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Zane posted:you're talking nonsense. in marxist theory the abstract imperative of capital is to reduce all labour to a general, interchangeable, equivalent, within a commodified world economy, and to remove as much friction to this process--as embodied within either social tradition or state protectionism--as possible. but if the federation is a capitalist society then why would it endorse a political measure--the prime directive--that effectively forbade economic exchange between 'warp' and pre-'warp' societies? why would it maintain, even reinforce, these blockages? what kind of 'capitalist' imperative is that? the english, french, and spanish mercantile empires certainly did not pursue the same course. your analogizing this to 'shunting' surplus labourers out of the economy is similarly non-nonsensical. the prime directive means that there is never an incorporation of extra labourers into the economy to begin with -- much less an exclusion of them. this is practically the reverse of capitalism. this is autochthony. Like SMG said, Star Trek is a Keynesian utopia of a capitalism whose productive forces have become so advanced that the average citizen doesn't actually have to work. The actual exploitative labor relation that keeps society running is hidden from sight deep within the dilithium mines. The Federation works tirelessly to expand territory and maintain its scientific and material advantages but it truly could not give less of a poo poo what most of its subjects are doing because the actual value of almost all commodities has effectively dropped to zero. When I talk about people being shunted out of the labor market I'm talking about stuff like California's prison population skyrocketing at basically the same time as its number of available jobs plummeted. There's all these surplus people whose labor-power it simply isn't worth it to capture but to whom, also, we'll absolutely never extend so much as a smidgeon of social welfare unless forced at gunpoint. So, they get locked off from the rest of society, pushed out of sight and out of mind. If you're living on top of a dilithium deposit, the Federation will steal it out from under your feet, but otherwise they're happy to simply exclude you from the fruits of civilization until and unless you're worth something. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 13, 2020 00:22
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They keep it so hidden that it never appears or is even hinted at on screen or anywhere in the show. It's SO well hidden in fact that you made it up out of whole cloth.
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Mar 13, 2020 00:44
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we're going in circles (which is fine with me). there is not enough empirical evidence to validate the presence of exploitation or of delimited or wasted surplus in this time period. it is plausible for synthetic ai to perform all productive labour; and it has not yet been sufficiently established that synthetic ai possess an analogous human species being. you've developed a communist justification for imperialism. historical necessity demands that 'primitives' be exploited by capitalism and that capitalism be simultaneously condemned for exploitation. exploitation is the necessary engine for the dialectic of history; and you are thirsty for it so that you can fight against it. but there is no history in star trek. the 'pre-warp' societies are within history. star trek is at the end of history. in the utopian conception of socialism there is no division between the state and the people. the division of labour is spontaneous. is it any coincidence that there are no real conflicts within federation society? the fictive distinction between 'pre-warp' societies and 'warp' societies is also a meta-fictive distinction between topia (place in history) and utopia ('no place' in history). the bridge between the two is an insuperable and unimaginable gulf that can only be gestured towards -- which is what the motif of the prime directive ultimately signifies imo. Zane fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 13, 2020 00:51
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CainFortea posted:You can't clone a bunch of people with the transporter. I absolutely can and did clone a bunch of people with the transporter. I simply recreated the conditions under which Riker was transporter-cloned. When you deliberately repeat an accident, it becomes a technique. And, with this technique, I’ve already deleted a half of Federation space from the map - and I’m still going. Turns out there are a lot of uninhabited planets. You’d better stop me! But how? Besides the fact that my methods are undetectable (have you no idea how easy it is to get past Federation sensors?), there’s absolutely nothing illegal about creating a pre-warp society. All you have to do is send a bunch of people down to a planet and not teach them what warp is. More importantly: why stop me? If the Federation isn’t expansionist, what use do they have with all these unoccupied planets? Remember, you’re arguing that they don’t care about territory. Anyways, the point of this is not to celebrate my triumph over the Federation; the point is that this your notions of how a government works are very silly. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 13, 2020 01:04
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Zane posted:we're going in circles (which is fine with me). there is not enough empirical evidence to validate the presence of exploitation or of delimited or wasted surplus in this time period. it is plausible for synthetic ai to perform all productive labour; and it has not yet been sufficiently established that synthetic ai possess analogous human species being. you've developed a communist justification for imperialism. historical necessity demands that 'primitives' be exploited by capitalism and that capitalism be simultaneously condemned for exploitation. exploitation is the necessary engine for the dialectic of history; and you are thirsty for it so that you can fight against it. but there is no history in star trek. the 'pre-warp' societies are within history. star trek is at the end of history. Star Trek isn't actually at the end of history. Certainly characters within Star Trek think it is, but characters within our 90s also thought they'd reached the end of history. There are gigantic injustices within the world of Star Trek that are put front and center before us and only appear to the characters to be torturous moral dilemmas because of the diseased ideology those characters espouse. That's because Star Trek is a liberal rather than a socialist parable. A liberal would also tell you that there's no real conflict within society, except perhaps between an ever-shrinking population of backwards and dumb people and enlightened forward-thinkers.
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Mar 13, 2020 01:05
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Ferrinus posted:There are gigantic injustices within the world of Star Trek that are put front and center before us and only appear to the characters to be torturous moral dilemmas because of the diseased ideology those characters espouse.
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Mar 13, 2020 01:41
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Zane posted:what injustices At one point the federation might have mined some resources in the same planetary system as an uncontacted pre-warp society and so long as nothing within the grand cosmic plan demands that the pre-warp society go extinct or blow itself up or whatever eventually they are going to be puttering around their star system wondering "what in the everliving gently caress happened to our rich dilithium reserves sitting right here on the moon of this gas giant right where we had left it?" and then the answer is going to be "it all got stolen by the federation to power Janeway's coffee pot"
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Mar 13, 2020 01:46
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Zane posted:what injustices The Federation lets masses of people die of easily preventable maladies on a galactic scale because of its bizarre religious strictures.
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Mar 13, 2020 01:48
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fully automated luxury space communism is apparently just partially automated space capitalism, and it isn't particularly luxurious either, my peppers
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Mar 13, 2020 01:49
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Ferrinus posted:The Federation lets masses of people die of easily preventable maladies on a galactic scale because of its bizarre religious strictures.
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Mar 13, 2020 01:57
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Zane posted:what does this have to do with capitalism? or liberalism? do you know what the term "feedback system" means i'll give you a hint, it's why religion is pivotal in the american healthcare debate
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Mar 13, 2020 02:00
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Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:Why is almost every Star Fleet Admiral a dumb, amoral rear end in a top hat who almost gets everyone killed? Going by the movies, it seems like Starfleet has more admirals than they know what to do with, so the crazy ones that appear on the show are the ones that have escaped whatever busywork Starfleet uses to keep their spare admirals busy. One of them's Sisko's dad.
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Mar 13, 2020 02:21
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Kesper North posted:do you know what the term "feedback system" means
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Mar 13, 2020 02:24
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I want to see the Federation come into contact with the founders from Prometheus.
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Mar 13, 2020 02:44
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Ferrinus posted:The Federation lets masses of people die of easily preventable maladies on a galactic scale because of its bizarre religious strictures. Maybe they just don't give a poo poo, presuming that they're even aware of the suffering at all, just like today.
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Mar 13, 2020 02:45
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What's hosed up is suggesting that because you have the relative power of a god, you should play at being one. The prime directive exists entirely to counter that, because you totally would do that, you capricious shits.
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Mar 13, 2020 03:05
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“Captain, that pre-warp civilization planet is going through an ethnic cleansing, we should do something!” Captain: “Don’t make me tap the prime directive sign.”
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Mar 13, 2020 03:07
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I absolutely can and did clone a bunch of people with the transporter. Nah. It happened like, that one time. If you could just do it why haven't they? SuperMechagodzilla posted:More importantly: why stop me? If the Federation isn’t expansionist, what use do they have with all these unoccupied planets? Because creating people (if you could which you can't) just to annoy someone is a dick move and someone who would do that is an rear end in a top hat. Also, speaking of silly it's even sillier that you somehow take a story bit that was written in to specifically show that the federation isn't imperialist to prove that it's imperialist. Also: Finger Prince posted:What's hosed up is suggesting that because you have the relative power of a god, you should play at being one. The prime directive exists entirely to counter that, because you totally would do that, you capricious shits.
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Mar 13, 2020 03:10
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ruddiger posted:“Captain, that pre-warp civilization planet is going through an ethnic cleansing, we should do something!” Imagine aliens landed at the White House today and said we can easily cure the coronavirus and all other human diseases, but you have to open your borders and treat all other humans with respect. Half the country would rather die.
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Mar 13, 2020 03:22
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Finger Prince posted:What's hosed up is suggesting that because you have the relative power of a god, you should play at being one. The prime directive exists entirely to counter that, because you totally would do that, you capricious shits. Nonsense. The Federation already is ‘playing god’ with the constant invisible surveillance, the staying above/apart, and the ritual practice of theatrically revealing themselves to those deemed ‘chosen.’ And that’s just for starters. What you’re actually claiming is that the Federation is incapable of using its power to help others - an obvious lie. They really just don’t want to.
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Mar 13, 2020 03:47
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Ferrinus posted:Okay, I really do not think you are taking enough time to read and comprehend my posts, because you've just cycled us back to the question I asked of Jiminy Christmas and which you first responded to: would the Federation let a non-Federation post-warp civilization just fly into its territory and start showering replicators and cancer cures onto a pre-warp civilization therein? Because I'm pretty sure the answer to that is a resounding no. IIRC they let the Ferengi operate in Federation territory, and don't force them to follow Federation standards (like the Prime Directive). I don't recall any time the Federation tries to force anyone not in their group to obey the Prime Directive. Edit: CainFortea posted:They keep it so hidden that it never appears or is even hinted at on screen or anywhere in the show. It's SO well hidden in fact that you made it up out of whole cloth. In Voyager they show outdated EMHs being forced to mine dilithium in the Alpha Quadrant. Zane posted:we're going in circles (which is fine with me). there is not enough empirical evidence to validate the presence of exploitation or of delimited or wasted surplus in this time period. it is plausible for synthetic ai to perform all productive labour; and it has not yet been sufficiently established that synthetic ai possess an analogous human species being. In Voyager multiple episodes show us inside the perspective of the holographic EMH. We see his thoughts, dreams, and daydreams. They're even able to project his subconscious mind into the holodeck for the crew to watch. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 13, 2020 04:13
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Zane posted:what does this have to do with capitalism? or liberalism? What the gently caress? Have you not read the entire rest of this thread? Are you just hoping that if we literally restart the conversation you'll get better RNG this time around? Well, I don't think you will, so let's go. The only way to square the moral depravity of the Prime Directive with the ostensibly progressive and humanity values of the Federation is by reference to liberal "negative freedoms". You can't use force or coercion on someone else, such as by beating them until they clean your mansion, and that person can't use force or coercion on you, such as by demanding to sleep in your mansion because they don't have a home and will otherwise die of exposure. Picard isn't allowed to simply bomb a nascent civilization from orbit, but is expected to watch dispassionately as a meteor shower wipes that civilization off the face of a planet, because non-interference is more important than human flourishing. Why impose such brutal sink-or-swim standards, in which the weak and suffering are expected to bootstrap themselves up to your level before you'll recognize their personhood and deal with them as equals? Well, because capitalism was never actually defeated in the Star Trek timeline, merely overfed and pacified. There was a eugenics war, but there wasn't a proletarian revolution, so what else can you expect? Lord Krangdar posted:IIRC they let the Ferengi operate in Federation territory, and don't force them to follow Federation standards (like the Prime Directive). I don't recall any time the Federation tries to force anyone not in their group to obey the Prime Directive. Do we ever see the Ferengi or anyone else break it? It'd be amazing if the Federation was just willing to stand aside and watched as the Ferengi shipped down to some pre-warp world and started selling knick-knacks or hiring miners.
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Mar 13, 2020 04:30
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Excuse you, alien flourishing.
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Mar 13, 2020 04:34
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Ferrinus posted:Do we ever see the Ferengi or anyone else break it? It'd be amazing if the Federation was just willing to stand aside and watched as the Ferengi shipped down to some pre-warp world and started selling knick-knacks or hiring miners. I think so, but I can't remember a specific episode to reference. Its hard to say because the criteria for what is actually considered Federation territory is never clearly stated, nor is it clear how such a claim would be decided, communicated, or enforced. Like, is Bajor in Federation territory even though they're decidedly not part of the Federation? Because the Federation didn't try to stop the Cardassians from occupying Bajor, which was a pre-warp civilization at that time.
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Mar 13, 2020 04:39
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Lord Krangdar posted:I think so, but I can't remember a specific episode to reference. Its hard to say because the criteria for what is actually considered Federation territory is never clearly stated, nor is it clear how such a claim would be decided, communicated, or enforced. Like, is Bajor in Federation territory even though they're decidedly not part of the Federation? Because the Federation didn't try to stop the Cardassians from occupying Bajor, which was a pre-warp civilization at that time. My assumption is that whether the Federation moves to stop an alien invasion, or even just an alien bazaar or evangelical mission, is decided chiefly by practical concerns like whether the invader is operating in or near Federation space, whether the invader is a military pushover, etc.
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Mar 13, 2020 05:00
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Ferrinus posted:My assumption is that whether the Federation moves to stop an alien invasion, or even just an alien bazaar or evangelical mission, is decided chiefly by practical concerns like whether the invader is operating in or near Federation space, whether the invader is a military pushover, etc. But what is your concept of "Federation space"? And where, in the shows, does it come from?
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Mar 13, 2020 05:11
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Lord Krangdar posted:But what is your concept of "Federation space"? And where, in the shows, does it come from? In DS9 the territorial issues were complex and political, the station itself was more of an embassy than an imperial foothold, and functioned as neutral ground for belligerent parties. It's been a long time since I watched the series but iirc Bajor was either not a Federation world or it was and forces within it wanted to overthrow the Fed-friendly government and be fully independent. The Cardassians considered them rebellious partisans who were illegally ignoring Cardassian law and the Cardassians were constantly scheming to retake the planet despite the Federation's presence. Later on, when the Dominion threat forced the Federation to militarize and garrison DS9 it was an outrage to both the inhabitants of the station and the alien races in proximity, and Sisko and others were often at odds with Starfleet when they insisted on maintaining neutrality and civil rights. tl;dr - Federation Space is an inconsistent concept and in the shows it is originated in the plots and dialog of the original series
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Mar 13, 2020 05:25
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If you could make a planet capable of warp drive, it would be unstoppable.
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Mar 13, 2020 05:41
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Nonsense. The Federation already is ‘playing god’ with the constant invisible surveillance, the staying above/apart, and the ritual practice of theatrically revealing themselves to those deemed ‘chosen.’ And that’s just for starters. Do you specifically just try to come up with lines that are totally meaningless? Or is this just some kind of natural talent? "I'm doing nothing to you at all, do you feel puny yet?!!" Edit: This flimsy house of cards built on a foundation of confirmation bias in order to support your pre-arranged conclusions has been a wild ride. CainFortea fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 13, 2020 06:27
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Ferrinus posted:What the gently caress? Have you not read the entire rest of this thread? Are you just hoping that if we literally restart the conversation you'll get better RNG this time around? it must be said that human liberty traditions have never effectively transcended the internal political order within which they have been popularly sustained. at best, an internal political order can externally project its own universal principles (its own definition of liberty) upon the international political order through a mixture of persuasion and/or compulsion. but this creates as many problems as possibilities. with the 'prime directive'--even as a non-interventionary measure--the federation is effectively formulating its own conception of the nature and the history of sentient life, and imposing this conception upon other state actors--ultimately upon other sentients--through the instrumentality of its own state power. but the moral dilemma of the prime directive has little to do with a liberal/socialist controversy over whether the fundamental constituent of political society is the individual or the collective. that controversy has in turn little to do with the issue of intervention/non-intervention in the event of a fundamental crisis to sentient life. the dilemma of the prime directive has to do with a broader question concerning... perhaps most fundamentally whether every political society is beholden to a uniform set of universal principles or if every political society has the authority to define its own set of universal principles; whether a political society is or is not ultimately in control of its own history. Zane fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 13, 2020 06:36
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i'm trying to frame a joke about red matter and communism but i'm having trouble organizing it
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Mar 13, 2020 06:40
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Filthy Hans posted:In DS9 the territorial issues were complex and political, the station itself was more of an embassy than an imperial foothold, and functioned as neutral ground for belligerent parties. It's been a long time since I watched the series but iirc Bajor was either not a Federation world or it was and forces within it wanted to overthrow the Fed-friendly government and be fully independent. The Cardassians considered them rebellious partisans who were illegally ignoring Cardassian law and the Cardassians were constantly scheming to retake the planet despite the Federation's presence. Later on, when the Dominion threat forced the Federation to militarize and garrison DS9 it was an outrage to both the inhabitants of the station and the alien races in proximity, and Sisko and others were often at odds with Starfleet when they insisted on maintaining neutrality and civil rights. Might want to rewatch DS9 to clarify some points, then. As much as I can remember it: the situation at the start of DS9 is that the Cardassians have literally just withdrawn from Bajor, and trashed the place as much as they could on the way out, and a weak Provisional Government is in theory in charge of the planet but a lot of it is basically self-governing, with the only planet-wide institutions really functioning being the Bajoran Militia and the Vedek Assembly, the latter being basically the counterpart to the Vatican with a level of power to rival the Borgias. In short it's basically a former colony pulling itself together after the colonial power finally hosed off all British style. The Bajorans have mostly friendly relations with the Federation, especially since the Federation took in so much of their refugee diaspora, and are relying on Federation aid to start unfucking their world. Deep Space Nine, formerly Terok Nor, is the main Cardassian command post and ore refinement facility, and was basically Dukat's castle (and harem) during his tenure in charge of the planet. The Cardassians have trashed the station on the way out as well, and the Bajorans don't have the resources or know-how to get it back fully up and running on their own, so they reluctantly call on their alliance with the Federation to get a Starfleet crew and commanding officer to run the place for them, and post Kira there basically because she spends most of her time bitching at the Provisional Government for sucking and they want her far away. Sisko takes the position since he's basically burnt out after his wife died and thinks it'll be a low-effort, probably short-lived position given the instability of the situation, and then the whole wormhole thing happens. Of course, from the Federation perspective, Sisko's job is also to prepare Bajor for potential entry into the Federation, which there doesn't seem to be any particular consensus about on Bajor itself yet. (Since again, they're in a political clusterfuck) There's a few arcs about how certain sects on Bajor do want to overthrow the Federation-friendly government and go their own way regardless of the consequences, and in general a lot of political chaos until they finally establish a relatively stable formal government. (and then freakin Winn tries to become both Kai and First Minister, seizing unprecedented political power to go with her spiritual and cultural authority) Things get a little weird given The Sisko is a Messiah figure with a lot of clout- most Bajorans listen to him over anyone else, Kai or Minister. Luckily, he's probably the one person who can be trusted with that authority. There's the whole arc where Bajor is just about to formally join the Federation, until Sisko advises them not to based on a vision- and sure enough, when Cardassia joins the Dominion and they enter open war with the Federation, Bajor is suddenly able to declare neutrality, and begins the whole Terok Nor arc where Kira slowly realises she's been seduced into becoming a collaborator. Basically a big theme of the series is specifically that Bajor and DS9 are in a complicated and ambiguous political situation; if TNG is the wagon train to the stars, DS9 is the Alamo. Or maybe the Suez Canal, considering the wormhole.
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Mar 13, 2020 07:49
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CainFortea posted:Do you specifically just try to come up with lines that are totally meaningless? Or is this just some kind of natural talent? You ought to do some reading on this ‘god’ concept. Like, deism, “father why have you forsaken me?”, that sort of stuff. When the characters have a habit of blurting out that they aren’t gods, to nobody in particular, it reveals that they do in fact see themselves as gods. That’s not normal behaviour.
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Mar 13, 2020 15:13
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:You ought to do some reading on this ‘god’ concept. It's not normal behavior for you, an ordinary person who doesn't hold the power of life and death over an entire civilization. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even the prime directive gets bent and twisted and loopholed to poo poo by well meaning do-gooders (and just as likely Ill-meaning do-badders) just because they can. Take Insurrection for example. It's weird that the folks arguing that the prime directive is tantamount to imperialism when the alternative is literally imposing human morals and values on alien populations.
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Mar 13, 2020 15:58
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Finger Prince posted:It's not normal behavior for you, an ordinary person who doesn't hold the power of life and death over an entire civilization. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even the prime directive gets bent and twisted and loopholed to poo poo by well meaning do-gooders (and just as likely Ill-meaning do-badders) just because they can. Take Insurrection for example. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" is a cynical expression that humanity itself is just inherently corrupt. Like, as if the Black Power movement is 'corrupt' because, uh, power's bad. Trust me, folks, you don't want all this power. It's a big responsibility - but I'll take on the burden. Zane's doing his best, but it's frankly not at all difficult to figure out why The Federation doesn't allow the majority of people in its territory to vote or access basic social services (it's because they're after the resources). The Federation's official logic is like "we're protecting their natural innocence by denying them votes", while the people being 'protected' have no say in the matter. They're effectively living in a zoo, or jail. "Homeward" makes it clear that there is absolutely nothing natural about the Federation's concepts of 'natural development'. Keeping noncitizens in a holodeck cave? Replicated rocks, replicated water.... Picard doesn't immediately end that charade because he's not concerned with 'nature' but with maintaining peaceful state of ignorance. If the people find out what is being done to them, they might be horrified. They might get angry. Best to hide it from them. After all, what's godlike about using omnipotence to stay invisible among the people and work in mysterious ways, with your actions only rarely discernible in signs and miracles? What Federation higher-ups mean by "we're not gods!" is that they're not like those bad, arrogant gods of yesteryear. The gods of the 1990s are paralyzed by indecision, concerned with - at best - extremely limited humanitarian intervention. If you're trying not to act like a god, maybe don't do unnecessary nonconsensual brain surgery on a little native girl to erase her memory. Say, remember how The Doctor is repeatedly mind-wiped 'for his own good' in that Voyager episode, because he's not considered a person?
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Mar 13, 2020 17:05
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Finger Prince posted:
How is it weird? SMG just said "if they say things it means the opposite" There is nothing at all that can impact that cliff of denial. Like the fact that he's literally making up stuff about the Doctor in voyager.
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Mar 13, 2020 17:48
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Zane posted:'negative' and 'positive' liberties define the internal--as distinct from external--order of a political society: as a sustained compact, or a 'constitution,' between a people and a state, substantively founded upon the privileging of either the part (the individual) or the whole (the collective). neither positive nor negative liberty are fundamentally constitutive of the correspondingly extrinsic question of how the affairs between different political societies should be regulated. this is historically a matter of international law and of international politics for which the fundamental constituents are not peoples but states. domestic (positive and negative) 'liberty' traditions possess a complex and non-linear relationship to the international principles and conditions that have continually informed the decisions and capacities of states to intervene in each others' affairs over the last 400 years. the 'negative' liberty tradition possesses no inherent penchant towards non-interventionary state politics -- if anything, it has a strong penchant towards state interventionism! but whatever the case, the problem that both (interventionary/non-interventionary) tendencies must contend with is the absence of any higher 'world authority' to impose a single universal order--a single set of universal laws; a single conception of liberty--upon the states that individually constitute the international political order. this problem informs the theoretical disagreement in international relations theory between the foundational reality of power vs. laws/ideas. Vague notions of "the individual" versus "the collective" aren't actually in dispute or at stake in the ideological battle of liberalism against socialism. Proponents of either idea will tell you that, in fact, theirs is the social model best at upholding both individual and collective rights. It looks like you view the Prime Directive as basically a poli sci international relations thing, like what right does the USA have to tell Cuba has to run its affairs. But if you do, you're basically a rube who's fallen for the Federation's own propaganda. The feds on one hand, possessed of effectively godlike powers and total control of all surrounding space, and a planet-bound pre-warp society on the other hand that has to struggle with all the travails of famine, plague, war, and whatever else, aren't actually different actors on the world (galaxy?) stage who needs must respect each other's sovereignty. Or, rather, they are, but I'm not respecting your sovereignty if I use sorcery to turn myself invisible such that I can spy on you at will but ensure that you can never, ever realize I'm around such that if you were in trouble you could ask me for help. Indeed, I am denying you valuable information, using my existing advantages to keep us on extremely uneven ground. What I pretend is a natural state of affairs is actually a carefully constructed ploy to maintain my power and your weakness.
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Mar 13, 2020 18:01
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The Black Power movement had very little power, that was the whole point of the movement. They wanted to have some kind of control over their own fates rather than just consign themselves to the charity of the benevolent whites who have power. It doesn't matter how good the intentions of your overlords are, if you're totally subject to their whims, there will be negative consequences. Intentions can change very quickly anyways. Basically it's the Federation don't want to go around setting up vassal states (although they do desire more equal partners, which is why they have the whole recruitment scheme for the Federation). Outside of the Prime Directive, the Federation tends to still value not interfering in the internal politics of other nations, since they want to give them agency, and you don't have agency when you're entirely reliant on the sky-people for everything. If the Federation doesn't act, they give the alien society its own agency, although they do in their own bias, often skew the rules toward helping life in general survive.
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Mar 13, 2020 18:26
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Ferrinus posted:Vague notions of "the individual" versus "the collective" aren't actually in dispute or at stake in the ideological battle of liberalism against socialism. Proponents of either idea will tell you that, in fact, theirs is the social model best at upholding both individual and collective rights.
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Mar 13, 2020 18:33
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Zane posted:the classical marxist tradition does not have any rights language. i am doing my best to work within the terms you've proposed. and i will no longer indulge any more babbling about the penchant of liberal capitalism towards total isolationism -- a position you've already half abandoned. how do you explain the us intervention in bosnia? or the us wars in vietnam and korea? or the us intervention in ww2? or the us civil war? or the british opium wars? or really any major war over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? come back when you've learned the most basic rudiments of political economy. rights as such don't really fall into the realm of marxist analysis directly because they're inherently metaphysical but like, dude, no marxist has ever discussed the idea of rights ever never happened
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Mar 13, 2020 18:41
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