Portraying Socially More Advanced Societies

Suppose you traveled forward in time and visited a future Earth where human society was more evolved than ours. What would such a society be like?

This question has been answered in books, movies and television shows set in the future, and the answer is very clear: people in more advanced societies wear togas, talk a lot but don't ever use contractions or slang, and view both violence and sex as animal behavior. In short, they're basically a Victorian Englishwoman's idea of ladies and gentlemen, dressed in togas.

In creating Collar World, I came up with a different answer, encapsulated by Ariana Hufflepuff's observation that she felt that she “had wandered into a summer camp that thought it was a city.”

Of course, she was on a college campus, which does have a summer camp feel compared to most urban environments, especially the older ones. People do a lot more walking and riding of bikes on college campuses. They're also more relaxed generally.

I suspect the cities of the future will be similarly more relaxed and casual. People will not be expressing social status through clothing, and will exist at a generally lower level of anxiety, because their societies will be healthier. They will not be worried about staying fed, clothed and sheltered, that would be something everyone gets for being human in a  post-scarcity society.

Women would be more relaxed around men, because rape, sexual harrassment and violence against women would be almost nonexistent. In “Conquest of Incel World” my Nero Wolfe character notes the way this difference between the women of Incel World (i.e., Earth) and Collar World: “When a man shows up, their assholes pucker up so tight you can hear it.” Whereas Moxie Maven, the Archie Goodwin character and a free-use girl, thinks men are “like candy.”

That's why the men of Earth are so attracted to the women of Collar World – the Collar World women have a much more friendly and open attitude toward men generally because they aren't worried about being attacked, sexually or otherwise, by them. Earth men are like the Victorian sailors who discovered the women of Polynesia would have sex with them without having to be raped, tricked, drugged, married or even given money … they liked men and sex! Of course they went wild for them, in many cases jumping ship and taking up life on the islands. They knew a good thing when they saw it. I mean, rum, sodomy and the lash are all right, but are no substitute for a healthy sex life, especially if you are on the receiving end of all the lashing and sdomizing.

Earth people just gravitate toward Collar World people because they seem so nice … because they ARE so nice, coming from a healthier culture.

That's my approach. Let good mental health be the hallmark of the more advanced culture, and let your characters interact accordingly.