian Society
In the Crescian society, on alternate Earth, the nobles take to settling disputes with mutual assassination.
The unspoken rule is that assassinations must be carried out directly by ...
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How can I protect a cannibalistic ritual from corruption?
This country is dominated by witch covens, who celebrate a holiday every year called "the great feast". Each coven selects 7 witches from their community to participate in a ritual that ends with a ...
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Designing society for happiness
I’m designing a utopia but there’s one problem remaining.
The setting is one of a highly advanced human society. We’ve eliminated disease and allowed the natural environment to replenish. ...
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Social Media for Blind Aliens
The Xy:
There is a sentient alien species called the Xy, which primarily relies on its sense of touch, smell, and hearing to make its way around the world.
Physiology:
Due to evolving in dark ...
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How can I desensitize my audience to participate in a bloodsport? [closed]
I, Rex Machismo, am the host of a bloodsport called deathbattle. In this show, contestants go through a number of trials in different environments to fight for their survival. These contestants would ...
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A Society Built Around Theft?
Would it be possible for a stable society to be built around the concept of theft as a positive action, and thievery as a virtue, while still having theft be technically illegal, but having the ...
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