Editing Always Coming Home (section)

==Setting==
The book's setting is a time so post-apocalyptic that no cultural source can remember the apocalypse, though a few folk tales refer to our time. The only signs of our civilization that have lasted into their time are indestructible artefacts such as [[styrofoam]] and a self-manufacturing, self-maintaining, solar-system-wide [[computer network]]. There has been a great [[sea level rise]] since our time, flooding much of northern California, where the story takes place.

The Kesh use technological inventions of civilization such as writing, steel, guns, electricity, trains, and a computer network (see below). However, unlike one of their neighboring societies – the Dayao or Condor People – they do nothing on an industrial scale, reject governance, have no non-laboring caste, do not expand their population or territory, consider disbelief in what we consider “supernatural” absurd, and deplore human domination of the natural environment. Their culture blends millennia of human economic culture by combining aspects of [[hunter-gatherer]], agricultural, and industrial societies, but rejects cities (literal “[[civilization]]”). In fact, what they call “towns” would count as villages for the reader – a dozen or a few-dozen multi-family or large family homes. What they call “war” is a minor skirmish over hunting territories, and is considered a ridiculous pastime for youngsters, since an adult person should not throw his life away.

Pandora observes that a key difference between the Kesh and the readers' [her?] society is the size of their population: "There are not too many of them.".<ref name=ACH>{{cite book |last=Le Guin |first=Ursula K. |title=Always Coming Home |year=1986 |publisher=Bantam Spectra |isbn=0-553-26280-7 |page=509}}</ref>  Their low [[population density]] means that [[carrying capacity|they can feed themselves from their land]]. The Kesh [[human population planning|maintain this low population]] without coercion, which would be antithetical to their loosely organized society.  They carry a large accumulation of genetic damage, which leads to fewer successful pregnancies and higher infant mortality.  They also have social taboos against multiple siblings and early pregnancies; a third child is considered shameful, and the Dayao's practice of large families is referred to as "incontinence". Abortions are practiced freely.