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SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:

I think the guy having a restaurant is actually just his hobby.

He refers to it as a full-time job, and almost dies of a stroke because he can’t afford to stop working.

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Impossibly Perfect Sphere
Nov 6, 2002

They wasted Luanne on Lucky!

She could of have been so much more but the writers just didn't care!
Naw, he's passionate about food, which is why he has a restaurant in New Orleans.

CainFortea
Oct 15, 2004


SuperMechagodzilla posted:

There's no real indication that Jake is exaggerating

The indicator that he's exaggerating is that he's a teenager whining about chores.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:

Naw, he's passionate about food, which is why he has a restaurant in New Orleans.

Does he also have a passion for sub-adequate medical care?

If we go down this trail, then we can also speculate that the Federation is so decadent that the upper classes give themselves diseases as a form of self-harm - in order to feel something, anything.

But no. That sort of presumption, that what we’re seeing is all an illusion, is silly.

ruddiger
Jun 3, 2004

Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:

I think the guy having a restaurant is actually just his hobby.

Are his employees hobbyists too? In the future do people wait tables and peel potatoes for the sheer hobby of it?

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008

ruddiger posted:

Are his employees hobbyists too? In the future do people wait tables and peel potatoes for the sheer hobby of it?

What with how star trek portrays the nobility of human work ethic, probably.

Zane
Nov 14, 2007
total war typically means a lot of resource expenditure. often with the privileging and deprivileging of certain industrial sectors. consistency between tos and ds9 is almost certainly unintended but yeah if those starships are really expensive then it logically follows that the dominion war is putting a lot of hurt onto certain sectors of the domestic consumer economy.

Zane fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Mar 6, 2020

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

But no. That sort of presumption, that what we’re seeing is all an illusion, is silly.

Sir, this is a TV show.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN
Moving on to additional topics: it’s confirmed in the episode “Pen Pals” that holodeck characters all have full-fledged individual psychologies.

Troi refuses to ride a holo-replicated horse because she would be overwhelmed by its thoughts, emotions, and ‘passions’.

So when our heroes ‘play’ a WWII ‘game’, for example, they’re actually killing people.

Complications
Jun 19, 2014

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Moving on to additional topics: it’s confirmed in the episode “Pen Pals” that holodeck characters all have full-fledged individual psychologies.

Troi refuses to ride a holo-replicated horse because she would be overwhelmed by its thoughts, emotions, and ‘passions’.

So when our heroes ‘play’ a WWII ‘game’, for example, they’re actually killing people.

:tviv:

:stonklol:

I thought it was something that could happen by accident and was at least rare. That's... wow.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

Wanted By Weed posted:

Having started to actually get into Star Trek, I recently saw the DS9 episode where Jake and Nog slum their way through a Zelda-esque trading sequence in an attempt at a get-rich-quick scheme of the week.
It seems to actually work, but one of the things that struck me was that Nog obtains a parcel of land, and he thinks it's just worthless "dirt." Being that the Ferengis are a resource and profit-driven species who presumably hailed from a single planet, wouldn't they treat land as being super valuable too?? Land is a commodity with an ascribed monetary value, you'd think the ultracapitalist alien race would think it was too. Or is it that he's a dumb kid, idgi

From a while back but early season Nog is def a dumb kid who hasn't had much real education- kind of the whole thing is that Jake despite not being familiar with money turns out to have a knack for business since he understands value in a more abstract sense. That and as said, it's on Bajor, where most of the dirt is probably polluted/overgrown as gently caress.

Way later on when (spoilers) Nog joins Starfleet he's shown to have learned a lot more and managed basically to find ways to apply Ferengi ideas to a cashless society- that even in a mostly post-scarcity society there are things people want and need and are in excess elsewhere, and keeping track of those things and supplying them in exchange for favours is a very valuable skill, Nog basically becoming Starfleet's 'guy who can get you anything'. Very likely something he learned from Quark. The whole Ferengi arc is that unethical capitalism eventually makes everyone hate you and makes it impossible to get anything done reliably (see how Brunt is willing to crash the economy for his own benefit and Zek complains about how unreliable the infrastructure is on Ferenginar) and they end up implicitly thriving when taking on the Federation's more or less socialist ideas.

ruddiger
Jun 3, 2004

Complications posted:

:tviv:

:stonklol:

I thought it was something that could happen by accident and was at least rare. That's... wow.

There’s several sentient holodeck characters acknowledged throughout the series who are generally treated as second class citizens and the crew of TNG witnessed the creation of sentient robot work drones who protested their perceived disposability, but didn’t really do anything other than say “hey you shouldn’t be sacrificing these sentient beings” and the doctor who’s sacrificing them basically responds with “hmmm, maybe you’re right” and that’s about it.

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 76 days!

This is a little like attributing the ST to George Lucas. Roddenberry had an idiosyncratic ideology and would have characters regularly argue that capitalism is bad. This became just capitalism in space (but not bad Ferengi capitalism (which is a now just in need of reform) after his death.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Complications posted:

:tviv:

:stonklol:

I thought it was something that could happen by accident and was at least rare. That's... wow.

It’s something that you can infer even without the explicit confirmation, because Troi can barely function without her empathic powers. People appear as “blank”, and it’s really distressing. So, in order to create replicants that Troi (or other psychics) can interact with, the computer needs to give them thoughts, emotions, memories....

Like, what if a Vulcan does a “mind-meld” on a replicant? Obviously the computer needs to account for that too.

The treatment of replicants is not a unique phenomena; it’s unmistakeably a reflection of the treatment of “pre-warp” noncitizens in Federation territory. The refugees in the episode “Homeward” are kept trapped in a holodeck Matrix by the Enterprise crew, and effectively treated as holograms. I recommend checking this episode out, because the whole thing is an absolutely astonishing Burn After Reading kind of clusterfuck.

How could things go so wrong? Well, it turns out Starfleet is a theocratic organization, and the prime directive is so inconsistent because it is primarily based upon a belief in something called the “cosmic plan”:

Riker, unprompted: “If there is a cosmic plan, is it not the height of hubris to think that we can, or should, interfere?”

Troi: “If there is a cosmic plan, are we not a part of it? Our presence at this place, at this moment in time, could be part of that fate.”

As illustrated above, the cosmic plan can be evoked to justify basically any course of action (Riker is talking about letting millions of Federation noncitizens die in a natural disaster).

SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Mar 6, 2020

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008
Yeah it sure does suck that star trek had to pay lip service to that poo poo just to get by with american audiences.


gently caress, House MD sucked on that same dick from time to time and the main character was hella atheist.



Edit- I had to edit this three times to get the swears just right

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Hodgepodge posted:

This is a little like attributing the ST to George Lucas. Roddenberry had an idiosyncratic ideology and would have characters regularly argue that capitalism is bad. This became just capitalism in space (but not bad Ferengi capitalism (which is a now just in need of reform)) after his death.

Characters in Star Trek never argue that capitalism is bad, only that materialism and greed are bad:

“People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We've eliminated ... the need for possessions.”

This characterization of the problem as ‘an obsession with objects’ is entirely in keeping with the promotion, across all the NG series, of a digitalized capitalism where immaterial labour is hegemonic.

Star Trek needs to be read very carefully. The ‘hook’ of the “Homeward” episode is that millions of Boraalans are going to die and saving them would require breaking a law - but the actual narrative is overwhelmingly preoccupied with the preservation of Boraalan culture - at the expense of the people.

The debate over the ethics of humanitarian intervention is totally nonsensical because the actual debate in Homeward is between preserving the Boraalans as live specimens (at risk of cultural contamination), or allowing them to die so that their culture can retain its ‘natural purity’.

Atrocious Joe
Sep 2, 2011

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

If we go down this trail, then we can also speculate that the Federation is so decadent that the upper classes give themselves diseases as a form of self-harm - in order to feel something, anything.

this feels like a concept from a 70s New Wave scifi short

i like it

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

I fuckin’ hate Star Trek, but I nonetheless have difficulty imagining that the writers are that incompetent.

huge, absolute, bellyquaking lols

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

2house2fly posted:

SMG's deal seems to be that everything that's in the text counts, intended or not.

pfffffffffft lmbo

this about a guy who admitted to willfully disregarding the soundtrack of movies because of an offhand remark by Stanley Kubrick

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
that said, all space opera ever is always dystopian, because interstellar civilisation can only ever be turbo-fascism

CainFortea
Oct 15, 2004


SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Troi refuses to ride a holo-replicated horse because she would be overwhelmed by its thoughts, emotions, and ‘passions’.

This is false.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

It’s something that you can infer even without the explicit confirmation, because Troi can barely function without her empathic powers. People appear as “blank”, and it’s really distressing.

Also false.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Trying to think too hard about how the holodeck works is a bad idea

Though it is fun to realise that the holodeck is basically using every available technical trick to fool its users, especially when there's multiple people in it and they're doing things far away from each other. (like the baseball episode)

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY
We do meet dilithium miners, in TOS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudd%27s_Women

There's a whole bit about the women being "wives for settlers" and the whole thing is really about as problematic as it gets.

I'm a huge Trek fan, but I have to admit, it's pretty clear that there are still massive drivers (mass drivers! :haw:) of social inequality in the Federation.

You can't replicate space, as in square footage. You can't replicate views or crowding or your favorite coffeeshop or living on the same planet as the rest of your family. Even if money and the production of goods were entirely solved - and it can't be or more people would have their own starships - space is clearly under contention. Space, the final frontier...

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 76 days!

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Characters in Star Trek never argue that capitalism is bad, only that materialism and greed are bad:

“People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We've eliminated ... the need for possessions.”

This characterization of the problem as ‘an obsession with objects’ is entirely in keeping with the promotion, across all the NG series, of a digitalized capitalism where immaterial labour is hegemonic.

Star Trek needs to be read very carefully. The ‘hook’ of the “Homeward” episode is that millions of Boraalans are going to die and saving them would require breaking a law - but the actual narrative is overwhelmingly preoccupied with the preservation of Boraalan culture - at the expense of the people.

The debate over the ethics of humanitarian intervention is totally nonsensical because the actual debate in Homeward is between preserving the Boraalans as live specimens (at risk of cultural contamination), or allowing them to die so that their culture can retain its ‘natural purity’.

They don't use the term capitalism, but they outright say things like "we've eliminated poverty" to Mark Twain as he characterizes 19th Century America as a hellhole where power and wealth are acquired "on the backs of the poor" and grills them on whether they're actually imperialists. Or explain to an investment banker that his job is obsolete because its entire purpose was found to be a burden on humanity.

By DS9 the vestiges of the idea of some sort of better world that was fundamentally different from America are reduced to segments where Nog makes Jake question whether money is really that bad.

Go ahead and critique them. Like, Roddenberry leans heavily on a grand narrative of progress and liberal values, etc, in a mystical new age sense. And yeah, TNG's take on the "prime directive" is basically an insane reading of Franz Boaz' cultural relativism as a perverted defense of indigenous cultures being destroyed by imperialism. But if you can't tell the difference between someone who didn't want the Federation to use any sort of money (though "credits" ended up in the show) and writers quoting straight from Von Mises' principle of human action to contrast our "nature" with that of aliens, what the gently caress are you even doing?

Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Mar 7, 2020

Saint Drogo
Dec 26, 2011

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

It’s something that you can infer even without the explicit confirmation, because Troi can barely function without her empathic powers. People appear as “blank”, and it’s really distressing. So, in order to create replicants that Troi (or other psychics) can interact with, the computer needs to give them thoughts, emotions, memories....

Like, what if a Vulcan does a “mind-meld” on a replicant? Obviously the computer needs to account for that too.
mind melding is two computers talking to each other, they'll be good. Troi's just interfacing with the computer as it simulates them.

if psychics can't talk to computers like in Scanners this whole thing is bullshit.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

CainFortea posted:

This is false. Also false.

The episodes are Pen Pals and The Loss, so you can check it out!!!

Kesper North posted:

We do meet dilithium miners, in TOS.

I’ve been focussing on all the ‘Next Generation’ Star Treks, because they make up the bulk of all Star Trek media, they’re all set around the same time, and it’s where the bizarre New Age cultism comes in.

Kirk Trek wasn’t shy about saying there were still major social problems, Uhura needs to explain Christianity to her white boss, etc.

Hodgepodge posted:

They don't use the term capitalism, but they outright say things like "we've eliminated poverty" to Mark Twain as he characterizes 19th Century America as a hellhole where power and wealth are acquired "on the backs of the poor" and grills them on whether they're actually imperialists. Or explain to an investment banker that his job is obsolete because its entire purpose was found to be a burden on humanity.

Ask any American Democrat if they like poverty, imperialism, and Reaganite investment bankers. The question is how those things are were “eliminated”.

(Nobody says “capitalism” in the movie Elysium either, but that one ends with dictatorship of the proletariat.)

The Federation does have some good qualities - like, it seems that there is genuinely no unemployment for those deemed citizens. But again, the point is the massive disparity between Federation citizens and the Federation noncitizens who have effectively no rights and are treated as “untouchables”.

CainFortea
Oct 15, 2004


SuperMechagodzilla posted:

The episodes are Pen Pals and The Loss, so you can check it out!!!

I did. That's how I know you are lying.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

CainFortea posted:

I did. That's how I know you are lying.

Picard asks the computer to produce a replicant animal: an Earth horse, specifically an Arabian mare. He also asks to disable any autopilot features. “I will control the animal myself.”

(As an aside Troi comments that the holodeck grants them the powers of Allah.)

Here’s the main part of the exchange:

Picard: Sure you don't want to try? It's very relaxing. We can find you something quiet and gentle.

Troi: No, I prefer my mode of transport not to have a mind of its own.

Picard: Strange. I would expect Betazoids to be outstanding animal trainers.

Troi: We become too involved in the shifting passions of the beast. We lose our way and get swept up in emotion.

The replicant horse is consistently referred to as an animal, not an ambulatory statue or whatever.

CainFortea
Oct 15, 2004


And your little editing cuts out the part where they were just discussing a real life animal.

Almost like it's on purpose. :thunk:

Troi doesn't know how to ride a horse because of the empathy. It's not about that specific holo horse. She doesn't have the skill, interest, or inclination to do horsey things.

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008
Which episode is this specifically? I wanna get in on this horse action!

Laterite
Mar 14, 2007

It's Gutfest '89
Grimey Drawer

SuperMechagodzilla posted:


Ask any American Democrat if they like poverty, imperialism, and Reaganite investment bankers.

Hoo, buddy, you don't want to know the answer to that.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

CainFortea posted:

And your little editing cuts out the part where they were just discussing a real life animal.

Nope, it’s a replicant:

Picard: Computer, program the holodeck for a woodland setting, with a bridle path and an appropriate mount.

Computer: Type of mount? Andorian Zabathu, Klingon Sark...

Picard: Horse. Earth horse.

Computer: Breed?

Picard: Arabian.

Again, the episode is “Pen Pals”.

A Gnarlacious Bro
Apr 25, 2007

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Imagine being this guy

CainFortea
Oct 15, 2004


Just trimming out the part about a live animal again, but this time in the other side

2house2fly
Nov 14, 2012

You did a super job wrapping things up! And I'm not just saying that because I have to!
There's transcripts online:

quote:

TROI: You know, I never particularly thought of you as an animal person.
PICARD: Small animals, no, but horses. Computer, programme the holodeck for a woodland setting, with a bridle path and an appropriate mount.
COMPUTER: Type of mount? Andorian Zabathu, Klingon Sark
PICARD: Horse. Earth horse.
COMPUTER: Breed?
PICARD: Arabian. The Arabs believed that Allah gathered the south wind and made the horse.
TROI: On the holodeck we've made that legend come true.
PICARD: I like that. Oh yes, computer, English tack, and I will control the animal myself.
COMPUTER: Enter when ready.

[Meadow]

(The grey mare is waiting to be saddled)
TROI: So you like horses for the romance?
PICARD: It goes deeper than that. A fine war mare would sleep in a bedouin's tent, carry him into battle, feed his children with her milk. There's a bond which is created by mutual need. Hello, beautiful.
TROI: Now I understand. You don't want the comfort of a pet, you want a companion.
(Picard hands her his riding crop while he tacks up)
PICARD: Thank you. I don't want to anthropomorphise anything. I seems that some creatures have the capacity to fill spaces you never knew were empty.
TROI: I had a Betazoid kitten once. My mother and the cat reacted badly to one another.
PICARD: Sure you don't want to try? It's very relaxing. We can find you something that will be quiet and gentle.
TROI: No, I prefer a mode of transportation that doesn't have a mind of its own.
PICARD: Strange. I would expect Betazoids to be outstanding animal trainers.
TROI: We become too involved in the thoughts and shifting passions of the beast. We lose our way and get swept up in emotion.
It kind of seems to me that Troi is saying she can't ride horses because riding a real one is difficult for her species. Presumably the holodeck could just make her a horse that doesn't have a mind of it's own and just approximated the experience of riding a horse, like in Shadow Of The Colossus or whatever, but she doesn't like riding in general, not this specific horse

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008
I've got the episode open now.

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008
I watched the entire sequence

So I kinda expected to take the opposite position here but Picard clearly asks Troi if she'd like it if they whipped up a horse for her that wasn't difficult at all to ride. Also since picard specifies earlier to the computer he'd like to control the beast himself that tells me most likely even if she were complete poo poo at horseback riding they probably could have programmed her a horse that you'd have to be downright trying to fall off of. I can't really say that's definitive but her direct response to picard's question of whether it would be possible for her to join him if the beast were gentle and easy to handle is "No, I prefer a mode of transportation that doesn't have a mind of its own." (thank you 2house2fly for the transcript to save me some typing), which to me directly reads as Troi trying to say that the issue is not whether she felt capable of riding the horse but instead that the issue would indeed be the thoughts of the holo-creature.

In between they talk about raising cats and how that caused a rift with Troi's mom but it really doesn't seem to have much to do with the greater context of the discussion of how betazoids prefer to get around without using animals.




Guys, I think I'm forced to agree with SMG on this one.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

reignofevil posted:

In between they talk about raising cats and how that caused a rift with Troi's mom but it really doesn't seem to have much to do with the greater context of the discussion of how betazoids prefer to get around without using animals.

Troi brings up the kitten story to help explain why she doesn’t want to ride the replicant horse: because the amount of thought and emotion she would feel from the replicant horse would be equivalent to the thought and emotion she felt from her (natural) kitten.

Implicitly, Troi’s mom got rid of the kitten, and Troi was left a bit emotionally scarred. It’s likely that she’s afraid to ride the horse because she doesn’t want to confront the fact that, when they ‘end the simulation’ the horse will die and leave her with an ‘empty space’.

quote:

Guys, I think I'm forced to agree with SMG on this one.

It’s weird to me that there’s even a debate.

Picard specifically orders a replicant horse ‘with a mind of its own’ because he wants to practice animal training. He asks Troi to join him, but she says the replicant horse has too much of a mind for her to handle.

At the end of the sequence, Picard wonders how Troi can deal with people if she can’t handle a horse.

It’s the whole point of the scene - tied to the two plotlines where Wesley learns to lead with people, and Data gets ‘too emotional’ over a dying noncitizen.

CainFortea
Oct 15, 2004


No.

Troi just never learned how to ride a horse because she doesn't do animal training because of the emotions involved.

So either:

A) She has to ride a horse in manual control, using skills she never learned in a sphere of activity that holds no interest for her

or

2) She has to ride a horse that is controlled by the computer, which is not a method of transportation she prefers.

Either way, the holodeck entities are not fully realized AI with thoughts and emotions.

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2house2fly
Nov 14, 2012

You did a super job wrapping things up! And I'm not just saying that because I have to!
Surely the computer could create a holographic horse that doesn't have a mind of it's own, and thoughts and passions? Are we making the leap from "the holodeck can create thinking creatures" to "the holodeck can't not make thinking creatures"?

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