Forgot about this. I guess it's more about the relative frequencies. The books, of course, aren't a representative cross-section of the society.

The manners as laws thing is cute, but I don't see it working without invasive non-consensual modification of humans.

E.g. from my own perspective, if I live in a world where there are humans and human-created demigods, then obviously I want to be one of the demigods. Not to enslave the humans, but to look inside of black holes, to travel between stars, to fully understand how biology works, etc.

So not everyone wants to be a scientist or engineer, but wouldn't almost all engineers and scientists want to wield the very best mental and technological tools of their civilization?