Pangaea (NSFW description)

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Pan
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Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Pan »

I was stuck between two concepts for my Pangaea world. One was making Pangaea "the land of everything", i.e. everything happens as long as a Pangaean language is spoken. Which was not very interesting, to be honest. The other concept is making Pangaea have its own culture, and I already had this idea a while ago but I came up with a "weird" (for western and world standards) culture and I thought that culture was impossible to have at best, but generally I thought it was logically inconsistent. That's why I'm going to try again and also ask your opinion about Pangaean culture.

Before starting, let me introduce the philosophical concept behind "Pangaean Culture". Pangaean Culture is based on the fact there was one day I was thinking that every culture has their things that they consider to be "good", "morally acceptable" etc. and I was thinking "what would a culture where as many things as possible are considered good, morally acceptable etc. look like?". At first I could not even imagine such a culture, but with time I got used to the concept and now I'll describe it. Also "Gaia" is Earth so "Gaian countries" means "Earth countries". Also obviously not everything can be acceptable, that's why I said "as many things as possible". Also there's another thing. I'm still not very familiar in worldbuilding as to how to make your fictional country and Earth interact with each other. The thing that bothers me the most is asking myself the question "where is this place (i.e. Pangaea)?". So basically this "country" is in an Earth-like environment, in a boreal forest that occupies the whole land above the Arctic Circle. Its land occupies 20 million square kilometers (around 7.7 million square miles) and is home to 782 million inhabitants, making it the largest and third most populous country "in the world" (sigh) after China and India. The problem is that this area overlaps real world countries and I'm still trying to figure out how to solve this problem. Due to my research about climates and vegetation, I estabilished that in most cases, the minimum average temperature of the warmest month (usually July in the northern hemisphere especially for these kinds of places) should be around 12 °C (53.6 °F) or 13 °C (55.4 °F) at least for "normal" trees to grow. Below that temperature trees usually look really bad and small, or they are inexistent (especially in Greenland and Nunavut). So that's the climate of Pangaea. The average temperature in the warmest month is around 13 °C (55.4 °F) in the entire country and the average temperature in the coldest month ranges from being the same as summer in the warmest part of the country to around -40 °C (-40 °F) in the capital city, which is the largest city and also the one with the coldest winters in the country. This being said, we can proceed with the explanation of the culture. Ah, last thing, this country would not be considered a "developed country" if it existed. It would probably be considered a "developing country" that is however not too bad. Like, a high quality "developing country". Think of Brazil or Indonesia except with a much colder climate and a completely different culture from... uhm... "the rest of the world" (sigh again). Enough said for now, let's proceed with the culture.

===

Pangaean culture is very different from the culture of any Gaian country, and might feel very alien to a Gaian person.

Let's start by saying that Pangaean culture is extremely tolerant and permissive, but not in a politically correct or western way. Pangaean culture has an extremely high amount of behaviors considered to be morally acceptable, an amount which might be way too high for Gaian culture. Way higher than Gaian culture.

== Sexuality ==

One of the most relevant differences between Pangaean culture and Gaian culture is that Pangaean culture doesn't see sexuality as something "dirty" or "immoral", and Pangaeans have a view about sexuality that would be considered utterly degenerate and "immoral" (in a religious sense) by Gaian standards. Masturbating in front of your friends is no issue for a person from Pangaea, for example, and neither would be being naked in front of your friends at home. This concept of sexuality is foreign, at times alien for the average Gaian. Polyamory is the norm in Pangaea, homosexuality and fetishes are seen as perfectly normal. Incest is considered fine in Pangaea, too, but it is preferrable not to have children born from incest. Even at work, you can watch things that would be considered NSFW in Gaian countries. Sex before marriage is not an issue at all in Pangaea. With this permissive culture, asking for a hug and getting it is very easy!

== Social Interactions ==

Social interactions in Pangaea are very informal and relaxed. You can ask for a hug without any issue, and it's okay for a guy to cry in front of other people. You can wear whatever you want, you can even walk outdoors in public wearing pajamas! Dancing in public will cause no problems to anyone. Don't worry about saying something offensive, Pangaeans barely ever get offended by words. Burning the flag of Pangaea is an acceptable form of expression, too. Cannabis is legal and is seen as an okay thing to smoke. Pangaean culture is friendly and physical contact with other people is common and fine as long as everyone is consensual.

== Negative aspects of Pangaea ==

Pangaea is not a utopia, it does have problems, just like everywhere else. Problems can range from lack of widespread hygienic norms, to abandoning pets on a highway or driving under the effect of alcohol or other drugs being relatively common. The education and health system are not really high quality, and some part of the population struggles with alcohol and drugs.


== Culture ==

The culture in Pangaea is very tolerant and accepting. People here rarely find something morally unacceptable. This means there are virtually no societal norms to follow, because most behaviors are considered acceptable, including homosexuality, sex before marriage, drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, cuddling in public, eating pork, and even being naked in public!

It's also acceptable to be a racist in Pangaea, but racism (defined in the traditional way, not in the politically correct way) in Pangaea is very rare.

The biggest cultural difference between Gaian countries and Pangaea is attitudes towards sex, fetishes and nudity. In Gaian countries, there is a taboo on these things. In Pangaea, these are completely normal to express publicly. You can literally walk naked in public and nobody will complain. Walking naked in public is considered perfectly normal and acceptable in Pangaea.

Anyway, as I was saying, walking naked in public is perfectly acceptable in Pangaea. Other things that are perfectly acceptable are sexual fetishes, incest, watching porn in front of other people and even in public, and while in western countries, 18 years old is the age you become an adult, in Pangaea it's 13 years old.

This was all about sex, fetishes and nudity, but cultural differences don't end here.

Racism is common in western countries, yet it's considered to be abhorrent, while in Pangaea racism is very rare, yet it's considered perfectly acceptable. Someone refusing to be friends with someone merely on the basis of their race very rarely happens in Pangaea, yet, if it happens, it would just be considered a "personal preference" (same as not wanting to be friends with someone just because they wear a yellow t-shirt) and everyone will respect the racist person. Even if someone insults a person merely on the basis on their race (which is a extremely rare event in Pangaea), people will say something like "It's okay, you don't have to like [insert race] people". Pangaean culture is very different from western culture, indeed.

Also, smoking marijuana is perfectly acceptable and legal in Pangaea.

In Pangaea, you can do things that are considered "embarrassing" in Gaian countries, such as dancing in public, cross-dressing in public, and much more, and nobody will ridiculize you or complain, because in Pangaea, those things are considered perfectly acceptable, and people in Pangaea rarely ever judge, anyway.

This accepting culture makes people in Pangaea feel happier and more relaxed than the people in Gaian countries.

Also probably authoritarian left-wing Gaian people would probably call Pangaea "right-wing bigotry" and probably religious right-wing Gaian people would probably call Pangaea "leftist degeneracy", but Pangaea is none of those (or is it both?). Pangaea is just Pangaea, lol.

This was all for now but perhaps I will add more in the future.

See you in Pangaea!
Salmoneus
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Salmoneus »

Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32 I was stuck between two concepts for my Pangaea world. One was making Pangaea "the land of everything", i.e. everything happens as long as a Pangaean language is spoken. Which was not very interesting, to be honest. The other concept is making Pangaea have its own culture, and I already had this idea a while ago but I came up with a "weird" (for western and world standards) culture and I thought that culture was impossible to have at best, but generally I thought it was logically inconsistent. That's why I'm going to try again and also ask your opinion about Pangaean culture.
I think you still sort of seem stuck between two concepts: one of Pangaea as being alien, and the other of it basically being just another early 21st century European (-esque) country. On the one hand, it's not quite realistic as an early 21st century European country; but on the other hand, it's so familiar that it doesn't quite make sense as anything else.
Before starting, let me introduce the philosophical concept behind "Pangaean Culture". Pangaean Culture is based on the fact there was one day I was thinking that every culture has their things that they consider to be "good", "morally acceptable" etc. and I was thinking "what would a culture where as many things as possible are considered good, morally acceptable etc. look like?". At first I could not even imagine such a culture, but with time I got used to the concept and now I'll describe it. Also "Gaia" is Earth so "Gaian countries" means "Earth countries". Also obviously not everything can be acceptable, that's why I said "as many things as possible".
It doesn't feel as though you've really followed through with this - you've just taken modern, 21st century Western liberal attitudes on a couple of hot-button issues. This is a long way from the limits of human morality, let alone the limits of what's philosophically possible!
Due to my research about climates and vegetation, I estabilished that in most cases, the minimum average temperature of the warmest month (usually July in the northern hemisphere especially for these kinds of places) should be around 12 °C (53.6 °F) or 13 °C (55.4 °F) at least for "normal" trees to grow. Below that temperature trees usually look really bad and small, or they are inexistent (especially in Greenland and Nunavut). So that's the climate of Pangaea. The average temperature in the warmest month is around 13 °C (55.4 °F) in the entire country and the average temperature in the coldest month ranges from being the same as summer in the warmest part of the country to around -40 °C (-40 °F) in the capital city, which is the largest city and also the one with the coldest winters in the country. This being said, we can proceed with the explanation of the culture. Ah, last thing, this country would not be considered a "developed country" if it existed. It would probably be considered a "developing country" that is however not too bad. Like, a high quality "developing country". Think of Brazil or Indonesia except with a much colder climate and a completely different culture from... uhm... "the rest of the world" (sigh again). Enough said for now, let's proceed with the culture.
You go into a lot of detail with the temperatures here, but they don't make much sense from a reality point of view. If winter and summer are the same, the place is in the tropics; but if it's in the tropics, summer temperature is going to be warmer than summer up near the arctic circle (where you're presumably having your -40 temperatures). [wait, you didn't mean -40C, did you?].

For what it's worth, the treeline is a bit more complicated than that in theory - the length of the summer is as important as the temperature, and other factors, like rainfall, are also important. You can get forests at colder temperatures than that, at least in theory. In practice, on Earth, I think you're about right, however.

Pangaean culture is very different from the culture of any Gaian country
You say that.... but your description suggests you really mean it's very different from the culture of 21st century protestant America?
Let's start by saying that Pangaean culture is extremely tolerant and permissive, but not in a politically correct or western way. Pangaean culture has an extremely high amount of behaviors considered to be morally acceptable, an amount which might be way too high for Gaian culture. Way higher than Gaian culture.
"Gaian culture" is very diverse.
One of the most relevant differences between Pangaean culture and Gaian culture is that Pangaean culture doesn't see sexuality as something "dirty" or "immoral", and Pangaeans have a view about sexuality that would be considered utterly degenerate and "immoral" (in a religious sense) by Gaian standards.
Again, it's important to point out that in reality, not all Gaians are Protestants. I don't think sexuality is dirty or immoral, and nor do most of the people I know - and I live in a Northern European country, a region internationally famous and historically distinctive for its prudishness!

Let's bear in mind here, for example, that Romans thought nothing about eating family dinner in a room decorated with explicit mosaics of sex and bestiality.
Masturbating in front of your friends is no issue for a person from Pangaea
This seems unlikely, simply because masturbating in front of somebody, outside of a mutual or explicitly voyeuristic context, is always likely to be seen as a failure to pay attention. It's not impossible that it could be common among teenagers, who are both horny and narcissistic by adult standards [and of course it's not hard to find young people in America or Europe for whom masturbation in front of friends is not a faux pas], but it's hard to believe that adults would not get frustrated by friends who were more interested in their own genitals than in paying attention to what their friend was saying...
, for example, and neither would be being naked in front of your friends at home.
This isn't that weird for Gaians either, though, is it? Most Gaians, historically, have worn few if any clothes. Although all but one 'civilised' society has made use of clothing, this is largely for reasons of status display than modesty, and it's common for nudity to be widespread in certain circumstances. Romans, for instance, did a lot of their socialising naked, in public baths; Greeks did their athletics and physical games naked, and a lot of their chatting and philosophising as well. [fun fact: the word for a (type of) secondary school in many European languages is "gymnasium" - literally meaning 'naked place' - because of the Greek association between naked socialising and intellectual studies. While total nudity is not the norm in modern societies, it should be pointed out that much of the world has much less of a nudity taboo than Protestant America/Britain - you can barely (no pun intended) move for topless sunbathers in some parts of Europe. [ok, that's an exaggeration - though it can sometimes seem like that to an unwary Anglophone!]

[similarly, in the Arab/Turkish tradition derived from Rome, it wasn't until al-Ghazali in the 11th century that there was a crackdown on nudity in public baths - al-Ghazali demanded that the genital region be concealed in bathing, that men not touch each other, and that one should not touch one's own penis while bathing in public. Nudity remained common for women, however, until modern times, as I understand it.]
This concept of sexuality is foreign, at times alien for the average Gaian. Polyamory is the norm in Pangaea,
And of course on Gaia. Most human societies are /have been at least potentially polygynous (usually only rich or otherwise unusually attractive men have multiple wives); those that aren't typically engage in theoretical serial monogamy (multiple partnerships, but non-simultaneous), but it's unusual to have particularly strict rules against adultery (and male adultery in particular is typically normal, producing polygny in practice if not in law - most European cultures have been polygynous in this sense (in France you could still claim tax deductions for your mistresses into the 20th century)). Of course, "polyamory", implying actual "love" rather than just sex or alliance, is a much more debateable thing, and kind of inseperable from modern Western culture. [all cultures have a concept of affection, but these concepts are quite culture-dependent].

Indeed, the 'Romantic love' cult - one man and one woman burning passionately and exclusively for each other's company to the exclusion of all other friends and partners - is kind of a Thing just of one particular culture at one particular point in time.
homosexuality and fetishes are seen as perfectly normal.
Fetishes will never be seen as perfectly normal, for the simple reason that if they were seen as normal they wouldn't be fetishes. A fetish in the normal colloquial sense is just anything sexual that is considered abnormal. [we don't say that anybody has a fetish for, say, putting their penis into vaginas... that's just normal].
It's also unlikely that every activity that might seem fetishistic to a modern American would ever be widely accepted as 'normal'. A fetish for inserting excrement into the vagina, for instance, will never be considered normal in any non-science-fiction culture, simply because it's so incredibly medically unwise that society will always find a way to frown upon it. Similarly fetishistic infliction of pain, suffering and humiliation, or a sexual fixation on (even apparent) non-consent, or ageplay, raceplay, etc, will always be looked at askance, simply because what it tells people about the individual's personality more widely. If your co-worker tells you that what they really sexually enjoy is beating black children with sticks while shouting the n-word at them, you're inevitably going to interact differently with them in the workplace.

On the other hand, if by 'fetish' you just mean, I don't know, wearing rubber or high heels, then I'd say modern Gaia already pretty much sees these things as more or less 'normal'.

Homosexuality will rarely be considered truly 'normal', simply for the statistical reason that it seems the overwhelming majority of people are disinclined to it - though it can of course be considered morally neutral, as it already is in most of the West. And to be fair, there have been Gaian societies in which homosexuality has been truly normal, in the sense of being something most people do - most famously male homosexuality in Greece.

[of course the idea of sexual 'orientation', as opposed to behaviour, and particularly a sexual 'orientation' strongly linked to 'Romantic' love-partnership, is a 20th century Western concept that's hard to extend to the analysis of other societies, as it's an outgrowth of the 'Romantic love' cult]
Incest is considered fine in Pangaea
This is an interesting one. Incest prohibitions are indeed universal on Gaia: every society generally prohibits adult parent-offspring sexual relationships, and most or all societies prohibit adult sibling sexual relationships. Some societies also have taboos on sex with aunts/uncles, and on various forms of cousins (most often, only on parallel first cousins).

However, it's also very common for societies to have exceptions to the incest rules, particularly connected to religion and politics. Incest among god-kings is practically the norm. It's conceivable that these rules could be broadly extended in some society ('if the king can marry his sister, why can't I?').
, too, but it is preferrable not to have children born from incest.
This seems strange to me. Why would they have this rule? Generally, the reason incest is allowed is precisely because of its perceived advantages when it comes to children (who are more 'pure'). There's no practical disadvantage to having incest-children - and if a society really does irrationally abhorr the children of incest, wouldn't this rapidly develop into a de facto taboo against incest itself?
Even at work, you can watch things that would be considered NSFW in Gaian countries.
What do you mean, 'at work'? I think if you mean 'while working', this really falls into the same category as masturbating-with-friends: no employer is going to want you to be concentrating on your genitals instead of your spreadsheet in working hours. If you mean during your lunchbreak, then that's different, of course.

But again, don't conflate "Gaian countries" with middle-class America. What's 'NSFW' varies MASSIVELY, even within America, let alone Gaia. There are some places where you could be fired for looking at a photo of a woman's face. There are other places where pinning naked, suggestive or outright pornographic posters to the walls of your office is completely the norm. I know someone who works in a job where until recently there was a de facto 'wank room' where employees would go to masturbate (albeit only one at a time) [it's a job with long, often solo shift work, traditionally with almost all male workers].
Sex before marriage is not an issue at all in Pangaea.
Generally the same on Gaia.
With this permissive culture, asking for a hug and getting it is very easy!
That's a bit of a leap! Hugging and fornicating may seem the same sort of thing to a puritan, but that's not the only way to see them. Most cultures probably see them as unrelated. It's entirely conceivable that a society would be sexually liberal, yet still have a strong ethos of private space.

It's important to realise societies don't just sit on a continuum of more to less restrictive - each different subject can have its own restrictions.

Social interactions in Pangaea are very informal and relaxed.
Some social interactions are NEVER informal or relaxed.

If you're in your boss's office asking for a raise, but worried she might fire you, you're not relaxed. If you're on trial for your life. If you're committing to marriage. If you're being ordained God-King. Etc etc. These situations are all formal and tense... the question isn't "how formal are they?", but "how do they express formality"?

the Modern West increasingly eschews overt commitments to formality in all but a few social settings. That doesn't mean we're not just as formal as before, however - there are still things you shouldn't say to your boss, things you shouldn't say or do loudly in a church, things you shouldn't say or do in a courtroom, and so on. [just look at all the shock and derision directly at Trump for his "unpresidential" faux pas!] It's just that it's harder to act formally - the requirements of formality aren't as easily met just by including certain verbal phrases.
You can ask for a hug without any issue, and it's okay for a guy to cry in front of other people.
These are probably both normal for the modern West - outside of some particularly conservative pockets - let alone Gaia as a whole! Again, the Anglophone "no physical contact or expression of emotion" is really only the artifact of a particular place and time - even in the 18th century, crying and hugging were normal for European men, and they never became as taboo in southern Europe as they became in the north.
You can wear whatever you want, you can even walk outdoors in public wearing pajamas!
The first part is pretty much true of the modern West, although it'll never actually be true (if somebody wears a t-shirt proclaiming themselves to be a racist Nazi paedophile, it's likely to result in some hostility).

The second part is absolutely true of the West. One supermarket chain in this country tried to impose a no-pyjama rule a few years back, but they had to quickly back off. A LOT of people, particularly in poorer areas, like to shop in their pyjamas. [to the extent that 'pyjama' is still a coherent concept today, given the 'you can wear whatever you want' thing....]
Dancing in public will cause no problems to anyone.
In what society WOULD dancing in public cause problems to anyone? Saudi Arabia?
Don't worry about saying something offensive, Pangaeans barely ever get offended by words.
This is implausible. If you have opinions, you can be offended. If you can't offent a pangaean, you're just not trying hard enough.
Burning the flag of Pangaea is an acceptable form of expression, too.
... so you're an American, I presume?

Burning the national flag isn't, to my knowledge, an issue anywhere other than America. Why would it be? Indeed, I think of it as a very 1990s issue - you don't hear about it much these days (apparently the last flag burning bill was in 2006).
Cannabis is legal and is seen as an okay thing to smoke.
It really feels like you're just listing things that are unpopular in Alabama now. Who cares whether cannabis is legal or not? It soon will be legal across the West. It's unlikely to ever be really seen as 'an okay thing to smoke', though, just because of the health effects of smoking.
Pangaean culture is friendly and physical contact with other people is common and fine
Cultures are mostly all equally friendly. Physical contact is not inherently friendly. It's just that friendliness is displayed in different ways. [the Southern matron who smilingly says "bless your heart!" may in fact be being less 'friendly' than the punk-edged university student who gives two fingers and says "oh fuck off, you wanker!"].

== Negative aspects of Pangaea ==

Pangaea is not a utopia, it does have problems, just like everywhere else. Problems can range from lack of widespread hygienic norms, to abandoning pets on a highway or driving under the effect of alcohol or other drugs being relatively common. The education and health system are not really high quality, and some part of the population struggles with alcohol and drugs.
These seem a bit... random?
The culture in Pangaea is very tolerant and accepting.
Unlikely.
People here rarely find something morally unacceptable.
Impossible.
This means there are virtually no societal norms to follow
absolutely impossible, and doesn't follow from the former. Everywhere has strict societal norms. [even groups considered 'deviant', like drug dealers, punk musicians, or anime fans have their own laws to obey - they just aren't the same ones as the rest of society]
, because most behaviors are considered acceptable, including homosexuality, sex before marriage, drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, cuddling in public, eating pork, and even being naked in public!
So when you say "most behaviours are acceptable", you mean that... a bunch of things that are perfectly acceptable in Western culture are acceptable.

How about raping children, dissecting other people's cats, defecating on passers-by, ripping up ancient artworks, falsifying scientific results, talking to people on public transport, or unironically liking the music of The Village People?

It's also acceptable to be a racist in Pangaea, but racism (defined in the traditional way, not in the politically correct way) in Pangaea is very rare.
....
....
...ooookay, not going to touch that
The biggest cultural difference between Gaian countries and Pangaea is attitudes towards sex, fetishes and nudity. In Gaian countries, there is a taboo on these things.
You mean Alabama.
In Pangaea, these are completely normal to express publicly. You can literally walk naked in public and nobody will complain. Walking naked in public is considered perfectly normal and acceptable in Pangaea. Anyway, as I was saying, walking naked in public is perfectly acceptable in Pangaea.
You say that you're outlining the nature of your 'conworld', but the fact that you've now repeated about half a dozen times that there is no public nudity taboo kind of suggests that your focus here is not really on the sociology as a whole...
Other things that are perfectly acceptable are sexual fetishes, incest, watching porn in front of other people and even in public,
you've said all this

and while in western countries, 18 years old is the age you become an adult, in Pangaea it's 13 years old.
...oh. Oh, I see. It's that sort of 'conworld' project. Please don't link to your DeviantArt profile.

This was all about sex, fetishes and nudity, but cultural differences don't end here.

Racism is common in western countries, yet it's considered to be abhorrent, while in Pangaea racism is very rare, yet it's considered perfectly acceptable. Someone refusing to be friends with someone merely on the basis of their race very rarely happens in Pangaea, yet, if it happens, it would just be considered a "personal preference" (same as not wanting to be friends with someone just because they wear a yellow t-shirt) and everyone will respect the racist person. Even if someone insults a person merely on the basis on their race (which is a extremely rare event in Pangaea), people will say something like "It's okay, you don't have to like [insert race] people".
.....still not saying anything....

Pangaean culture is very different from western culture, indeed.
...

Also, smoking marijuana is perfectly acceptable and legal in Pangaea.
YOU SAID THIS ALREADY.
In Pangaea, you can do things that are considered "embarrassing" in Gaian countries, such as dancing in public, cross-dressing in public, and much more, and nobody will ridiculize you or complain, because in Pangaea, those things are considered perfectly acceptable,
STOP ASSUMING THAT EVERYWHERE IS ALABAMA!
[can you REALLY not dance in public in Alabama!?]
and people in Pangaea rarely ever judge, anyway.
Ha.
This accepting culture makes people in Pangaea feel happier and more relaxed than the people in Gaian countries.
...
Also probably authoritarian left-wing Gaian people would probably call Pangaea "right-wing bigotry" and probably religious right-wing Gaian people would probably call Pangaea "leftist degeneracy", but Pangaea is none of those (or is it both?). Pangaea is just Pangaea, lol.
...
*sigh*

If you want to build a coherent and authentic conworld, it really helps to approach it from its own perspective, instead of defensively returning to what you think other, imaginary internet people might think about it.
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elemtilas
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by elemtilas »

Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32
Salmoneus hits just about every point worth addressing. For Salmoneus on flag burning: It's only a thing in the US because of our Peculiar Understanding of what the flag of and only of the United States is and what it represents. We have no laws or conventions against the burning of, say, the Chinese or Australian flags for example.

This should answer your question as to why Americans take their flag seriously, if you weren't already aware.

That out of the way, I'd only like to make a couple further observations:
So basically this "country" is in an Earth-like environment, in a boreal forest that occupies the whole land above the Arctic Circle.
If their country is above the Arctic circle, then it is not boreal, but arctic. On Earth, the northern border of the Boreal Forest is the arctic tree line, beyond which trees simply can't grow. There's even a sign marking the spot beyond which trees simply don't grow. Anymore.
Its land occupies 20 million square kilometers (around 7.7 million square miles) and is home to 782 million inhabitants, making it the largest and third most populous country "in the world" (sigh) after China and India. The problem is that this area overlaps real world countries and I'm still trying to figure out how to solve this problem.
So, it overlaps northern Canada & Russia. Um. What's the problem?
Due to my research about climates and vegetation, I established that in most cases, the minimum average temperature of the warmest month (usually July in the northern hemisphere especially for these kinds of places) should be around 12 °C (53.6 °F) or 13 °C (55.4 °F) at least for "normal" trees to grow. Below that temperature trees usually look really bad and small, or they are inexistent (especially in Greenland and Nunavut). So that's the climate of Pangaea. The average temperature in the warmest month is around 13 °C (55.4 °F) in the entire country and the average temperature in the coldest month ranges from being the same as summer in the warmest part of the country to around -40 °C (-40 °F) in the capital city, which is the largest city and also the one with the coldest winters in the country. This being said, we can proceed with the explanation of the culture. Ah, last thing, this country would not be considered a "developed country" if it existed. It would probably be considered a "developing country" that is however not too bad. Like, a high quality "developing country". Think of Brazil or Indonesia except with a much colder climate and a completely different culture from... uhm... "the rest of the world" (sigh again). Enough said for now, let's proceed with the culture.
If you want a fully polar country, you might consider an earlier Earthlike environment, one that will allow the flourishing of a polar forest. Back in the day, with CO2 levels & temperatures rather higher than we have now, Earth sported foresty greenery up to around 85 degrees north. Peary Land (in northern Greenland) isn't even that far north.

The Arctic circle is 66 deg north & change. 85 degrees north way out in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. If all that were land, it would all be green & lush. Antarctica would be the same, as was back in those halcyion days: green & forested. I suspect that above 85 degrees, you'd probably be looking at lots of shrubberies, grasses, ferns and so forth. Ice free & temperate landscape all the way up to 90 degrees!

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== Sexuality ==

One of the most relevant differences between Pangaean culture and Gaian culture is that Pangaean culture doesn't see sexuality as something "dirty" or "immoral", and Pangaeans have a view about sexuality that would be considered utterly degenerate and "immoral" (in a religious sense) by Gaian standards. Masturbating in front of your friends is no issue for a person from Pangaea, for example, and neither would be being naked in front of your friends at home. This concept of sexuality is foreign, at times alien for the average Gaian. Polyamory is the norm in Pangaea, homosexuality and fetishes are seen as perfectly normal. Incest is considered fine in Pangaea, too, but it is preferrable not to have children born from incest. Even at work, you can watch things that would be considered NSFW in Gaian countries. Sex before marriage is not an issue at all in Pangaea. With this permissive culture, asking for a hug and getting it is very easy!
If they're human, then "sexuality" is not at all a foreign concept to them. The reality is that, as human beings, all of these things that we call "sexuality" are simply part of our physical natures. We are sexual beings, full stop. For Pangaean humans to not understand the concept of sexuality must mean that they are either not human at all or else that they are all six years old. I.e., with the sexual immaturity & innocence of the pre-pubescent.

I'd also caution you against your insistence on using blanket accusatory terms, like "Gaian culture" vs "Pangaean culture". This is a typical newbie error (and I don't know if you're new to this or not) to assume the monolithic nature of culture. There is no such thing as "Earth culture", for example. There are literally thousands and myriads of cultures on Earth.

So I suppose a typical Pangaean's day could be described thus:
Spoiler:
Johnny and his friends went into the living room where he sprawled his naked 14 year old body all over his naked mother (because nudity & hugs), who was on a video chat with her children's father (because unclear notions of marriage), who had just gotten a raise at work after inviting the boss to hug and masturbate before the interview (because masturbation with others is fun and hugs are easy to get). The boys all started masturbating (because masturbating with friends is fun), until Johnny's mom got fed up (because mothers do have their limits!).

"Okay, enough! You lot get out of here! Johnny, get yourself ready! You know it's your sister's Big 13 today (when she becomes an adult) and after dinner your father & uncle are going to join us in the park for big old family shag (because incest & premarital sex & homosexual sex). Just go easy on Jackie, okay! I know you've become a regular stallion, but it'll be her first time and we don't want a repeat of what happened between you and me last year! (because incest is cool)."

And afterwards, some of Jackie's friends and families joined them for smores and masturbating (because masturbating with friends is fun) and now that Jackie got the hang of it, she lined up all her friend's brothers and shagged them one after the other (because premarital sex is cool) in the warmth of the long polar sunset.
Pretty typical teenage boy sex fantasy stuff: overemphasis on and immature understanding of sex; not really thinking through the realities or consequences of the stuff one comes up with. I mean, really ask yourself: would you shag your sister for her birthday, and then do your Mom and uncle right after? I get the whole "rebellion" against the ethic & understanding of Judeo-Christian sex, but what you describe is just phoqued up & truly disordered on a planetary scale. To the point of it hardly being cool or interesting -- quite the opposite, what you describe is uninterestingly juvenile. There's not even a good backstory to make this tolerable. This is the kind of thing that, honestly, you really don't need to publicise in a forum like this. If you'd like to continue with your description of Pangaea, I'm all for it, but please focus on something other than a disordered sexuality until and unless you're prepared to bring some really interesting rationales for their behaviours!
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by lsd »

elemtilas wrote: 19 Nov 2020 17:55 Pretty typical teenage boy sex fantasy stuff: (...) what you describe is uninterestingly juvenile.
if it's not very interesting for the older men among us,
but it could be exotic if it was pushed to the limit
and quite suitable for typical teenagers to see their world of sexual fantasies...
but the work to define a coherent functioning of a society that has remained stuck on adolescent fantasies is still to be built to avoid the simple exhibition of fantasies,
a little too crude for the delicate taste of the aesthetes of this forum...
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Pan »

Thank you both for the feedback! I'll try to address some of your points.
I think you still sort of seem stuck between two concepts: one of Pangaea as being alien, and the other of it basically being just another early 21st century European (-esque) country. On the one hand, it's not quite realistic as an early 21st century European country; but on the other hand, it's so familiar that it doesn't quite make sense as anything else.
Actually no. Pangaea would be extremely different from any European or Gaian country.
If winter and summer are the same, the place is in the tropics
Actually, no. There are some cold high latitude places where the difference between winter and summer is very low (most notable inhabited example being Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands, and also Macquarie Island, however the latter is uninhabited). Examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushuaia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%B3rshavn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adak,_Alaska
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B8st
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballycast ... nty_Antrim
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macquarie_Island
"Gaian culture" is very diverse.
I know that, but I was talking about the mainstream Gaian culture, not every single Gaian culture that exists.
Fetishes will never be seen as perfectly normal, for the simple reason that if they were seen as normal they wouldn't be fetishes.
That's true if you see the world through Gaian cultural lenses, but I think a culture like I'm describing is not impossible.
This seems strange to me. Why would they have this rule? Generally, the reason incest is allowed is precisely because of its perceived advantages when it comes to children (who are more 'pure'). There's no practical disadvantage to having incest-children - and if a society really does irrationally abhorr the children of incest, wouldn't this rapidly develop into a de facto taboo against incest itself?
That's because I had read that children born from incest have much higher probablity of developing genetic diseases. So I thought that was the reason.
Generally the same on Gaia.
That's not true. Sex before marriage is considered a taboo and it's illegal in many countries, and some have the death penalty for that. Definitely not "not an issue at all". It is an issue for many Gaians.
Some social interactions are NEVER informal or relaxed.
Some are not, indeed. But more types of social interactions are informal in Pangaea compared to Gaia.
These are probably both normal for the modern West - outside of some particularly conservative pockets - let alone Gaia as a whole! Again, the Anglophone "no physical contact or expression of emotion" is really only the artifact of a particular place and time - even in the 18th century, crying and hugging were normal for European men, and they never became as taboo in southern Europe as they became in the north.
I'm not sure. Hugging does seem very uncommon in many places (especially in Asia, I think).
In what society WOULD dancing in public cause problems to anyone? Saudi Arabia?
Saudi Arabia, yes, and many other countries. Egypt and others.
This is implausible. If you have opinions, you can be offended. If you can't offent a pangaean, you're just not trying hard enough.
It's not that "you can't offend a Pangaean", it's just that on average Pangaeans get offended less easily than the average Gaian. But there are exceptions.
... so you're an American, I presume?
No, I'm Italian.
Burning the national flag isn't, to my knowledge, an issue anywhere other than America. Why would it be? Indeed, I think of it as a very 1990s issue - you don't hear about it much these days (apparently the last flag burning bill was in 2006).
That's not true at all.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/12 ... on-protest
It really feels like you're just listing things that are unpopular in Alabama now. Who cares whether cannabis is legal or not? It soon will be legal across the West.
Many people are against legalizing it, actually.
These seem a bit... random?
I was talking about the negative aspects of Pangaea, too.
absolutely impossible, and doesn't follow from the former. Everywhere has strict societal norms. [even groups considered 'deviant', like drug dealers, punk musicians, or anime fans have their own laws to obey - they just aren't the same ones as the rest of society]
Actually that's not true and I have experienced it myself. Some "subcultures" are much more tolerant and accepting than others. For example I know some people with whom I'm allowed to say a certain range of things (let's call that "range X"), but there are some other people with whom I'm allowed to say everything in "range X" AND many more things than that (let's call the additional range, "range Y"). So definitely there are some "subcultures" where the culture is more strict and others where the culture is more permissive. And with Pangaea I wanted to explore what would happen if the range of permitted behaviors was as high as possible.
So when you say "most behaviours are acceptable", you mean that... a bunch of things that are perfectly acceptable in Western culture are acceptable.
Actually, no. More things are acceptable in Pangaea compared to Western culture.
How about raping children, dissecting other people's cats, defecating on passers-by, ripping up ancient artworks, falsifying scientific results, talking to people on public transport, or unironically liking the music of The Village People?
Raping children, dissecting other people's cats, defecating on passers-by, ripping up ancient works: unacceptable
Falsifying scientific results: it depends, but I think most Pangaeans would get upset by it.
Talking to people on public transport: you can do that in Pangaea with most people. But there are a few people who don't like that.
Unironically liking the music of The Village People: of course it's acceptable and I don't see what's the problem with that!
...ooookay, not going to touch that
That's fine.
You mean Alabama.
Many more places than Alabama, actually.
So, it overlaps northern Canada & Russia. Um. What's the problem?
Also Norway, Sweden, Finland and Greenland. The problem is that I don't know how to make these two words interact with each other. It feels weird to me.
I'd also caution you against your insistence on using blanket accusatory terms, like "Gaian culture" vs "Pangaean culture". This is a typical newbie error (and I don't know if you're new to this or not) to assume the monolithic nature of culture. There is no such thing as "Earth culture", for example. There are literally thousands and myriads of cultures on Earth.
Yeah sorry about that. Also yes I'm new to this. And thanks for the caution. Also I was talking about mainstream Earth culture, I know there are many cultures on Earth but I was talking about the mainstream one.
So I suppose a typical Pangaean's day could be described thus:
That actually made me laugh a lot XD
Pretty typical teenage boy sex fantasy stuff: overemphasis on and immature understanding of sex; not really thinking through the realities or consequences of the stuff one comes up with. I mean, really ask yourself: would you shag your sister for her birthday, and then do your Mom and uncle right after? I get the whole "rebellion" against the ethic & understanding of Judeo-Christian sex, but what you describe is just phoqued up & truly disordered on a planetary scale.
Pangaean sexuality would be the polar opposite of Christian & Islamic sexuality. I think it's funny and it makes me laugh.
There's not even a good backstory to make this tolerable. This is the kind of thing that, honestly, you really don't need to publicise in a forum like this. If you'd like to continue with your description of Pangaea, I'm all for it, but please focus on something other than a disordered sexuality until and unless you're prepared to bring some really interesting rationales for their behaviours!
Sure! What do you want to know about Pangaea? You ask and I will answer.
if it's not very interesting for the older men among us,
but it could be exotic if it was pushed to the limit
and quite suitable for typical teenagers to see their world of sexual fantasies...
but the work to define a coherent functioning of a society that has remained stuck on adolescent fantasies is still to be built to avoid the simple exhibition of fantasies,
a little too crude for the delicate taste of the aesthetes of this forum...
You can ask anything abou Pangaea, too! What do you want to know about Pangaea?
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by elemtilas »

lsd wrote: 19 Nov 2020 18:39
elemtilas wrote: 19 Nov 2020 17:55 Pretty typical teenage boy sex fantasy stuff: (...) what you describe is uninterestingly juvenile.
if it's not very interesting for the older men among us,
but it could be exotic if it was pushed to the limit
Perhaps. Though I don't think this is any more an example of "exotic" than any other peripusescent sex fantasy.
and quite suitable for typical teenagers to see their world of sexual fantasies...
but the work to define a coherent functioning of a society that has remained stuck on adolescent fantasies is still to be built to avoid the simple exhibition of fantasies, a little too crude for the delicate taste of the aesthetes of this forum...
Perhaps so.

But that's just the thing: this would actually be interesting if Pan could show us how a society arises, develops, and maintains itself while remaining "stuck" in its adolescent sex fantasies!
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by elemtilas »

Pan wrote: 19 Nov 2020 18:53
So, it overlaps northern Canada & Russia. Um. What's the problem?
Also Norway, Sweden, Finland and Greenland. The problem is that I don't know how to make these two words interact with each other. It feels weird to me.
Okay, so, what's your issue? What makes it feel weird? What's the basic problem you're trying to solve here.

A map of Pangaea might be handy for you to refer to.
I'd also caution you against your insistence on using blanket accusatory terms, like "Gaian culture" vs "Pangaean culture". This is a typical newbie error (and I don't know if you're new to this or not) to assume the monolithic nature of culture. There is no such thing as "Earth culture", for example. There are literally thousands and myriads of cultures on Earth.
Yeah sorry about that. Also yes I'm new to this. And thanks for the caution. Also I was talking about mainstream Earth culture, I know there are many cultures on Earth but I was talking about the mainstream one.
Sure. That's just it: there is no such thing as "mainstream Earth culture". I'm pretty sure Salmoneus was trying to get that across. One planet = one culture is a common trope in sci fi and fantasy (consider Star Trek, e.g.). Sure, it can be done, and you may even wish to try it!, just be aware that a monolithic Pangaean worldculture can not be compared to a nonexistent mainstream Earth culture.
So I suppose a typical Pangaean's day could be described thus:
That actually made me laugh a lot XD
Fair enough. So, did it provoke any kind of reflection or thought on your part? Note that I did not write that as a way of judging your work bad or stupid: I just want you think about how humans are designed and how they think. It's an interesting thought experiment to, as £sd take these things to their extreme, but you might also want to consider that just because a human culture could do all of those things to their extreme, none will actually do so, and individuals will almost certainly not wish to go to that extreme.

What would be more interesting would be to see how you worked out the origins and evolution of such a culture.

Pretty typical teenage boy sex fantasy stuff: overemphasis on and immature understanding of sex; not really thinking through the realities or consequences of the stuff one comes up with. I mean, really ask yourself: would you shag your sister for her birthday, and then do your Mom and uncle right after? I get the whole "rebellion" against the ethic & understanding of Judeo-Christian sex, but what you describe is just phoqued up & truly disordered on a planetary scale.
Pangaean sexuality would be the polar opposite of Christian & Islamic sexuality. I think it's funny and it makes me laugh.
Okay. So, serious question: would your 13 year old sister laugh along with you if you tried to sproing her? Or if you suggested you and her tried a foursome with Mom and Dad?

Exploring sexuality is certainly a valid line of inquiry for any worldbuilder. Honestly, you're just not there.
There's not even a good backstory to make this tolerable. This is the kind of thing that, honestly, you really don't need to publicise in a forum like this. If you'd like to continue with your description of Pangaea, I'm all for it, but please focus on something other than a disordered sexuality until and unless you're prepared to bring some really interesting rationales for their behaviours!
Sure! What do you want to know about Pangaea? You ask and I will answer.
You tell us! This is your world's thread! I've just asked you to elaborate on how Pangaean society arose and got to where it is!
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Shemtov »

Pan wrote: 19 Nov 2020 18:53

Raping children,
Do they have a concept of statutory rape? Or no sex between pre-pubescent people and pubescent people?
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Pan »

Do they have a concept of statutory rape? Or no sex between pre-pubescent people and pubescent people?
The world is still in work in progress! So I don't know yet.
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Shemtov »

I was asking because I took Sal to be saying (sorry if I'm wrong) that since it's so extreme and implausible, it must reflect your values. I was skeptical, thinking that if you believe it to be plausible, it doesn't necessarily reflect your values, and since I'm giving you the common courtesy of not assuming that you're (for lack of a better term) a supporter of NAMBLAish values, an answer that it's ok, or of ambiguity would, to me, mean you're just being extreme, and this is not your ideal society.
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Pan »

I was asking because I took Sal to be saying (sorry if I'm wrong) that since it's so extreme and implausible, it must reflect your values. I was skeptical, thinking that if you believe it to be plausible, it doesn't necessarily reflect your values, and since I'm giving you the common courtesy of not assuming that you're (for lack of a better term) a supporter of NAMBLAish values, an answer that it's ok, or of ambiguity would, to me, mean you're just being extreme, and this is not your ideal society.
Pangaea mostly reflects my real-life values. I'm pretty extreme in tolerance and acceptance. But, I want Pangaea to be even more extreme. As extreme as it can be, before the immoral filth and degeneracy make the country unlivable.
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Vlürch »

Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32Also obviously not everything can be acceptable, that's why I said "as many things as possible".
Why not everything? Not everyone in any society is going to agree with how permissive they've grown legally and socially even if they're actually pretty conservative societies (as can be shown by trends all around the world and throughout history), and I don't think a state whose only law is that there are no laws would be "impossible"; it just wouldn't survive for very long, at least peacefully, but I could definitely imagine a society that sustains itself by looting and pillaging in a neverending cycle with a nominal government that secludes itself from the rest of society. Like, that'd kind of just be pretty much any given country in medieval times with a different backstory of how it came to be that way. Obviously that's not entirely accurate, but you probably know what I mean.
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32The problem is that this area overlaps real world countries and I'm still trying to figure out how to solve this problem.
If you want those real countries to coexist with it, you could just have Pangaea in a pocket dimension or something. So, there'd be one or more "portals" that allow people to travel between the real world and your conworld. If you don't want it to be a scifi type thing with explicitly specified technological interdimensional portals and just want to handwave it, it could just be a mysterious cave that was regarded as magical by pre-modern people or whatever.
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32Pangaean culture is very different from the culture of any Gaian country, and might feel very alien to a Gaian person.
Like Sal already said, on most issues it's pretty much the 21st-century western world.
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32Pangaean culture doesn't see sexuality as something "dirty" or "immoral"
I don't want to make assumptions, but it seems like you don't hang around socially progressive or liberal people much? It's generally only conservatives that see sexuality that way.
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32being naked in front of your friends at home. This concept of sexuality
Nudity isn't even inherently sexual. That association only became codified pretty recently even in the western world, and at least in Finland it still isn't entirely since saunas exist. If you think of "sauna" in the way it's been exported to a bunch of countries, it's not like that in Finland; it has zero sexual associations. AFAIK it's true that in public saunas the norm is to wear swimwear at least nowadays, but still... anyway, I've always hated saunas myself because I've always been overweight, so I don't have up-to-date information.
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32fetishes are seen as perfectly normal
I assume you mean "tolerated" and in reference to fantasies and actually possible consensual behaviours? In that case, that'd be pretty nice. However, since you already said to Sal that raping children is not OK (and I assume this extends to adults as well?) and that dissecting someone's cat is not OK (and I assume this extends to other animals as well?), but those can be and literally are some people's fetishes. Would "I did it for sexual pleasure" be a valid defence in court if someone, say, tortured their neighbour's cat? Or would that make it a worse offence?

What about rape fantasies, which studies have shown are common among both men and women? Obviously they're not rape fantaises involving kids or cats for most people, but if a society defined "adulthood" at 13 in its full meaning, then clearly the definition of "child" would be considerably different from the modern western one. Would the legal age for porn in Pangaea be 13, too? If so, presumably the porn industry would be full of 13-year-olds just like the real-life porn industry is full of 18-year-olds.

Since you said Pangaeans would be fine with NSFW material at work and fetishes would be seen as normal, would they be fine with someone watching a (by Pangaean standards consensually produced) video of a 13-year-old boy getting simultaneously penetrated anally, shat on and having a metal stick inserted into his urethra or something like that? I mean, that's just a combination of things that are done in consensually produced porn in the real world, technically the only exception is that it'd be a kid... and if the age of adulthood in Pangaea is 13, it wouldn't even be a kid.

Not judging you even if you say "yes" because it's fiction, but I'm not sure how a society like that would function. I mean, inevitably someone who's not happy about their barely teenage daughter/son being in porn (even if porn carried no stigma, there will always be parents who're disappointed in their children's career choices) would catch their coworker jerking off to their daughter/son. Parents will always be generally inclined to be somewhat protective of their children (or their "honour"), even if less so in some societies than others, but since you said incest would be considered fine as well, would Pangaean parents just be like "oh yeah, that's hot, let me join you" and start masturbating with their coworker?🤔

Like... I just can't imagine that being the norm even if I can imagine there being some who'd do that. What if the parent instead beat the coworker to death? Who'd be in the wrong in that case? Or would that just not happen in Pangaea?
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32asking for a hug and getting it is very easy!
Hugs aren't sexual, though?🤔
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32Don't worry about saying something offensive, Pangaeans barely ever get offended by words.
So, if the head of state of Pangaea was giving a speech to thousands of ardent supporters and someone suddenly jumped on the stage to shout "DEATH TO [head of state's name]! LONG LIVE [head of state's biggest opponent]!" not a single one of the thousands of people in the crowd would even boo at them? Or if someone with X skin colour and Y hair colour walked into a neighbourhood that was racist against people with X skin colour and Y hair clour (since you said racism would be fine, racists would form communities) and yelled "I'm better than you! I'm better than you! Na-na-na-na-naaa-aaah", not a single one of the people who're racist against people with X skin colour and Y hair colour would even tell them to fuck off?

That just doesn't seem like realistic human behaviour to me. Getting offended by things is hardwired into us, even if it's something like getting offended by things being called offensive... someone will always be offended by something. There can't be a culture that completely overrides personal feelings. If they just didn't show that they're offended, I could imagine that if showing that you're offended was one of the worst taboos in that society (as it arguably is in most of the world, including the modern western world; I mean, "lol you're offended" is practically the go-to insult against anyone who says they don't like something...) but there'd inevitably be cracks in that system.
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32It's also acceptable to be a racist in Pangaea, but racism (defined in the traditional way, not in the politically correct way) in Pangaea is very rare.
If it was acceptable, why would it be rare? Even in all the countries widely considered the most tolerant and progressive in the world, where racism is technically considered unacceptable, racism is still an insanely widespread issue and even top-level politicians can spout racist shit and get cheered by more than half of the people and still win by landslides... and that's only talking about outright hateful racism, not ignorant racism, which is more common on an exponential level and even the most progressive people can have extremely racist views out of ignorance.

If racism was considered acceptable, the only way I can imagine for a society to keep itself from devolving into an isolationist North Korea-style hellhole would be if there were several groups within it that hated each other at least equally based on things that had no relation to inborn qualities like skin colour or hair colour and that were "mutable" categories where the transgenerational "inheritance" would be broken often enough. I can't really think of any that wouldn't devolve into people hating people whose parents are in those "categories", but I guess if Pangaeans were individualistic enough it could be things like political ideology, religion, sports rivalry, fashion, favourite type of music, etc...

If people jumped back and forth between those categories often enough, it would likely reduce the hatred they have for each other anyway, so again racism would triumph. Pretty sure Pangaea would have to be a true melting pot where the majority have mixed ancestry from various ethnic groups that look noticeably different to avoid that, but there'd probably still be xenophobia and nationalism if those were considered acceptable.

Then again, maybe I'm just projecting the real world onto your conworld.
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32You can literally walk naked in public and nobody will complain. Walking naked in public is considered perfectly normal and acceptable in Pangaea.

Anyway, as I was saying, walking naked in public is perfectly acceptable in Pangaea.
They walk around naked so much that it has to be emphasised three times in row?🤔 Do they ever wear clothes in public? How about in private?
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32while in western countries, 18 years old is the age you become an adult, in Pangaea it's 13 years old.
It's not always a single moment where you're suddenly an "adult". Take Finland for example:
1) You become criminally of age at 15; this means that if you commit a crime, you're treated as an adult rather than as a child and get full punishments.
2) You become sexually of age at 16; this means you can legally have sex with anyone you want who is also 16 or older (except teachers and such).
3) You become legally an adult at 18; this means you can vote, drink alcohol, drive cars, etc.

I looked it up and it seems in Italy the ages are 1) 18, 2) 14 and 3) 18. So in terms of sexuality, whose difference from "Gaian culture" you emphasised with a whole bunch of paragraphs, your Pangaea sets it literally just one year lower than how it already is in your country! Not that different if you ask me...🤔
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32Racism is common in western countries, yet it's considered to be abhorrent
It often depends on the country and who the racism is against, though. Besides, would the concept of "race" as distinct from ethnicity/culture even exist in Pangaea if not imported from the modern western world?
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by elemtilas »

Vlürch wrote: 25 Nov 2020 12:40
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32Also obviously not everything can be acceptable, that's why I said "as many things as possible".
Pan wrote: 18 Nov 2020 19:32Pangaean culture doesn't see sexuality as something "dirty" or "immoral"
I don't want to make assumptions, but it seems like you don't hang around socially progressive or liberal people much? It's generally only conservatives that see sexuality that way.
Actually, not true. Sòme people may view sexuality that way, "dirty or immoral" but I think they're very much in the minority. Quite the opposite, the Church understands sexuality itself, as with all things, when rightly ordered of course, to be beautiful and good. What ìs understood to be dirty and immoral is abused sexuality. Look at it like this: playing baseball is good, hit the ball make a home run, and it's all overpriced soda & hot dogs from there on out. But turn around and start beating the shit out of the catcher and that's very bad indeed. It's an abuse of person and a misuse of implement and circumstance. Therein lies the immorality. Sex is no different.
Like... I just can't imagine that being the norm even if I can imagine there being some who'd do that. What if the parent instead beat the coworker to death? Who'd be in the wrong in that case? Or would that just not happen in Pangaea?
Ah, all the defence lawyer has to do is cast the seeds onto fertile ground... the excitement of the coworker wanking off to his daughter's fetish porn in turn got him excited to the point that his own cricket bat fetish was energised. He began wailing on his coworker, and himself, to the point that the coworker unfortunately expired during the episode. No wrong was committed because in displaying his own fetish for 13 year old porn, he willingly invited another to participate and thus willfully gave consent to be bashed by his own coworker's cricket bat slayer fetish.

Hunh.

All well and good unless the testimony awakens in the judge her own S&M fantasies...

And therein lies the essential fallacy of this kind of fantasy society: its basis is 100% unadulterated Culture of Me. The only person that exists in this culture is "me" -- all other person-like entities are really nothing more than objects for my own use & pleasure. No law can supersede my own use & pleasure because all those things are, in point of fact "acceptable" and for all those things to be acceptable, they can neither be illegal, immoral, nor otherwise curtailed.

This is much less a "culture" or a "society" than it is a collection of random individuals with no sense of relationship and no sense of either otherworth or selfworth. While I don't think such a "culture" can evolve naturally among humans, and neither do I think it can be entirely imposed; as an experiment in the absurd and in the extreme, I'd still find it interesting to see how the Pangaeans manage to make it work. What's the underlying mechanism, in other words.
If people jumped back and forth between those categories often enough, it would likely reduce the hatred they have for each other anyway, so again racism would triumph. Pretty sure Pangaea would have to be a true melting pot where the majority have mixed ancestry from various ethnic groups that look noticeably different to avoid that, but there'd probably still be xenophobia and nationalism if those were considered acceptable.
Even that might not be enough. Might be the wrong mixture, or not mixed enough, or even though well mixed might not show enough homogenised traits or show too many original traits. Anything can set off the us versus them cascade.
Then again, maybe I'm just projecting the real world onto your conworld.
As far as we know, Pangaeans are ordinary humans, so I think what you're doing is projecting human behaviour onto other humans.
It's not always a single moment where you're suddenly an "adult". Take Finland for example:
1) You become criminally of age at 15; this means that if you commit a crime, you're treated as an adult rather than as a child and get full punishments.
2) You become sexually of age at 16; this means you can legally have sex with anyone you want who is also 16 or older (except teachers and such).
3) You become legally an adult at 18; this means you can vote, drink alcohol, drive cars, etc.
Hmh. Why not "teachers and such"?
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Vlürch »

elemtilas wrote: 25 Nov 2020 15:42Actually, not true. Sòme people may view sexuality that way, "dirty or immoral" but I think they're very much in the minority. Quite the opposite, the Church understands sexuality itself, as with all things, when rightly ordered of course, to be beautiful and good. What ìs understood to be dirty and immoral is abused sexuality. Look at it like this: playing baseball is good, hit the ball make a home run, and it's all overpriced soda & hot dogs from there on out. But turn around and start beating the shit out of the catcher and that's very bad indeed. It's an abuse of person and a misuse of implement and circumstance. Therein lies the immorality. Sex is no different.
I'm pretty sure that if you asked the average person in any country outside big cities what they think about eg. two dudes having anal sex together, they'd say it's "dirty" and/or "immoral". Personally I think homosexuality should be seen the same way as heterosexuality, but even in Finland there's strong opposition to it from like a quarter of the population. So, in less sexually progressive/liberal countries...

That's why I said "progressive or liberal people", since progressives/liberals obviously tend to be more tolerant of "non-traditional" things of all kinds, including sexuality. It's just that in most of the western world, most people are progressive and/or liberal at least to some degree, at least in the big cities.

Also, what's considered abusive is always going to vary between every culture. Spousal rape is considered abusive in most of the western world and has been made illegal, but it wasn't long ago that it wasn't even considered a thing anywhere, and it's still legal in quite a lot of countries. Same applies to child marriage, which was considered acceptable in most of the world for most of history (at least by the UN definition of "a marriage where one or both parties are under 18"; even by a definition like "under 13" it was still pretty widespread), and still is in some countries.

Besides, it's not like you can always point to even the church saying "this is wrong because it's abusive"; who's being abused in consensual oral or anal sex, for example? Yet those have sometimes been punishable, including by death, and still are in some countries just because lawmakers deriving their morality from (their interpretations of) religious texts decided those are "immoral" things. Nothing to do with "abusiveness", except maybe "offending God" but that's pretty moronic tbh imho.

Anyway, why should the government have the right to tell people "nah, you're not allowed to do that" or "nah, you can't be together" in any case? Like, yeah, if it's not consensual, that's different, but studies have shown that stuff like consensual BDSM and rape roleplay and whatnot aren't exactly rare. Yet, religious and governmental institutions are the ones spearheading bans on those kinds of things.

You probably could argue that talking about things that aren't sex in the missionary position for the sole purpose of procreation between a married man and woman is talking about "abusive sexuality", but I'm pretty sure that's not what you were even implying, so, like... eh.
elemtilas wrote: 25 Nov 2020 15:42Hmh. Why not "teachers and such"?
Because they're in a position of power. Teachers, employers, doctors, etc. are not allowed to have sex with students, employees, patients, etc. unless the student, employee, patient, etc. is over 18 no matter how much they both wanted it, but even if they were over 18 I'm pretty sure the person in a position of power could get fired. I do understand the point of the law, but on the other hand I kinda disagree with it because it shouldn't really matter as long as it was consensual.

Anyway, I'd like to hear more about Pangaea, seconding (or thirding) wanting to hear about the history of how it came to be that way. Maybe also about the political structure and things like its religion(s), etc. since I'd expect those to actually be pretty different from anything on Earth for things to have turned on in the direction of "no one is offended by anything" in particular.
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Salmoneus »

Vlürch wrote: 26 Nov 2020 01:30 I'm pretty sure that if you asked the average person in any country outside big cities what they think about eg. two dudes having anal sex together, they'd say it's "dirty" and/or "immoral".
This is clearly nonsense.
I don't have figures for Finland, but in neighbouring Sweden, for example, 94% of the population say that homosexuality should be accepted by society. 86% in Germany, 92% in the Netherlands, etc. Even in the US, traditionally the most homophobic developed country, it's risen to 74% (up from only 49% in 2007).
Anyway, why should the government have the right to tell people "nah, you're not allowed to do that" or "nah, you can't be together" in any case? Like, yeah, if it's not consensual, that's different, but studies have shown that stuff like consensual BDSM and rape roleplay and whatnot aren't exactly rare. Yet, religious and governmental institutions are the ones spearheading bans on those kinds of things.
Well, you make the libertarian argument - government should intervene to prohibit narrowly non-consensual things, but not anything consensual - but many people are not libertarians. Rather than asking "how can anyone not be a libertarian!?", maybe you should try actually setting out an argument for libertarianism? But probably not here.
[fwiw, in the UK religious institutions don't seem to be involved in the sex laws at all. Recently, that's pretty much all been feminist pressure groups]
Because they're in a position of power. Teachers, employers, doctors, etc. are not allowed to have sex with students, employees, patients, etc. unless the student, employee, patient, etc. is over 18 no matter how much they both wanted it, but even if they were over 18 I'm pretty sure the person in a position of power could get fired. I do understand the point of the law, but on the other hand I kinda disagree with it because it shouldn't really matter as long as it was consensual.
Again, this is the libertarian position. But the non-libertarian would say: when certain extreme power relationships exist, such that one person has immense power over the other's life, and even over what they learn and believe, then meaningful consent is probably not possible, because one party is not independent of, or able to form preferences truly independent of, the other; and that even when such consent is possible, it is often not possible for either party, or an external legal observer, to confidently know that consent is indeed present - in these situations, compulsion can look exactly like consent. Consequently, these relationships are treated with caution by society, and in some cases prohibited by law. [the details vary, but common things to ban are parent-child, teacher-pupil, doctor-patient, therapist-client, and lawyer-client; there are also often additional restrictions with children over the age of consent but below the age of full majority; and other relationships like manager-employee, director-actor, politician-constituent, etc may be legal but subject to industry regulations, and may make the senior partner particularly vulnerable to prosecution under other laws] Restricting these relationships may indeed unjustly disadvantage some small number of genuinely consenting people; but failing to do so would essentially give carte blanche to the much larger percentage of these relationships that are abusive in nature, as it would not be remotely possible through the legal system to distinguish consent from non-consent.

However, might I suggest that these arguments - particularly if you're going to try to continue to argue with elemtilas about his religion - be moved from this point to another thread? It's moving kind of off-topic, and also into rather inflammatory areas.
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by elemtilas »

Salmoneus wrote: 26 Nov 2020 13:49 However, might I suggest that these arguments - particularly if you're going to try to continue to argue with elemtilas about his religion - be moved from this point to another thread? It's moving kind of off-topic, and also into rather inflammatory areas.
Friend, don't even bring me into this. I'm not "arguing" anything. I did offer a single counterpoint to one of Vlurch's statements, however. I am just curious how the invented culture at hand arose and functions! Though I'd suggest you follow your own advice: if you want to go on about real world libertarianism and other kinds of real world political stuff, take that somewhere else. Or perhaps just not bring up the real world politics at all? And certainly don't be ascribing motivations to other people.
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Salmoneus »

elemtilas wrote: 26 Nov 2020 16:50 If you want to go on about real world libertarianism and other kinds of real world political stuff, take that somewhere else. Or perhaps just not bring up the real world politics at all?
...this entire thread is about real world politics. All your posts in this thread are about real-world politics.

I answered Vlurch because I thought it was an important point, but also not worth making a new thread about. But I pointed out that we were getting further from the OP topic, and that further discussion might require a new thread. What's wrong with that?

And certainly don't be ascribing motivations to other people.
Genuinely not sure which of my posts that's referring to, although it's somewhat ironic given your own posts in this thread.
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Xonen »

Okay, this thread seemed fairly civil initially, but it seems to be going downhill, and now there are reports. So, locked pending further review by the administration.
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Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)

Post by Xonen »

Update: It's a really tough decision to lock a thread on someone's conworld, but here, it seems like the original poster had already stopped participating in the discussion and it had been rekindled (after no posts at all for several days) by other people for the primary purpose of arguing about real-world politics and religion. Furthermore, the conworld stuff itself appears to consist almost entirely of commentary on real-world issues - which, as such, would be fine, if it weren't for the fact that it focuses on fairly sensitive issues, and treading lightly around them is very explicitly not on the creator's agenda.

Thus, we've made the (again, difficult) decision to keep this thread locked for now. If Pan wants to start a new one on the same conworld at some point, we're not going to preëmptively prohibit that, but the focus needs to be broader than "extreme immorality and filth" just for sake of violating real-world (conservative and/or Western) norms. See the rules, especially rule number 3.
Locked