Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x04 - "Watcher"

[eschaton]

I hold a mix of views but I'm more in the libertarian / autarchist / anarcho-capitalist end of the spectrum.

I remember reading an anarcho-capitalist SF book in my teen years where everyone was automatically made a citizen after six months residence. No muss, no fuss.

Really though, if you support free markets/free trade, you should support free movement of peoples. It's the only logical check that workers have on the rights of employers in a libertarian system. Bosses are free to set up shop wherever they can get the lowest wages, and workers are free to migrate wherever they can get the highest wages.

IIRC, it's even explicitly in The Wealth of Nations.

 

[Dukhat]

Because he's no longer a kid and now late middle aged?!?

He’s a punk playing loud music on a bus, completely indifferent to the people around him. It doesn’t matter how old he is. I’ve seen adults on their cellphones having loud conversations with their friends on speakerphone who are also indifferent to the people around them who have no interest in listening to that conversation. This is no different.

 

[Jayson1]

Klingon blade? We first met Rios with a bit of shrapnel sticking out of his shoulder, not a knife. We don't know how it happened, but the ENH later met with him to discuss a problem with the ship, which was probably related. Something blew and the shrapnel caught him. I know a lot of people interpreted that first scene as Rios = Han Solo, but I've always seen that as a misreading of the character, who we have got to know better since. He badly wanted Picard to see him as someone who didn't care about anything, but Picard saw through that facade immediately, and so should we, because that's not who Rios actually is. The real Rios is the guy who talked everyone down from an armed standoff and got the team home safely in Stardust City Rag, the guy who was triggered into a PTSD episode by his first sight of Soji yet still offered her nothing but kindness, even when she tried to hijack his ship. Picard recognised him as Starfleet through and through, and he is.

Also, learning about the history of an era in the abstract is not remotely the same as experiencing it first hand.

I must have experienced The Mandela Effect. I could have sworn it was a Klingon knife or blade. While I agree Rios has a good heart he was still out their doing the kind of job Han Solo did. So he must have had his ethics challenged more than once.

 

[Mudd]

Yeah. It's still 1700s. Open borders is absurd in 2022 (2024). The country does not have the resources to support that. Nor the money.

Immigrants create wealth, same as anybody else. Open immigration supports competition.

Your contention is wrong, because it's biased toward the assumption that immigrants of any kind are a net economic negative, consuming more resources than they produce.

Just because someone's ancestors came over here from England four hundred years ago with some nobles footing the bill because they didn't like the church in their country gives them no more claim on a right to be here than someone fleeing persecution and poverty from some other nation today.

If anyone has a fair prior claim on this real estate, it's the folks who were here for thousands of years before the Europeans stumbled across the Americas and started plundering the place. And among Europeans, English speakers are a Johnny-come-lately minority.

 

[Airmandan]

I see this is still going well

 

[Mudd]

I see this is still going well

We're having a respectful debate.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I disagree. For better or worse, they cast Santiago Cabera as Rios, who is a very "white" Latino. He speaks fluent English, and his accent is pretty clearly not Mexican or Central American (people in the LA area would know that). He's also attractive, which certainly helps when getting some people to believe a line of bullshit. Certainly they'd pick up on the fact he wasn't from the U.S., but he doesn't come across as someone from a poor background, and I think he'd be able to BS his way through. California hospitals are under no requirement to investigate immigration status, and in fact are guided by state law to cooperate as little with ICE as possible. He would have been fine in a regular hospital, as long as ICE itself didn't conduct a raid there.

(Sisko is having his palm prints scanned and picture taken.)
VIN: Left hand. Other hand. Look straight ahead. Now stand over here.
INTERFACE: Welcome to SafeTech's fingerprint database. your government discount has been accepted. Remember our new retinal scan services, now accessible on channel one seventy eight.
VIN: Yeah, yeah. Save the commercial.
INTERFACE: We are sorry but the fingerprints you have provided are not on record.
VIN: No ID, no fingerprint record, no Interface account. It's like you two don't exist.
BASHIR: Since we don't exist, why not let us go?
VIN: Yeah, well, let's see. You don't have any ID, you don't have any money, and you're both dressed like clowns. You figure it out.
(Vin gives them clipboards with forms)
VIN: Please fill out these forms. Answer all questions to the best of your ability. If you cannot speak English an interpreter will be provided. If you cannot read, questions will be given to you verbally. If there is any part of this form you do not understand, ask one of our staff for assistance. Now sit down, shut up, and fill out the forms. And if you've got any problems, don't come to me with them.
BASHIR: Thank you very much.

If he had reached an emergency room, and refused to do any paperwork, they're going to call social services, the DOJ and ICE. In that order, if social services still exists, and hasn't been assimilated by the DOJ, as sanctuary districts are dumping grounds for ghosts.

Bashir is ethnically middle eastern, so post 911 he should have had more trouble being accepted, even with the very foreign British accent.

 

[Jayson1]

I remember reading an anarcho-capitalist SF book in my teen years where everyone was automatically made a citizen after six months residence. No muss, no fuss.

Really though, if you support free markets/free trade, you should support free movement of peoples. It's the only logical check that workers have on the rights of employers in a libertarian system. Bosses are free to set up shop wherever they can get the lowest wages, and workers are free to migrate wherever they can get the highest wages.

IIRC, it's even explicitly in The Wealth of Nations.

Free Trade flopped. It's the biggest reason for the income inequality we face today. It's also why China is eating our lunch and will eventually take over as the dominant Superpower. I also know that if you do open borders you got to have a UBI because the jobs are already not here anymore. And their will be fewer of them with more automation.

The few that are left will be able to suppress wages with the addition of more workers taking away any leverage the unions might still have left. The upside is more people means more ideas and maybe more innovation but who is going to be able to buy anything in this world except rich people? I mean I know this is the fate we are going to get with or without immigration and in the end it's really just going to be more poor people suffering across the board for everyone. So I am still for improving immigration because maybe you can help some people in the short term but you know everything in America is going to end in doom no matter what at this point.

 

[Trekker4747]

I hold a mix of views but I'm more in the libertarian / autarchist / anarcho-capitalist end of the spectrum.

Ah, there's the click. Things are making sense now.

 

[eschaton]

you know everything in America is going to end in doom no matter what at this point.

No, I don't know that. I absolutely believe our best days as a species are ahead of us, and we can achieve - if not utopia, a better word, free of needless toil, where a decent standard of living can be given to everyone. Hopefully through a post-scarcity economy.

That's part of why I like Star Trek.

 

[Jayson1]

I see this is still going well

It actually is. Kind of always fun to mix up it in a debate in a friendly way of course. Just as long as someone doesn't mention the T word and we should be fine. I will give you a hint. The word ends in a X.

 

[Jayson1]

No, I don't know that. I absolutely believe our best days as a species are ahead of us, and we can achieve - if not utopia, a better word, free of needless toil, where a decent standard of living can be given to everyone. Hopefully through a post-scarcity economy.

That's part of why I like Star Trek.

That's why I liked Trek as well but that was when I had hope for the future. Now I like it more as a nice fantasy to what could have been.

 

[Airmandan]

It actually is. Kind of always fun to mix up it in a debate in a friendly way of course. Just as long as someone doesn't mention the T word and we should be fine. I will give you a hint. The word ends in a X.

Tuvix?

 

[fireproof78]

No, I don't know that. I absolutely believe our best days as a species are ahead of us, and we can achieve - if not utopia, a better word, free of needless toil, where a decent standard of living can be given to everyone. Hopefully through a post-scarcity economy.

That's part of why I like Star Trek.

Indeed. Humanity is still capable of great things. Do I agree with the politics of Trek alway? No. But I always can find something positive to reflect on.

 

[Jayson1]

Looks like this thread is over. Time to pack it in. Save your rants for another thread.

 

[eschaton]

Tuvix?

 

[Sakonna]

So I just rewatched the scenes with the ICE guard, and he does in fact have that softer moment that so many of you have been yearning for -- he is nice and respectful to Theresa when he releases her. Once he's learned she's a citizen. So we do see he's capable of kindness... to those he has determined deserve it.

The Mob and Serial Killers are and were bad things in real life as well just like ICE. Didn't make the writers of The Sopranos or Dexter dumb things down to tell a simplistic story about good vs evil. Mental Illness another serious issue. Somehow Crazy Ex Girlfriend figured out how to say some deep stuff while also being fun to boot. Cops being bad. Well we had "The Shield" for that. Racism being bad. Everything from The Watchmen to Atlanta.

You can say the show doesn't have time for this which might be true and it leads to my biggest argument that they crammed to much story into this thing to do real justice to any of the storylines. We got 4 plotlines, a mystery box, a Picard backstroy about his mom and 3 social issues and a mixed up Q and I got to think maybe less would have been more. If you want to do ICE right then cut some of this other stuff out and focus more on ICE.

Have you ever seen the movie "My Friend Dahmer." Brilliant movie about Dahmer when he was in high school. It did not shy away at showing how fucked up he was but it also showed him as a real person and not just you know a punchline to a Jay Leno joke from back in the day. It actually made him even more scary than any one-note look at him could ever do.

Also you are looking at it the wrong way. It is not about making them look better. It about making them look realistic. You need to trust the audience more and it's ability to comprehend the complex duality of human nature. Good people can do bad things. Bad people can do good things. People understand this because they understand these instincts from just understanding themselves. To do otherwise is to disrespect their intelligence and their own ability to understand ethics and morality on their own.

I don't think examples like The Sopranos, Dexter, My Friend Dahmer, and The Shield have any relevance to ICE Agent #1. Unlike "Picard", the primary subject of those projects was an examination of villainy. The series each ran 6 - 8 years.

And even at that length, way too many people still went the wrong way with it. The reason The Sopranos cuts to black when Tony is killed is because David Chase wanted to implicate the viewer in how much they'd vicariously thrilled to Tony's criminality along the way.

If you watched The Sopranos and came away agitating for even more humanity in incidental ICE agents that actually have been portrayed with humanity... maybe give that show another watch.

if your backyard was built for everyone to pursuit happiness and has a huge sign in front of it that invites the huddled masses yearning to breathe free....

Some of the specific negative reactions to both this episode of Picard and the ending of last week’s Discovery S04 finale made me feel proud to be a Star Trek fan.

While most major franchise seem to barely be able to pay lip service to the lofty and noble ideals they claim to espouse, Trek keeps on trying to live up to those ideals, and laying it all out there in the open.

Additionally, subtlety can be a good thing, and has its place, but ‪‪I don’t think it’s a virtue in and of itself, and plenty of messages are better conveyed with a rather blunt directness.

And here I was watching the episode thinking that they depicted law enforcement with just the right moments of excess and, yes, restraint to make them seem realistic to the experiences of quite a lot of people with whom I've worked.

It didn't need to be subtle. It didn't need to show every angle. Trek is often unsubtle, even in its greatest hours. It just needed to shed some light on a social reality, on things that really happen, and as far as I can tell, it did.

The fact that it has raised ire tells me Star Trek is still doing its job.

Just want to say, I think all these comments are particularly perfect. And of course, reading thru I had to click "like" on so many brilliantly articulated @Amaris posts that I may have given myself a repetitive stress injury.

It is so nice that this era of Star Trek is willing to actually go all in on the Trek ethos. As much as I love 80's/90's Trek, it was always disheartening how much homophobia, sexism, etc they allowed into that universe.

 

[SG-17]

There is more than enough wealth and resources in the West to solve the problems of everyone in the West, but nothing gets done because the rich are generally sociopathic monsters who lack any empathy.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I mean... Do songs have sequels?

All the freakin' time. One of the more classic examples:

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Back in the day, "answer songs" were also a thing...another artist would do the soundalike sequel to a popular song, dealing with the same subject from a different point of view.

 

[Quinton]

There's a lot of love in this thread right now. Diggin' it.