I saw "Fusion" the night it aired. I remember a shipfull of emotional Vulcans, only one of whom was a douchebag.
Star Trek's outdated vision of the future
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I saw "Fusion" the night it aired. I remember a shipfull of emotional Vulcans, only one of whom was a douchebag.
The Future
Economy:I think in the future electronic transactions will be the norm for business and person-to-person transactions. They will exist as credits of some sort and can be exchanged for other credits. We already have that with electronic foreign currency exchange when you fly to another country and get cash when you arrive (especially when traveling to a 3rd world country currently).
mined ores will always have a certain value and can be traded.
The monetary credits under the United Federation of Planets will only exist regionally by area or governments.
The utopian society idea is a optimistic idea in Star Trek that Roddenberry created for Trek.
It's history is:
The needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few (or one) becoming a fundamental plank of that society.
Crime always will exist under the 7 sins including greed.
Economy:I think in the future electronic transactions will be the norm for business and person-to-person transactions. They will exist as credits of some sort and can be exchanged for other credits. We already have that with electronic foreign currency exchange when you fly to another country and get cash when you arrive (especially when traveling to a 3rd world country currently).
mined ores will always have a certain value and can be traded.
The monetary credits under the United Federation of Planets will only exist regionally by area or governments.
The utopian society idea is a optimistic idea in Star Trek that Roddenberry created for Trek.
It's history is:
In modern day the Shakers and Amish are quasi-Utopian societies that surely have crime and corruption though.
The needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few (or one) becoming a fundamental plank of that society.
Crime always will exist under the 7 sins including greed.
Yep, the fat hedonistic guy didn't have any issues as he merely does not suppress "nice" emotions, only the angry fellow who tried to mindrape T'Pol did.
Same with Spock senior, he lets our his normal emotions but suppresses anger, hate, rage and so on. That's probably what Surak originally wanted anyway.
That's why I said that I have a problem with Sarek telling Spock to not control his anger (that would be bad advice even among us humans). If he had told him that he should not suppress his love for his mother I wouldn't have minded it at all.
Trek has always been like this. The aliens aren't the ones to emulate, the humans are. We're the best all around beings and the more the aliens are like us the better off they are. Worf controlling his warrior instincts or Spock learning to use his human emotions. When do we ever hear of a human being better off for using logic?
The fatal flaw with saying a vision of the future is "outdated" is that a vision of a future that projects an "updated" vision is only extrapolating from the present. If one thing changes, that vision is wrong.
Any prediction we make about 300 years from now is going to be wrong because of what we can't foresee. The best we can do is wonder what might happen if X happens. As such, Star Trek -- old, new, or in-between -- works for storytelling its purposes.
Any prediction we make about 300 years from now is going to be wrong because of what we can't foresee. The best we can do is wonder what might happen if X happens. As such, Star Trek -- old, new, or in-between -- works for storytelling its purposes.
Two things though:
1. If Khan is in the next Star Trek movie, I hope he's not still from 1996. (Save the canon arguments for another thread, please.) That would confuse the new audience and is ignoring what we do know instead of simply imagining what might happen in lieu of what we don't. At the very least: saying that Khan was absolute ruler of a quarter of the world from 1992-1996 is going to look obtuse to 2013 audiences no matter how canon "Space Seed" is.
2. Thanks to "Turnabout Intruder", there was a lot of argument about whether or not there were women captains prior to the timeframe one was first seen in TVH. I'm glad ENT settled this once and for all with Captain Hernandez commanding the Columbia.
So, yes, I'm still saying any depiction of the future is going to be wrong; but the writers can have some control over the degree.
1. If Khan is in the next Star Trek movie, I hope he's not still from 1996. (Save the canon arguments for another thread, please.) That would confuse the new audience and is ignoring what we do know instead of simply imagining what might happen in lieu of what we don't. At the very least: saying that Khan was absolute ruler of a quarter of the world from 1992-1996 is going to look obtuse to 2013 audiences no matter how canon "Space Seed" is.
2. Thanks to "Turnabout Intruder", there was a lot of argument about whether or not there were women captains prior to the timeframe one was first seen in TVH. I'm glad ENT settled this once and for all with Captain Hernandez commanding the Columbia.
So, yes, I'm still saying any depiction of the future is going to be wrong; but the writers can have some control over the degree.
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There's an easy way around this: Never give an exact year for when he ruled the Earth. Just say, "More than two hundred years ago!" and leave it at that.
It'll be interesting to see how it's handled, whichever way they decided.
But was it settled at all? The time intervel between Hernandez and Lester was over a century. Society could have change, changed back and changed again in a new direction in that time. Starfleet could have gone through a philosophy of regulations that allowed no male Captains for a few decades for all we know. By the time we see a female Human Captain on the bridge of the Saratoga (?) this could be a indication of a new direction on Starfleet's part from just two decades before.
A century ago the very idea of a woman Captain of a Navy ship was a joke, now we do have them (although warship commands are still rare). But if our society changes yet again, a half century from now, we could be back to none.
^ It's easy to settle, since Janice Lester is obviously cuckoos and so anything she says can't be trustworthy.
Even if you do believe her, look at the very specific phrase she used: "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women." Your world. Meaning, Kirk's personal world. He can't have a lasting relationship, because his ship will always come first.
Even if you do believe her, look at the very specific phrase she used: "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women." Your world. Meaning, Kirk's personal world. He can't have a lasting relationship, because his ship will always come first.
That ties right back into changes that can't be foreseen. Not technically impossible -- in the strictest sense of the word -- for either no male or female captains during different periods we didn't see.
But what would reverse the direction of social progress toward equality? Males that are too aggrerssive to command, females that are to dumure? That plays into extreme gender stereotypes and would have to be applied wholesale to become such a complete policy; and it's statistically impossible that there wouldn't be exceptions.
The only way I see there being none is that the very few who are naval captains now aren't replaced with women; and none would be invested or interested in progressing that far. A strong if.
So it would be due to lack of candidates, or silent and shrowded discrimination, not because of a policy that openly forbids it.
A devastating catastrophe that wipes out a large percentage of the species? Protecting women--and their ability to reproduce--from harm could become a very high priority.
I don't know if Star Trek's World War III killed enough humans to do the trick, but mentions of previously unheard-of past disasters tend to pop up in Trek fairly frequently.
A devastating catastrophe that wipes out a large percentage of the species? Protecting women--and their ability to reproduce--from harm could become a very high priority.
I don't know if Star Trek's World War III killed enough humans to do the trick, but mentions of previously unheard-of past disasters tend to pop up in Trek fairly frequently.
The WW3 in Trek probably served as means for social evolution - a wake-up call if you will, for unification which was further solidified by arrival of Vulcans.
How humans are portrayed early on in TNG is realistic for us as well to achieve (it's no utopia though - utopia implies 'perfection' - that something doesn't change and stagnate - and that's a fundamentally ludicrous assumption because things change on a regular basis, including a system where money, war, poverty diseases, etc. have been eliminated - its not perfect, but its a heck of a lot better than what we have now).
Trek on the other hand retained many things from the outdated system (such as government and people in power - why? - because it probably would have been too 'alien' for people to 'relate' to - talk about treating people like morons).
The problem lies in not our technology/resources to pull it off (we had the means for decades actually), but the monetary system under which society operates, which is severely limited and doesn't allow people to see it - many also cannot accept the possibility of an alternative where money doesn't exist because they have no ability to 'think outside the box' (in effect, the monetary system and the notion of assigning 'value' to everything became all there is to them - the concept of sharing and managing resources intelligently is frowned upon because the society is BUILT on the premise to stimulate greed like behavior and competition via artificial creation of 'scarcity' - hence, nothing else is possible - add in some cultural myths passed down from generation to generation about what they think 'human nature' is [they think its greed] along with what exactly motivates people [they think its money], and you have a recipe for current version humanity - to note, applying scientific method to examining what 'human nature' is and what generates incentive is in contradiction to the myths people spout on a regular basis - which they do to preserve the current system).
"Unleashing" humanity with its present mentality on the galaxy at large (and dare I say it 'universe') would be ludicrous honestly and probably a recipe for disaster.
There are so many options on how to do solve problems today (even decades ago) on the planet, and its simply not done due to the pursuit of 'profit' and 'money' (not to mention the illusion of 'power') that the system we live in generates.
Oh well... the collapse of the monetary system is imminent and it will be interesting to see what will happen when majority of the population on the planet loses jobs due to automation in practically every segment - think what you will, but Humans simply can't keep up.
Production is already way up, but purchasing power is low (or decreasing).
Same thing happened during the great depression in 1930's.
Scarcity was not a problem - there was more than enough to go on for everyone (in food and material wants/needs), but people had no money to buy anything.
People are merely clinging to the old system because its the only one they have known.
Not to mention that today, there are ridiculous fictitious fears of 'machines taking over' that stem from Hollywood's idiotic movies (which people actually use as 'evidence' even though they have no basis in reality- its the Human factor you should be concerned about and the manner we use technology today - and we don't use it for 'betterment of mankind').
A devastating catastrophe that wipes out a large percentage of the species? Protecting women--and their ability to reproduce--from harm could become a very high priority.
I don't know if Star Trek's World War III killed enough humans to do the trick, but mentions of previously unheard-of past disasters tend to pop up in Trek fairly frequently.
Ohhhh, Skipper... I really, really hate doing this because you bring up a good point and I don't like undercutting someone's entire reply; believe me when I say it...
... but I meant between ENT and TOS.
I'm not sure outdated is at all the right way of looking at it. The basic principles underlying the concept are completely relevant, perhaps even more important in today's much more divided world.
I believe that the issue is about how the story is told. The execution is often flawed. I mean if you think about it, in the Seventies, a lot of people might have argued that the Original Series was intensely out of date and irrelevant in a much more tense and post-Vietnam era. The franchise adapted and we got first the movies and then TNG, followed by DS9 and Voyager, possibly including Enterprise as well. What we now require is for somebody to come up with a balanced response to both what is happening in the real world, what is happening in culture as a whole, particularly with the ever-sophisication of television for example and what is happening more particularly in the genre as a whole, taking account of the techniques used to tell Farscape or Battlestar Galactica as well as more generalist material. It will adapt, re-configure and in five or ten years we will get another Star Trek, that's allowed the Abrams movies to go through their run and moves on in a modern and interesting way.
I believe that the issue is about how the story is told. The execution is often flawed. I mean if you think about it, in the Seventies, a lot of people might have argued that the Original Series was intensely out of date and irrelevant in a much more tense and post-Vietnam era. The franchise adapted and we got first the movies and then TNG, followed by DS9 and Voyager, possibly including Enterprise as well. What we now require is for somebody to come up with a balanced response to both what is happening in the real world, what is happening in culture as a whole, particularly with the ever-sophisication of television for example and what is happening more particularly in the genre as a whole, taking account of the techniques used to tell Farscape or Battlestar Galactica as well as more generalist material. It will adapt, re-configure and in five or ten years we will get another Star Trek, that's allowed the Abrams movies to go through their run and moves on in a modern and interesting way.
"The future will be different than we thought it would be." No shit. Anyone else surprised that the Trek future won't happen exactly so?
"There will be genetic-engineering in the future." Again, not shit. It's illegality was retcon and idiotic from the get-go. Trek rewrote itself for good and ill all the time. What's the big deal about it doing it again?
"We won't be darting accross the universe in starships because we'll build a Dyson Sphere here." So he knows what the future of space exploration will be (none), and suggests we wait not on our own planet for some bio-weapon to kill us all but in our own solar system so some nova-bomb can kill us all.
Interesting premise for the article, but it could have been more than bitchy half-thoughts.
The main thing about the Trek future is that it's a better one...that there's an ascent of man, that the human adventure is just beginning. Show that, and the rest is window-dressing.
"There will be genetic-engineering in the future." Again, not shit. It's illegality was retcon and idiotic from the get-go. Trek rewrote itself for good and ill all the time. What's the big deal about it doing it again?
"We won't be darting accross the universe in starships because we'll build a Dyson Sphere here." So he knows what the future of space exploration will be (none), and suggests we wait not on our own planet for some bio-weapon to kill us all but in our own solar system so some nova-bomb can kill us all.
Interesting premise for the article, but it could have been more than bitchy half-thoughts.
The main thing about the Trek future is that it's a better one...that there's an ascent of man, that the human adventure is just beginning. Show that, and the rest is window-dressing.
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