You might not say that if you were raised 300 years ago. Either form of transport would be so insanely new and different, you would likely have reservations.
The safety of Transporters.. Tmp and more.
- Thread starter valkyrie013
- Start date
You might not say that if you were raised 300 years ago. Either form of transport would be so insanely new and different, you would likely have reservations.
If I were to say differently 300 years ago, it would only because I did not understand the physics of transporter technology.
People used to be terrified of elevators. Especially when they first became automatic (without an operator).
Plummeting to your death, perishing in a fiery bus crash, or being pulled apart molecule by molecule, the result (and therefore the fear) would be pretty similar at the beginning.
Plummeting to your death, perishing in a fiery bus crash, or being pulled apart molecule by molecule, the result (and therefore the fear) would be pretty similar at the beginning.
As a comparison, I disagree because an elevator does not pull your molecules apart 100% of the time.
Planes are utterly terrifying.
Black Friday shopping is indeed horrific.
They should legalize the private ownership of tanks to deal with this problem.
Experience teaches us that elevators and televisions and milk don't kill us much. Those who don't learn this are justly considered insane. It would be the same with the transporter, quite regardless of the underlying mechanics.
It's not as if people really understand automated elevators or pasteurized milk today, either. It's not something that would or should be required, when the observation of a difference that makes no difference should suffice.
Timo Saloniemi
It's not as if people really understand automated elevators or pasteurized milk today, either. It's not something that would or should be required, when the observation of a difference that makes no difference should suffice.
Timo Saloniemi
More or less. After all, sanity is not brain chemistry or logic, but behavior - a social rather than biological thing. If not transporting is socially unacceptable, you are crazy.
(Sarek wouldn't win points for sanity when murdering left and right perfectly logically and reasonably, and without the slightest fault in his brain chemistry, say.)
Timo Saloniemi
(Sarek wouldn't win points for sanity when murdering left and right perfectly logically and reasonably, and without the slightest fault in his brain chemistry, say.)
Timo Saloniemi
That is definitely not the clinical definition of insanity, but in a hypothetical world with transporter technology, even the layman definition of "insanity" would not apply. If you were against your own atomic destruction, while the rest of the world was a willing participant in their own atomic destruction, you would then be a "sane man in an insane world." Was it "insane" to oppose the masses of Hitler supporters in NAZI Germany? That was certainly going against the grain at the time.
Since we have seen a conversation take place, in real time, during transport (TWOK) and also seen the transporter process, AGAIN in real time, from the POV of the person being transported (TNG's "Realm of Fear"), I think we can put to rest the whole thing about "atomic destruction".
It's obviously a minority vs. majority thing. Had the Nazis won (and not just a big war, but the hearts and minds of everybody, something that never happened even in Germany), right and wrong would be redefined accordingly.
"Sane men in an insane world" are the ones we put in asylums. Always have, always will, because there's a societal demand for such an action.
But determining that the transporter doesn't pull people apart in the exact fashion X will not help there. It still does things to your body that an elevator doesn't (as far as you know), and crazy people will go crazy over that. And that's atop the people who just plain won't grasp the difference between X and Y, which might well be something of a majority. It's just that out of those, most won't go the anti-transporter sort of crazy.
Timo Saloniemi
"Sane men in an insane world" are the ones we put in asylums. Always have, always will, because there's a societal demand for such an action.
But determining that the transporter doesn't pull people apart in the exact fashion X will not help there. It still does things to your body that an elevator doesn't (as far as you know), and crazy people will go crazy over that. And that's atop the people who just plain won't grasp the difference between X and Y, which might well be something of a majority. It's just that out of those, most won't go the anti-transporter sort of crazy.
Timo Saloniemi
I will have take your word for it that the "anti-transporters," in a future hypothetical world, will be worthy of being committed to an asylum. That is a pretty interesting road to travel down.
Well, you do go to an asylum for the weirdest things in TOS...
But a society will have an interest in taking anti-elevator people out of the equation when building high-rises, and it never is "catering for them". Insanity and lack of legs are different types of problems with making use of socially important hardware, yet the corrective measures in both tend towards fixing the individual rather than the system, for reasons of scale.
Not that there should be much reason to worry. McCoy can keep his insanity in check, perhaps through self-administered medication. Pulaski gets a shuttle when she asks for one. And both get plenty of opportunities to snicker "Told you so!" during their careers...
Timo Saloniemi
But a society will have an interest in taking anti-elevator people out of the equation when building high-rises, and it never is "catering for them". Insanity and lack of legs are different types of problems with making use of socially important hardware, yet the corrective measures in both tend towards fixing the individual rather than the system, for reasons of scale.
Not that there should be much reason to worry. McCoy can keep his insanity in check, perhaps through self-administered medication. Pulaski gets a shuttle when she asks for one. And both get plenty of opportunities to snicker "Told you so!" during their careers...
Timo Saloniemi
It was also the Transporter that saved Pulaski's life.
I liked her line afterward...
PULASKI: "Captain, if this hadn't worked?"
PICARD: "If this hadn't worked, it would have been necessary to beam your energy into empty space."
PULASKI: "And spread my atoms across the galaxy."
PICARD: "Yes. I'm sorry."
PULASKI: "No, no, don't be sorry. Every time I get into the damn thing, I'm convinced that's what's going to happen."
PULASKI: "Captain, if this hadn't worked?"
PICARD: "If this hadn't worked, it would have been necessary to beam your energy into empty space."
PULASKI: "And spread my atoms across the galaxy."
PICARD: "Yes. I'm sorry."
PULASKI: "No, no, don't be sorry. Every time I get into the damn thing, I'm convinced that's what's going to happen."
Fixed for you.
