You told a joke in a thread about people’s real opinions that was presented the same way as other people’s real opinions, with no humorous content. My mistake.
The funny thing is, that what's been said Trek before. It was just 60's space show with a more positive focus on humanity, but it was made for profit and entertainment only. And if it wasn't revived by fans it would have stayed that way. Then Trek created a myth about itself when it started getting popular and started believing its own myths about itself. After all those documentaries, TV specials and interviews, where the actors and producers say things about "this where we are going" or that it foreshadows our technology today. "Hey look at the flip cell phone! Look at the communicator! Trek saw that coming!" No flying space cars yet though. That's the idea anyway.
Sorry if my reaction was a bit snippy. The thing about Trek is it works both on the level of the sci-fi adventure show and on the level of philosophical sci-fi.
The first time I saw Data I took the show in the middle of an episode, I didn't even know it was Star Trek. I mean it looked futuristic and all but I didn't know what it was about. So I thought he was a guy with Asperger syndrome and some idiosyncrasies like a compulsion to paint his face yellow and maybe a touch of Tourette too. I would have never imagined that he was supposed to be a robot. Never in a million years!!
Data isn't a robot. He's an android. He is very pointedly described as such on more than one occasion. Norman would be taken aback by him. And you know it.
That's still some way off from locking up your own citizens, simply because they have no job, imho. Not condoning those camps by this statement in any way, by the way- I think it's terrible people are held there in such poor conditions.
We don't have districts for that. We have jails. The homeless are criminalized every day just for having nowhere to sleep or bathe without "inconveniencing" someone. Can't get a job without an address. Can't afford rent without a job, and good luck getting an interview if you smell or look dirty. It's disgusting the way cities in this country treat the poor.
"That does not compute. Androids are a subset of robots. Therefore androids, and possibly other robots, can do whatever Androids can do, and can be whatever androids can be. Therefor some robots, including but not limited to androids, can be a s sentient as androids can be. Having a human exterior does not affect the performance of a computer brain controlling a robot.
For the most part in Trek, they really wanted to steer away from the whole robot thing. It was one reason they were so insistent in portraying Data as mostly unique. They were committed to telling stories of humans (and aliens, but still actual lifeforms) in space rather than going the AI/Robot route. If you look across almost all Trek canon sources, you will see very few depictions even of true AI, much less actual robots. And they made a big deal about the positronic brain and wanting Data to come across as almost human in appearance. They're the ones who made those distinctions and never wavered far from that position. If we separate the conversation from Trek but keep it fictional, no, there's no reason a robot and an android couldn't both be sentient, regardless of what the robot looked like.
Following this logic, I cite the "child" in the film Heartbeeps. It looked like a motorized wheelbarrow, but had been programmed by its 'parents' to be their offspring, and interacted with its world in a way consistent with a sentient being. Therefore, it was a sentient being.