Pyramid #3/62: Transhuman Space II

[Keiko]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The Eloi are based on an attempt to envision how people live who fit the description of that class in the published books—that is, people who live comfortably or prosperously off their capital. There could be other types of very rich people; in particular, some of the people who have largely isolated themselves from society might be very rich, and in the more authoritarian polities, the political rulers will often be incredibly rich.

Conversely, Eloi are hardly limited to the extremely wealthy and privileged—"the 1%," as it's now trendy to say. The Eloi are "the 30%" in most Fifth Wave polities. They are rather like retirees who have substantial pensions rather than just Social Security—except that they haven't retired because of age or disability, but because they've accumulated the necessary capital and their society encourages them to live on its returns.

Bill Stoddard

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I would say that they were a sub-culture of the simply rich. Eloi pursue their private lives with vigor and attempts at creativity or at least style. Someone who ahs the income to live comfortably without working but does so quietly and privately would be too dull to be Eloi.

Ah, I see. Thank you.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Vigour and creativity seemed secondary to me.

Things that got interesting for me were the semi-egalitarian preferences (notably, the strong opposition to any Old Boys Club attitudes, replaced by broad-mindedness), the cultural prohibition against working to get more money, and the insistence that the Eloi must assimilate the skills of a 'lowly' interpreter/translator/anthropologist/culturologist.

How odd.