OCP

[AllStarZ]

An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilizations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop.

The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass...

...when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests.

[Anna]

And what is the point of this thread other than you attempting to show that you know what an "Outside Context Problem" is, and thus have probably read Excession or one of the other Culture books? Well, since you lifted the line about "encounter them the way a sentence encounters a full stop" straight from the book Excession, I'm assuming that.

Seriously, you pose no questions, you offer no subject for debate, you just start a thread about "listen to me rant about something that anyone could read about by borrowing Excession by Iain M. Banks from the Library".

What. Is. The. Point?

Are you looking for an Outside Context Problem of your own?

[unsunghero10]

Implied, maybe, what could ours be?

2012?