Questions tagged [society]

For questions dealing with how sentient beings interact with each other in a community.

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Learning a new language without any reference

In my world the characters find themselves in a new land. They do not understand the locals nor do the locals understand them. How could these characters learn to understand the locals withing a month ...
L. T.'s user avatar
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25 votes
9 answers
7k views

Could there be a "divorce duel" to death?

I had recently a silly idea when thinking about alternative ways of splitting property at a divorce time. Imagine a culture (thinking roughly renaissance setting, maybe late medieval, or later, but ...
BIOStheZerg's user avatar
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25 votes
8 answers
7k views

How to promote nationalism for a multi-racial kingdom, against other such multi-racial kingdoms

So, I have an empire, many political notes about which can be found here, although I will put more relevant notes here as well. There are many fantasy races, all of them some form of animal person, ...
grimmsdottir's user avatar
  • 6,247
25 votes
14 answers
4k views

What are the social implications of discovering a formula for immortality?

Here is a hypothetical, but not entirely plausible, scenario: An organization or company (likely pharmaceutical) discovers the formula to develop a drug that stops aging (the human body's cells are ...
crusarovid's user avatar
25 votes
9 answers
3k views

Can we have a meaningful cultural exchange with aliens if we never meet?

Humans have finally made contact with aliens! We've just received a signal from a civilization somewhere in the Orion Nebula. It contains a message from their civilization, talking a bit about their ...
HDE 226868's user avatar
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25 votes
7 answers
10k views

How could a sentient plant evolve and what conditions would be required for this evolution?

This is my entry for the fortnightly topic challenge In Day of the Triffids, many people go blind and the basic summary is this: virulent plague makes most of humanity blind giant, semi-intelligent ...
Jax's user avatar
  • 11.9k
25 votes
4 answers
14k views

How do I recruit members for a secret society?

Are you familiar with the Fermi paradox? It asks why the Earth hasn't already been (convincingly) visited by aliens - there are so many suns and planets older than the Earth, that aliens should be ...
Rob Watts's user avatar
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24 votes
20 answers
5k views

After we drain the Sun and migrate, why would humanity find the Solar System important?

Long ago, our ancestors worked out how to travel faster than light: by sending craft directly into the Sun, employing fusion, quantum entanglement, and a healthy dose of handwavium/science ...
lowercasename's user avatar
24 votes
21 answers
11k views

How can God warn people of the upcoming rapture without disrupting society?

A being known as Dea is the creator of all things in the mortal world. He created human beings as living batteries in order to fuel him and give him power. This god is in competition with other gods ...
Incognito's user avatar
  • 38.5k
24 votes
12 answers
7k views

How do people live in bunkers & not go crazy with boredom?

This is a problem I ran into while writing a piece set into a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy future. For a short background: I proposed a world where a large Island-country had disaster struck and ...
littlegoldenfox's user avatar
24 votes
20 answers
7k views

The new rioters weapon of choice

The nation of Futurestan is a typical overly complex futuristic dystopian utopic society of the 23rd century. Fossil fuels are widely unavailable because only barbarians would think it was a good idea ...
Jake's user avatar
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24 votes
14 answers
8k views

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 ...
Gryphon's user avatar
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24 votes
14 answers
5k views

In what sequence should an advanced civilization teach technology to medieval society to maximize rate of adoption?

If a small group of an advanced civilization got stranded in a medieval-like society on another planet and they start to interact in a peaceful way, what would be the first technologies that they ...
Bruno Estrazulas's user avatar
24 votes
11 answers
5k views

How would relatively cheap and abundant (but not free or limitless) electrical energy at an up-front cost impact society?

A group of scientists has been slaving away largely in obscurity for two decades, with very few publishable results. Suddenly, one of them has an epiphany, which turns out to be instrumental to ...
user's user avatar
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24 votes
13 answers
9k views

How could a superhero maintain a secret identity these days, if at all?

It's 2016. A great evil threatens the world, and a great good--you--arises to stop it. Twitter and Instagram are set ablaze with stories of this heroic battle before the news media even has a chance ...
JesseTG's user avatar
  • 2,667
24 votes
4 answers
4k views

How much would licensed necromancy affect the economy of a (European) Renaissance society?

I've been pondering this, and I'm curious to find out what potential issues could be created by even tightly licensed necromantic practices. Would the economy simply scale up to cover the extra ...
Rowanas's user avatar
  • 2,511
24 votes
10 answers
3k views

Studying history in an "eternal" empire

I am assuming a theocratic state as a matter of religious dogma is eternal. It has no beginning and no end. It has always been and always will be. In reality of course history has simply been ...
Ville Niemi's user avatar
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23 votes
13 answers
5k views

Mental condition that spreads through social contact

I'm making a mental condition that spreads through social contact. It is infectious, but having contact with someone who has it does not guarantee an infection. However, someone who is unwell might ...
Vylix's user avatar
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23 votes
10 answers
6k views

How to avoid offending original culture when making conculture inspired from original

My conculture, Sakha, is based on Puebloan culture. They live in a mudhouse, practice dry agriculture, don't wear feathers (do they? I thought they're more of Plains culture) and are matrilineal. ...
Xwtek's user avatar
  • 402
23 votes
11 answers
6k views

Would it be possible to alter the memory of an entire population within 2 generations?

I am working on a country that has been conquered by a foreign power. However, they did not manage to conquer all settlements and fortresses. In and beyond a giant mountain range at the southern ...
Blitz's user avatar
  • 343
23 votes
9 answers
7k views

Jobs in an AI controlled world [closed]

In a world fully controlled by an AI, humans have every basic need they may want. This includes housing and food, and also health related needs. Also humans do not give birth anymore, the process is ...
Jordi Serra's user avatar
23 votes
22 answers
4k views

In a highly charitable society, are there any ways to remain impoverished?

For the story I'm planning out, the setting is on one of the worlds of a technologically advanced extraterrestrial race well-known for their economic infrastructure, which includes incredibly ...
Aunvre's user avatar
  • 455
23 votes
18 answers
6k views

Units of measurement, especially length, when body parts vary in size among races

Historically, units of measurement are often based on sizes of body parts. Probably the most obvious example would be a "foot" literally being based on the length of someone's (or everyone's, or ...
Harthag's user avatar
  • 4,133
23 votes
14 answers
7k views

How would society react if they found indisputable proof that the universe is a virtual reality?

This is similar to this question Some scientists found indisputable evidence that the universe is all just a simulation. Maybe they found the code that is running the simulation (I don't know how) ...
michaelpri's user avatar
  • 1,369
23 votes
12 answers
5k views

What kind of historic event would precipitate a worldwide corporate dystopia?

I have an idea for a story set in a not-too-far future where the political lines of the world map have been redrawn, not by nation-states like France or Belgium but by corporations like MacroCorp, ...
adb's user avatar
  • 405
23 votes
3 answers
4k views

How large can a medieval Empire conceivably get and still be considered a single political entity?

I was reading a book on the Byzantine Empire, and at its height it controlled much of the Mediterranean. I looked up the Arabs and saw that at the dawn of Islam they built an empire that lasted for a ...
Jax's user avatar
  • 11.9k
23 votes
3 answers
2k views

Making the First contact

Visiting the Worldbuilding site plays with my creativity and imagination. So I am going to describe the dream I had: I am member of a different (alien) culture, from a different star system. Also, I ...
Pavel Janicek's user avatar
22 votes
18 answers
5k views

How can a post scarcity Society not be hedonistic?

The society I am building is highly automated, post-scarcity, with the ability to essentially "3-D print" anything. Is there a reasonable way for me to explain why the people of this ...
Bryan McClure's user avatar
22 votes
20 answers
10k views

Why would an immortal make good on his loan?

Premise My world that has undergone a transformative breakthrough in biology and genetics. It's not just the ultra-rich who have it; rather, everyone is immortal. However, this world's understanding ...
Arash Howaida's user avatar
22 votes
12 answers
5k views

Why do the enemies have finite aggro ranges?

Edit: (September 18 2021) So far there are are many good answers that address why a group of guard monsters or unaffiliated group of humans might have a finite aggro range. However these answers are ...
Daron's user avatar
  • 66.1k
22 votes
14 answers
5k views

Benevolent aliens will help us all- on one condition. Can we end all wars?

Background It's a nice spring day on May 23, 2016. You sit outside with a radio and tune in to the news. In the middle of hearing the station talk about [insert politician here], you hear a large ...
Daniel M.'s user avatar
  • 1,090
22 votes
13 answers
8k views

How could a goverment sell prisoners as slaves (without giving advantage to richs)?

Imagine a society (medieval, but that isn't very important here) that has approved slavery. You can trade, buy, sell and hire slaves at will in the market. Introduction Slaves are usually "harvested"...
Ender Look's user avatar
  • 8,863
22 votes
16 answers
6k views

Could inequality and class warfare still exist in a post-scarcity society?

Let's assume post-scarcity in this case means everyone, regardless of income or employment status, has unlimited access to food (or bio-engineered food substitutes), a place to live, means of ...
Z.Schroeder's user avatar
  • 11.3k
22 votes
11 answers
7k views

The cost of switching to electric cars?

I'm developing a world where all car manufacturers must switch to producing only electric cars like Tesla, Leaf. All the other cars (gas, hybrids, whatever) will be banned. Vehicles already produced ...
FunnyGreenApple's user avatar
22 votes
11 answers
3k views

How would an entity benefit from a contradictory origin story?

Most people believe that H.P. Lovecraft was a racist, basing the monsters in his cosmic horror story on his fears of a modernizing world and prejudiced views on other races and cultures. However, the ...
Incognito's user avatar
  • 38.5k
22 votes
14 answers
5k views

Why can't mana-vampires use artificial wombs to grow humans to feed off of?

Dark elves, a vampire-like species, exist on a plane known as the fae-realm and must feed on other creatures to survive. Their souls are constantly being drained of mana by their deity, who ironically ...
Incognito's user avatar
  • 38.5k
22 votes
11 answers
6k views

Effects of "tax your vote" political system

I know that there was question about political system based on your wealth. This is little variation of it: What if your amount of votes was waged according to what you pay to the system? Rules: If ...
Pavel Janicek's user avatar
22 votes
6 answers
3k views

"Leveling up" as a cultural/societal function?

I asked a similar question here on the site but it was too broad, so I'm attempting to break it down into smaller topics for people to dissect: this will likely be one of many. I am attempting to ...
bsideswiped's user avatar
  • 1,221
22 votes
9 answers
4k views

What effect would a means of reproduction without pregnancy have on the population?

In sci-fi, we can find the concept of artificial fertilization and incubator quite commonly. I work in a company that's heavily involved in that technology, so I became curious to adapt this to my ...
Chaffee's user avatar
  • 1,567
22 votes
12 answers
4k views

Are there any good alternates to iron?

I know iron is valuable, but I was wondering if iron was extremely rare, rare enough that it could not be used for construction, weapons, or anything our society uses iron, what this society would ...
OneSurvivor's user avatar
  • 3,092
22 votes
9 answers
3k views

How to cut off a (unaware and unwilling) city (not an island city) from the rest of the world for a short period of time? (about 12 hours)

How could a group, very possibly militarized, cut off a small-medium sized city from the rest of the world for an overnight period? This includes outside responses like police, national guard, so on ...
F.N. Keys's user avatar
  • 521
22 votes
6 answers
3k views

Maggots at a party... How would alien races dine together?

Communal dining of some form is a custom amongst virtually every human society. Whether inviting friends around for a meal or going on a date together social eating is a common way of tying ...
Tim B's user avatar
  • 77.1k
21 votes
13 answers
7k views

In the case of direct democracy, what would happen to society

Imagine that the democratic system was allowed to progress so that a direct democracy now existed in your country. Now everybody can vote on all political issues electronically or via electronic ...
ejectamenta's user avatar
21 votes
17 answers
6k views

How can conflict be conducted between nations when warfare is never an option?

Our world is surrounded by a magic barrier that keeps out eldritch abominations that exist in the void, such as Cthulhu⁠. However, this barrier is fairly sensitive and easily damaged⁠. The violent, ...
Incognito's user avatar
  • 38.5k
21 votes
9 answers
6k views

How can I test to find the continent's "best" young mages?

Some background The gods who have watched over us for so long are clearly angry. They've sent us this terrible trial in the form of a giant dungeon and told us if we can't complete it they'll wipe ...
scohe001's user avatar
  • 1,453
21 votes
18 answers
5k views

What mandates travel in an interstellar society?

A while ago this question on medieval travel was asked. I looked at it again today and it got me thinking about situations that would mandate travel in other settings, in particular what would force ...
Ash's user avatar
  • 44.8k
21 votes
5 answers
6k views

How can a nocturnal race develop agriculture?

Foreword: I am asking this question primarily to decide if a nocturnal race makes sense for my purposes before I develop them in too great a depth. This means I do not have much detail to provide on ...
undine_centimeter's user avatar
21 votes
12 answers
4k views

Kidnapping children for magic training

Background : In a certain medieval world with magic, people are always in danger of being attacked by non-human races, like orcs, trolls or giant spiders, etc. Villagers keep the village safe by using ...
King of Snakes's user avatar
21 votes
16 answers
5k views

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 ...
AllSeeingEye33's user avatar
21 votes
15 answers
4k views

What would benevolent aliens look like for first contact?

We always assume first alien contact will be meeting with some strange looking alien, maybe with a multitude of limbs, sometimes with none, etc. etc.. However, so many of our Science Fiction ...
bowlturner's user avatar
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