Those can still be detected and accounted for.
And there's also alibis and Occam's Razor to consider.
Are all crimes eliminated in the Federation?
- Thread starter The Overlord
- Start date
Those can still be detected and accounted for.
And there's also alibis and Occam's Razor to consider.
'Beyond reasonable doubt' does not mean 'Beyond a shadow of a doubt'.
..Speaking of tricorders, we have several references to reliable lie detectors, including the TOS psychotricorder from "Wolf in the Fold", LaForge's reputed (but never demonstrated!) ability to read humans with his VISOR in early TNG, and the existence of powerful Federation telepaths in both Trek eras. It appears odd that such resources are only brought to play as a last resort, and their use (cf. "Drumhead") appears contrary to general views on personal rights. I can understand legal protection against intense mindreading, but why a law against polygraphs? And why do they exist if their use is so illegal?
As for possession and evil twins, has anybody in aired Trek ever escaped prosecution and punishment unless said possessing spirit or twin was actually caught and "brought to justice"? Well, we can argue Scotty did, as his hand is the most likely to have held the knife that committed at least two of the murders on Argelius, but Kirk made a clean getaway before anybody figured it out. (Heck, perhaps the whole "psychotricorder" charade was part of his attempt to get Scotty out of the pit he dug for himself?) But any others?
Timo Saloniemi
As for possession and evil twins, has anybody in aired Trek ever escaped prosecution and punishment unless said possessing spirit or twin was actually caught and "brought to justice"? Well, we can argue Scotty did, as his hand is the most likely to have held the knife that committed at least two of the murders on Argelius, but Kirk made a clean getaway before anybody figured it out. (Heck, perhaps the whole "psychotricorder" charade was part of his attempt to get Scotty out of the pit he dug for himself?) But any others?
Timo Saloniemi
If there's no crime aside from Jim Kirk stealing a car, that guy's job must be awfully boring.
The answer is, of course, that if there are still rules - and there are - then they are there to restrict behavior, and there will always be circumstances under which people will want to engage in those behaviors, or there would be no need for the rules.
So, no, there is still crime. All one can say is that going strictly by onscreen depiction, about 50% of all crime (stealing a car, stealing a starship, disobeying orders, etc) is committed by James Kirk.
We're still sorta wondering whether that's a guy or a 'bot. Folks with a face like that were also seen on McCoy's sickbay in the second nuMovie, again standing around like dummies, statues or extras - so the argument could go either way.
Are there rules? Kirk wants to believe in those, but most humans he meets do not. The only thing unambiguously considered crime appears to be theft of property (even premeditated killing is an "unfortunate symptom of illness" or somesuch in so many episodes), and Kirk always fumbled those cases. Usually because the thieves were politically untouchable, self-destructed somehow, or turned out to be such affable rascals that an arrest would have seemed wrong - but the general gist seemed to be that while theft (of spacecraft, often enough!) was wrong, property alone wasn't important enough to warrant much attention let alone punitive measures.
Timo Saloniemi
That's a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. We're talking about conditions that make people's lives worse - addiction, depression, obsessive compulsive behaviour, uncontrollable anger, schizophrenia, etc. Not only the people with the condition but all those around them suffer. If you think that people should have the right to be fuck-ups who ruin the lives of family, friends and random strangers, well, you can enjoy life in modern-day America, but for the rest of us, there's Star Trek.
Who gets to determine what "makes people's lives worse"? Who gets to decide what qualifies as "ruining" the lives of family, friends and strangers? Those are awfully broad terms we're talking about here. If the state is the ultimate manager of such things, well, the Federation might not be as free as we thought, yes? Things like addiction, depression, schizophrenia...those are medical conditions requiring treatment by doctors, not the government. And you can't force someone to be treated if they don't want it...
As for the policeman in Triumphant's screengrab: I think it's fairly obvious it's a human. That thing on his head is just a gas mask, nothing more. He looks and walks like a human, that's the important thing. I mean, if that was a bot, then why would it need to be separated from its hoverbike? Think about it.
I'd say it is obviously something that has the general form and kinesthetics right for a human, but perhaps at some point (even some point soon) we get completely over the Uncanny Valley for our robots? And as to why it would need to separate from its bike, I can think of a LOT of duty related reasons - everything from relatability on a human level, to being able to actually drive *other* vehicles (like say if a vehicle were abandoned beside the road).
I don't think we can definitively say much at all about the cop. The face mask could even have been because he was a Benzite, and neither robot nor human.
Remember when the cop asked Jimmy "What is your name, citizen"? If it was a bot, it wouldn't have asked, it would have just scanned him automatically and determined identity via DNA.
You know... IF the Federation is allowed to keep DNA records on citizens, and IF whatever level of law enforcement that cop represented was able to access them at will, and IF the cop had that sort of equipment - which, btw, could still have been part of the gear for an organic officer, so it still would tell us very little if he HAD done that.
Seems like you're making a lot of assumptions that I don't see much of a basis for.
Hmm ok so maybe the outer colonies are expected to manage their own local crime problems without help from the federal government like the days of the Wild West. But the Turkana gangs took it one step further from drug dealing and gang wars. They overthrew the Turkana government and declared independence from the Federation. At that point they pretty much escalated themselves from regular gang bangers to rebels and terrorists.
Starfleet has demonstrated an ability to respond to any external threat to outer Federation colonies and outposts in a matter of days. Even their so called furthest outposts like New Providence Colony or Deep Space 9.
Starfleet won't stand by and allow one of its outposts or colonies to be occupied by the Gorn, or the Cardassians, but when an Earth colony rebels, they just kind of shrug it off? And it isn't like Turkana had a democratic referendum to separate. Their government was overthrown by force. There are still people like Tasha Yar who want no part of the gang wars and are still Federation citizens. I find it strange that nobody in the Federation Council or Starfleet Command found it necessary to retake Turkana by force for the innocent people like Tasha
I don't get this objection at all. We force people to conform today - if they don't, we torture them with freedom deprivation until they do. The state is the ultimate manager of this torture. If somebody doesn't want to be tortured, the police cuff him and drag him in anyway, and/or perhaps beat him up, electrocute him or shoot him.
Surely the fairly benign medical treatment we witness is superior to this by every standard? Its execution is by medical specialists, but at state behest, and state supposedly is democratic, i.e. right and wrong are ultimately decided by the people through the state.
To go arrest a wrongdoer?
As said, robots built in human shape are very useful in that they can operate machinery, vehicles and spaces designed for humans. Robots primarily intended to interact with humans would also greatly benefit from human shape, although with clear telltales (say, a metal face) to avoid the "uncanny valley" effect.
The two medical 'bots from ST:ID would be similar cases: machines far superior to human in certain mechanical and perhaps repetitive tasks (say, surgery), but intended to interact closely with humans (that is, patients).
Seems logical enough. When Turkana IV rebels, only Turkana IV rebels, and it's their business. When Jouret VI falls to the Borg, the entire Federation is under threat.
Colonies and member worlds in general seem to have the freedom to run things their way. If one of them changes government, this ought to change nothing. The UFP won't be the weaker for it, nor does it make further secession or dissolution likely (indeed, the Federation stepping in at Turkana IV would be a likelier cause for further secession and unrest), as the UFP already is in practice a conglomeration of independently behaving units.
Sure, there's always a dissatisfied minority. But the military charging in to defeat the majority and force it to do the minority's bidding isn't the way to deal with that!
Timo Saloniemi
And they are - the gangs exist to maintain order and prevent the sort of violence poor Yar was subjected to (or just at risk of being subjected to?). They are the local solution to law enforcement.
There is crime within UFP proper, too, as has been pointed out in this thread - some of it quite shocking. Does that justify, say, Klingons sending shock troops to enforce law and order because their citizens within the UFP could theoretically be at risk, too?
Well, it's sort of happening today, too: Russia feels that any nation with their citizens in there is in serious need of Russian occupation on safety arguments...
(Solution: preemptive deportation of all Russians?
)Timo Saloniemi
Totally, unyet in cases like these there are always the hidden subtexts that exist as reasons for intervention, such as quests for resources, geopolitical hegemony etc... the 'humanitarian' reasons given are often just the glossy and publicly palatable covers. It's funny because not 15 years ago the west's military interventions were met with huge anti-war protests from the so-called 'left', students etc... These days the reason for intervention is given off-the-bat as 'humanitarian' and these same students and left-leaning people who would once have been anti-war at any cost are now hitting the street DEMANDING military intervention.
Pretty clever strategy.
Sorry for OT.
That is a contradiction in terms. Order can only be maintained by government, and a system of laws, and a police force to enforce same. Anything else is anarchy and chaos - as Tasha's homeworld (or as I like to call it, The Purge: Turkana IV) proves.
Gangs don't prevent violence, they cause it.
That's just an argument used by certain types of government to dismiss other types. The Brave New Turkana does feature police forces and systems of laws as well as government - in duplicate, even!
The same of course goes for nations. On the balance, though, it seems Turkana was doing pretty well by the time our heroes arrived - at least compared with Earth and its nations today. The worst they got was the equivalent of paintball wars, really, thanks to the excellent alarm system.
Turkana really isn't an analogy for gang warfare, but for security corporations gone awry (or merely doing what they strive to do today). Too much security automatically defeats itself, just like too much freedom does.
Timo Saloniemi
on a practical level of course institutions other than a government can enforce order, but if you have numerous competing organizations claiming legitimacy to enforce their rules by force, independent of an official, legitimate government then you have chaos.
Doesn't seem like it. Two powerful gangs ruling over everything -> no room for small players or independent petty crime. No way to achieve greater strategic goals, due to the alarm system -> make-work for the gangsters, a bushido system of sorts where harmless raids keep everybody off actual mischief. And despite appearances, the colony does not appear to be in any sort of trouble: people are well fed, nicely clothed, and clean and healthy. The infrastructure appears to be running smoothly.
Ishara Yar and the cadres lie to our heroes about many things, and their own information is, as pointed out, "ancient history"...
Timo Saloniemi
Ishara Yar and the cadres lie to our heroes about many things, and their own information is, as pointed out, "ancient history"...
Timo Saloniemi
No, it doesn't. By the time we actually see it, there was none of that left. It was anarchy - total chaos. Being ruled by a gang is not government...It's fear. It's dictatorship.
Governments may not be perfect - I'm not claiming my own is - and they certainly don't always follow the rules, but at least they *have* rules. With a democratic government there's accountability, and a way to petition said government for a redress of grievances.
I'm just going out on a limb here and hazarding a guess that the rank and file natives of Turkana IV don't have that luxury. Where are their rights? What happens if the people of Turkana don't like how the cadres are running things? Where are these 'laws' that you spoke of? What does the "cadre" do for the people, other than ordering them to go out and get lasered? Doesn't seem like a lot.
If you think cadre rule is so great, why don't you try a little thought experiment and see what being ruled by, say, MS-13 might be like?
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The problem is that that's all speculation. What we see is benign: a well-working society, without explicit examples of fear, poverty, repression or other such woes. The terminology involved may be troubling, but at least nobody is covering up problems with euphemisms. Indeed, for a society in supposed (civil? "international"?) war, the Turkanans appear to be doing remarkably well!
"Government" comes in so many varieties today and yesterday that it's quite inappropriate to credit it with anything, least of all the specific sort of law and order that western democracies today generally value. Yet that specific sort came about because of experimentation. To impose UFP values (whatever those are - c.f. the pronounced lack of consensus within the UFP as discussed earlier) and stomp out the experiment would be tyranny and dictatorship at its worst, especially if it were for purely propagandist reasons (suppression of nonexistent rape gangs etc.). Tellingly, the Maquis were much worse off when persecuted/prosecuted by the UFP for their similarly illegal/contra-UFP-values policies, and nothing good came out of it.
Timo Saloniemi
"Government" comes in so many varieties today and yesterday that it's quite inappropriate to credit it with anything, least of all the specific sort of law and order that western democracies today generally value. Yet that specific sort came about because of experimentation. To impose UFP values (whatever those are - c.f. the pronounced lack of consensus within the UFP as discussed earlier) and stomp out the experiment would be tyranny and dictatorship at its worst, especially if it were for purely propagandist reasons (suppression of nonexistent rape gangs etc.). Tellingly, the Maquis were much worse off when persecuted/prosecuted by the UFP for their similarly illegal/contra-UFP-values policies, and nothing good came out of it.
Timo Saloniemi
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