Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Culture world trapped power hungry would-be tyrants in deep ultra-realistic VR, indeed almost all competition went there IIRC. So maybe one day we could?
> The Culture world trapped power hungry would-be tyrants in deep ultra-realistic VR That's an interesting idea. What book was that described in? I've only read a couple of the Culture books.
http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm
It was in his notes from '94 but mentioned in books along the way too, see the section starting with "megalomaniacal".