^ So you're not for co-ed prison football teams.
Well, I suppose that's okay.
Well, I suppose that's okay.
Read & Reread "Greater Than The Sum"- My Opinion (Spoilers)
- Thread starter Dayton3
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Thanks Dayton.
Hey, do you remember a few years back when you were getting the hate messages intended for me?
You guys, lay off Dayton3. He's hetero; says so himself.
I, on the other hand, am gay, and I'm BEGGING you to quit trying to lump him in with us non-hets.
Like Michael Jackson and Tom Cruise, I'm more than happy to take him at his word and accept that he's not one of us.
You guys get to deal with him...
I, on the other hand, am gay, and I'm BEGGING you to quit trying to lump him in with us non-hets.
Like Michael Jackson and Tom Cruise, I'm more than happy to take him at his word and accept that he's not one of us.
You guys get to deal with him...
Ok what? Why would female guest and minor characters, be ok? Could there be female non-Starfleet main cast members?
You're really going to have to learn when I'm being sarcastic.
I got a couple, but it was worked out.
That is contradictory crazy talk. In more ways than one.
Great, thanks.than happy to take him at his word and accept that he's not one of us.
You guys get to deal with him...
You're comparing a football comedy and a cop show to Star Trek? You really are grabbing at straws, Dayton.
Trek has evolved over the years, but it'll be a long time (i.e. we're all dead) before it moves so far off its core principles that you can legitimately compare it to a David Drake novel and say they're the same.
Your vision of what would be a better future is obviously at odds with 40+ years of Star Trek, so again, why do you bother? This isn't an attempt to be exclusionary, it's simply wondering why you claim to like something that doesn't tell stories in any way, shape, or form that appeals to you.
So, "better future" = "women as second-class citizens", hmm?
Someone needs to do the cooking and cleaning, right?
I think Star Trek in the future will be different than Star Trek is today, or what Star Trek was twenty years ago. The reason I think this is that Star Trek has long had a tradition of reflecting the times in which it was made.
The original series reflected the liberal viewpoint of the era of Kennedy and Johnson. Certainly Star Trek: The Motion Picture reflected the malaise of the late '70s. You can argue that Star Trek II reflected an Admiral Kirk who had moved from Kennedy to Reagan, and Star Trek: The Next Generation tended to be rather conservative, again, growing out of the conservativism of the 1980's. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine showed signs of a dangerous, multipolar world. Star Trek: Voyager can be viewed through the prism of searching for the original principles that guided Star Trek, and hence a return to the liberalism and the sunny optimism. Maybe Enterprise's problem was that it didn't reflect the Bush era particularly well.
So, as American society changes, Star Trek too will change.
But I don't think Star Trek will evolve in the direction you want of greater militarism, greater misogyny and racism, and greater prejudice, because American society is moving in the entirely opposite direction.
As time passes, what Star Trek is will change, to keep the stories and the characters relevant and fresh to new audiences. But I don't see any way, short of a collapse of the United States and an imposition of a brutal, repressive theocracy in its place, that it would ever become a militaristic, misogynistic milieu.
Buh?
The characters tell you that Starfleet isn't military, so you ignore them? The characters in question are the people who would know!
Well, speaking as a former military member, and who served in all-male units as well as those of mixed gender, who's been in command of both male and female subordinates, and who's reported to officers and senior enlisted of both genders, I have to say that I don't understand this opposition. If they can meet the standard required to do the particular job, then I say let them have at it.
On the flipside, there were plenty of men I'd like to have seen drop-kicked to the curb because they had no business wearing a uniform. Interestingly, a good number of those had views on women and the military similar to yours.
That information is interesting.
It is great to know.
It changes my opinion not one bit.
It'll be tough for me, you know, trying to sleep tonight while dealing with this surprising revelation, but I'll muddle through somehow.
BTW, you didn't answer my question. Why's your opposition to this so strong? Further, why should you care one way or another? Are you planning to enlist?
What is the problem with women in the military? And for that matter, since when has Starfleet BEEN the military? Yes, they are the Federation's defense arm, but they're also the exploratory arm as well. In fact, Starfleet seems set on the idea of being first and foremost explorers. Hence all the heavy science equipment on ships of the line. Isn't the motto of the academy translated from Latin as 'From the stars, knowledge'?
One of the things that has ALWAYS been a part of the show is the idea of diversity is the norm. Singling out this or that set of the population as 'unsuited' for this or that is seen as a notion that doesn't have a place in the Federation's society.
You did not ask one.
Yes, I realize that and edited accordingly. Or, you could just ignore it like you have all the others.
1) Can you point me to a single, solitary survey that demonstrates that having women in a military organization diminishes its effectiveness?
I have researched this area thoroughly, and so far I've found a few things. The first couple of years after integration were occasionally rough, and military equipment often designed for average sizes of men were unable to be used by women, who tend to be smaller. As far as I can tell that's the sum total of the evidence, and I find it to be extremely thin.
So, minus physiological differences that can ultimately be fixed without gender bias (ie, only people at least 5'6" can man a tank), is there *ANY* evidence that women in a unit after more than 5 years reduces effectiveness?
2) It is a fundamental fact about science fiction that you must accept it on its own terms. That is, transporters and FTL travel are (as far as we know) physical impossibilities, but one does not blast GTTS for including warp drive. It's simply a part of the universe.
Another part of the universe is an organization, structured somewhat like our current military, that nonetheless is primarily based on scientific exploration. As such, it features a lack of certain types of military discipline, many scientists, and diversity as a primary goal. One could make an argument that an organization like this doesn't make sense, but it's irrelevant - this organization is the canvas upon which Star Trek occurs.
You claiming Starfleet is military is like me claiming Harry Potter is devil worship. Sorry - not so much.
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