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I Can’t Stand Gene Roddenberry
The Freehold ^ | August 19, 2012 | Jonathan David Baird

Posted on 08/19/2012 3:56:19 PM PDT by EveningStar

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To: Rebelbase
Anyone who hates the Orion Slave Girl is a homo.

Or her sister...


41 posted on 08/19/2012 4:41:41 PM PDT by Tonytitan
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To: EveningStar

Hates his guts? Really? Not, oh, a strong dislike? Maybe, not a big fan? I mean, it sounds a little silly to hate someone’s guts because they created a tv show, that apparently, the author only has a passing familiarity with.

Now hating the guts of George Lucas for the “Phantom Menace”, that’s not silly at all.


42 posted on 08/19/2012 4:42:50 PM PDT by turn_to
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To: EveningStar
Coincidentally, we mark the passing of William Windom, who portrayed Commodore Decker in one of the most notable TOS episodes.
43 posted on 08/19/2012 4:43:43 PM PDT by mikrofon (BHO: "Live long & p***-poor!")
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To: EveningStar

Original Star Trek series had its good moments...Check out “The Omega Glory” from 1968...

But Next Gen was a disappointment...

For any science fiction fan looking for a change from such socialistic fare...

Give Heinlein a try...

Breath of fresh air!


44 posted on 08/19/2012 4:44:24 PM PDT by elteemike (Light travels faster than sound...That's why so many people appear bright until you hear them speak!)
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To: RedMonqey

Well that’s the QUESTION of the replicators. But there’s a lot of good and bad implications to replicators that people ignore. The obvious one is that in a replicator society needs are solved, people get to eat and be entertained and get clothes and all those other basic needs that fit in a microwave for free. The big BAD implication is that about 60% of the world is now out of work, the entire subsistence providing retail supply chain just died.

You combine providing for all of society’s basic needs with 60% unemployment you get a world where not can communism work, you HAVE to have it. You basically wind up in Judge Dredd world. Which goes a long way to explain why so many people are willing to colonize random planets, and also why so much of the population is attached to the military in some way.


45 posted on 08/19/2012 4:44:48 PM PDT by discostu (Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.)
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To: Wuli
“Plato’s Republic was never put into practice anywhere.”

You could argue that Marx and Engle never put their theory into practice either.

Uncle Joe did and we see how that worked.

My point is, communism has been tried, both in theory and in practice and it has never worked unless you fudge the numbers, or as another posted said, ignore the laws of physics.

46 posted on 08/19/2012 4:47:31 PM PDT by occamrzr06
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To: Bryanw92

You beat me to it. Star Trek NG had two things; dilithium crystals (almost limitless energy) and replicators. But people still bought things. Remember when Dr. Crusher wanted to buy fabric? (Far Point?) Also holodecks could supply any experience one could want and it was only a matter of “first come, first serve.” It’s impossible to say what effect these technologies would have on a society.


47 posted on 08/19/2012 4:49:15 PM PDT by Excellence (9/11 was an act of faith.)
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To: EveningStar
Coming on the heels of William Windom's death (Commodore Matt Decker), this seems overly harsh. Yes, Gene held a utopian view, but he also introduced many of us to alternate ways of of viewing reality through his exploration of Science Fiction concepts. Some of the great writers of Sci-Fi contributed to his stories. To wit, The City on the Edge of Forever by Harlan Ellison, and Let That Be Your Last Battlefield by Gene L. Coon. Given the fact that these stories were from the 60's, they were remarkable in their prescience. I hold them dear as an alternate way to view life, albeit not necessarily a better one.
48 posted on 08/19/2012 4:50:19 PM PDT by jtonn
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To: Lazamataz
how you dampen 'inertia'!

Very gently, and spinning in the opposite direction while moving laterally using the 'left thumb' rule. ;^)

49 posted on 08/19/2012 4:52:05 PM PDT by Cvengr (Adversity in life and death is inevitable. Thru faith in Christ, stress is optional.)
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To: occamrzr06

“Not really, but take a college course at a liberal college and that is what they spew.”

actually no - the published written theoretical principals of communisim/socialism, according to most Liberal poli sci professors today, began in Germany about the same time as Marx was writing Das Capital but before that work was published;

some regard the early German writing as closer to todays “democratic socialism” - the kind of socialism much of western Eureope sees itself as practicing, than to the “communism” spawned by Marx as taught by Lenin.

To us that distinction makes no difference.

“Demcratic” or not, both forms ascribe to the idea of state ownership, or complete controlf (or a combination of the two) of the “means of production” and “social equality” in the distribution of the proceeds therefrom.


50 posted on 08/19/2012 4:53:13 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: discostu
The big BAD implication is that about 60% of the world is now out of work, the entire subsistence providing retail supply chain just died.


The real "BIG BAD" about replicators(well, other than being a liberals fantasy)is the same effect WELFARE has on people today. Makes them lazy,dependant and gives them too much time to do harmful activity.

Replicators= Big Government
51 posted on 08/19/2012 4:53:50 PM PDT by RedMonqey (Men who will not suffer to self govern, will suffer under the governance of lesser men.)
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To: Bryanw92

Point taken. I’m one of those boring reality types. One of my freinds was a real fanatic and had the owners manual (”drive under warp 2 for the first light year”) and all that stuff.


52 posted on 08/19/2012 4:55:31 PM PDT by CrazyIvan (Obama's birth certificate was found stapled to Soros's receipt.)
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To: RedMonqey

It doesn’t make them dependent, it makes them unnecessary, which is probably worse. We put a lot of manpower into feeding and clothing ourselves, when a little box makes that all possible you don’t need them anymore. So you send them to another planet.


53 posted on 08/19/2012 4:56:54 PM PDT by discostu (Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.)
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To: Bryanw92
There was absolutely no ‘equality’ on the Enterprise. It was incredibly hierarchical, and I'm sure Captains Kirk, Picard, and Janeway all had nicer quarters and many more perks than the rest of the crew. When they had meetings that decided whether or not they were going to put the lives of the entire crew at risk, it wasn't a ‘decision of the people’. It was decided by the captain, maybe with some consideration of the input of the rest of the elites among the crew.

All they did in their society was to eradicate one manner of differentiating oneself (earning money and accumulating wealth), and replace it with another (accumulating position and power). This what happens in absolutely every instance in which the stupidity that is communism/socialism is tried.

54 posted on 08/19/2012 4:56:58 PM PDT by pieceofthepuzzle
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To: Wuli
actually no

Actually yes. I am in an MBA program at a liberal arts college. Top 15 % in the Nation. The Graduate level writing course was Marx, Keynes, Smith (don't know how he got in there) and a bunch of contemporary philosophers who think they are Marx.

Marxism is pushed hard in college.

The sad thing, a guy at work told me there would be a bunch of new Marxists when I finished that class. I told him they were Marxists when they started. Socialism, Communism, Marxism, Fascism, are all the same. Oh they all have there own nuances, but they are the same.

55 posted on 08/19/2012 5:01:00 PM PDT by occamrzr06
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To: discostu
It doesn’t make them dependent, it makes them unnecessary...So you send them to another planet.

That sounds more Ann Randsque than Gene Roddenberry....
56 posted on 08/19/2012 5:01:27 PM PDT by RedMonqey (Men who will not suffer to self govern, will suffer under the governance of lesser men.)
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To: discostu

Many times in science fiction, it has been considered what would happen if there were essentially unlimited resources (fusion energy, direct transformation and manipulation of matter)and general wealth. No one would go hungry, and everyone would have a “baseline” to start with (maybe food, pocket money, a home of some sort, entertainment). So, THEN what do you do with your life? It has been mentioned on Star Trek many times that service was a calling, it was dangerous, and that it was certainly NOT going to make you “safe” or “wealthy”. Look at all the “redshirts” who died in the first series. They could be pretty comfortable at home - so, money won’t necessarily buy you true adventure. Note everyone graduates Starfleet Academy, and this WAS mentioned.

Obviously, we do not live in this kind of world right now, but we could someday. We definitely won’t get there under communism or even socialism.

Gene Roddenberry was a highly imperfect person, but he still had a hopeful and worthwhile vision.


57 posted on 08/19/2012 5:01:38 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: EveningStar

I spotted the collectivist assumptions when the show first came on the air. Adding these to the laughable production values made Star Trek unwatchable.


58 posted on 08/19/2012 5:01:42 PM PDT by Misterioso
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To: Bryanw92

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b56e0u0EgQ
Captain Kirk Preamble


59 posted on 08/19/2012 5:02:32 PM PDT by marsh2
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To: pieceofthepuzzle

“It was decided by the captain, maybe with some consideration of the input of the rest of the elites among the crew.”

Apparently there was some regulation that specified the ensign in the red shirt always had to take the risk. They may not even have had to make a decision....


60 posted on 08/19/2012 5:02:43 PM PDT by GenXteacher (You have chosen dishonor to avoid war; you shall have war also.)
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