Questions tagged [society]
For questions dealing with how sentient beings interact with each other in a community.
2,464
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How would be society's reactions if scientistis created an hermaphrodite man capable of giving birth? [closed]
If genetic engineered and/or bioengineering was used to create a man with true hermaphroditism( he would also have male gender identity) who could get pregnant on his own by self fertilization or ...
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The Static Civilization: 1 creating an eternal religion [closed]
In my world, I am trying to design a civilization or culture that is basically unchanging. Well, unchanging is not the right word, rather, this civilization does not experience sudden or deep changes, ...
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What would justify the use of homing pigeons in a world where sending digital messages is a viable option? [duplicate]
The setting is a post-scarcity civilization, where a galactic government exists, but due to the limitations on faster-than-light travel, each world is relatively self-governed.
I want a city on one of ...
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How are sapient crows utilized if there are phones for communicating?
A shaman society secret to normal humans, in the late 2000s era where phones and the internet exist: why and how would they still put to work their black feathery friends?
They were crucial before all ...
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Office Superpowers: which augmented soft skills help with happiness? [closed]
Office Universe:
In my fictional universe, superpowers exist, but they manifest in a peculiar manner. Individuals are granted abilities that are strictly related to enhancing their office work and ...
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How magical powers would affect the distribution of wealth [closed]
In the world I'm building, a certain amount of humans have the ability to gain magical powers. I'm still playing with the exact ratio, but let's say around 20% for now. These magical powers would ...
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What would be an appropriate size for an interplanetary bulk cargo ship?
I've been working with a friend to design a sci-fi setting for a TTRPG campaign and one of the issues I've run into is the scale of food production and transportation within the setting. In the ...
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My Medieval kingdom has birth control, why is the population so high?
My world is roughly the same as the middle ages but has a natural form of birth control in the form of a root that can be grown and consumed to prevent pregnancy.
Because of this root, opportunities ...
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Could humanoid life survive the violent formation of a planetary ring system?
The deepest mythological archetypes in my Earth-like world hint at a wondrous and terrible disaster in the ancient past. ~10 tya a celestial body (perhaps a small, second moon, or a wandering asteroid,...
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Societies After A Sudden 'Ice Age'
About 300 years ago, my world underwent massive climate change. It suddenly shifted from something we'd consider normal/livable to a climate similar to that of the last glacial maximum. (Side note: I ...
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What would a society where life expectancy is in the early twenties look like [closed]
I'm putting together a scenario where in a post-disaster earth, most environments are so toxic that humans tend not to live beyond their early twenties.
This would be through unavoidable health ...
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What are the best blackmail and extortion paths for haberdashers in post-apocalyptic Victorian cities? [closed]
In a Victorian city on an apocalyptic world, a haberdasher has gained social power. All things pertaining to the Victorian life circa 1880 would be proper here, save for the equine industry. He has ...
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Keeping tech at 1890s levels without fossil fuels [duplicate]
How can I explain the technological stagnation at a level roughly equivalent to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The world is Earth-like and has the following characteristics:
Absence of ...
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What AI force strength would be needed to defeat modern humanity? [closed]
When (not “time”, but at what force size/distribution) would my artificial life have enough presence to believably conquer humanity?
My story takes place during a war between two species: Humans and ...
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How long would it take for a civilization to forget how it began?
In my scenario, all of current humanity on Earth and space is teleported to a whole new planet in a different universe with new laws of physics that mostly govern a magic system based on energy ...
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Dealing ethically with future human monsters
My world is similar to modern-day Earth, though with additional magical realms not readily accessible from the Rational Realms that are familiar to us. In this world, as many as ten people in every ...
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How do robots gain independence? [closed]
Something I'm working on- in a spacefaring human society, while most robots are still considered property of a specific human being or institution, a slowly growing number have managed to gain an ...
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A country where citizens are supposed to have a name with three to ten parts [closed]
In my world that is set in a near future, there was an EXTREMELY big country fusion.
Since the country has more than 500 million inhabitants, people are required to have a name with at least three ...
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When universes collide, how much of an emergency is it?
The world of Pandemonium is a world in another universe where humans may exist, that is gravitationally connected to Earth in our universe. Over the course of history since the big bang, these ...
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How would a fantasy world change if every mage exploded/caused natural disasters upon death [closed]
In a fantasy world I'm building, one of the main two types of mages have innate control over natural elements. About 1 in 50 people in this world have the ability to take part in the ritual to give ...
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Uses for a gastric bypass
The world of Pandemonium is a world in another universe where humans may exist, that is gravitationally connected to Earth in our universe. Over the course of history since the big bang, these ...
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How would a modern society be ruled by a warrior class? [closed]
I want to know if it is possible for a modern Western society to revert to a form of feudalism, with a warrior caste or 'knights' that rule and protect everyone else for food and money. How would such ...
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Safety and practicality of a sweating ritual using hot coals
I am imagining rituals for a society that I am developing. I've heard of native american sweat lodges and global sauna culture, and I am considering something similar for my Pandemonic society.
While ...
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How could an AGI have legal protections in an our current society? [closed]
First: assume society is as it is today, British common law
Many “stories” try to package AI as citizens (DATA of Star Trek, Sonny of I Robot). They manipulate society to make AI fit with some certain ...
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How would perpetual motion technology (and "free" energy) affect poverty?
I'm writing a near-future story in which a form of teleportation has been invented. It's only been around for few decades, and is still very complicated (and expensive) to build, so it's only used for ...
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How incite civil unrest? [closed]
In order to achieve their goals nefarious agents want to incite civil unrest. This might take form of revolt, riots, other violence or labor disputes. Generally to disrupt function of civilian life as ...
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Is there any way a species could evolve to run across lava using the leidenfrost effect?
So far all I really know is that the leidenfrost effect would work, just not exactly how the species would have evolved it, but I do know it would require a store of water, likely like that of a camel....
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Cultural identity in an Multi-cultural empire
I'm world-building for a universe. I just came up with Deals Best Kept, and I realized I wanted to have a bunch of fantasy races interact, be very culturally diverse and mixed, and also account for a ...
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The two societies of Hell - are they reasonable?
Once, thousands of years ago, there was a land called Dhelō. It was a bright, green, fertile land with rivers, lakes, plains, forests and farms. There was a great calamity, and the world broke into ...
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Why would LGBTQIA+ people be sacred individuals? [closed]
In my world, there are magical humans often called wizards (their scientific name is Homo magicus) (so, they are still humans, just not Homo sapiens). They are traditionally a very religious race. ...
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Chefs and Technologists are the most powerful people. Why is this?
In my world:
Chefs can make excellent food, unparalleled in the universe.
(or at least one can) (the bestselling dish is tomato mushroom soup)
Technologists can do almost anything, but are very lazy.
(...
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How would a societies evolve where almost everyone can shapeshift into last person they have touched [closed]
In my world, every individual gains the unique ability to shapeshift into the last person they have touched upon turning 16 years old. Somethings to note is one cannot revert back to their original ...
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Materials Revolution [closed]
It's 2012, and a big extraterrestrial space vehicle (Secretly created by an ET ultra-intelligent entity) explodes in Earth's orbit, and its pieces crash on the surface and into the oceans.
(The ...
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How could I justify switching phone numbers from decimal to hexadecimal?
A very common media technique is to replace area or exchange codes of phone numbers with 555 to prevent people from dialing real numbers and harassing people by accident. However, I find this a bit ...
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How would a Society Develop in the Underworld?
I am writing a story about a period of time in my world where the God of Death has been arrested for being too merciful, and is thus unable to move any souls to their afterlives. The court that ...
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How can a Leader Remain in Power, Despite being Excessively Cruel and Murderous Towards the Subordinates?
Question inspired by Batman: Arkham games - although this trope is definitely not limited to this series, it is very widely (ab)used in various media.
In Batman: Arkham, various mob leaders are ...
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How might humans and their civilisations deal with living in a narrow band between a hot 🔥 face and cold ❄️ face of a planet? [closed]
Inspired by this answer.
How would the humans and their civilisations deal with things like:
The almost 1D direction of travel within a habitat zone
The limited liveable space
Having to go near the ...
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Are interstellar penal colonies a feasible idea?
I've been exploring the idea of an interstellar penal colony or prison planet from a realistic perspective. This idea is featured in many science fiction stories, but I've never really thought deeply ...
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Would the presence of superhumans necessarily lead to giving them authority?
We all know the cliche from numerous comics, cartoons, anime shows, video games, etc: some members of the society are vastly more powerful than others. (These are called 'superheroes', 'wizards', '...
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A religion where everyone is considered a priest [closed]
I have imagined a universalising polytheistic religion of around 5 million adherents.
The pantheon is composed of 120 deities.
A strange thing about this religion is that everyone is considered a ...
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How would a civilization of techno-barbarians maintain their space ships?
Recently I've gotten interested in the planetary romance genre and the idea of a sword, sorcery and spaceships genre.
So here's the dynamic is basically something like this.
There is a star system ...
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What factors would determine the behaviors of post-scarcity society?
I'm looking for something more like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but extended beyond the purely physical. I'm not looking for a list of things people would do, or "Here's what I would do", ...
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What would be the easiest way for a fictional civilization to feed carnivorous mounted animals?
Many fictional worlds have their civilizations (usually the bad guys) ride some sort of carnivorous animal, usually something like a wolf or a creodont. Think something like the Wargs from Lord of the ...
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Why are interstellar colonists lone rangers? (Not-so-far future version)
This question is inspired by Why are interstellar colonists lone rangers?. I know that many of its answers are also suitable for this questions. However, I am more interested in ideas that work with ...
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Murder is Legal, now what? [closed]
Background:
I'm toying with a short story that deals with the concepts of: The limits of Policing, The (legitimate) use of force and the right to defend oneself.
In the scenario - a society faces ever ...
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Orthographic change over time
This is related to a previous question of mine: Rate of linguistic change among geographically separated descendants of a common language
If you had 4 groups of humans with the same language and ...
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Rate of linguistic change among geographically separated descendants of a common language
I'm developing a story set on an exoplanet where a relatively small terraforming expedition is forced to settle on the planet due to some catastrophe 20,000 years before the story's events.
They ...
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What could make the technology to be conserved at the level of mid-late 21th century for centuries? [duplicate]
Here is my description of the world:
The world is roughly at the technological level of our mid-21th century, with some things more advanced than ours and some less. There is seemingly no visible or ...
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How far can you get with a pre-industrial production system?
Pre-industrial production system: means of production where the vast majority of goods are made by skilled craftsmen specialized in that field (I.E. Carpenters, blacksmiths, millers, weavers, and ...
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Explaining the need for human representatives in an AI controlled society
In a relatively near-future event, a Sentient Artificial Intelligence or SAI is accidentally created, escapes onto the internet, and then, after a few days of browsing social media and the news, ...
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