---
# System prepended metadata

title: Official Media

---

# Culture

## Inclusion
### Requirements
- Accessibility
- Brevity
- Punch
### Reasons
- Profundity of Philosophical Insight
- Rejection of Prescribed Morality
- The Human Condition
- Exploring Human Connection
- The Beauty of the World
- Historical Context of the Narrative of Social Contract
- Inspirations towards Future Social Contracts
- Explorations of the Agentic Mindset and Honour Codes
- The Limits of Human Surdity
- Erudition
- Relevence to Present Day
- Conciseness
### Non-reasons
- Extolling identity
- Pure cinematic art
- Inconsequential or meaningless narrative
- Pushing extremities of medium
- Complex character interaction
- Dopamine response engineering
- Entertaining (i.e. passes time)

## Meaning
- Tier 1: Required viewing/listening/reading, everyone expected to either have watched, or be making their way through. Core Culture of Parity and may be discussed with Gav prior to major promotion (TBC, depending on employment law).
- Tier 2: Recommended viewing/listening/reading, great media but falls short of being Core Culture, typically over a lack of profundity.
- Tier 3: Decent viewing/listening/reading, but typically only has a few of the reasons we look for or it weak in too many of them.
- The rest: Not necessarily bad, but not in line with our reasons for inclusion.
  - *GfWiI*: "Good For What It Is", of no great reason to be here, but not bad media.
  - *PbU*: "Popular but Unwatched"
  - *RbU*: "Recommended but Unwatched"

## Discussion
- Parity Forum should be opened with topics for each piece of media for discussion. Start with Tier 1.

## TV

### Tier 1
- Cowboy Bebop
- Babylon 5 (S01-S04 sufficient)
- Star Trek Original Series
- Peep Show
- Rick & Morty (S01-S03)
- Red Dwarf (S01-S06, watch S07 only to see difference the writers make)
- Yes (Prime) Minister
- Father Ted
- Spaced
- Look Around You (S01)
- Bill Hicks: Sane Man
- This Life

### Tier 2
- Adam and Joe Go Tokyo
- Black Books
- Green Wing
- Blackadder (S02-S04)
- Men Behaving Badly (S05 weak)
- Jeeves and Wooster
- Stranger Things
- Absolutely Fabulous (S01-S03 sufficient)
- South Park
- Firefly
- Bojack Horseman
- The Inbetweeners
- Brass Eye
- The Mysterious Cities of Gold
- That Mitchell and Webb Look

### Tier 3
- The Barchester Chronicles
- Rising Damp
- Monty Python's Flying Circus
- Eurotrash
- X-Files (S01-S02 sufficient)
- Friends (S01-S02 sufficient)
- Love Sex Robots
- The Outer Limits
- Black Mirror
- The Adam and Joe Show
- Eddie Izzard: Definite Article
- Fleabag
- Frasier
- Breaking Bad (S01-S04)
- The Simpsons (esp. S02-S09)
- Our Planet
- `M*A*S*H`
- Always Sunny in Philadelphia
- Archer
- Fawlty Towers
- I, Claudius
- Only Fools and Horses
- Poirot
- Sharpe
- Last of the Summer Wine
- Futurama

### The Rest & Suggestions
- Ludwig (PbU)
- One Punch Man (good premise, to finish)
- Mr Robot (starts good, to finish)
- The Sopranos (starts good, to finish)
- Downton Abbey (good context but too soapy)
- Battlestar Galactica (good premise but unengaging)
- Six Feet Under (reasonable premise, but soapy)
- One Piece (starts beautiful but trashy, to finish)
- Succession (difficult to invest)
- Fargo (RbU)
- The Office (PbU, very cringe)
- Better Call Saul (starts too slow)
- Dexter (PbU)
- Game of Thrones (too soapy)
- The Wire (PbU)
- The Thick of It (less good Yes Minister, more cringe)
- House of Cards (PbU)
- The Crown (PbU)
- QI (GfWiI: erudite, comical quiz show)
- Would I Lie to You (GfWiI: erudite, comical quiz show)
- The Expanse (reasonable premise, unengaging)

## Films

### Tier 1
- The Matrix
- The Spanish Prisioner
- Terminator 2
- Blade Runner
- Trainspotting
- Shallow Grave
- For a Fistful of Dollars
- For a Few Dollars More
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
- Office Space
- The Usual Suspects
- The Game
- The Player
- Zatoichi
- Another Round

## Tier 2
- Dogma
- Seven Samurai
- Koyanisqachi: Life out of Balance
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- In Bruges
- Dr No
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service
- Live and Let Die
- License to Kill
- GoldenEye
- Casino Royale
- Bourne Identity
- Bourne Supremacy
- Bourne Ultimatum
- Enemy of the State
- Reservoir Dogs
- Kill Bill (Parts 1 & 2)
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- Pride and Prejudice (BBC Miniseries, 1995)
- American Beauty
- Pump Up the Volume
- The Breakfast Club
- Predator
- Alien
- Total Recall
- The Empire Strikes Back
- Enter the Dragon
- Gataca
- The Devil Wears Prada
- One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Taxi Driver
- Goodfellas

## Tier 3
- Persepolis
- The Dinner Game
- Eraserhead
- Truman Show
- They Live
- Magicians
- Brazil
- Metropolis
- Dr. Strange
- Kingsman
- Django Unchained
- The Thing
- Master and Commander
- Rocky
- Amelie
- The Firm
- Top Gun
- Dead Poets Society
- Equilibrium
- Educating Rita
- Officer and a Gentleman
- Demolition Man
- La Haine
- The Day of the Jackal
- Murmur of the Heart
- Dr. Strangelove

### The Rest & Suggestions

## Books & Theatre

### Tier 1
- A History of Western Philosophy (Russell)
- A Pocket Popper (Popper)
- Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman (Feynman)
- The Japanese Mind (Davies & Ikeno)
- The Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life (Landsburg)
- Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)
- 1984 (Orwell)
- Animal Farm (Orwell)
- Brave New World (Huxley)
- The Doors of Perception (Huxley)
- The Wealth of Nations (Smith)
  - “Civil government so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”

### Tier 2
- The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde)
- The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde)
- Ankh-Morpork City Watch (Pratchett)
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Adams)
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Adams)
- Life, the Universe and Everything (Adams)
- So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (Adams)
- Mostly Harmless (Adams)
- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Adams)
- The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Adams)
- The Salmon of Doubt (Adams)
- D'Artagnian and the Three Musketeers (Dumas)

### Tier 3
- Round Ireland with a Fridge (Hawks)
- Tales of Japan: Traditional Stories of Monsters and Magic (Chiba)

### The Rest & Suggestions

- The Culture Map (Meyer)

## Games

### Tier 1
- (Settlers of) Catan
- Roborally
- Magic: The Gathering
- Cultist Simulator (mobile)
- Red Alert 2 (PC)
- Elite (BBC Micro &c.)
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Megadrive)
- Super Mario Bros 3 (NES/SNES)
- Lemmings (Amiga)
- Frontier: Elite II (Amiga/PC)
- Populous (Amiga)
- Quake (PC)
- Half-life (PC)
- Monkey Island & Monkey Island II (Amiga/PC)
- Super Hot (VR)
- Leisure Suit Larry series (PC & X-box)
- Drink More Glurp (Switch/Xbox)
- Duck Game (Switch/Xbox)
- Flashback (Amiga/Megadrive/PC)
- Cannon Fodder (Amiga)

### Tier 2
- Ticket to Ride
- Power Grid
- Turrican II (Amiga)
- Sid Meier's Civilisation (Amiga/PC)
- Starflight (Amiga)
- Rockstar (PC)
- Rollercoaster Tycoon (Amiga/PC)
- Portal (PC)
- Carmageddon (DOS)
- Worms: Armageddon (PC)
- Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (PC)
- Another World (Amiga/PC)
- Beneath a Steel Sky (Amiga/PC)
- Grand Theft Auto 3 (Amiga/PC)
- Sim City (Amiga/PC)
- The Sims (PC)

### Tier 3
- Rockstar! (DOS)
- World of Warcraft
- Ancient Domains of Mystery (DOS)
- Trackmania (various)

## Music

TBC