Ugh. I'm very disturbed by this episode. I'm OUTRAGED that Data was willing to let Picard and Geordi die, and I thought the episode seemed to imply that he hadn't thought of sacrificing himself before he turned off the transporter (thus, he condemned Picard and Geordi to certain death). Or am I misinterpreting it? Someone please tell me I'm wrong: I can't accept that Data was willing to let his friends die without doing anything to stop it.
DISTURBED by The Quality of Life
- Thread starter TardisTrek
- Start date
Is that not out character for him, though? Do you do just chalk it up to a very poorly written, trite episode?
Don't be disturbed, it's only showbiz. 
It's trying to replay The Measure of Man. Trying to show that Data has matured to the extent he can confidently fill the role Picard played for him.
It's a bit of an ask for the audience to accept these powerdrills as "sentient" powerdrills, lol. Watching it just reminded me of cartoons where inanimate objects have the characteristic of humans or puppies or whatnot.
But the episode does have an internal logic to it. If we're to believe that the powerdrills are sentient and that appears to be the intent of the writers, then Data and anyone else are obliged to bat for their interests. You can't just compel sentient life forms to kill themselves just because they don't met some appearance-paradigm.
But I do think Trek went bonkers into making every-bit of over-elaborate equipment into misunderstood lifeforms. I blame Professor Moriarty for this.
It's trying to replay The Measure of Man. Trying to show that Data has matured to the extent he can confidently fill the role Picard played for him.
It's a bit of an ask for the audience to accept these powerdrills as "sentient" powerdrills, lol. Watching it just reminded me of cartoons where inanimate objects have the characteristic of humans or puppies or whatnot.
But the episode does have an internal logic to it. If we're to believe that the powerdrills are sentient and that appears to be the intent of the writers, then Data and anyone else are obliged to bat for their interests. You can't just compel sentient life forms to kill themselves just because they don't met some appearance-paradigm.
But I do think Trek went bonkers into making every-bit of over-elaborate equipment into misunderstood lifeforms. I blame Professor Moriarty for this.
I guess what disturbs me is how he was perfectly willing to sacrifice Picard and Geordi before thinking to sacrifice himself: it doesn't jibe with his characterization in the rest of the series.
It seemed to me that his initial refusal to allow the transport actually was an instinct or something akin to it, single-minded although knowing the possible consequences, so he probably indeed didn't have an alternative in mind although he did want there to be one and may have been trying to come up with one.
I don't think he would have to be instantly ready to sacrifice himself if alternatives could be developed and he readily was willing to self-sacrifice when Riker emphasized that there wasn't time for them.
I don't think he would have to be instantly ready to sacrifice himself if alternatives could be developed and he readily was willing to self-sacrifice when Riker emphasized that there wasn't time for them.
Curious that Data was more willing to sacrifice lifeforms that are sentient and also his shipmates and friends, Picard and La Forge, rather than sacrifice the Exocomps, which were not even confirmed to be sentient.
And even if the Exocomps were sentient, I think the answer would be easy when it comes to which ones to sacrifice, Picard and Geordi have a lot more to lose... (I guess)
I don't like this episode because of that.
And even if the Exocomps were sentient, I think the answer would be easy when it comes to which ones to sacrifice, Picard and Geordi have a lot more to lose... (I guess)
I don't like this episode because of that.
Did Data have an opportunity to sacrifice himself in that ep? Not sure how he could have.
Basic Starfleet mission is to seek out new life. Data believed he had found it.
Basic Starfleet mission is to seek out new life. Data believed he had found it.
But seeking out new life by harming or killing the lifeforms you already know? Maybe not.
That wasn't the choice Data had. The choice he had was to strip new life forms of their free will to force them to sacrifice themselves.
I know, mathematically it's no distinction. Whether life form A is in danger and you shoot life form B in the head to save A, or life form B is in danger and you choose not to shoot A even though it would mean the death of B, either way A lives and B dies as a result of your choice.
According to most moral systems, agency of B's death makes a huge difference. One is an act of murder and the other is not.
If the Exocomps were in danger Data would have not allowed Picard and Geordi to be sacrificed either.
So you don't think he was deliberately condemning Geordi and Picard to certain death; he fully trusted that there would be alternative ways to save them (eventually concluding that self-sacrifice was the only answer)?
The more I think about it, the more hard this is a philosophical question.
The basic scenario, there are two people, John and Jim. John's life is in danger. He will definitely die, unless you murder Jim, in which case he will definitely live. Is it morally acceptable to kill Jim?
What if John is on the verge of finding the cure for cancer and Jim is a murderer?
What if John is 5 and Jim is 70?
What if killing Jim only has a 1/2 chance to save John?
What if there are 10 Johns? 1000 Johns? 1000000 Johns?
What is the relative valuation between one man murdered and one man let die by inaction?
Does that make it okay to kidnap people off the street and harvest their organs to save other lives?
If you reduce the question to utilitarianism and suggest that the moral value of any decision is a mathematical calculation of the consequences, then it follows that it is a moral necessity to sacrifice some to save others, and which sacrifices you make become the result of sabermetric analysis of the total value of a person's life.
While you could logically argue for that point of view, in practice it starts to resemble a scifi dystopia awfully fast, because it inherently does not consider all humans as equal and does not respect a person's ownership of their own life. Any solution to the equation that does not have those issues forces you to let John die because he's the one whose life is currently in danger.
The basic scenario, there are two people, John and Jim. John's life is in danger. He will definitely die, unless you murder Jim, in which case he will definitely live. Is it morally acceptable to kill Jim?
What if John is on the verge of finding the cure for cancer and Jim is a murderer?
What if John is 5 and Jim is 70?
What if killing Jim only has a 1/2 chance to save John?
What if there are 10 Johns? 1000 Johns? 1000000 Johns?
What is the relative valuation between one man murdered and one man let die by inaction?
Does that make it okay to kidnap people off the street and harvest their organs to save other lives?
If you reduce the question to utilitarianism and suggest that the moral value of any decision is a mathematical calculation of the consequences, then it follows that it is a moral necessity to sacrifice some to save others, and which sacrifices you make become the result of sabermetric analysis of the total value of a person's life.
While you could logically argue for that point of view, in practice it starts to resemble a scifi dystopia awfully fast, because it inherently does not consider all humans as equal and does not respect a person's ownership of their own life. Any solution to the equation that does not have those issues forces you to let John die because he's the one whose life is currently in danger.
You can't give Geordi and Picard the old heave-ho to save the mechanical equivalent of Lassie the dog surely. The powerdrills have to be someway on par with humans in respect to their consciousness -- and they seem to be, given that they voluntarily sacrificed one of their number to save the Starfleet duo as quid pro quo for being granted their autonomy to do so.
It'd be one helluva thing if Picard and Geordi did get the heave-ho but it was found out that the powerdrills were just powerdrills afterall.. And you've just killed your best defence lawyer to boot. Opps!
It'd be one helluva thing if Picard and Geordi did get the heave-ho but it was found out that the powerdrills were just powerdrills afterall.. And you've just killed your best defence lawyer to boot. Opps!
In these two cases I think the answer can be found.
If by killing a murderer you can save a life, I think it is ok to do so, because I think when a human takes a life, that human loses his human value.
The more difficult ones are the 5 and 70 year old people. In this case I would think who has more to lose. The other person has had 70 years to live, the other one is pretty much a beginner in life.
Are we supposed to think Data values his own life above Picard and Geordi's? Or it just did not occur to him until after he turned the transporter off (despite billions of calculations a minute or whatever) that he could sacrifice himself, and that it just sucked for Picard and Geordi that they couldn't be saved without forcing the Exocomps to rescue them?
I'm not convinced Data had the opportunity to sacrifice his own life, what are you suggesting he could have done?
@JesterFace
So you are suggesting pure utilitarianism. That all that matters is your relative valuation of the people's lives, and it doesn't matter whose life was already in danger before you came along.
Even in the case of murderers it gets dicey. So a murderer gets sacrificed to save a non-murderer, okay. So if somebody is convicted of murder, they should then go to the organ harvesting factory. What about rapists? Do they get to keep their heart but not both their kidneys? How do you make these determinations?
If you assume all sentient life is equal (As is the position of Starfleet and TV morality), and if you accept the Exocomps as sentient, then it seems to be the clear choice not to sacrifice them.
I'm surprised how many people are advocating pure utilitarianism in moral considerations. Besides the implication that kidnapping people and harvesting organs to sacrifice one to save five is then okay, it assumes the existence of an absolute fair valuation of human life.
@JesterFace
So you are suggesting pure utilitarianism. That all that matters is your relative valuation of the people's lives, and it doesn't matter whose life was already in danger before you came along.
Even in the case of murderers it gets dicey. So a murderer gets sacrificed to save a non-murderer, okay. So if somebody is convicted of murder, they should then go to the organ harvesting factory. What about rapists? Do they get to keep their heart but not both their kidneys? How do you make these determinations?
If you assume all sentient life is equal (As is the position of Starfleet and TV morality), and if you accept the Exocomps as sentient, then it seems to be the clear choice not to sacrifice them.
I'm surprised how many people are advocating pure utilitarianism in moral considerations. Besides the implication that kidnapping people and harvesting organs to sacrifice one to save five is then okay, it assumes the existence of an absolute fair valuation of human life.
He offered that as the very last option in the confrontation scene with Riker.
He offered to Riker to go to the station to do a manual shut down of the particle stream, exposing him to an intolerable amount of radiation.
Data: "I thought you might like to know why I was willing to risk your life for several small machines."
Picard: "I think I understand the predicament you were in. It could not have been an easy choice."
Data: "No Sir, it was not. When my own status as a living being was in question you fought to protect my rights and for that I will always be grateful. The Exocomps had no such advocate. If I had not acted on their behalf they would have been destroyed. I could not have allowed that to happen Sir."
Picard: Of course you couldn't. It was the most human discussion you have every made."
The 'Nerdy Vegan' has an interesting perspective on this episode, although speaking as someone who is myself a vegan I don't necessarily agree with all her views.
Besides I don't think Data could have fixed the partial fountain quickly enough before his systems would have overloaded. He was not physically suited for that task and his sacrifice would have been in vain.
Picard: "I think I understand the predicament you were in. It could not have been an easy choice."
Data: "No Sir, it was not. When my own status as a living being was in question you fought to protect my rights and for that I will always be grateful. The Exocomps had no such advocate. If I had not acted on their behalf they would have been destroyed. I could not have allowed that to happen Sir."
Picard: Of course you couldn't. It was the most human discussion you have every made."
The 'Nerdy Vegan' has an interesting perspective on this episode, although speaking as someone who is myself a vegan I don't necessarily agree with all her views.
He did offer to sacrifice himself, but Ricker would not let him. Ricker then allowed the Exocomps to chose to sacrifice themselves, which one of them did.
Besides I don't think Data could have fixed the partial fountain quickly enough before his systems would have overloaded. He was not physically suited for that task and his sacrifice would have been in vain.
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Murderer = has lost human rights.
I don't know about rapists though...
Which one would you choose? Picard & Geordi or Exocomps? Picard and one Exocomp?
Life is not fair.
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