Let's call the whole thing off!See also "Gumato/Mugato."
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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Vulcans are very racist. They are not an ideal for humans to aspire to.
ENT showed how smug and prejudiced so many of them are.
And someone who's spent a few years in Starfleet.
There's 2 things about this that strike me.
For one thing, Spock is half-human. So can he be "racist" against himself? He grew up being insulted and treated as an outcast on Vulcan for his human heritage. His barbs against humanity is almost like a coping function, and arguably the underlying tension with Spock's relationship to Sarek. Their father-son dynamic is a classic case of a son trying his best to live to his father's image, but feeling he'll never be good enough. On the other side, down deep Sarek "loves" Spock and Amanda, but he isn't able to express it, or let Spock know he is good enough in a way that will remove his insecurities, since Sarek expresses that love in a Vulcan/"tough-love" way. So the rest of their lives is basically a "if dad had only hugged him" type of regret by the time of TNG and Sarek's death.
The other thing is there's an argument that part of racism is a power dynamic. Spock is a Vulcan on a ship mostly full of humans, and constantly challenged by McCoy on policy when Spock's counsel of a plan based on cold logic lacks empathy.
Stephen Fry has talked about this, where he believes Star Trek connects to Friedrich Nietzche's discussions about the struggle in the human condition between the Apollonian and Dionysian states. Basically, in the stories of Star Trek, McCoy's function is usually to be the Dionysian passion and emotion, where Spock is Apollonian reason and logic. And Kirk is the balance that bridges them both, where he ultimately takes elements of both of their arguments to find a plan or policy.
If Star Trek is a western in space, one could make the argument that Spock basically serves the same function as the Native American character who joins up with a group of cowboys. McCoy is basically the cowboy in the group who bickers and teases the Spock-ian Native American character for being Native American ... and vice versa. But it's written from a place that sees their conflict as the foundation of their bond. Both would walk through fire to save the other if it came to that.
How very Stoic.
I have no issues with StarFleet ships having "Cloaking Devices".
In my Head Canon for the 26th Century, every StarFleet vessel has one by default.
But it's only use is for "Combat/War/Spy Purposes".
Otherwise, the doctrine that StarFleet operates by is while (exploring & non-Combat/War-Time), they won't use their "Cloaking Devices" unless they have to:
1) Engage in Combat / War with a target Species/Faction
2) Spy on a target or primitive alien race
3) Escape or Infiltrate a location.
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The Chronicle might cover that even if it was during the baseball season!
We've been talking with words for the past 5000 years, probably much longer. Why should the next 200 be any different?
You're probably right, but at the same time it's not an insane question. The difference, if it came to pass, would be technology and the potential transformation of humanity into a cyborg race capable of near instant wireless communication that makes speaking normally feel painfully slow and limited.
Well, first the technology has to exist and while it's theoretically plausible, it's not a guarantee.
After that, if I were to bet on it, I'd say there'll be a split between those who reject the tech, those who accept it only with major caveats and those who embrace it fully. That last group could very well end up doing away with verbal communication entirely (over a period of generations) except in rare circumstances where they'd have to employ a specialist (or a special computer program?) because they wouldn't even learn to speak normally in the first place. But they wouldn't represent all of humanity, barring some sort of extreme catastrophe or genocidal war.
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The human mind isn't designed to process info at the speed of modern day computers, I doubt any special evolution will happen in the next 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 years to allow that to happen in a natural evolution sort of way. It would have to be artificially induced / made to happen.
So at best, it allows silent / long distance communication at human processing / understanding speeds & more direct mental communication with our tech / gadgets / devices / electronics.
Less clunky human oriented interfaces & more direct ones like the Synaptic Transceiver.
Think of the Synaptic Transceiver like a BlueTooth interface from your mind, to your device; it lets you think thoughts, and communicate through a basic mental verbalization interface directly to/from your head w/o audible verbalization from your mouth.
The computer takes care of the rest.
Imagine receiving BlueTooth style Text/Audio/Images/Video directly to your mind.
As vivid & clear as your eye sight or hearing.
The only difference is that you need to mentally concentrate to activate the interface to send or receive the info from your devices.
It would definitely cut out the clunkiness of using some devices & lower latency due to the commands/instructions going straight from a persons mind to the device to process.
No need for buttons, physical interfaces.
Just thought, and the machine does what you want it to do, within it's operational capabilities.
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I'd find more likely that research discovered dormant (but natural) telepathic abilities in the human brain, and some way to use them, rather than this being achieved through technology. Even things far simpler than this (i.e. fusing a broken bone) is ultimately achieved by nature itself. Technology hasn't sped up this process significantly. Or think about vaccines; sure, they save lots of lives, but in the end they rely on our capacity to develop antibodies.
People are mostly doing the same things that they were doing 50 years ago. Just the tools they use to do their jobs may have changed. 50 years ago there were already vaccines and antibiotics and manufactured fertilizers all greatly reducing death from disease and starvation, there was already worldwide near-instant communication, the proto-internet, air travel to just about any city on earth within a day, etc. etc. (I recommend watching Space Seed, if you haven't already
Those halcyon days.People are mostly doing the same things that they were doing 50 years ago. Just the tools they use to do their jobs may have changed. 50 years ago there were already vaccines and antibiotics and manufactured fertilizers all greatly reducing death from disease and starvation, there was already worldwide near-instant communication, the proto-internet, air travel to just about any city on earth within a day, etc. etc. (I recommend watching Space Seed, if you haven't already
The proto-internet is a good example of what I mean, look how far its come. Today, we have instant click shopping, and tomorrow most deliveries won't even need humans anymore. I could probably stay in my house and have everything I need brought to me, if I had a form of universal basic income. The only thing I'd need to worry about is illness and death.
AI generated images are fooling people into believing all sorts of nonsense now too, which is probably the most worrying part. But, AI would likely be a primary source of entertainment with hyper-individualised forms of media which would make the tv of 50 years ago look like cave paintings.
Jobs, you say? I don't believe we'll have jobs in 200 years. Certainly not in the western world. Like @Grendelsbayne said, there will be those who won't partake in this, for various economical and cultural reasons. But they'll just be 23rd century equivalent of the Sentinelese.
I think it's a bit ironic that you're all hearing my thoughts in their head right now, just by reading this. Some of you are probably half a planet away and i never once opened my mouth. Yes you..im talking to you reading this..and my mouth is closed.
Oh I know what you're thinking (lol), we've used written words to communicate over long distances since the dawn of time, this is just way faster. Plus 200 years, cut out the middleman (the screen) and you'll see where I'm going with this.
Sorry for the ramble, the real future scares me. I think about it a lot.
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