"Past Tense" at 25: What Have We Learned?

I have hope. We'll right the ship and make it to a brighter future. We're already on that way.

We just have to stop electing demagogues with the power to alter the very direction of human civilization and even our own planet just because some of us get mad at other politicians. Very likely the Sanctuary Districts in 21st century Trek were the result of elected politicians who either ran out of ideas or just stopped giving a damn and wanted to placate voters who wanted the poor and unemployed kept out of sight and thus out of mind.

When we see those platforms we can vote against them. We really have few other options. At the end of the day we control our own future and can prevent real-life Sanctuary Districts if we want.

 

I wish I could agree with you but I can't.

My own city is fast spiralling down. The number of homeless is growing. There are tents all along the river where they live and no level of government, federal, provincial or municple, give a damn. Homeless and addicts surround our city hall and no the city doesn't care. They simply ignore them or, of our elected officials do acknowledge them, it's only because they literally step around,or over them, on their way to Starbucks.

Our politicians all make nice speeches, draw their salaries from the public coffers, and serve themselves or their friends.

I used to be a left leaning naive utopian socialist and idealist. Now, while I will always be on the political left, the idealism is long gone. I care. I understand. I was homeless when I was 16 and no-one gave a damn. 30 years later I lack the power and influence to do anything except volunteer work and call out politicians on social media. I've even met with an MP and an MPP within the last year. They don't give a damn. They get their six-figure salaries and pensions and just don't care.

 

The least plausible thing about Past Tense is that CRT monitors were still in use. Everything else seems to be right on schedule, unfortunately.

 

The "Interface" may sound wrong but the script does call it the Net or the Web at least a couple of times. The CRT monitors do kind of take me out of scenes but I guess no more so than some of the fashions.

 

The thing I think they got the most wrong was that a series of heartfelt personal stories would inspire people to actually change their behaviors.

 

Trek sometimes shoots higher than the audience is prepared for.

 

The rich may still hate poor people but a lot of people, poor and middle, now hate rather than think well of the rich. And there does seem to be a lot of support, among the Democrats, for the solution according to the show, federal employment.

 

I work in the city.
I walk from my car, across the parking lot, across the street, and down a sidewalk to get into work. Coming and going from work are the only time I go outside for the most part. ( once in a while I forget my lunch and have to walk one block to a Sandwich shop)

Near to where I work I sometimes drive by two Charity places.
One is a place where people go when it is cold for a place to sleep, shower and a meal. It's a religious place. The people that go there aren't required to DO anything, just show up. The street in front is covered in garbage, it goes into the gutters and gets smashed flat by cars in the street.
About a block away is a place that makes the people who go there, get off of drugs and alcohol, get a job and take care of the building inside and out. The front of that building is nice and clean, no trash. It looks like a nice apartment building.

 

I know it's silly but I when I rewatch Past Tense I can't get past Jim Metzler's haircut. It's so early 1990's! It's still a good two-parter and a fun episode to rewatch. Part II is much better than Part I because Sisko kicks ass and saves the timeline.

 

I can handle the haircuts. The men's suits not nearly so much.

 

Prefer Future Tense to be honest.

 

I’m so looking forward to this episode. I’m doing a podcast with two guys where we’re rewatching the show and these episodes are up next.
One of the guys, this podcast adventure is his introduction to Trek. I’m so interested in his take on this episode considering where we are now.

I know when this came up it was considered preachy but I never saw it that way. I’m pretty middle politically (somethings I agree with the left, on others the right) and I just saw the apathy as truth. And it’s sad. Especially that we really haven’t progress since then. I’m so looking forward to the discussion.

DS9 is the best!!
https://linktr.ee/Kuwtc

 

And most of it is because we elect neocon assholes like Reagan, Bush, Bush Jr., Margaret Thatcher Donald Trump, Brian Mulroney, Bobby Jindal, Mike Harris (a premier [governor] of Ontario), onetime mayor of Toronto Rob Ford, his brother Doug Ford (also currently a premier of Ontario), Stephen Harper, Ralph Klein, etc. to high office, who then institute policies that lead to homelessness and Sanctuary Districts. And we elect them because of neocon assholes like George F. Will, Irving Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Richard Perle, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, Michael Savage, etc. who propagandize people to accept these neocon policies that cause homelessness and poverty-people and situations not mentioned in this episode as the actual causes of the Sanctuary Districts.

 

absolutely nothing

 

Why humans from the 24th century have such contempt for the 21st century.

 

Given how humans behaved for most of the first 79 years of this century I can see why.

 

Past Tense was pretty accurate, only they found more subtle ways to do it in the non-immigrant cases.

 

Exactly. And this is probably why Riker disliked the people in the cryo-units aborad the S.S. Birdseye in the The Neutral Zone episode of Star Trek: TNG.

 

The thing that always gets me about "Past Tense" is that, after O'Brien and Kira have been bouncing around through time and (at one point) ended up in an alternate 2048 - I think that was the year - O'Brien says something like

"Earth's had its rough patches, but never THAT rough."

I wonder what exactly the hell he was talking about. I mean, surely O'Brien knows about World War III, for example. So what could he possibly have seen in the alt-2048 that would be WORSE than World War III? You'd think a nuclear war would be just about as bad as things could get...

 

Unless the World War III nuclear exchange after Sisko and Bashir changed the past was even WORSE and completely devastated the entire planet, making the actual war look tame by comparison.