Sisko's dislike of the Vic Fontaine holosuite program

[Timo]

What is so special about that? Sisko could have visited thousands of holotainment settings where a person like him would in reality have been mistreated. All the periods in the United States before that era, for starters. And many a period in the history of Sisko's family outside the US. Or of Kasidy's family, or Jennifer's.

Sisko is not "African-American". He's barely "American", whatever that means in the 24th century. What possible fixation could he have with the sixties and the US?

At Vic's, Sisko could just as well start ranting at possible uniformed customers on what a disgrace the US Army in the 20th century was, with nothing positive to show for its disgusting gay-bashing, misogynist ways, and how wrong it is to portray those two jarheads there sharing a drink and nearly touching each other and not raping any women, while their CO just looks away as if nothing ahistorical was taking place. Those issues should feel about as personal to him as the color thing, and would be about as serious overall from where he's looking.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. I don't think a single person of African-American descent would agree, unless they're embarrassed or in denial. It doesn't matter if it's 40 years or 400 years ago, it's an aspect of African-American history (if not culture) that can't be just swept under the rug and forgotten because non-African-Americans think they should. As a citizen of the Federation, Sisko probably doesn't dwell on it, but if he's confronted with it, he's well within his rights not to feel happy about that time and place in history.

 

[Timo]

I don't think a single person of African-American descent would agree, unless they're embarrassed or in denial.

About events that took place 50 years ago? That's irrelevant, as it bears no resemblance to the situation at hand.

It doesn't matter if it's 400 years ago

You seriously think that Benny Russel, if confronted by holotechnology in the 1950s, would gripe about being allowed to join Pizarro or trade beer and barbs with Martin Luther? That is nonsense - Benny might very well find it objectionable that he was participating in the slaughter of South American natives, or helping this lewd blasphemer violate his religion's fundaments, but the fact that his skin color would in reality have stopped him should be a distant concern indeed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

I don't think a single person of African-American descent would agree, unless they're embarrassed or in denial.

About events that took place 50 years ago? That's irrelevant, as it bears no resemblance to the situation at hand.

No, it just means you're off-base on this.

It doesn't matter if it's 400 years ago

You seriously think that Benny Russel, if confronted by holotechnology in the 1950s, would gripe about being allowed to join Pizarro or trade beer and barbs with Martin Luther? That is nonsense - Benny might very well find it objectionable that he was participating in the slaughter of South American natives, or helping this lewd blasphemer violate his religion's fundaments, but the fact that his skin color would in reality have stopped him should be a distant concern indeed.

No, we're done here. That's just trying to downplay or dismiss the issue. Sisko is totally justified in not liking that part of history.

 

[Timo]

So you only choose to speak for yourself there, ignoring poor Benny Russel and all the rest?

It's easy to see why "Badda-Bing" was done from the 1990s POV. From the in-universe POV, it just plain doesn't make any sense.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[sonak]

Good D*** , I hate the idea as compute programs as equivalent to people total BS. Animals have some degree of sentience as well and I am not going to treat them like a Humans.

Totally agree on the first part. Later Trek got absurd with the "sentient(really "self-aware") hologram" crap. Holograms are programs created by a starship or station computer. Every second of their behavior is programmed, like a character in a video game. Their personalities are designed down to the most minute level. How exactly are they self-aware beings?

Animals on the other hand, have feelings and can be hurt and feel pleasure. Therefore they merit certain ethical consideration.

 

[Timo]

Every second of their behavior is programmed, like a character in a video game. Their personalities are designed down to the most minute level. How exactly are they self-aware beings?

...The exact same way as everybody else?

Or are you trying to claim that our lives aren't predestined down to every fraction of a second? How are you going to prove such a claim?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sindatur]

I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. I don't think a single person of African-American descent would agree, unless they're embarrassed or in denial. It doesn't matter if it's 40 years or 400 years ago, it's an aspect of African-American history (if not culture) that can't be just swept under the rug and forgotten because non-African-Americans think they should. As a citizen of the Federation, Sisko probably doesn't dwell on it, but if he's confronted with it, he's well within his rights not to feel happy about that time and place in history.

Why so African-American centric here? Even today, on the African Continent, Blacks are still slaughtered for the color of their skin, say for example Darfur? Can't we just say Black History? With a one World Government, I can't imagine Sisko sees a difference between African-American or any other country's Black history. It's funny how people use the term African-American, I've seen it used for Blacks in Europe and folks just don't understand what's wrong with that.

 

[sonak]

Every second of their behavior is programmed, like a character in a video game. Their personalities are designed down to the most minute level. How exactly are they self-aware beings?

...The exact same way as everybody else?

Or are you trying to claim that our lives aren't predestined down to every fraction of a second? How are you going to prove such a claim?

Timo Saloniemi

how would you disprove it? If you're a strict determinist(sounds like it from your post) than logical arguments are irrelevant because you'll believe what you were going to believe anyway.

But even if our personalities are determined by genetics(or genetics interacting with environment) that's still not like being programmed, and we still have emotions, which a program can't have.(outside of Trek that is)

 

[Timo]

Since there are no second attempts in this universe, and everything only happens once, there is no observable difference between being programmed and not being programmed. To discriminate against a person on grounds of something that is unobservable is also unsupportable: you can't exclude somebody from your all-male club on the basis of him being a woman if he just plain isn't, and even agrees to do the striptease to prove it. Well, you can, but then you're simply being irrational. Which is fine and well for clubs, but a broader society based on law and contract would frown on that.

What possible argument could be used to support the idea that programs cannot have emotions? Using today's programs as an example opens the venue for arguing that humans don't have emotions because coma patients don't emote...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deckerd]

I don't think a single person of African-American descent would agree, unless they're embarrassed or in denial.

About events that took place 50 years ago? That's irrelevant, as it bears no resemblance to the situation at hand.

No, it just means you're off-base on this.

It doesn't matter if it's 400 years ago

You seriously think that Benny Russel, if confronted by holotechnology in the 1950s, would gripe about being allowed to join Pizarro or trade beer and barbs with Martin Luther? That is nonsense - Benny might very well find it objectionable that he was participating in the slaughter of South American natives, or helping this lewd blasphemer violate his religion's fundaments, but the fact that his skin color would in reality have stopped him should be a distant concern indeed.

No, we're done here. That's just trying to downplay or dismiss the issue. Sisko is totally justified in not liking that part of history.

I think it was squirmingly inappropriate, frankly. Nobody would have experienced human racism for hundreds of years, although inter-species racism was pretty rife in DS9. It's like a Scot refusing to watch a film about Edward I. And that's all it is, entertainment set in a time and place, just like a film.

 

[sonak]

Since there are no second attempts in this universe, and everything only happens once, there is no observable difference between being programmed and not being programmed. To discriminate against a person on grounds of something that is unobservable is also unsupportable: you can't exclude somebody from your all-male club on the basis of him being a woman if he just plain isn't, and even agrees to do the striptease to prove it. Well, you can, but then you're simply being irrational. Which is fine and well for clubs, but a broader society based on law and contract would frown on that.

What possible argument could be used to support the idea that programs cannot have emotions? Using today's programs as an example opens the venue for arguing that humans don't have emotions because coma patients don't emote...

Timo Saloniemi

come on, you're being silly. First off, your coma analogy doesn't work-a coma patient has the CAPACITY for emotions and has had them before at some point. New-born babies don't lack rights just because they haven't cognitively developed to the point of self-awareness yet, because we know they have the capacity to do so.

Explain the mechanism by which a programmed collection of light and replicated material would have feelings? I also don't buy your assertion that there's no difference between programmed and not. Even if neither is exactly "free," one is clearly more CONSTRAINED than the other.

 

[Deckerd]

These specific arguments are all a little redundant considering the EMH in Voyager. He grew and developed as time progressed. The crew, after a few initial difficulties, came to accept him as a valuable member of the crew.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Later Trek got absurd with the "sentient(really "self-aware") hologram" crap.

Well, regardless of what you think on that issue, Trek had already gone down that path by the time this episode came out. In order for Trek to be consistent with itself, then Vic should have merited the consideration of a sentient alien being--an alien who has no stake in Earth's history and had no control over the features and surroundings he was given. He was "born" that way. Taking out personal Earth frustrations on an alien is stupid, mean, and illogical.

Otherwise, you basically have to rewrite all of VOY--which, while that would certainly be a worthy task, is not the situation we are left with here, and given that the EMH concept HAS already crossed over onto DS9, there's no choice but to acknowledge it.

 

[DonIago]

Hell, Trek went down that path with "Measure of a Man". Other than the medium, what exactly distinguishes Data from the EMH?

 

[C.E. Evans]

So you only choose to speak for yourself there, ignoring poor Benny Russel and all the rest?

Benny and all the rest--if we're referring to the rest being other African-Americans of the time--wouldn't think that era was the best of times either.

It's easy to see why "Badda-Bing" was done from the 1990s POV. From the in-universe POV, it just plain doesn't make any sense.

From the POV of Sisko, it does since it refers to a era his ancestors lived through.

About events that took place 50 years ago? That's irrelevant, as it bears no resemblance to the situation at hand.

No, it just means you're off-base on this.

You seriously think that Benny Russel, if confronted by holotechnology in the 1950s, would gripe about being allowed to join Pizarro or trade beer and barbs with Martin Luther? That is nonsense - Benny might very well find it objectionable that he was participating in the slaughter of South American natives, or helping this lewd blasphemer violate his religion's fundaments, but the fact that his skin color would in reality have stopped him should be a distant concern indeed.

No, we're done here. That's just trying to downplay or dismiss the issue. Sisko is totally justified in not liking that part of history.

I think it was squirmingly inappropriate, frankly. Nobody would have experienced human racism for hundreds of years, although inter-species racism was pretty rife in DS9. It's like a Scot refusing to watch a film about Edward I. And that's all it is, entertainment set in a time and place, just like a film.

Sisko doesn't have to like that particular period of history if he doesn't want to.

I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. I don't think a single person of African-American descent would agree, unless they're embarrassed or in denial. It doesn't matter if it's 40 years or 400 years ago, it's an aspect of African-American history (if not culture) that can't be just swept under the rug and forgotten because non-African-Americans think they should. As a citizen of the Federation, Sisko probably doesn't dwell on it, but if he's confronted with it, he's well within his rights not to feel happy about that time and place in history.

Why so African-American centric here?

There's more evidence to suggest that Sisko is of African-American descent than not.

 

[Deckerd]

Sisko doesn't have to like that particular period of history if he doesn't want to.

Well sure but the relevance to a contemporary entertainment program is non-existent. If he'd said "it's a vapid and vacuous time-waster in the middle of a war when we could be using our leisure time in the here and now to talk, debate, argue, drink, reminisce, sing, joke, do all the things that people do in the hiatus of wartime", then I would have stood up and cheered.

 

[Relayer1]

I don't eat meat or mistreat animals because I believe that to lesser or greater extent(depending on species) they share the experience of pain and suffering with us.

I extend this all the way down to shellfish such as mussels, as despite thinking that the the 'low order life is little more than organic automaton' view may be correct, where do you draw the line ? Insects, worms, crustacians, fish ?

If AI is programmed to respond 'like' us and is sufficiently advanced we need to err on the side of caution - even if emotion and self awareness is not the same as ours, it may still be real to some extent.

And think of it like this - maybe YOU are the only human to really experience emotions - maybe the rest of us are just acting like it !

PS - apart from a general moral aversion to racism, no-one in the 24th Century would react to a specific historical example any more than I do to white slavery in ancient Rome.

 

[C.E. Evans]

...apart from a general moral aversion to racism, no-one in the 24th Century would react to a specific historical example any more than I do to white slavery in ancient Rome.

Not everyone turns a blind eye to history or forgets their ancestors. Doesn't mean they live it 24/7, just that they are aware of the hardships their ancestors went through.

Sisko doesn't have to like that particular period of history if he doesn't want to.

Well sure but the relevance to a contemporary entertainment program is non-existent.

Trek has touched upon different aspects of history before. Why should it avoid this particular one?

 

[Deckerd]

Not sure what you mean. The holosuite was never portrayed as a historical re-enactment, with the exception of crew training programs. It's all the more galling because the whole subject of historical racism in the USA was so very well done in Far Beyond the Stars.