United Earth? New Horizons & Nationalism
- Thread starter Horizons96
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Indeed. Khan is more of an object than a subject in the fictioal historical eugenic background in Trek. Guys like Colonel Green and later followers like Kodos are the subjects how embody the ideology that goes hand in hand with genetical engineering ... and they are not coincidentally similar to nazis.
It is quite simple. Suppose you deal with somebody who has a mental disability, e.g. somebody with Down snydrome. Either you see the humanity of this person and the actual skills, in the case of somebody with Down syndrome e.g. the emotional intelligence, or you just see somebody who is "deficient" as he lacks cognitive skills that would enable him to go through everyday life without assistance.
To express it polemically, either you are a humanist or a fascist.
Do not think that our current state today is the end-state for humanity. Even if we were not proactive in engineering our decedents, nature will evolve some post-homo sapien as different from us as anything we'd attempt in a lab. Don't forget, we all evolved from unicellular organisms. Who would have chosen to not evolve past that once lofty state?
What do they say about life being about the journey, not the destination? Where we are now, is not the destination. The issue is what kind of journey will we take. No one is going to tell Donald Trump that he has to be nice and think of society. Make designer babies illegal in this country, and those like him will do as Bashir's parents did and design them outside the reach of the law. A few generations later it'll be Gattaca or Elysium or what have you.
I'm trying to think of a way to minimize the likelihood of those types of situations.
What do they say about life being about the journey, not the destination? Where we are now, is not the destination. The issue is what kind of journey will we take. No one is going to tell Donald Trump that he has to be nice and think of society. Make designer babies illegal in this country, and those like him will do as Bashir's parents did and design them outside the reach of the law. A few generations later it'll be Gattaca or Elysium or what have you.
I'm trying to think of a way to minimize the likelihood of those types of situations.
Nature is fucking slow. It takes tens or hundreds of thousands of years for us to change biologically significantly.
Furthermore natural evolution has nothing to do with genetic human engineering.
Given the results of genetic engineering so far, especially concerning genetically modified food, I feel to safe to label the technology harmful.
But even if it weren't and if the folks who used it actually knew what they were doing which some day they actually might I would still be opposed to this transhuman nonsense. Like all technotopia (by the way, where are the flying cards they promised us during the 60s?) it is a deflection from real, social issues.
Furthermore natural evolution has nothing to do with genetic human engineering.
Given the results of genetic engineering so far, especially concerning genetically modified food, I feel to safe to label the technology harmful.
But even if it weren't and if the folks who used it actually knew what they were doing which some day they actually might I would still be opposed to this transhuman nonsense. Like all technotopia (by the way, where are the flying cards they promised us during the 60s?) it is a deflection from real, social issues.
Sure people can tell someone i.e. Trump they have to be nice and think of soceity, doesn't mean that oersib has to think or act that way.
And by this country I assume you mean the USA.
In that context, it meant in the free world. In your mind, think of your country. Consider the forces at play in it, and those again in the pesky superpower. Remember that our freedoms make it problematic to deny people their options to procreate however they see fit.
EDIT: And maybe it's a language thing, but when I say, "No one is going to tell Trump..." I mean that he's not going to listen to you.
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The future perils of genetic-engineering aside (again, nanotech and AI's, both staples of sci-fi, and also on their way in the real world, get less the visceral reaction genetic-engineering does, but both could be more dangerous than it and nuclear weapons combined), I think it's important to consider that if we're to look at a real United Earth, we need to consider that it may look little like what we think of one in Star Trek.
The important thing is not to try to replicate the exact set up (a map of Earth circa 2015 with each country crystallized forever as its own administrative district; ask the Kurds or the Palestinians how they feel about that), but to try to remember the spirit of Trek's United Earth, and try to figure out a future that for all its differences from Trek's or our world today, epitomizes the best hopes for a United Earth.
What weird fantastic shining and just citadel of an interstellar multi-species federation would Earth really look like?
The important thing is not to try to replicate the exact set up (a map of Earth circa 2015 with each country crystallized forever as its own administrative district; ask the Kurds or the Palestinians how they feel about that), but to try to remember the spirit of Trek's United Earth, and try to figure out a future that for all its differences from Trek's or our world today, epitomizes the best hopes for a United Earth.
What weird fantastic shining and just citadel of an interstellar multi-species federation would Earth really look like?
I think you are partially right it's a language thing, or perhaps more accuratly how something is phrased. With the written word tonal inflections are often lost which might indicate a particular meaning over and above the literal words themselves. And as such when reading something written often all we have is the literal meaning of the words so perhaps we have to be more careful in how we phrase something in order to convey what we mean,
As for denying the rights of people to procreate how they see fit, haven't there been a few court cases both in the UK and the US were men have been ordered to have a Vasectomy by a court. Sure a higher court can overturn a ruling at the Government can change laws, for example even the US constitution can be ammended and indeed it has been over the course of time, Ammendments can be added or withdrawn should enough people decide that something needs to be changed.
Exactly so.
The modern world is going to continue slowly disintegrating over the next century or two - our economies are not going to weather climate change (so to speak) - so the idea of a united planet is even more of a pipe-dream than it was two generations ago.
Thank goodness for that, really.
Eh, I really don't see what's so great about the collapse of civilization, if that's what you're predicting here.
Now, granted, if humans are incapable of sustaining an ever-increasing population without endangering life on Earth, or lots of it, including humanity itself, by way of ecological damage, then, yeah, a downswing would be ultimately necessary, for one reason or another.
But the whole point of United Earth in ST was that, in the aftermath of WWIII and over the course of the century, give or take, following the visitation by benevolent aliens, humanity developed an enlightened civilization that was able to stay in balance with the environment for the long haul. Part of the premise is that magic technology solves crucial problems: mainly that clean(er) energy reduces pollution to manageable levels and that FTL travel opens up the galaxy for colonization and exploitation (utilization), making all resources practically infinite.
What makes something like ST's future most unlikely is that ST gets from "here" to there by way of compounded fantasy elements. You've got your magic tech and your ET landing in the context of post-apocalyptic angst. None of that's happening in the real world.
Our task is much harder. We have to save our civilization without counting on miracles, before it collapses. It would be a straight-up failing of humanity if we don't. So, yeah, I don't think "Thank goodness" would be the thing to be say when civilization has collapsed. More like, "We blew it."
Forced to, is that it? So you don't have a very accommodating view to those who would choose not to undergo things like genetic engineering? How would you go about forcing them to do it, huh?
This is the problem I have with things like genetics, AI, nanotech, etc. There seems to be a view that these things must be so wonderful that everyone should use it - whether they want to or not. That's what leads to worlds like the one in Gattaca.
Anyone who wants to force people to use things like this is going to find that there'll be some mighty resistance to it.
I have a feeling he's thinking in terms of the powers that be just do things to us without our knowledge or consent, "for the greater good".
Wasn't that part of the issue General Ripper from "Dr. Strangelove" had with the fluoride in the water. The "poisoning" of out vital fluids. Nanotech or the like introduced via external means in food or water, or mandated inoculation at birth sort of thing could alter humanity without anyone's say so, and those who are born out of the system, or countries that adopted whatever polity it is, will be the ones that remain "normal" after a few generations.
But that's an extremist point of view. Unlikely to happen.
Wasn't that part of the issue General Ripper from "Dr. Strangelove" had with the fluoride in the water. The "poisoning" of out vital fluids. Nanotech or the like introduced via external means in food or water, or mandated inoculation at birth sort of thing could alter humanity without anyone's say so, and those who are born out of the system, or countries that adopted whatever polity it is, will be the ones that remain "normal" after a few generations.
But that's an extremist point of view. Unlikely to happen.
Well, civilizations are always "collapsing." People adapt and develop new structures that work within a changing environment.
Nothing is static, and nothing is really all that stable - certainly not our economies and technology. Look at what happens with short-term fluctuations in the market prices of commodities, and then contemplate several centuries - at least - of increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather on crops. Think about what the necessity of mass human migrations will mean for every kind of political and economic structure.
The "thank goodness" is that I don't think global authority and control is a really positive thing for people. In extremity, people with outsized authority will respond despotically.
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Our task is made harder by attitudes such as those expressed above, which wasn't actually my quote but a quote from someone else. I merely used that quote to highlight that attitudes like that can be counter-productive.
The simple likely fact is that many of us will likely be long dead before some of those issues which face our planet could have come to fruition i.e Global warming. So some people have the attitude as it likely won't affect me, why should I care. The current generation in charge are merely the custodians of the planet and should ensure they leave a better world for the following generations.
It could be like today, if your children haven't had certain vacinations, they aren't permitted to attend elementary school. In the future something similar if your children haven't had everything on the "recommented" genetic modifications list.
You see, it's for the children.
Vaccines are different, because they have been proven safe and effective - and refusal to use them is having negative health consequences. Anti-vaxxers endanger OTHERS, not just themselves. So that's why vaccinations get a pass and should be mandatory.
If you were to ask Picard whether he thought global authority and control is a positive thing for people, I imagine that he'd agree that it wasn't, going on to say that United Earth doesn't function as an authoritarian means of controlling people and that being organically democratic is one of the things that makes it work.
It's an apples and oranges thing to compare what a world government brought about in, say, the next fifty years in the real world might realistically look like with the fictional utopia in ST.
You didn't read the context. I was saying countries will be forced to make agreements, set international laws on acceptable uses of genetic-engineering. Like those for nuclear technologies...countries may develop nuclear power plants, but nuclear weapons not as much. Same with genetic-engineering...maybe we'll agree that we can create healthier children, different looking people, but not sociopaths, or people with IQ's that threaten the lives of others. Same as with AI's.
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Someone once wrote that the flaw in most all fictional utopias is to first assume the premise that everyone will be satisfied with "their fair share" and then go into great detail about whether that fair share shall be delivered by helicopter or by motorboat.
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