|
Always possible his parents were on a research mission somewhere with poorer medical facilities or taking a sabbatical in one of those charming low tech planets we saw every couple of weeks.Drone posted:Does anyone have that gif from TNG of Reg Barclay walking onto the bridge wearing a pink uniform and talking about Troi stuffing her bra? I know this is a totally random request but Google is popping up with absolutely nothing.  From Google.
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2013 21:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 14:16 |
|
|
The greatest few bars in the concerto that was Aatrek's lonely sad excuse for a life was when he remade that GIF in HD.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2013 21:14
|
|
|
Wowbagger2004 posted:This is a fascinating topic and I recommend the brilliant novel Flowers for Algernon to anyone who's interested in this sort of question. It's labelled science fiction, but it's the most terrifying horror story I've ever read.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2013 21:32
|
|
|
rypakal posted:It's labelled science fiction, but it's the most terrifying horror story I've ever read. Flowers for Algernon kept me off drugs and alcohol for like seven or eight years after I read it, because I was scared of 'destroying my brain' and winding up like the main character. (To be fair I did read it in early middle school)
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2013 21:49
|
|
|
Flowers for Andoria isn't scary at all, I don't know what the hell is wrong with you people
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2013 21:51
|
|
|
Blade_of_tyshalle posted:Flowers for Andoria isn't scary at all, I don't know what the hell is wrong with you people A new short story in an upcoming Star Trek Anthology. "Flowers for Andoria" features Shran's daughter befriending a small Andorian pika while undergoing medical studies related to her half Andorian/half Aenar biology.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2013 22:13
|
|
|
Gau posted:The greatest few bars in the concerto that was Aatrek's lonely sad excuse for a life was when he remade that GIF in HD. Did he do a really slow, boring frame-by-frame comparison video and then post it to TrekCore with creepy TNG sonic wallpaper in the background?
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2013 23:33
|
|
|
Drone posted:Did he do a really slow, boring frame-by-frame comparison video and then post it to TrekCore with creepy TNG sonic wallpaper in the background? No one said a peep about all this at the time, indedd it was all 'Wow the colours!' like a blind engineer watching a sunrise. I never bothered looking at them, I admit, because picking apart colour saturation or noticing how many windows were lit on the Ent-D. Was everyone so cowed by his power? has never made me moist
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 00:24
|
|
|
Trickjaw posted:No one said a peep about all this at the time, indedd it was all 'Wow the colours!' like a blind engineer watching a sunrise. I never bothered looking at them, I admit, because picking apart colour saturation or noticing how many windows were lit on the Ent-D. Was everyone so cowed by his power? has never made me moist It was actually neat when the first season was released, but after that, I stopped clicking. Diminishing returns and all that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 00:38
|
|
|
DrSunshine posted:It'd be cool to meet a species that was basically the Borg, but biological instead of technological, doing everything with genetic engineering rather than cybernetic implants. That would make for a pretty neat episode! Species 8472 was the stupidest thing. Like they have this creature adapted for life in fluidic space, right? But now they are in our space, and then they have one walking around the hull of voyager. How does that make any drat sense? If it was adapted to live in a fluid environment, how the motherfuck would it be impervious to the vaccum of space? HOW HOW drat YOU Farmer Crack-rear end posted:The Borg represent the danger of pure pragmatism without values. Everything they do is (supposed to be) governed by "what is most efficient". Why eat when you can just jam nutrients straight into your bloodstream? Why use clumsy fingers to operate precision tools when you can just make the tools part of your body? Why refine metal when you can just take someone else's? Why speak when you can just think at someone else? Why bother with clumsy democratic voting processes when you can just subsume your identity in a monolithic hivemind? Well they missed the mark then. There's nothing pragmatic about wasting a ton of resources to cover half the galaxy to forcibly integrate new biomatter into your collective by force. They have baby tanks, they have cray cray reactors and pretty much unlimited energy, there's no reason for the aggression as they are already set. Even if the use of force was somehow more practical, you know what isnt? Flying across the galaxy then traveling back in time to a very specific event to prevent a single species from developing warp technology. If you have time travel then a single Borg ship can become limitless ships by having multiple iterations of the same ship jump to the same point in time, then using just that one ship that you turned into an Armada blow the gently caress past star-fleet and assimilate your little heart out. Also, why the gently caress do they show the interior of the cube when they hail? Like.. dude, just turn off the video conference, there's no reason for that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 00:47
|
|
|
Fluidic Space is probably the dumbest thing Voyager invented, right up there with Threshold. Even a single square light year of pure liquid would be enough to break physics. Speaking of everyone's favorite Voyager episode, while looking up fluidic space, I saw this. Oh Memory Alpha  
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 01:19
|
|
|
Spaceman Future! posted:there's no reason for the aggression as they are already set. But the Borg hive mind doesn't innovate, it can only assimilate and adapt. They actively go out looking for trouble so they can become stronger from experience and from acquiring new ideas and technology. Bicyclops posted:Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World, space edition. This is basically what TNG would be with unlimited genetic engineering, and I would love to see a sci-fi story about a space-faring Huxley society. Also on the genetic engineering subject, in one of the augment episodes I'm pretty sure Bashir says there are exceptions for serious conditions like Downs and the like.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 01:38
|
|
|
Spaceman Future! posted:Well they missed the mark then. There's nothing pragmatic about wasting a ton of resources to cover half the galaxy to forcibly integrate new biomatter into your collective by force. They have baby tanks, they have cray cray reactors and pretty much unlimited energy, there's no reason for the aggression as they are already set. I guess I figure it's like the Dominion- kill/assimilate others and they will no longer be a threat to your survival.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 01:46
|
|
|
The fact that they specifically call out the Kazon as not worthy of assimilation implies that every other race (except the Kazon) has something useful to offer. Some bit of unique technology that makes them just a bit more efficient, a little closer to whatever the concept of borg perfection is. I guess it was never specifically mentioned, but I always assumed it was the borg intention to expand indefinitely. What else would they do? Be as efficient as possible while living peacefully in the delta quadrant? Also, gently caress the Kazon. This is important.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 02:09
|
|
|
counterfeitsaint posted:Also, gently caress the Kazon. This is important. This has nothing to do with anything else you posted, but I find it loving aggravating that the Kazon hate Voyager is because Janeway was too high and mighty to share replicator technology. They wanted some water, that's it. The Prime Directive is loving retarded sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 02:14
|
|
|
Spaceman Future! posted:Well they missed the mark then. There's nothing pragmatic about wasting a ton of resources to cover half the galaxy to forcibly integrate new biomatter into your collective by force. They have baby tanks, they have cray cray reactors and pretty much unlimited energy, there's no reason for the aggression as they are already set. Except the Kazon, gently caress those idiots; they're too stupid to mine a god drat comet.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 02:15
|
|
|
The Borg rejecting the Kazon is even funnier considering how long the Voyager writers refused to let the Kazon go.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 03:11
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Thinking genetic engineering might be really awesome and beneficial doesn't mean you're automatically one step away from Godwin's law. Eugenics is eugenics, regardless of how you get there.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 04:37
|
|
|
LeafyOrb posted:This has nothing to do with anything else you posted, but I find it loving aggravating that the Kazon hate Voyager is because Janeway was too high and mighty to share replicator technology. They wanted some water, that's it. The Prime Directive is loving retarded sometimes. Related news, my wife just saw the end of DS9 for the first time and me for the second, meaning we've both just watched all of The Best Trek Ever, and celebrated by forcing ourselves through an episode of Voyager. Gravity is so loving horrible. Tom Paris spends most of the episode telling Tuvok to just cheat on his wife because hey, she's a long way away, despite Voyager by this point being something like 40 years from Earth and Vulcans generally living to be around 220-250. I forgot how much Voyager makes me mad. I'm still gunna finish it before the end of December, but gently caress.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 05:56
|
|
Spaceman Future! posted:
Exactly! I feel like Star Trek wants to be this cool utopian future but it shies away from anything that would keep people from being boring baseline people. If Dr Bashir's augments were cheap enough for a down on his luck con artist type to do and quick enough that 2 weeks gave Bashir improved mental abilities and reflexes, why not apply them to EVERYONE? Or at least to people in the Federation? Of all the sci-fi futures, Trek's seems very conservative. Not in the political sense, like a Robert Heinlien Libertarian Utopia or the standard Republican Space Rangers military sci-fi but in the sense that it doesn't even nod in the direction of transhuman or posthumanism. Hell in the episode after the Bashir one, Odo questioned why anyone would have a brain-computer interface implant. Why the hell wouldn't you?
|
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 06:03
|
|
|
Count Chocula posted:Exactly! I feel like Star Trek wants to be this cool utopian future but it shies away from anything that would keep people from being boring baseline people. If Dr Bashir's augments were cheap enough for a down on his luck con artist type to do and quick enough that 2 weeks gave Bashir improved mental abilities and reflexes, why not apply them to EVERYONE? Or at least to people in the Federation? Of all the sci-fi futures, Trek's seems very conservative. Not in the political sense, like a Robert Heinlien Libertarian Utopia or the standard Republican Space Rangers military sci-fi but in the sense that it doesn't even nod in the direction of transhuman or posthumanism. Hell in the episode after the Bashir one, Odo questioned why anyone would have a brain-computer interface implant. Why the hell wouldn't you?
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 06:54
|
|
|
Count Chocula posted:Exactly! I feel like Star Trek wants to be this cool utopian future but it shies away from anything that would keep people from being boring baseline people. If Dr Bashir's augments were cheap enough for a down on his luck con artist type to do and quick enough that 2 weeks gave Bashir improved mental abilities and reflexes, why not apply them to EVERYONE? Or at least to people in the Federation? Of all the sci-fi futures, Trek's seems very conservative. Not in the political sense, like a Robert Heinlien Libertarian Utopia or the standard Republican Space Rangers military sci-fi but in the sense that it doesn't even nod in the direction of transhuman or posthumanism. Hell in the episode after the Bashir one, Odo questioned why anyone would have a brain-computer interface implant. Why the hell wouldn't you? More seriously, I totally agree with your point. I've called Trek "the last Golden Age sf series" before, and while I was exaggerating, it's not that far from the truth. Even the newer incarnations hew pretty closely to a '50s-'60s era idea of space opera, and the franchise has always been pretty uncomfortable with the the post-1980 developments of literary sf, unlike New Space Opera, which can been seen as a response to the new directions offered by cyberpunk. [For a fun compare-and-contrast between these two eras, watch Alien (1979) and Prometheus (2012)]. Truth be told, I always liked that Trek was a bit old-fashioned. Helps remind us of where we came from, ya know?
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 06:57
|
|
|
I'm not just talking about the genetic engineering. There's a Fallout: New Vegas add-on, Dead Money, where the villain talks about how he can use replicator technology and hard-light holograms to utterly transform the world - creating matter out of virtually nothing and having his own army made out of light. TNG and Voyager takes that tech and uses it to make tea, bad LARPs, and bitchy doctors. I like old-fashioned sci-fi, but TNG isn't old-fashioned in a fun way. TOS is - shiny spaceships and crazy concepts abounded. But oddly enough as the series went forward in time, it went backwards. 60s sci-fi writers, from Heinlein to the New Wave guys to Harlan Ellison, did or probably considered it hopelessly square compared to pretty much anything going on in literature at the time. Hell I watched a random Doctor Who episode from the 60s or 70s and that had a Matrix-style virtual world. It really feels like the possibilities that Trek expressed compressed after TOS. I'm enjoying DS9 as a drama, though, and I grew up on Voyager. That was horrible. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Nov 9, 2013 |
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 06:57
|
|
|
The crux of the genetic engineering argument revolves around the idea of making humans superior. The question is: superior to whom?
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 07:02
|
|
|
Mr. Jive posted:The crux of the genetic engineering argument revolves around the idea of making humans superior. I don't know if that's true. If I get a dangerous genetic heart defect excised in the womb, I'm not really being made superior so much as having a later in life obstacle removed.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 07:03
|
|
|
Jonas Albrecht posted:I don't know if that's true. If I get a dangerous genetic heart defect excised in the womb, I'm not really being made superior so much as having a later in life obstacle removed. Does having lesser or equal intelligence, slower reflexes, or inferior tactical insight than your peers/enemies count as a later in life obstacle? That's the problem the Federation faces. edit: I guess the real argument concerns genetic augmentation specifically.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 07:06
|
|
|
Mr. Jive posted:Does having lesser or equal intelligence, slower reflexes, or inferior tactical insight than your peers/enemies count as a later in life obstacle? That's the problem the Federation faces. Those examples do illustrate the delicate balance stuff like this requires. Do I have slower reflexes because I just do, or is some kind of neurological disease I was born with responsible. In the case of the latter, I think a society with sufficient capabilities has a duty to engineer that poo poo out of me. Of course, this leads to the question "if for one, why not the other?". Unfortunately, I'm not really smart enough to answer that question. However, if a society is going to embrace genetic engineering, it should establish a baseline standard of how it thinks people should develop, work to ensure everyone reaches that baseline, and accept and accommodate those who end up falling below said baseline.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 07:17
|
|
|
Count Chocula posted:Exactly! I feel like Star Trek wants to be this cool utopian future but it shies away from anything that would keep people from being boring baseline people. If Dr Bashir's augments were cheap enough for a down on his luck con artist type to do and quick enough that 2 weeks gave Bashir improved mental abilities and reflexes, why not apply them to EVERYONE? Or at least to people in the Federation? Of all the sci-fi futures, Trek's seems very conservative. Not in the political sense, like a Robert Heinlien Libertarian Utopia or the standard Republican Space Rangers military sci-fi but in the sense that it doesn't even nod in the direction of transhuman or posthumanism. Hell in the episode after the Bashir one, Odo questioned why anyone would have a brain-computer interface implant. Why the hell wouldn't you? Turning everyone in the future into genetically engineered superhumans is so far from what Star Trek is about that you might as well be watching a different series at that point. I don't have a real opinion on transhumanism but if you don't understand why Star Trek as a TV series doesn't embrace it, there's a good chance you don't really understand what the franchise is about at all.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 07:19
|
|
|
One thing I always wished they had in Star Trek was the equivalent of Farscape's Pilot species. With all the engineers running around, you'd think there would be academy graduates chomping at the bit to become genetically intertwined with a starship.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 07:29
|
|
|
Mr. Jive posted:The crux of the genetic engineering argument revolves around the idea of making humans superior. Its not a matter of superiority. I mean, theres really only 2 tracks humanity can take, one where we continually and consistently advance our technology, eventually spread out through the solar system and cement our long term existence. The other we stall, regress, or straight up die off in which we wont have to concern ourselves with it. If we continue to advance we are eventually going to hit some pretty hard barriers especially when it comes to interfacing with the technology we create. I mean, this happens even now, a good majority of the functions on our rockets and orbital vehicles are self correcting, we control the broad strokes but all the precision work is done by computer. The more advanced the calculations the more you have to rely on automated systems to do the work for you and that is an issue that will only exacerbate over time. So you start to run into issues of complexity, the more complex your automated systems need to be the more complex the maintenance and troubleshooting on those systems will be, eventually to the point where we need to hand maintenance and even design over to automated systems in order to keep them running. Now, the idea of having computers that repair other computers while we sit back and watch seems ok on the surface but there is an existential threat that underlies that. Once the technology is self serving and becomes complex beyond our ability to interact with we are no longer "in the loop" as far as development and control, and the majority of our knowledge as a species has come from developing technologies rather than using them. When you take that away things may get more convenient for us, bur our cultural and knowledge advancement completely stalls as we are then no longer the ones learning, we are just being served new technologies that we don't fully understand or control. If that happens you have stalled humanity and that's the end of our progress as a species, the toys will get cooler but our enrichment from making them dies off. The only way to circumvent that is to prevent the technology itself from leaving you behind, which means significantly enhancing interface efficiency (mind machine links, etc) and increasing our ability to actively monitor and control those systems (logical function enhancements to the brain, off board computational assistance piped into the brain, whatever). Its not a matter of superiority, its a matter of eventual baseline requirements to keep us proficient in our own developments. It seems creepy but that's only because we are thinking of it in terms of technology as we see it now, having a chip inserted into your brain surgically, having weird mechanical crap strapped to your body, etc. I doubt people will *ever* be truly comfortable with that which is why I think its most likely that these systems would either have to happen genetically where the changes are not visible, or with devices that can interact directly with our neural system without making even a single incision, both of which we already have in development in one form or another and don't strike me as being too outlandish. Spaceman Future! fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Nov 9, 2013 |
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 07:36
|
|
|
Hilarious that it's fine for Jake to date a woman of an entirely different SPECIES, but she drat well better be the black version of that species. I feel like this happened with Captain Sisko too. That is, like, the most 90s thing in this show.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 07:45
|
|
|
showbiz_liz posted:Hilarious that it's fine for Jake to date a woman of an entirely different SPECIES, but she drat well better be the black version of that species. I feel like this happened with Captain Sisko too. That is, like, the most 90s thing in this show. I think that was more of a Avery Brooks decision.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 07:47
|
|
|
Mr. Jive posted:One thing I always wished they had in Star Trek was the equivalent of Farscape's Pilot species. With all the engineers running around, you'd think there would be academy graduates chomping at the bit to become genetically intertwined with a starship.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 08:13
|
|
|
Sash! posted:Eugenics is eugenics, regardless of how you get there. Uh, no not really, "how you get there" is pretty loving important actually. Eugenics is all about "we're going to improve humanity via genetics! How? By selectively breeding people as well as disallowing "undesirable" stocks to breed. You can't just say "all genetic engineering is eugenics" because it's fallacious as hell to ignore that very important aspect of what eugenics has long been about...being racist as hell under the guise of "social philosophy." You can promote widespread genetic engineering without thinking that "those poor/unfortunate/dirty [WHATEVERS] should be neutered...for the good of the species you understand, totally not racist." That's not to say that even non-eugenic genetic engineering couldn't be misused or abused and hey, they made a whole movie about that and it was pretty good. But the Federation isn't really Gattica and the only reason that genetic engineering seems to be taboo there is because the writers decided to assert that genetic engineering turns you into a crazy despot in 99% of cases or something so
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 08:46
|
|
|
For the daily bij report, I spent three whole American dollars to rent Nemesis so I could watch it at work.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 09:30
|
|
|
There's bij and there's just being dumb. You could have bought three candy bars with that. Or 3/4ths of a gallon of gas. Or anything else, really.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 09:38
|
|
|
Jonas Albrecht posted:For the daily bij report, I spent three whole American dollars to rent Nemesis so I could watch it at work. Do you get it back for making it to the end or what?
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 09:41
|
|
|
Spaceman Future! posted:Do you get it back for making it to the end or what? No, I just realized I remembered literally nothing from the movie except Shinzon, and got stupidly curious. It was almost worth the money to learn that his origin story is almost note for note the same as Talia Al Ghul's in The Dark Knight Rises (it was not almost worth it).
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 09:43
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Uh, no not really, "how you get there" is pretty loving important actually. Eugenics is all about "we're going to improve humanity via genetics! How? By selectively breeding people as well as disallowing "undesirable" stocks to breed. You can't just say "all genetic engineering is eugenics" because it's fallacious as hell to ignore that very important aspect of what eugenics has long been about...being racist as hell under the guise of "social philosophy." Anyway, taking that idea further, if you're now declaring that you're a huge fan of genetically modifying yourself to remove negative traits, and consider this to be an unalloyed good, other species may be concerned about entering into an intimate political, social and economic union with you. Some might be like 'cool, super powers', and others might be more like 'oh, so you're going to make our children and grandchildren incapable of faith in the Prophets?' To get more philosophical about it, another possible reason is that - alright; the argument here is that genetically engineering people to be "better" in various ways is good. This can be granted for disease resistance and general health. However, the talk of engineering to be smarter so we can keep being smarter and - why? What does this accomplish in a post-scarcity society? Why do you need to make your children into ever-more efficient engines of producing mental friedman units when there is plenty and for all? Are you preparing for some existential war? Are you planning to develop these hyper-advanced technologies to-- do what, exactly? Force your way of life onto others? Create Dyson spheres (probably within the Federation's power but limited by the time frames)? This perspective may be transhumanist but it doesn't seem trans-capitalist, and the Federation evidently is.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 10:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 14:16 |
|
|
Azurrat posted:Jokes aside, that's basically a genetically-backed caste system. What happens the first time Khan: Account Manager #764 decides he wants to be a surgeon instead? Are people firmly restricted to their pre-selected roles, or are they allowed to choose? If they can choose, what do you do when they choose something they're not "built" for? If there's no room for movement, how do you keep them from deciding to change roles? And what happens when something disrupts the delicate balance of this... Masterpiece Society
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2013 10:20
|
|
