United Earth? New Horizons & Nationalism

[Jedi_Master]

One of the central conceits of Star Trek is that the underpinning of the entire concept of the Federation of Planets, plus the unified governments of each member world is that beings get "better" over time - growing more peaceful, more amicable, more reasonable, more accepting.

I guess you could call that a hopeful conceit, but it is a conceit nonetheless.

 

[Arpy]

How conceited is it I truly wonder. Trek has I think presented the evolved humans/Federation members in an incomplete way. The majority of people in this day and age are for women's rights, anti-slavery, pro-democracy, pro-workers' rights, anti-child labor, etc, yet this was not always the case. Did we "evolve" biologically into different beings? No. We evolved our society to better express our preexisting potential.

That does not mean that if we keep at it, the world will become one massive episode of Leave it to Beaver. (Those characters did not react in a realistic way. O'Brien devolved in DS9's "Hard Time" in a realistic way that Beaver never could have. Beaver wasn't more evolved than O'Brien; Beaver was less true. Picard was not dissimilar BTW; by the end of the torture he suffered in TNG's "Chain of Command, Part II", he saw *five* lights.)

What it does mean, is that as it would take a lot for us today to change most of our minds and go back to an anti-democratic, pro-slave, mentality, it would take similarly a lot for 24th century humans to return to worldviews similar to ours today. Why would they disregard centuries of hard-fought history and no doubt countless quantitative scientific analyses telling them they're richer and happier than ever to return them back to today, any more than we would to go back four hundred years to 1615?

...Many people today have ample opportunity to be more dishonest than they are and get away with it, yet aren't. Shoplifting at a convenience store is relatively easy, and though many people do do it, how often have you considered it? Sure you have occasionally - who hasn't? - but along with the dread of getting caught, what stops many people also is a feeling of loathing for the anarchy of it. They don't think it should be so, so most of the time don't even think to do it. That is, when they're not hormonal teenagers seeking a little anarchy. Enough of us don't want to have to "take more than our fair share" and the Kwik-E-Mart stays open.

 

[Nightdiamond]

SISKO: And you think the President isn't willing to fight?
LEYTON: I think the President is a long way from home. This isn't his world. We can't expect him to care about it the way we do.

And this might be one crack in the armor. Can you expect a foreign/alien leader or council to care about your region as much as you do?

It's not a major problem, since the Federation has existed for 200 years, but-- they showed a similar problem in Star Wars that ended up destroying their democracy.

How conceited is it I truly wonder. Trek has I think presented the evolved humans/Federation members in an incomplete way. The majority of people in this day and age are for women's rights, anti-slavery, pro-democracy, pro-workers' rights, anti-child labor, etc, yet this was not always the case. Did we "evolve" biologically into different beings? No. We evolved our society to better express our preexisting potential.

That does not mean that if we keep at it, the world will become one massive episode of Leave it to Beaver. (Those characters did not react in a realistic way. O'Brien devolved in DS9's "Hard Time" in a realistic way that Beaver never could have. Beaver wasn't more evolved than O'Brien; Beaver was less true. Picard was not dissimilar BTW; by the end of the torture he suffered in TNG's "Chain of Command, Part II", he saw *five* lights.)

What it does mean, is that as it would take a lot for us today to change most of our minds and go back to an anti-democratic, pro-slave, mentality, it would take similarly a lot for 24th century humans to return to worldviews similar to ours today. Why would they disregard centuries of hard-fought history and no doubt countless quantitative scientific analyses telling them they're richer and happier than ever to return them back to today, any more than we would to go back four hundred years to 1615?

...Many people today have ample opportunity to be more dishonest than they are and get away with it, yet aren't. Shoplifting at a convenience store is relatively easy, and though many people do do it, how often have you considered it? Sure you have occasionally - who hasn't? - but along with the dread of getting caught, what stops many people also is a feeling of loathing for the anarchy of it. They don't think it should be so, so most of the time don't even think to do it. That is, when they're not hormonal teenagers seeking a little anarchy. Enough of us don't want to have to "take more than our fair share" and the Kwik-E-Mart stays open.

Spot on. It reminds me of the debate of where some people honestly believe that going back to the past will save society, vs the idea that things today are better than they ever were .

There's an episode that even admits that it took earth a long time to evolve into the paradise it was.


But legally and politically speaking, anything can happen, even in a society that thinks it's democratic.

Here's something; how long did the Federation let Data think he had the same rights as others, before they almost declared him property and ordered him to submit to a dangerous experiment-- against his will?

This was supposed to be a typical sci-fi episode, but it had a creepy undertone to it.

This was supposed to be the utopian, humanitarian, replicators for all, Trek.

Data had his rights threatened by the state three separate times in three episodes.

There wasn't a higher Federal level law that clearly protected his rights?

 

[Jedi_Master]

My point about the "conceit" of Star Trek is that - with extremely rare exceptions - humans always end up doing the right thing or characters who are terribly horrible end up receiving justice.

There is very little moral ambivalence, and that is viewed as being a good thing. The concepts of Right and Wrong exist, and they are clearly defined, enforced, and supported by the vast majority of the characters in the show.

The two shows that played around the most with moral ambivalence were TOS and DS9, and incidentally enough they were also the most interesting.

 

[T'Girl]

There wasn't a higher Federal level law that clearly protected his rights?

Part of the problem was (apparently) Data was it very first artificial sapient being in Starfleet, and maybe even the entire Federation. There was no pre-existing law in place covering him. The court decision in Measure of a Man (imho) applied only to Data, his "daughter" didn't have the same right.

 

[hux]

Going off topic somewhat but Trek's treatment of non-biological sapient life was never brilliant. They want their cake and eat it. On the one hand, Picard and crew accept Moriarty's claim of self-awareness yet on the other, they put him away in a box, go back about their business and don't seem very excited about the fact that they've just created a sapient life-form.

The fact that all you apparently need to do to create a self-aware holographic life-form is ask the computer to "create an adversary capable of defeating Data" doesn't seem to have concerned them that much either.

Had they come across a planet of self-aware trees, I suspect their reaction would have been very different.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

There wasn't a higher Federal level law that clearly protected his rights?

Part of the problem was (apparently) Data was it very first artificial sapient being in Starfleet, and maybe even the entire Federation. There was no pre-existing law in place covering him. The court decision in Measure of a Man (imho) applied only to Data, his "daughter" didn't have the same right.

Neither Picard nor Haftel agreed with you. So, no.

Dialog:

PICARD: They're living, sentient beings. Their rights and privileges in our society have been defined. I helped define them.
HAFTEL: Yes, Captain, and I am more than willing to acknowledge that. What you must acknowledge is that Lal may be a technological step forward in the development of artificial intelligence.

Haftel then tried to use the chain of command as an end run around those rights, which Data was going to break by simply resigning. So, again, no.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Yes the decision regarding Data set a precedent that could be applied to all artificial sapient life - which is why the decision to use Mark I EMH's as dilithium miners seemed rather strange to me.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Part of the problem was (apparently) Data was it very first artificial sapient being in Starfleet, and maybe even the entire Federation. There was no pre-existing law in place covering him. The court decision in Measure of a Man (imho) applied only to Data, his "daughter" didn't have the same right.

So when he joined Starfleet, they let him take an oath, serve, get promoted to second officer of the flag ship, all the while never considering him to be a real citizen or covered by their constitution.


Doesn't the idea of letting someone take an oath of service, whom is not considered a citizen or having rights seem really odd?

Data didn't get due process: The judge was going to rule summarily that Data was property simply because Riker was reluctant to be take the role of prosecuter.

Part of the problem was (apparently) Data was it very first artificial sapient being in Starfleet, and maybe even the entire Federation. There was no pre-existing law in place covering him. The court decision in Measure of a Man (imho) applied only to Data, his "daughter" didn't have the same right.

Neither Picard nor Haftel agreed with you. So, no.
.....

PICARD: They're living, sentient beings. Their rights and privileges in our society have been defined. I helped define them.
HAFTEL: Yes, Captain, and I am more than willing to acknowledge that. What you must acknowledge is that Lal may be a technological step forward in the development of artificial intelligence.

Haftel then tried to use the chain of command as an end run around those rights, which Data was going to break by simply resigning. So, again, no.

Yes the decision regarding Data set a precedent that could be applied to all artificial sapient life - which is why the decision to use Mark I EMH's as dilithium miners seemed rather strange to me.

But where did Starfleet get this authority?

If Trek is the libertarian styled society it portrayed itself to be, then Data's daughter would be no one's business, let alone Starfleet.

This suggests that democracies at times can be so self assured, that they unaware of violating its citizens rights, even when they clearly are.

That wasn't the only time;

PICARD: Do you know what a court-martial would mean? Your career in Starfleet would be finished.

DATA: I realize that.

PICARD : Do you also realize that you would most likely be stripped down to the wires to find out what the hell went wrong?

DATA: Yes, Sir. I do.

 

[MacLeod]

Part of the problem was (apparently) Data was it very first artificial sapient being in Starfleet, and maybe even the entire Federation. There was no pre-existing law in place covering him. The court decision in Measure of a Man (imho) applied only to Data, his "daughter" didn't have the same right.

So when he joined Starfleet, they let him take an oath, serve, get promoted to second officer of the flag ship, all the while never considering him to be a real citizen or covered by their constitution.


Doesn't the idea of letting someone take an oath of service, whom is not considered a citizen or having rights seem really odd?

Data didn't get due process: The judge was going to rule summarily that Data was property simply because Riker was reluctant to be take the role of prosecuter.

I got the impression that most people did consider Data a citizen and entitled to all the rights there of. However as can be the case the law hadn't yet caught up with advancements in technology and/or society.

I have completed my research, based on the Acts of Cumberland passed in the early twenty first century. Data is the property of Starfleet. He cannot resign and he cannot refuse to cooperate with Commander Maddox.


A law often stands until it's either repeled or superceded by a new law or a court rules on it. Now Louvois as the JAG officer might have disagreed with the law and believed Data to be a citizen and entitled to all the rights but she was duty bound to uphold the law as it stood.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Part of the problem was (apparently) Data was it very first artificial sapient being in Starfleet, and maybe even the entire Federation. There was no pre-existing law in place covering him. The court decision in Measure of a Man (imho) applied only to Data, his "daughter" didn't have the same right.

So when he joined Starfleet, they let him take an oath, serve, get promoted to second officer of the flag ship, all the while never considering him to be a real citizen or covered by their constitution.


Doesn't the idea of letting someone take an oath of service, whom is not considered a citizen or having rights seem really odd?

Data didn't get due process: The judge was going to rule summarily that Data was property simply because Riker was reluctant to be take the role of prosecuter.

Neither Picard nor Haftel agreed with you. So, no.
.....


Haftel then tried to use the chain of command as an end run around those rights, which Data was going to break by simply resigning. So, again, no.

Yes the decision regarding Data set a precedent that could be applied to all artificial sapient life - which is why the decision to use Mark I EMH's as dilithium miners seemed rather strange to me.

But where did Starfleet get this authority?

Regarding "The Offspring," Picard didn't believe that Admiral Haftel's orders to Data had Starfleet's authority in the first place. Picard refused to allow Data to obey Haftel's orders, and Picard intended to challenge Haftel at Starfleet Headquarters, but Lal's death resolved the situation in a different way.

And apologies, but Data didn't have the opportunity to threaten to resign in this episode, as he did in "The Measure Of A Man," because Picard countermanded Haftel's orders directly.

As far as the EMH on Voyager was concerned, I don't have chapter and verse ready to quote, but I think that the EMH wasn't sentient when he was first activated in "Caretaker." IIRC, he acquired sentience after running for so long. Once that happened, the crew stopped treating him like a program. In the alternate reality of "Endgame," he even married, so it would seem that he was treated as a sentient being in the Federation after they returned.

If Trek is the libertarian styled society it portrayed itself to be, then Data's daughter would be no one's business, let alone Starfleet.

It was Data's position that Lal was no one's business but his own as a father, and Picard backed him up on that.

 

[T'Girl]

The court decision in Measure of a Man (imho) applied only to Data, his "daughter" didn't have the same right.

Neither Picard nor Haftel agreed with you. So, no.

Except yes. Haftel obviously didn't view the daughter as a sapient being with full rights. It would be hard to imagine Haftel trying the same maneuver with a one of the biological children aboard the ship, but he did with Lal.

Haftel didn't see Data's rights extending to a device created by Data.

Doesn't the idea of letting someone take an oath of service, whom is not considered a citizen or having rights seem really odd?

I don't think Ro Laren was a citizen within the Federation (unless you stretch citizen to mean "everyone who lives here."), so Data not being a citizen wouldn't have kept him out of Starfleet.

If Trek is the libertarian styled society it portrayed itself to be, then Data's daughter would be no one's business, let alone Starfleet

Hmmm, Lal was built with materials that come out of a Starfleet replicator, if Lal were a device and not a sapient being, then who would hold property rights?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The court decision in Measure of a Man (imho) applied only to Data, his "daughter" didn't have the same right.

Neither Picard nor Haftel agreed with you. So, no.

Except yes. Haftel obviously didn't view the daughter as a sapient being with full rights. It would be hard to imagine Haftel trying the same maneuver with a one of the biological children aboard the ship, but he did with Lal.

Well, we can't get anywhere, if you ignore what he says.

 

[T'Girl]

Well, we can't get anywhere, if you ignore what he says.

Ignore what the man says CorporalCaptain, and go off what he's actually doing in the episode. His actions and intent.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Well, we can't get anywhere, if you ignore what he says.

Ignore what the man says CorporalCaptain, and go off what he's actually doing in the episode. His actions and intent.

I did. Haftel's bluffing. He tries to bully Data, but Picard will have none of it. Picard intended to take the matter to Starfleet HQ. Just because Haftel was out of line, that doesn't mean that Data and Lal didn't both have rights. Haftel put his own ambitions ahead of what was right. I'm sure he told himself he was acting for the greater good, in much the same way that he tried and failed to convince Picard and Data.

 

[T'Girl]

^ Yes, Halfel didn't see Lal as a sapient being with full rights (I thought I said that). Otherwise he wouldn't have been doing what he was doing.

 

[Unicron]

There were some extra lines of dialogue in the script for "The Offspring" which I wish had been used in the aired version because they gave more context for Haftel's desire to remove Lal, and the implication that he had Starfleet's backing to remove her if his evaluation failed.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^ Yes, Halfel didn't see Lal as a sapient being with full rights (I thought I said that). Otherwise he wouldn't have been doing what he was doing.

What you said at first was that the court decision in "The Measure Of A Man" applied only to Data and not to Lal. Now, you've shifted the goalposts to discuss what Haftel personally believes, despite also agreeing that he professed things to the contrary. Whatever.

There wasn't a higher Federal level law that clearly protected his rights?

Part of the problem was (apparently) Data was it very first artificial sapient being in Starfleet, and maybe even the entire Federation. There was no pre-existing law in place covering him. The court decision in Measure of a Man (imho) applied only to Data, his "daughter" didn't have the same right.

Well, we can't get anywhere, if you ignore what he says.

Ignore what the man says CorporalCaptain, and go off what he's actually doing in the episode. His actions and intent.

---

There were some extra lines of dialogue in the script for "The Offspring" which I wish had been used in the aired version because they gave more context for Haftel's desire to remove Lal, and the implication that he had Starfleet's backing to remove her if his evaluation failed.

This certainly would have changed things, at least somewhat.

 

[TheSubCommander]

What do people think about this? For me this whole thing reinforces how stale the notion of nationalism is becoming. I can understand its importance during the height of the cold war and space race, but that was half a century ago. Are we not at a point now, with things like the internet (and the global village mentality it contributes to) that we can start to see ourselves primarily as a globally united front, while still having some consideration for national identity but without the need for nationalistic mass flag waving?

As an American, I see New Horizons as a triumph for all humankind. Not just the US. I don't know that the world is for a one-world government yet, but on scientific breakthroughs and advances like this, I think its impossible in this day and age to claim that this was purely an US endeavor. We have scientists and technicians from all over the world working on projects like this.

 

[Tim Walker]

As an American, I see New Horizons as a triumph for all humankind. Not just the US. I don't know that the world is for a one-world government yet, but on scientific breakthroughs and advances like this, I think its impossible in this day and age to claim that this was purely an US endeavor. We have scientists and technicians from all over the world working on projects like this.

I quite agree!