Chapter 2, “Destructive Recall” (p. 71)
“
It was a truism that all civilisations were basically neurotic until they made contact with everybody else and found their place within the ever-changing meta-civilisation of other beings, because, until then, during the stage when they honestly believed they might be entirely alone in existence, all solo societies were possessed of both an inflated sense of their own importance and a kind of existential terror at the sheer scale and apparent emptiness of the universe.
— Iain Banks
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "It was a truism that all civilisations were basically neurotic until they made contact with everybody else and found their place within the ever-changing meta-civilisation of other beings, because, until then, during the stage when they honestly believed they might be entirely alone in existence, all solo societies were possessed of both an inflated sense of their own importance and a kind of existential terror at the sheer scale and apparent emptiness of the universe." in the context of "Chapter 2, “Destructive Recall” (p. 71)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.
Source: Wikiquote: "Iain Banks" (Quotes, Non-Culture Novels, The Algebraist (2004): All page numbers are from the trade paperback edition published by Night Shade Books, , in 2006
All spelling and punctuation as in the book )
The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
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About Iain Banks
Iain Menzies Banks (February 16, 1954 – June 9, 2013), officially Iain Banks, was a Scottish writer. As Iain M. Banks he wrote science fiction; as Iain Banks he wrote literary fiction.
About Iain Banks
Iain Menzies Banks (February 16, 1954 – June 9, 2013), officially Iain Banks, was a Scottish writer. As Iain M. Banks he wrote science fiction; as Iain Banks he wrote literary fiction.
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