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SlothfulCobra posted:If the prime directive specifically dictates that a society that asks for help is exempt, does that mean that it was intended to condemn them to death? The society is not exempt; that’s why they ultimately erase the girl’s brain and then fly away without assisting in any relief efforts. The planet isn’t destroyed, but it has been blasted by volcanos for days. (A distress call evidently allows for extremely minimal covert assistance.) But anyways, the bigger issue is that - because the characters found a loophole in this particular case - they end up returning to the status quo where this policy of extreme segregation remains unchallenged. The system worked! galagazombie posted:on the subject of Prime Directive chat I'll say little good can come of it since every writer had a different idea of what its intent and wording was. Is it an order to not lord over the less tech advanced as tyrants or some weird way to excuse genocide? There really is no single answer. Saying ‘it’s just inconsistent’ is an easy way to avoid what is consistent. And what is consistent is just the basic fact that “pre-warp” people are subject to extreme segregation. No contact whatsoever; you’re to pretend that they don’t even exist. This practice is partly based in the liberal style of paternalistic racism where ‘we’re trying to protect the purity of your culture’ or whatever. But it’s more broadly just racism of the more traditional variety: “A lot has changed in the past three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We've eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We've grown out of our infancy.” -Picard “[R. S.] Sharma theorizes that [the] institution of untouchability arose when the aboriginal tribes with ‘low material culture’ and ‘uncertain means of livelihood’ came to be regarded as impure by the privileged classes who despised manual labour, and regarded associated impurity with ‘certain material objects’.” -Wikipedia Picard looks upon noncitizens with disdain. They’re “infants” - obsessive and needy. He’s clearly not alone there.
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Mar 10, 2020 02:33
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SlothfulCobra posted:Man, that's a quote taken wildly out of context. The quote is an example of Picard's ideological stance towards anyone from a "pre-warp" society. This classism usually carries intense racial connotations because "pre-warp" people are typically aliens. Ralph the stockbroker is human, but arrives in the future as a nonperson - with no valid documents, completely destitute. Not a credit to his name. Picard just sends him away to Earth and tells him to figure it out. Maybe he can find work in a restaurant?
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Mar 10, 2020 04:36
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CainFortea posted:You know, if there was no prime directive SMG would be on and on about imperialism instead. Why “instead”? The Prime Directive hasn’t stopped the Federation from doing imperialism. As with the issue of holo-replicant sentience, you need to step back and look at assumptions that have always gone unquestioned: “History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less-developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous.” What is the precise trait of the Federation that makes it “disastrously” toxic to noncitizens? What historical failings have they not yet overcome? I mean, I can answer those questions. But can you? FunkyAl posted:The ship's computer is self aware, and she does a puppet show on the holodeck. This is sometimes the case - which might explain much of the confusion. In one episode, Picard asks for a holodeck game based on series of detective novels - but gets frustrated when the characters act uncharacteristically stupid and violent. The computer then explains that the books are too badly written to make proper characters: “The flexibility of the program is limited to the parameters of the Dixon Hill novels.” When making horses, though, the computer has no such limitation.
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Mar 10, 2020 07:01
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Zane posted:there is no effective historical analogy to prime directive. pre-warp non-federation peoples are not analogous--as suggested by these examples--to low-status and/or working-class minorities within an integral (hierarchical) social order. these peoples instead constitute entirely discrete social orders. all historical analogies break down because knowledge of other societies has always historically been accompanied by some kind of regularized social interaction. but there is not even the most primitive of exchange. and without regularized social interaction there is nothing that could be called a social power relationship. The Prime Directive totally does have an analogy - in New Age UFO cultism and the so-called "Contactee Movement". Episodes like "Homeward" are transparently Ancient Aliens narratives told from the standpoint of the ancient aliens themselves. In "Pen Pals", the little girl is abducted into a saucer by a tall, grey-skinned man and medically examined / experimented upon before being deposited back at home with her memory erased. (But don't worry; he's benevolent.) Where this does get real is in the obvious ideological ties between this subject and those incredibly familiar conspiracy-movie cliches like "the public isn't ready for this information", and "if the truth gets out, there'll be panic in the streets!" The assertion is that, as Jack Nicholson put it, "you can't handle the truth": it's necessary to deceive people for their own good. Civilization must be founded on a lie. It's necessary because, as Picard says, the pre-warp cultures are stupid and infantile - though perhaps beautiful in their innocence. Nikolai: Captain, the Boraalans have a rich and beautiful culture, a deep spiritual life. They deserve the chance to survive. And isn't that what the Prime Directive was truly intended to do, to allow cultures to survive and grow naturally? The 'interference' that everyone's been talking about is specifically a cultural interference. That's usually spun as a good thing - 'look at their colourful dances!' - but it also means that access to medicine might interfere with the cultural practice of infanticide. There's no such thing as an entirely discrete social order, and that's true even in Star Trek. As noted earlier, the Federation uses the Prime Directive as a way to deny citizenship to those people whose solar systems they colonize. This means that you don't get a vote on what happens to, like, your sun or your moon, or your neighboring planet full of resources. It only seems like non-interference because the bill hasn't arrived yet. The Prime Directive, in practice, also means that Starfleet captains responding to some crisis will be paralyzed by indecision. As we see time and again, a simple matter like not letting a child fall into a volcano suddenly makes them freeze up and become terrified by the very concept of free will. What if a butterfly effect from saving the girl causes the a guy on the other side of the planet to have a child whose bloodline eventually spawns Hitlerborg 2.0??? This is the obvious point of having enforcement of this #1 rule, which is likely punishable by death, hinge on the definition of "natural." Is the emergence of Hitlerborg 2.0 from a butterfly effect "natural" or "unnatural"? Ultimately, "natural" is what benefits the Federation. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Mar 10, 2020 |
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Mar 10, 2020 19:22
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CaptainSkinny posted:He meant in the real world. There's no way you're as stupid as you play on here or else I would wonder how you remember to breathe. New Age ideology does exist in reality.
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Mar 10, 2020 19:51
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CaptainSkinny posted:First you breathe in. Then comes a tricky part, you have to exhale. There’s no need to panic; it’s very straightforward. Taking a historical catastrophe like the colonization of the Americas, Star Trek asks how this outcome could have been prevented. The stance of the Federation, as voiced by numerous characters, is that the Europeans should have modelled their conduct on that of our Pleiadian space brothers. Be like those benevolent aliens from UFOlogy: zip around in the distance so nobody can get a good look at you, abduct the occasional yokel so you can mess with his organs & drive him mad with prophecy, etc. To solve the problem of Columbus versus the natives, simply wait until both cultures have developed interstellar transportation. Of course this has never been tried on Earth (with ‘uncontacted tribes’ or whatever) because it’s insanely stupid. But the Prime Directive does have parallels to such varied and familiar practices as segregation, espionage, and wildlife photography.
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Mar 10, 2020 23:38
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Kesper North posted:This has meaning to me for how we address human questions, insofar as how Americans address our inability to interact with other cultures responsibly, and how we direct our energy and focus as a species going forward that I want to explore. reignofevil posted:How can we adjust to try and do the right thing for each species we encounter regardless of technological development? The first thing is to say change begins at home. As gone over earlier, the violence faced by ‘prewarp’ noncitizens in the Federation is not unique. It’s largely identical to that experienced by holo-replicants, clones, the genetically enhanced, time travellers from the past, LGBT+ people, most robots, those with “non-severe” disabilities.... The list goes on and on. This is a systemic violence. The Federation has (largely) eliminated unemployment, but certainly not inequality. And that inequality, not the wealth, is what ‘trickles down’ to the least fortunate. So what’s the point of the Prime Directive if Grandpa Sisko can’t get medical care to prevent a stroke? This is where we can point out that the Prime Directive is designed to enforce a state of “nature”. If you go back to the start of this discussion, we’ve already talked about how genetically-enhanced people are discriminated against on the basis that they defy a natural order where nobody is too smart, too healthy. Legalized enhancement would make it unambiguous that Grandpa Sisko’s untreated condition is not a quirk of fate or personal failing, but something inflicted on him because of his socioeconomic status. At the same time that we address the inequality experienced by those already Federation citizens, it’s also a matter of expanding citizenship to encompass the excluded. There’s no point in lying: ‘pre-warp’ people whose worlds have been annexed by the Federation are absolutely a part of the Federation, and must be considered citizens by default. Picard: So we make an exception in the deaths of millions. Pulaski: Yes. Picard: And is it the same situation if it's an epidemic, and not a geological calamity? Pulaski: Absolutely. Picard: How about a war? If generations of conflict is killing millions, do we interfere? Ah, well, now we're all a little less secure in our moral certitude. And what if it's not just killings - if an oppressive government is enslaving millions? It would be absurd if the same argument were applied to Federation citizens. Borgs are attacking New Orleans and assimilating people? Well, who are we to defy the Cosmic Plan? Picard specifically uses slavery as an example of something not too bad. Don’t get so emotional, Geordi.
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Mar 11, 2020 18:26
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Kesper North posted:I see a trap here: If we apply the rubric that they are citizens by default strictly, this means that the Federation is now vacuuming up worlds full of indigenes. That’s not really a trap, because it’s a distinct issue: why is the Federation so expansionist? The Starfleet mission is ostensibly exploration and scientific discovery, and that doesn’t require claiming territory at all. Unless, of course, that’s not the actual mission. This brings us back to the point that the Federation economy is dominated by mining corporations, and its Star-Fleet is basically make-work program. Military Keynesianism. It’s not an accident that the Federation keeps getting into all these wars (mainly of the ‘cold’ variety). The Federation already clearly has more than enough resources to augment every Federation citizen into a Data-like superbeing. But, instead, even the father of a prominent Starfleet Captain is dying of the 24th-century equivalent of polio. There’s no need for more land and resources outside of an obvious drive for profit and expansion that overrides human concerns. It’s evident even though the ideologists disavow it. This is undoubtedly why Federation citizenship is dependent on advanced technology, while there is basically no mention of anticapitalism. In the event that a society attains warp-speed and suddenly ‘counts’ in the eyes of the Federation, where do they get their dilithium from? That’s a rhetorical question. Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:There are a ton of false assumptions per post about how things work in Trek without the realization that they're about 98% wrong. I feel like people watched or read a few episodes and try to gleam insights from a few throw away lines or plot threads without knowing about the two dozen other episodes that completely contradict those same ideas or expand on them more completely. Plz list the two dozen episodes that contradict anything we’ve written. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Mar 12, 2020 |
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Mar 12, 2020 03:32
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CainFortea posted:They aren't. Mystery solved. Then how did they end up with all those ‘pre-warp’ planets in their territory?
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Mar 12, 2020 03:51
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CainFortea posted:Please let me know what episode it is where someone from the federation claims the planet that someone else was living on. Via a complex scheme in the episode “Homeward”, the Boraalan people are secretly relocated from Boraal 2 (which is implicitly in Federation space) to Vacca 6 (which is explicitly stated to be in Federation space). There is no indication that the Federation gives up ownership of Vacca 6 in doing this.
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Mar 12, 2020 06:20
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CainFortea posted:I don't know how it is with people you know, but when you give something to someone, you don't own it anymore. There is absolutely nothing in the episode about “giving away” the planet. The planet Vacca 6 is under Federation control, and the Federation’s military forcibly relocates the Boraalans there. It’s very silly to frame that as, like, a generous gift.
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Mar 12, 2020 15:28
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CainFortea posted:The federation military does nothing of the sort. You’re having trouble because you are thinking in terms of, like, “the good guys are giving their friends a place to live  ”. That’s certainly one way to describe the situation. But another, far more accurate way to describe it is that the Federation Starfleet captain Jean-Luc Picard is confronted with a refugee crisis following a natural disaster. The Boraalans were meant to just die, but now Picard’s got a mess on his hands: Picard: What do you expect us to do now? You have left us with a colony of Boraalans who think they're still on their planet. Picard deals with the refugees by forcibly relocating them to a different planet in Federation territory. The Federation does not cede that territory. A significant chunk of Homeward’s narrative concerns just how difficult it is to forcibly relocate a population, if you are well-intentioned: Data: [Vacca 6] offers a less hospitable climate than the Boraalans are accustomed to. However, it would still appear to be the better choice. Do you disagree, Doctor? Crusher: No, Data, you're right. It's just that the enormity of what we're doing is overwhelming. We are deciding the future of a species. “Often the affected population is transferred by force to a distant region, perhaps not suited to their way of life, causing them substantial harm. In addition, the loss of all immovable property and, when rushed, the loss of substantial amounts of movable property, is implied.” -Wikipedia, “Population Transfer” Poor Dr. Crusher! SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Mar 12, 2020 |
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Mar 12, 2020 17:03
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CainFortea posted:The part you keep skipping is that Picard specifically said "no don't do that" and the guy did it anyway. They didn't forcibly move them. They were moved onto their ship forcibly by people who are specifically not federation military. Once the people are on the ship, Picard could do all kinds of things. He could, for example: drop the ruse, explain the situation to these people, and then push the Federation to grant them citizenship. Instead, Picard fully authorizes their forcible relocation: Picard: I'm not enthusiastic about this plan, but I don't see that we have another option. Very well, let's give it a try. CainFortea posted:And yes, they cede the territory because once they get onto Vacca 6, it's now the Boraalan's planet and not theirs. I’ve bolded the parts that you just imagine happened. Nothing of the sort actually occurs in the episode. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Mar 12, 2020 |
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Mar 12, 2020 17:28
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CainFortea posted:Picard can't drop the ruse, that would violate the prime directive. It had already been violated by the doctor, that doesn't mean it's a good idea for him to violate it further. The Prime Directive is just a law. Picard could choose to simply break the law, because enforcing it under those circumstances would be even more absurdly unethical than usual. But now things are getting really silly: Your assertion is that, under the Prime Directive, the Federation automatically cedes control of its territory if/when a “pre-warp” society comes to inhabit that space. Why is that silly? Simply because you can easily create pre-warp societies. Crusher: There are countless M-Class planets in Federation space which can support the Boraalans. So let’s say - purely hypothetically - that I am a brillant enemy of the Federation. I can use well-known techniques such as transporter cloning to duplicate the Boraalans and place a copy of their society on each of these uninhabited planets. With this relatively small investment, I will have forced the Federation to cede control of maybe half of its territory - equivalent to about one eighth of the Milky Way galaxy.
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Mar 12, 2020 19:24
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Expanding on Ferrinus’ point: Let’s say we have Planet A and Planet B. Both planets are “pre-warp.” Now, the inhabitants of Planet A are suffering from a horribly crippling disease, accurately referred to as Torture-AIDS. On the other side, Planet B uses primitive rocket technology to send an unmanned emergency vehicle, loaded with the cure for Torture-AIDS and a message of universal brotherhood. The delivery will arrive in exactly 15 years. 13 years into the rocket’s journey, Planet B develops warp technology. Is Picard legally obligated to destroy the rocket?
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Mar 12, 2020 20:38
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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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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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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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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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SlothfulCobra posted: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. While that's not wrong, it's taking for granted that the Federation system is here to stay and there are no alternatives. There will always be this hugely unbalanced power relationship, even charity has a catch, so the ultimate charity is no charity at all: survival of the fittest under the Cosmic Plan. Of course, rendering charity illegal does absolutely nothing about the fact that "pre-warp" Federation noncitizens are already 'subject to the whims of well-intentioned overlords'. The Prime Directive is exactly such a whim. All you're doing is taking steps to mitigate things by hopefully-minimizing overt (subjective/objective) violence in order to leave the ultimate systemic violence unquestioned. And when that's the mindset, we're left with is a genuine hopelessness where "pre-warp" Federation noncitizens (coded as aboriginal, mind) are literally considered better off dead. Like, think about that for a second. When Picard makes the analogy to Columbus, he's saying that he'd prefer it if the aboriginal peoples of the Americas had all just died in an earthquake, rather than than survive and persist as they have. It would have saved them from so much suffering, right? His heart goes out to them, truly. That's bullshit. The horizon of egalitarian thought is not just a bunch of isolated fuckin' ethnostates waiting for deliverance.
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Mar 13, 2020 20:14
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Lord Krangdar posted:His last post was referring to Voyager's episode "Latent Image". Since we’ve been discussing Latent Image, it’s actually one of the strongest criticisms of Federation ideology and the Prime Directive. Like, it’s not great - but it’s miles ahead. So obviously, in the first half of the episode, Janeway dismisses the Doctor as just a mass-produced object and they can do whatever they like to him. If he starts malfunctioning, just wipe his memories, etc. The second half of the episode, though, is where things get interesting: Janeway realizes the Doctor is a person, and now feels enormous guilt over having created a person who be will forever tormented by existential questions of free will, ‘why am I here?’, and so-on. So we have a shift: rather than erase The Doctor’s memory for her own benefit, Janeway now erases his memory in order to protect him from the truth about the harsh and terrifying nature of the universe. This isn’t some airy debate either; upon learning the truth, The Doctor has become angry, violent, suicidal.... Janeway feels she has very good reason to keep him forever ignorant via the replicant equivalent of constant drugging or lobotomy. Picard: “No matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous.” But it doesn’t end in disaster. The whole crew works together to keep The Doctor in round-the-clock suicide watch. They simply talk with him - and just keep talking to him, until he’s coping slightly better with his feelings of despair. At the end of the episode Homeward, one of the Bolaarans escapes the holodeck cave. Picard handles this situation extremely badly (even by the standards of this episode) and the guy commits suicide, alone in his room.
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Mar 13, 2020 21:08
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CainFortea posted:The purpose of the prime directive is to keep starfleet personnel from playing god with their technological superiority. Which is why it doesn't apply when they do stuff against the romulans for example. Your two obvious major failings here: 1) Treating such a ridiculously nebulous concept as ‘playing god’ as a legal term. 2) Defining equality in terms of ‘technological advancement’. So if a poor person and a rich person both have Internet access, that’s equality. Like, the fact that you even assert this shows that you are totally uninterested in questions of equality and justice. So what’s your goal?
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Mar 13, 2020 23:42
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CainFortea posted:No, I am interested in those question. I'm just not interested in folks passing off their edgelord fan fic as what was actually presented. You have made repeated (direct and indirect) reference to this notion of “actual presentation”, which is evidently just a type of essentialism based in hypercredulity. So, for example: Picard is simply good because we’re told he’s good. Transporter cloning can only ever occur accidentally because we’re never told otherwise. The Prime Directive is a great idea because we’re told it is, etc. As noted earlier, I really hate Star Trek. But I’m really interested in how fandom can lead to this type of thought.
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Mar 14, 2020 00:08
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The false opposition of total isolation and imperialism-genocide forecloses the possibility of solidarity between, say, “prewarp” peoples and holographic slaves.
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Mar 14, 2020 00:26
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CainFortea posted:Why does it go awry? Because some people are assholes. And they'll do things like move a people to steal the fountain of youth dust or something. Then the federation has to go stop them. Oops, you’ve just violated the Prime Directive. The people stealing the dust don’t understand warp.
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Mar 14, 2020 03:16
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CainFortea posted:Actually I think one of the people stealing the dust in that example was a starfleet admiral. I dunno, haven't gotten to that point in my chronological star trek bonanza. Wait - you mean you didn’t even ascertain their society’s overall level of technological prowess before sending down the away team??? gently caress, man, I wouldn’t want to be you right now. Those guys were Bragorans. The natural deposits of quadrilithium in Bragora Prime’s cave systems grant them an ability to beam through space, similar to our early transporters. They do not understand the concept of space, and believe they are conquering their own ‘hollow earth’. Or, I should say, they didn’t understand the concept of space until they saw your shuttle land! You’d better hope that their minds are erasable, because they’re already building rudimentary gliders. gently caress!
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Mar 14, 2020 03:52
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So I’m checking more old episodes and, in this one, Picard teaches a Bronze Age society atheism and promotes Federation ideology to them because it’s ‘more natural’ than belief in God.
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Mar 15, 2020 03:24
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reignofevil posted:She doesn't get it. He explains this directly to her face in the simplest terms possible but the person simply isn't capable of understanding. She is convinced that given the nature of Picard's ship and his obvious power to cure the dying that he should be capable of reversing death as well, much to Picard's horror. Eventually Picard gets shot with a bow by someone who refuses to believe he is a mortal like anyone else and only after that does it become clear to the society that Picard is no god at all. This story might as well be the poster child for why SMG's suggestion that the federation should go around uplifting and granting voting power to any society within their borders is a bad idea. While those are some of the plot points, you’re misremembering really vital parts of the episode. (The title is “Who Watches the Watchers”, for reference. The Mintakan people Picard talks to ultimately have no real problem believing anything he’s talking about, save for a single ‘crazed fundamentalist’ by the name of Liko. Then, as you note, even Liko has his mind changed pretty quickly. After a few brief conversations, and showing off his blood, Picard has fully “non-interfered” with these people by teaching them the following: -Technological determinism. -A linear theory of technology. -A linear theory of history. -Space travel. -Federation-style Multiculturalism. -Anthropology. -Atheism/Skepticism -Trusting the Federation / not fearing those in power. -The Prime Directive. What’s perhaps more telling is what Picard doesn’t teach them. There’s nothing egalitarian in his rhetoric whatsoever. Imagine the following being spoken by Jeff Bezos to a homeless person: “We are both living beings. We are born, we grow, we live and we die. In all the ways that matter, we are alike.” I can think of a few differences that really do matter. Can you? Picard repeatedly tells the Minkatans not to pay too much attention to his incredible medical technology; sure, Picard can cure all diseases and you can’t, but he wishes you good luck. But anyways, there are two main points that are missing from your analysis: 1) In offering himself up to die to prove his fallibility, Picard is actually making himself into an ersatz Christ figure - an antichrist preaching liberalism. and 2) Why is Picard treating these guys differently from the Bolaarans? The only answer is blunt racism. Troi: According to Doctor Barron's preliminary reports, the Mintakans are proto-Vulcan humanoids at the Bronze Age level. Quite peaceful and highly rational. What the gently caress is a proto-Vulcan? Troi is literally expressing a belief that, because this species resembles the Vulcans, they will naturally evolve into a race identical to the Vulcans (with an identical society, etc.) and inevitably join the Federation. Picard: Which is not surprising, considering how closely their evolution parallels Vulcan. This is why Picard has no issue with teaching them Federation ideology. Minkatans are supposed to become part of the Federation, on account of their race’s natural inclination towards atheism. The “deeply spiritual” Bolaarans are clearly not so lucky. The language used makes this clear: belief in God is consistently referred to as a cultural failure, a horrifying ignorance, a dark contamination.... Also, if they resemble Vulcans, why are they “humanoid” and not “vulcanoid”? A: Because human is the default. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Mar 15, 2020 |
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Mar 15, 2020 18:01
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CainFortea posted:Because they're using english. Troi is a Betazoid. She speaks Betazed.
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Mar 15, 2020 19:37
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reignofevil posted:What SMG claimed and why it is wrong I’m avoiding the quote-by-quote style of response, but this post will touch on each of your points. The character of Nuria is successfully convinced that Picard is just a mortal person wielding advanced technology, after just a few minutes of conversation. What she believes afterwards is that Picard‘s ‘wonderous’ technology is capable of raising the dead - and, actually, her intuition is correct. Every Federation starship has time-travel capabilities, for example. The transporter kills and then recreates you. Remember that movie Search For Spock? Of course there are all kinds of legal, ethical and philosophical issues around these various cloning techniques that explain why Picard doesn’t want to clone the dead. But the guy in Sickbay’s not even dead yet! Picard could certainly use transporter tech to cleanse the man of any injuries - but this is a tricky moral dilemma to him, for whatever reason (maybe the procedure is unaffordable on an anthropologist’s salary? Maybe it counts as ‘enhancement’ and is illegal?). Whatever his reasons, Picard again quickly convinces Nuria that his technology “can’t” raise the dead by letting her watch a man die in sickbay. So there are two things to note here: 1) Nuria is not at all stupid, backwards or primitive. She easily figures out what’s happening after a few minutes of education. 2) In her naïveté, Nuria unwittingly points out some major failings of Federation ideology. Why is that guy dying? Why doesn’t Picard use the technology to do help them? Are they lesser beings to him? The other guy, Liko, is left to run around and gain supporters while Troi and Riker do their best to gaslight the hell out of him. But, Picard finally comes clean, again, Liko is very quickly convinced. But convinced of what? quote:Picard recognizes that any solution will require some degree of interference due to the fact that the prime directive had already been broken. What I take issue with is this idea of “undoing the damage”. Picard considers it ‘unnatural’ that a guy would start a religion based on an utterly bizarre hallucinatory experience and start questioning his reality and his society. Therefore, to restore a ‘state of nature’, Picard tells them that the objectively correct religion is belief in the Cosmic Plan. This goes well beyond merely bringing things back to status quo. Picard is teaching them Federation values. He even offers up his life for this message: to prove that they are Human Gods. Like, “sorry, we can’t do anything for you; we’re all too human.” Anyway, do you not see the issue here: PICARD: Oh, yes, and now we must leave you. OJI: Why? There's so much you can teach us. PICARD: But that, too, would be interference. You must progress in your own way. NURIA: So we will. You have taught us there is nothing beyond our reach. That’s the paradox of this not-interfering.
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Mar 15, 2020 23:52
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reignofevil posted:SMG you can dance around the idea of how 'quickly' Niko is convinced but you are deliberately avoiding how he was convinced and the direct consequences. Those are all the same point. I’ll clarify: The entire point of the incarnation, in Christianity, is that God is a man. This is why Picard’s proof that he’s ‘just a man’ doesn’t eliminate any religious connotations for Liko and Nuria. Picard has, like it or not, become a Christ figure. So his challenge is now what to do with this burden of responsibility. Now Christianity, at its most radical, is a belief that God Himself died on the cross - impotent, abject, and suffering - and all that remains is the community of believers, united in the belief that there is no ‘cosmic’ excuse for suffering. Not even human, God is inhuman, abject. So, Picard is absolutely right to choose death. He would be dying for the sins of the Federation, as well as these people who “know not what they do”. It’s the only answer to the dilemma - how to command them to be free. The failure in the episode is that Picard doesn’t die. This Christ escapes His crucifixion, and fucks off into the sky, teaching that there is an excuse for suffering: you are part of History, part of Evolution, etc. “You must progress in your own way,” which means “no handouts.” Picard turns into a bad Christ. Now, you’ve of the opinion that Christianity is just too risky; the primitives are just too stupid; they’ll be confused by technology and shoot arrows at you. But again: Liko and Nuria aren’t confused by technology; their assessment of Picard’s abilities is fairly accurate. They’re confused about why Picard isn’t helping them. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Mar 16, 2020 |
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Mar 16, 2020 02:53
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CainFortea posted:Or, he's not a christ figure at all. Ok, again: imagine that you’re watching a very didactic TV show. In this show, we have a bit of dialogue between two characters. They are Barron (an anthropologist) and Picard (a spaceman who’s been mistaken for God). Because the show is very didactic, each character stands for a single specific idea. Picard says he doesn’t want to be God, but Barron says that Picard has to be God because he already is. Because the people believe he is God, Picard is their God, for all intents and purposes. (Even if Picard does nothing, he will be a silent, absent God.) So, the dilemma Picard faces is how to be God and man simultaneously. How can he act as God and give guidance from above, while ensuring that the people are free of his influence? Ultimately, his solution is to sacrifice himself. Only through the death of God can there be existential freedom. (But there’s a mix-up, he doesn’t die, and he instead just teaches the people about obeying The Cosmic Plan.)
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Mar 16, 2020 04:16
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CainFortea posted:No, the only dilemma is that the best way to mitigate the damage already done is to break the prime directive. He very specifically doesn't want to be God and anything simultaneously. His best option is to be invisible to those people, but if that's not an option at least convincing them of the truth. That’s just rephrasing what I already wrote into less specific language. “Convincing them of the truth” is giving them guidance. That’s exactly what Barron wanted: Barron: Without guidance, that religion could degenerate into inquisitions, holy wars, chaos. Picard disagrees with Barron. Picard absolutely does not want to give them guidance: Picard: You are asking me ... to send them back into the Dark Ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? No!!! This “no!!!” is why Picard tries some alternatives, but is ultimately left with no choice but to sacrifice himself. Death is the only way to free the people of his influence. That’s Picard’s ‘character arc’ and the central real-world idea (Christianity) being explored through the conceit of space travel. It’s akin to the blatant allegory of The Day The Earth Stood Still. Now, we can criticize how the episode deals with this real-world topic: The ending is a cop-out, because Picard survives and ends up indulging in well-intentioned interference, yet nobody cares. Teaching a Bronze Age society a linear theory of history is the action of a benevolent God. Picard is acting like an Ancient Alien, exactly as Barron wanted, yet there are inexplicably no consequences. Additionally: once Nuria finds out that the spacemen can die, she suddenly loses interest in all the other technology. This is a contrivance to avoid the full implications of the story: Picard (maybe) can’t raise the dead, but he absolutely does have the technology to prevent future catastrophic flooding. That’s not an unreasonable demand. Plus, the Mintakans are now freed of their religion, good friends with Picard, and de facto Federation citizens, why is there still a need to remain separate? In the span of like one day, the Prime Directive is reduced to a pointless formality. If the episode followed through with its implications, then we would have Picard dead and/or the Prime Directive directly challenged by a high-ranking Starfleet officer. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Mar 16, 2020 |
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Mar 16, 2020 18:02
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CainFortea posted:He didn't die. And these people were as free from his influence as is possible. False. Picard teaches Nuria to strive to achieve space travel: Nuria: You have taught us there is nothing beyond our reach. Picard teaches her a ridiculous amount of stuff about Federation society. That’s a huge amount of interference, yet you are okay with it because it’s well-intentioned: CainFortea posted:the best way to mitigate the damage already done is to break the prime directive. Your stance is that, once the Prime Directive is broken, the person who broke it is free to indulge in as much well-intentioned interference as they want in order to “fix” the society in question. So, you’ve unwittingly conceded that the Prime Directive is so easily circumvented as to be a near-worthless formality. A Federation starship captain can fly down and teach Federation values to a primitive civilization with absolutely no consequences. He can help the society, and there is no inevitable disaster after all. I agree with that, but let’s take it a step further: just give them votes.
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Mar 16, 2020 18:42
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CainFortea posted:My stance is that Picard picked the least worst option that impacted the fewest number of people. Leaving aside that this is obviously not the least-worst option, you are asserting that the Mintakans are still suffering negative 'impact'* at the end of the episode, after Picard leaves. If so: -What are those negative impacts? -Why didn't Picard stick around and continue to "repair the damage"? If there is no major negative impact, and solutions can be found, then there's ultimately no reason for the Prime Directive. *One of the big issues that affects people's judgement is that the actions are framed as "interference", "impact", damage", and so-on. It shows the pervasiveness of Federation ideology and belief in The Cosmic Plan.
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Mar 16, 2020 20:41
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I wonder how much it’s hosed up the Mintakans to know that they are subjects of anthropological study. They now know for a fact that - at any given moment - invisible men could be watching them piss, shower, etc. And there’s nothing they can do to stop it because, y’know, they’re noncitizens. They have no right to privacy or whatever. But I’m sure living in a panopticon will have no psychological effects lol. Hodgepodge posted:e: it should be noted that God (beings which could destroy the ship and crew on a whim) appearing to test the Enterprise crew is a surprisingly regular occurrence in TNG. This most explicitly takes the form of Q, who mainly trolls the crew and sends the Borg against the Federation as a test of worth. Fans often claim that there is no coherent logic to Star Trek because it’s episodic and written by different people, but the only remotely interesting thing about the series is in how specific concepts and images continually recur. In this case, themes and imagery from “Who Watches The Watchers” are brought back in the movie First Contact - which is a time travel narrative, where the characters fight to ‘preserve the timeline’ and ensure that history never changes. Suddenly a belief in The Cosmic Plan, and a supreme law against changing anything, makes a lot more sense. In other words, the Prime Directive was evidently not inspired by the historical plight of native peoples or whatever, but by Federation experiments in time-travel - and a consequent belief in a singular ‘safe’ timeline from which we must never deviate. Hence, The Cosmic Plan. Picard: The Second World War, although disastrous, did end with the United States taking its place as a dominant world power and cultural influence in the second half of the twentieth century. Additionally, that war was a catalyst of technological advancement. Developments in rocketry and fission resonate on into the twenty fourth century.
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Mar 17, 2020 02:35
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CainFortea posted:Except they were shown the duck blind, which was in a cliff face and not in a urinal. I guess we can add ‘panopticon’ to the list of concepts you’re having trouble with. Once you’ve introduced this “duck blind” concept to people, they’ll be imagining it everywhere - and regulating their behaviours accordingly. Finger Prince posted:Ultimately what the prime directive is about is self preservation. Preserve the timeline that created us. Don't uplift aliens because they might change things (whether for better or worse), and change is to be feared and discouraged at a fundamental level. It's an extremely conservative stance for a seemingly "progressive" society. It's no wonder that by DS9 the Federation had outright regressed into xenophobia and protectionism. Right; Picard’s stance that World War II was worth it to boost the American aerospace industry is of course directly linked to his weird refusal to ever stop a pre-warp Holocaust. But this isn’t just about preserving the past; this belief in The Cosmic Plan extends into the far future as well. The chain of associations links that fear of change all the way to the enslavement of the exocomps. It’s all remarkably consistent: “Latent Image” as a remake/sequel of “Measure Of A Man” deals with the same mind-violation inflicted on the ‘pre-warp’ girl in “Pen Pals.” Holographic people are then shown to have replaced exocomps as slave labour in the mining facilities. It’s all part of the Plan.
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Mar 17, 2020 06:50
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CainFortea posted:Also the fact that they watched the starfleet people remove the duckblind saying "we're not going to do this anymore". Nobody in the episode says the spying will stop. Picard even asks Laforge to put the hologram back up. So that's the opposite of a fact. You invented the quote, not even paraphrasing any dialogue.
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Mar 17, 2020 18:28
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CainFortea posted:Because that's what happens in the show? Like, I get that you want it to not be that way, but it is that way. The Mintakans are not informed that the observation will cease. You’re imagining that it occurred offscreen. Why would the anthropologists cease their research?
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Mar 17, 2020 19:49
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CainFortea posted:There is nothing in that episode that suggests they aren't telling the truth. Post the line of dialogue where they “tell the truth” about ceasing all observation.
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Mar 17, 2020 21:16
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