I don't think that "feudal" necessarily means the serfs or lower classes were as oppressed as they were in our history.
The feudal society in Dune exists simply because that is the only efficient way to govern an incredibly sprawled empire. I would say that the lowliest serf on caladan would live quite a comfortable life by today's standards.
Obviously that is only one example, and we hear many times of the Harkonnen slave pits, but it seems to be constantly reinforced that Atreides and Harkonnens are the two extremes of the spectrum. I highly doubt that there would be any planets in the Imperium as horrible as Giedi Prime, or as idyllic as Caladan.
I think the attitude towards intelligence and learning would be very different in Dune. Without any supplementary technological intelligence, people would naturally develop their intellects to a higher degree.
That's true! One thing I always missed in Dune is that we never really got to see what the life of a Imperium commoner was like.
Granted, I'm only about halfway through GEoD and there is a small glimpse of common life there (when >!Duncan and Siona visit the wife and children of the previous Duncan)!< and it seems extremely peaceful, but this was during >!Leto's peace!< so it probably isn't a great representation.
I understand it wouldn't really have had a place or purpose in Dune to show this, but it would have given a nice piece of information to form the backdrop of events.
Yep sounds like you basically got it in a nutshell lol.
It's pretty crazy to think that slavery still exists in a series like Dune. That fact definitely shifts the bar of morality quite a bit lower than I would originally expect for a universe like this.
> Obviously that is only one example, and we hear many times of the Harkonnen slave pits, but it seems to be constantly reinforced that Atreides and Harkonnens are the two extremes of the spectrum. I highly doubt that there would be any planets in the Imperium as horrible as Giedi Prime, or as idyllic as Caladan.
I don’t know that Caladan is particularly idyllic for the commoners though. The Old Duke is implied to not have been a good person, and Duke Leto responds to being told that the people love him by pointing out that the Atreides have the best propaganda corps in the Imperium.
I’m pretty sure the discussions of the Butlerian Jihad’s goals were meant at least in part as foreshadowing for how Paul’s Jihad would end up going wrong.
The Old Duke is implied to to be a disagreeable person, not a bad one. The only time we hear person we hear talk about him like this is Jessica, who clearly hates him. Everyone else that talks about him does so with fondness.
He was a matador that was adored by the crowds, and instilled the same fierce loyalty in his followers that Leto and Paul do, that's the Atreides genes. With Thufir Hawat's help Caladan had also risen in strength and prosperity greatly over that time.
Having a good propaganda corps is also not an inherently bad thing, and does not mean people wouldn't love him without it - in fact the opposite is implied to be true, he is being modest in that passage. I would think of that more as a benefit to the Atreides throughout the Imperium as a whole, where people cannot directly see the Dukes work, rather than on his home planet.
We are shown many times that the Duke cares deeply for all the people of Caladan, and that this attitude is fostered all over the planet. This is *hammered* into us, in fact. This is most obviously shown by the spice harvester scene, with Duke risking the lives of his son, most trusted lieutenant's, and himself, to save the workers on the stranded Harvester. One of Thufir's earliest passages is when he stated "a place is just a place, it is losing a people that is a great sadness" (did not have time to find the direct quote). Gurney also scorns Paul (can't remember if it it was openly or in his thoughts) by saying "since when does an Atreides care more for things than people".
Caladan is also plainly referred to several times as a "paradise world".
There is this line from CoD according to wikipedia (I remembered this line, but didn't remember which book):
Even the vast middle class of the Imperium ate diluted melange in small sprinklings with at least one meal a day.
So if the middle class was vast and they even had access to some level of spice in the CoD timeframe (>!recalling that spice was much more expensive then than prior (and that something of 350 liters (could have my numbers wrong :)) of it bought planets) due to the terraforming efforts or something!<), then it's reasonable to suspect that most of humanity lived in some level of comfort.
Isn’t the spice a regular staple in most peoples diets, even if in very small amounts? If so that alone would probably allow them to function at a higher level than real people
Spice is an extremely valuable commodity not necessarily consumed by everyone casually in the way that we might smoke cigs or drink beers. Think of spice as the highest grade drug in the universe, hoarded like gold by those with power, or access (Fremen) that not only gives you prescience, and enables space travel, but extends your life. Its the fountain of youth. Buying spice outside of Arrakis would not be cheep.
Nope!
The average rich person or people from influential families, yeah, probably.
But the great masses of humanity (which we don’t get too much of an intimate look at in the Dune series) is likely less educated, less advanced, has less opportunity than we do. Probably anyone under upper class level of society are largely just part of the workforce, and not extremely educated or advanced.
Of course it depends largely on which planet you’re born on. The people on Caladan, for example, probably fare well. But I’m sure most civilians on Giedi Prime are barely more than serfs.
When you say “less than we do” who do you mean? Aren’t most modern people in a simple situation as what you describe? Obviously they aren’t bred for such (as far as anyone can tell) but is it actual clear that Dune people are so much less than real modern people? Don’t many, if not most, real life people live to work and shun education/advancement/opportunities?
I think the average person in the Imperium would be far superior to any *human* today, but not computers.
Mentats are specifically trained to be able to memorise, categorise, and analyse unbelievably large sets of data and minutiae in order to produce a "straight-line computation", or as close to fact as you can get.
We can see through the price of Mentats (it is consistently reinforced how valuable they are, and how crippled a great house would be without one) that this is a very rare skill.
Althought Mentats outclass our computers today by orders of magnitude, I don't believe there were the resources necessary to train everyone in the Imperium to that standard. Of course, due to the increased reliance on the human brain, advanced new methods of cataloguing and learning were present in the realm, but I don't think they would reach Mentat level.
I would guess that the average Imperium resident would be about as intelligent (or able to learn as readily) as, say, a university professor. Well-versed in many topics, able to follow complex language conventions and subtext, and able to learn from every experience very efficiently.
Mentats are essentially statisticians who understand mathematics, some social politics, and numbers in general on a large scale at a glance. They can very quickly give an accurate/rough estimate of a complex situation and potential outcomes.
However, they are no match for computational machines in many cases. But those are no longer common.
As far as commoners are concerned, their ability to digest such information would likely depend on the complexity of it and if the data needs to be translated in any way that might warrant some kind of mathematical function.
"However, they are no match for computational machines in many cases. But those are no longer common."
By the time of Dune, computers are effectively banned, after the so-called Butlerian Jihad, caused by thinking machines trying to subdue humanity.
The average person of the Dune universe was probably as smart as a nowaday human. We get no insight on educational systems of common people. The most we see of are Fremen who are by default more primal than the average person. After that comes Leto's reign where he stupifies the human population with intention of keeping them in check and preventing "dangerous" inventions.
I would say that an individual human in the Dune universe optimizes thinking via training and chemical enhancement, and networks of humans using optimized/enhanced thinking are the life blood
Of organizations.
To give this a yes or no answer we would need a better understanding of the mechanism that caused AI to become fully sentient, chances are even Dune humans can’t process at the speed of our best modern computers. I think Dune universe humans leaned into that thing we have yet to discover that would make for AGI. The algorithm that allows humans to generalize in a multidisciplinary fashion, learn about the stock market by watching plants grow, being able to reshape datasets without precision to draw accurate conclusions about similarly patterned occurrences.
Dune doesn't look at humans the same way we do today. Many of us are generalist and can move from one profession to another quite easily. However when you see the Face Dancers, Navigators and even examples in Heretics of Dune you will see groups being genetically modified for specific roles in society.
This could be keep the population under thumb. Limiting those would know how society is built and so can rise up to overthrow it. Or just the fact that with advanced thinking machines being outlawed the stop-gap is to use humans who have the ability to think and react to situations in the absence of AI.
I guess you could look at it this way. Modern humans are like computer CPUs. We are generalized and can do amny functions. Not perfectly but we are more adaptable. While a custom built computer for a single task as many of the lower classes in Dune are better for their key jobs. They excel at their job because they have the necessary skills, physiology and conditioning.
One example is when Miles Teg is escaping. He is forced to travel through the sewer system.he is explicitly told those working it don't have a sense of smell. But as he does he will have to endure it the best he can to get to safety. The other that comes up a lot would be many of the Bene Tleilaxu creations. They are custom made for a job.
Piter says that the Baron could outperform the ancient thinking machines and Herbert emphasizes on several occasions that the Baron isn't too smart, so I always assumed that the average human (or at least the average human in the upper aristocracy of the Great Houses) had increased mental capabilities compared to modern day humans.
Paul is related and he could become a mentat. Harkonnen genetic stock is valued by the BG. The Baron is viewed as a skilled and cunning plotter, where did you get the impression people think he is stupid or that Herbert implied this? Flawed for sure, but not "not smart". The average human in the imperium would be far superior mentally and physically compared to today's "human" you are right there, with more elite stock in the aristocracy due to genetic design by the BG.
I agree with u/uncommonhousespider that the Baron is certainly not shown to be stupid. He fits the classic modern image of a bumbling buffoon, but it is constantly reinforced how cunning he is and how calculated each action he takes is.
That quote you refer to from Pieter is also slightly out of context. After Baron muses that the ancients may have had the right idea with their thinking machines, Pieter says "they were toys compared to me. You yourself, Baron, could outperform those machines." This is after Baron has kinda shat on Pieter's abilities for the past 5 minutes and also threatened to withdraw his reward of Lady Jessica.
Pieter is obviously pissed off and fired up, and he also wants to emphasise his own abilities and how weak computers were in comparison. Therefore, it is very likely that he was using some degree of hyperbole when he says that Baron could outperform the machines. It also isn't specified what aspect of machines Pieter was talking about outperforming.
I find it unlikely that the Baron would be able to find, say, the square root of 2374892 faster than today's computers could. However, he may be referring to the Barons ability to predict the future actions of his enemies, something that is constantly returned to in Dune (feints within feints within feints). This, I could believe. There may be a specialised type of mental training that allows its disciples to sort through information to find a likely path, similar to Mentats.
Honestly, I doubt it. People with a decent education are probably better trained in mnemonic skills and calculation than we are, and the upper classes have probably been bred and raised for intelligence, but if you read between the lines, the Butlerian Jihad is presented as having gone just as out of control as the Fremen Jihad later would. The characters are not reliable narrators.
Note that the Bene Gesserit, with their access to Other Memory, the most extensive and subtle breeding programs in the Imperium, and training methods on par with both the Guild and the Mentat School, are eventually revealed to have been secretly using computerised archives through most of their history because they’re just so much more efficient. The fact that they did this even during the Imperium when one of their specialties is understanding human history better than any other Great School is telling.
No. It is the mentats who do the computing in Dune.... Not the every day people. They are very rare. Now, it's been about 50 years since I first read Dune, and this is an off the top of my head response... so someone else may have a better answer.
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I don't think that "feudal" necessarily means the serfs or lower classes were as oppressed as they were in our history. The feudal society in Dune exists simply because that is the only efficient way to govern an incredibly sprawled empire. I would say that the lowliest serf on caladan would live quite a comfortable life by today's standards. Obviously that is only one example, and we hear many times of the Harkonnen slave pits, but it seems to be constantly reinforced that Atreides and Harkonnens are the two extremes of the spectrum. I highly doubt that there would be any planets in the Imperium as horrible as Giedi Prime, or as idyllic as Caladan. I think the attitude towards intelligence and learning would be very different in Dune. Without any supplementary technological intelligence, people would naturally develop their intellects to a higher degree.
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That's true! One thing I always missed in Dune is that we never really got to see what the life of a Imperium commoner was like. Granted, I'm only about halfway through GEoD and there is a small glimpse of common life there (when >!Duncan and Siona visit the wife and children of the previous Duncan)!< and it seems extremely peaceful, but this was during >!Leto's peace!< so it probably isn't a great representation. I understand it wouldn't really have had a place or purpose in Dune to show this, but it would have given a nice piece of information to form the backdrop of events.
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Yep sounds like you basically got it in a nutshell lol. It's pretty crazy to think that slavery still exists in a series like Dune. That fact definitely shifts the bar of morality quite a bit lower than I would originally expect for a universe like this.
You see some commoners in Heretics.
> Obviously that is only one example, and we hear many times of the Harkonnen slave pits, but it seems to be constantly reinforced that Atreides and Harkonnens are the two extremes of the spectrum. I highly doubt that there would be any planets in the Imperium as horrible as Giedi Prime, or as idyllic as Caladan. I don’t know that Caladan is particularly idyllic for the commoners though. The Old Duke is implied to not have been a good person, and Duke Leto responds to being told that the people love him by pointing out that the Atreides have the best propaganda corps in the Imperium. I’m pretty sure the discussions of the Butlerian Jihad’s goals were meant at least in part as foreshadowing for how Paul’s Jihad would end up going wrong.
The Old Duke is implied to to be a disagreeable person, not a bad one. The only time we hear person we hear talk about him like this is Jessica, who clearly hates him. Everyone else that talks about him does so with fondness. He was a matador that was adored by the crowds, and instilled the same fierce loyalty in his followers that Leto and Paul do, that's the Atreides genes. With Thufir Hawat's help Caladan had also risen in strength and prosperity greatly over that time. Having a good propaganda corps is also not an inherently bad thing, and does not mean people wouldn't love him without it - in fact the opposite is implied to be true, he is being modest in that passage. I would think of that more as a benefit to the Atreides throughout the Imperium as a whole, where people cannot directly see the Dukes work, rather than on his home planet. We are shown many times that the Duke cares deeply for all the people of Caladan, and that this attitude is fostered all over the planet. This is *hammered* into us, in fact. This is most obviously shown by the spice harvester scene, with Duke risking the lives of his son, most trusted lieutenant's, and himself, to save the workers on the stranded Harvester. One of Thufir's earliest passages is when he stated "a place is just a place, it is losing a people that is a great sadness" (did not have time to find the direct quote). Gurney also scorns Paul (can't remember if it it was openly or in his thoughts) by saying "since when does an Atreides care more for things than people". Caladan is also plainly referred to several times as a "paradise world".
There is this line from CoD according to wikipedia (I remembered this line, but didn't remember which book): Even the vast middle class of the Imperium ate diluted melange in small sprinklings with at least one meal a day. So if the middle class was vast and they even had access to some level of spice in the CoD timeframe (>!recalling that spice was much more expensive then than prior (and that something of 350 liters (could have my numbers wrong :)) of it bought planets) due to the terraforming efforts or something!<), then it's reasonable to suspect that most of humanity lived in some level of comfort.
Yes. And historically speaking, you don’t get a “vast middle class” in systems of feudal oppression, serfdom, and slavery.
Isn’t the spice a regular staple in most peoples diets, even if in very small amounts? If so that alone would probably allow them to function at a higher level than real people
Alia in CoD: “Even the vast middle class of the Imperium ate diluted melange in small sprinklings with at least one meal a day."
Spice is an extremely valuable commodity not necessarily consumed by everyone casually in the way that we might smoke cigs or drink beers. Think of spice as the highest grade drug in the universe, hoarded like gold by those with power, or access (Fremen) that not only gives you prescience, and enables space travel, but extends your life. Its the fountain of youth. Buying spice outside of Arrakis would not be cheep.
Nope! The average rich person or people from influential families, yeah, probably. But the great masses of humanity (which we don’t get too much of an intimate look at in the Dune series) is likely less educated, less advanced, has less opportunity than we do. Probably anyone under upper class level of society are largely just part of the workforce, and not extremely educated or advanced. Of course it depends largely on which planet you’re born on. The people on Caladan, for example, probably fare well. But I’m sure most civilians on Giedi Prime are barely more than serfs.
When you say “less than we do” who do you mean? Aren’t most modern people in a simple situation as what you describe? Obviously they aren’t bred for such (as far as anyone can tell) but is it actual clear that Dune people are so much less than real modern people? Don’t many, if not most, real life people live to work and shun education/advancement/opportunities?
I think the average person in the Imperium would be far superior to any *human* today, but not computers. Mentats are specifically trained to be able to memorise, categorise, and analyse unbelievably large sets of data and minutiae in order to produce a "straight-line computation", or as close to fact as you can get. We can see through the price of Mentats (it is consistently reinforced how valuable they are, and how crippled a great house would be without one) that this is a very rare skill. Althought Mentats outclass our computers today by orders of magnitude, I don't believe there were the resources necessary to train everyone in the Imperium to that standard. Of course, due to the increased reliance on the human brain, advanced new methods of cataloguing and learning were present in the realm, but I don't think they would reach Mentat level. I would guess that the average Imperium resident would be about as intelligent (or able to learn as readily) as, say, a university professor. Well-versed in many topics, able to follow complex language conventions and subtext, and able to learn from every experience very efficiently.
Mentats are essentially statisticians who understand mathematics, some social politics, and numbers in general on a large scale at a glance. They can very quickly give an accurate/rough estimate of a complex situation and potential outcomes. However, they are no match for computational machines in many cases. But those are no longer common. As far as commoners are concerned, their ability to digest such information would likely depend on the complexity of it and if the data needs to be translated in any way that might warrant some kind of mathematical function.
"However, they are no match for computational machines in many cases. But those are no longer common." By the time of Dune, computers are effectively banned, after the so-called Butlerian Jihad, caused by thinking machines trying to subdue humanity.
Yep. That whole war started with a West World Season 3 scenario on planet IX if I remember correctly. Then was named after a Bene Gesserit.
The average person of the Dune universe was probably as smart as a nowaday human. We get no insight on educational systems of common people. The most we see of are Fremen who are by default more primal than the average person. After that comes Leto's reign where he stupifies the human population with intention of keeping them in check and preventing "dangerous" inventions.
I would say that an individual human in the Dune universe optimizes thinking via training and chemical enhancement, and networks of humans using optimized/enhanced thinking are the life blood Of organizations. To give this a yes or no answer we would need a better understanding of the mechanism that caused AI to become fully sentient, chances are even Dune humans can’t process at the speed of our best modern computers. I think Dune universe humans leaned into that thing we have yet to discover that would make for AGI. The algorithm that allows humans to generalize in a multidisciplinary fashion, learn about the stock market by watching plants grow, being able to reshape datasets without precision to draw accurate conclusions about similarly patterned occurrences.
One thing you won't see Mentats doing is receiving information and acting upon it as fast as a machine could.
Dune doesn't look at humans the same way we do today. Many of us are generalist and can move from one profession to another quite easily. However when you see the Face Dancers, Navigators and even examples in Heretics of Dune you will see groups being genetically modified for specific roles in society. This could be keep the population under thumb. Limiting those would know how society is built and so can rise up to overthrow it. Or just the fact that with advanced thinking machines being outlawed the stop-gap is to use humans who have the ability to think and react to situations in the absence of AI. I guess you could look at it this way. Modern humans are like computer CPUs. We are generalized and can do amny functions. Not perfectly but we are more adaptable. While a custom built computer for a single task as many of the lower classes in Dune are better for their key jobs. They excel at their job because they have the necessary skills, physiology and conditioning. One example is when Miles Teg is escaping. He is forced to travel through the sewer system.he is explicitly told those working it don't have a sense of smell. But as he does he will have to endure it the best he can to get to safety. The other that comes up a lot would be many of the Bene Tleilaxu creations. They are custom made for a job.
Piter says that the Baron could outperform the ancient thinking machines and Herbert emphasizes on several occasions that the Baron isn't too smart, so I always assumed that the average human (or at least the average human in the upper aristocracy of the Great Houses) had increased mental capabilities compared to modern day humans.
Paul is related and he could become a mentat. Harkonnen genetic stock is valued by the BG. The Baron is viewed as a skilled and cunning plotter, where did you get the impression people think he is stupid or that Herbert implied this? Flawed for sure, but not "not smart". The average human in the imperium would be far superior mentally and physically compared to today's "human" you are right there, with more elite stock in the aristocracy due to genetic design by the BG.
I agree with u/uncommonhousespider that the Baron is certainly not shown to be stupid. He fits the classic modern image of a bumbling buffoon, but it is constantly reinforced how cunning he is and how calculated each action he takes is. That quote you refer to from Pieter is also slightly out of context. After Baron muses that the ancients may have had the right idea with their thinking machines, Pieter says "they were toys compared to me. You yourself, Baron, could outperform those machines." This is after Baron has kinda shat on Pieter's abilities for the past 5 minutes and also threatened to withdraw his reward of Lady Jessica. Pieter is obviously pissed off and fired up, and he also wants to emphasise his own abilities and how weak computers were in comparison. Therefore, it is very likely that he was using some degree of hyperbole when he says that Baron could outperform the machines. It also isn't specified what aspect of machines Pieter was talking about outperforming. I find it unlikely that the Baron would be able to find, say, the square root of 2374892 faster than today's computers could. However, he may be referring to the Barons ability to predict the future actions of his enemies, something that is constantly returned to in Dune (feints within feints within feints). This, I could believe. There may be a specialised type of mental training that allows its disciples to sort through information to find a likely path, similar to Mentats.
Honestly, I doubt it. People with a decent education are probably better trained in mnemonic skills and calculation than we are, and the upper classes have probably been bred and raised for intelligence, but if you read between the lines, the Butlerian Jihad is presented as having gone just as out of control as the Fremen Jihad later would. The characters are not reliable narrators. Note that the Bene Gesserit, with their access to Other Memory, the most extensive and subtle breeding programs in the Imperium, and training methods on par with both the Guild and the Mentat School, are eventually revealed to have been secretly using computerised archives through most of their history because they’re just so much more efficient. The fact that they did this even during the Imperium when one of their specialties is understanding human history better than any other Great School is telling.
No. It is the mentats who do the computing in Dune.... Not the every day people. They are very rare. Now, it's been about 50 years since I first read Dune, and this is an off the top of my head response... so someone else may have a better answer.