Roddenberry's Worst Ideas

[T'Girl]

... but last time I checked Trek has rarely played the identity politics game but rather tried to be universally progressive.

Regardless of any "identity politics," Star Trek had absolutely no problem depicting various characters as heterosexual, and considerable problem openly showing otherwise.

How do humans exchange property when they dont use money?

How do Humans buy, sell and charge purchases, if they (supposedly) don't use money?

 

[horatio83]

So what? The only Germans that we see on the show are nazis and I don't whine about it and pretend that Trek is somehow anti-German when it clearly isn't.
Contemporary identity politics aka "I only care for my group" is oblivious to the bigger picture, to universal emancipation. MLK did not merely fight for the rights of Black people but also for working people, for people in Vietnam and so on. This is true progressive politics, caring about more than your personal shit. Trek has clearly always implied universal emancipation so could we stop these insinuations that the franchise is somehow homophobe? If you wanna be consistent you'd have to also claim that it is e.g. anti-Inuit, anti-Chinese, anti-deaf, anti-wheelchair and so on. Obviously this is lunatic.

 

[sonak]

So what? The only Germans that we see on the show are nazis and I don't whine about it and pretend that Trek is somehow anti-German when it clearly isn't.
Contemporary identity politics aka "I only care for my group" is oblivious to the bigger picture, to universal emancipation. MLK did not merely fight for the rights of Black people but also for working people, for people in Vietnam and so on. This is true progressive politics, caring about more than your personal shit. Trek has clearly always implied universal emancipation so could we stop these insinuations that the franchise is somehow homophobe? If you wanna be consistent you'd have to also claim that it is e.g. anti-Inuit, anti-Chinese, anti-deaf, anti-wheelchair and so on. Obviously this is lunatic.

amen


the problem with the so-called "progressive left" these days has been it's tendency to fracture its coalitions on stupid lines of identity politics.

 

[Anji]

How do you be progressive when you work for a network that owns 50 percent or more of the series??? You can only do what you want to do up to a certain point.

 

[horatio83]

So what? The only Germans that we see on the show are nazis and I don't whine about it and pretend that Trek is somehow anti-German when it clearly isn't.
Contemporary identity politics aka "I only care for my group" is oblivious to the bigger picture, to universal emancipation. MLK did not merely fight for the rights of Black people but also for working people, for people in Vietnam and so on. This is true progressive politics, caring about more than your personal shit. Trek has clearly always implied universal emancipation so could we stop these insinuations that the franchise is somehow homophobe? If you wanna be consistent you'd have to also claim that it is e.g. anti-Inuit, anti-Chinese, anti-deaf, anti-wheelchair and so on. Obviously this is lunatic.

amen


the problem with the so-called "progressive left" these days has been it's tendency to fracture its coalitions on stupid lines of identity politics.

Indeed. Identity politics is basically some kind of self-undermining. You need solidarity, unity and discipline to get shit done.

Apart from this intra-left problem we do of course have to acknowledge that not every member of a discriminated minority is on the left. If I remember correctly T'Girl is a libertarian right-winger so she naturally only cares for her personal LGBT interests. And while I also think that the next Trek series should feature a non-heterosexual character I don't want it to be ideologically influenced by such kind of identity politics aka group egoism. Its underlying notion has to be that this is a future for everybody, not that group XYZ can cry hoorah because they are in Trek now.

And at the risk of pissing off some people, especially gay right-wingers like T'Girl, in a world where a Thatcherite assholes like Cameron are fine with gay marriage we might wanna reconsider this focus upon non-economic issues. Sure, they have been neglected by the Old Left but nowadays we have reached the other extreme.
What applies for the real world also applies for Trek. It should focus more on continuing to be a world without economic exploitation and so on than on showing the end of discrimination of minorities. The discrimination of the majority is the bigger issue.

 

[Maurice]

Funny how it always comes down to a lame rationalization for why Star Trek doesn't show much human diversity.

 

[yousirname]

Language is pretty fluid. 'Villain' originally referred to a low-level agricultural worker. 'Cheap' used to be a noun. We still talk about 'dialing' a number, even though it's an extraordinary rarity to see a rotary phone nowadays.

All of which is to say that the verb 'to sell' could easily persist in a non-monetary economy.

 

[sonak]

Funny how it always comes down to a lame rationalization for why Star Trek doesn't show much human diversity.

well, there's also the issue that sci-fi often has trouble coming up with what pop culture and diversity might MEAN so far in the future, especially with how quickly things change now.

 

[Nightdiamond]

^ They do what Beverly did in TNG's pilot. They put it on their account. All transfers are electronic and automatic. After a long enough period of time doing that, they stop thinking of it as money.

That would have been fine, except for later on when they started adding some serious statements that humans don't use money anymore.

Still even now, electronic transfers are still called money.

I gathered that Starfleet officers get paid in credits and that is specifically used as currency off planet.

If that's the case, then the credits aren't used on earth--and humans on earth don't get paid in any currency.

Jake: I sold my first book today.
Quark: Really? How much did you get for it?

Jake: It's just a figure of speech. The Federation News Service is going to publish a book of my stories about life on the station under Dominion rule.

Quark: And they're not paying you?
Jakev Sisko: No.

... but last time I checked Trek has rarely played the identity politics game but rather tried to be universally progressive.

Regardless of any "identity politics," Star Trek had absolutely no problem depicting various characters as heterosexual, and considerable problem openly showing otherwise.

Its usually the lack of clear examples of what 24th century human culture is like that starts these debates.

We do get 'humanity has overcome all their prejudices" statements from Trek, but that is a bit vague.

Remember the episode where Beverly Crusher rejected her former lover because he now possessed a female body.

Trek basically says that 100% of humanity are open minded, non prejudiced and accepting. So you wonder what was behind her rejection.

Can 24th century humans have preferences and ethnic identities, and yet still be open minded?

Who knows, if we don't get specific inside look at the society.

 

[Third Nacelle]

Is it that humans don't use money, or The Federation doesn't use money? I have always (despite lack of anything definitive stated onscreen) thought of the UFP as the national-level government - the level of goverment that mints currency. The name itself suggests the UFP is a federal republic. It would not make sense for a nation to have money while one of its states/provinces did not.

Just because people aren't paid for their work (Jake's writing) does not mean that money/credits are not distributed some other way. Perhaps the UFP issues everyone a certain amount of credits as welfare, or perhaps work FOR the Federation is not paid, but private work is.

 

[robau]

I think Starfleet officials in particular are given suitable credit for trading wherever currency is required. That's how Crusher got cloth, Scotty got his "pay", and how they are all able to go to bars. Bars have to operate with currency by law to put some sort of limit on drinking

 

[Nightdiamond]

Is it that humans don't use money, or The Federation doesn't use money? I have always (despite lack of anything definitive stated onscreen) thought of the UFP as the national-level government - the level of goverment that mints currency. The name itself suggests the UFP is a federal republic. It would not make sense for a nation to have money while one of its states/provinces did not.

Just because people aren't paid for their work (Jake's writing) does not mean that money/credits are not distributed some other way. Perhaps the UFP issues everyone a certain amount of credits as welfare, or perhaps work FOR the Federation is not paid, but private work is.

I think Starfleet officials in particular are given suitable credit for trading wherever currency is required. That's how Crusher got cloth, Scotty got his "pay", and how they are all able to go to bars. Bars have to operate with currency by law to put some sort of limit on drinking

I think it's Humans don't use money on earth. The Federation seems to use money for dealing with other cultures, and Starfleet officers may be paid since they are in space and are likely to deal with other cultures that use money.

However the average human relies only on earth replicators and technology for their needs (according to this theory).

This is what brought up the idea that humans might be financially isolated on earth.

They have all their needs fulfilled at no cost, BUT--they have to stay on earth to enjoy it. If they leave they will be completely resource-less, unless they are in a Federation or Starfleet facility.

Jake lived on a Starfleet base, so he had access to their free replicators, but the moment he tried any transaction that didn't involve currency, he was helpless, since by his own words, as a human he didn't carry money.

I'm not into the "Federation is communist stuff", but it's an interesting way at looking at Trek society, that makes it both creepy and fascinating.

 

[T'Girl]

Jake lived on a Starfleet base, so he had access to their free replicators

Or maybe all of Jake's replicator use (and other purchases) were automatically billed to daddy's account. Jake being the minor child and dependant of Ben Sisko.

 

[Melakon]

And Ben hit the ceiling when he saw the charges for all the downloads from I-Tunes.

 

[horatio83]

It is very obvious that replicator usage is either free or rationed (Sisko talks about having used up all of his transporter credits to beam home every evening as a cadet). Given that there does not seem to be any obesity the latter is probably not necessary.
While Kirk does have an appartment with a beautiful view in TWOK the captain quarters in all series are as large as those of ordinary crewmembers.

In the fictionl future of Trek people do their jobs because they love them, not because they have to work to pay the rent and the bills. All tedious work is done by machines and the few civilians we have seen, Picard's brother and Sisko's father, do very obviously love their work. And this shouldn't surprise us, when you are relatively well-off you don't choose the best-paying but the most interesting job. And you don't lay around on the sofa all day because you wanna feel useful.
We are not purely hedonistic creatures and again the example from Trek is Picard's brother. He could have a far easier time if he used the replicator but he prefers real wine and real cooking.
Same with the people on the frontier. They could enjoy the easy life in the core of the Federation but they seemingly want some excitement and some challenges in their life so they choose the harder life on a colony.

The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. - Aristotle

 

[Melakon]

In the fictionl future of Trek people do their jobs because they love them, not because they have to work to pay the rent and the bills.

Federation Job Placement Officer: "All right, all you guys who want to be sewer divers, raise your hands."

 

[sonak]

In the fictionl future of Trek people do their jobs because they love them, not because they have to work to pay the rent and the bills.

Federation Job Placement Officer: "All right, all you guys who want to be sewer divers, raise your hands."

1. technological advances would probably make most of the more menial and unpleasant work unnecessary.

2. even if they don't love the job itself, they might be motivated by doing their civic duty or something-again, you're talking about being raised in a utopian society that values the "common good," maybe they WOULD be enthusiastic about sewer diving if they thought they were contributing something important.

 

[Melakon]

Or maybe those are the kinds of assignments inmates (like Thomas Eugene Paris) at Federation Penal Settlements are given.

 

[T'Girl]

"What with this Dabo girl lap dance fee from Quark's?"





____

 

[Third Nacelle]

I just don't see any evidence of the supposed human isolation on earth. In Star Trek, humans are EVERYWHERE. We've even seen instances of a single human owning an entire planet. Humans never seem to have trouble booking a voyage on a civilian transport. Humans are seen at bars and restaurants outside of the Federation all the time. I don't know what a week on Risa costs, but plenty of humans seem able to afford it.

An offhand comment by Jake that he can't buy something because he's human just doesn't hold up to all the other evidence.