Or her sister...
Posted on 08/19/2012 3:56:19 PM PDT by EveningStar
Sorry to all you Star Trek fans out there. I may be the only science fiction fan in the universe that really hates his guts. He stands in the annals of history with Karl Marx as one of the most vile perpetrators of socialism and communism this planet has ever known. I call him the used philosophy salesman…. and he was good at that job, one of the best.
Today is the anniversary of his birth and I have been constantly reminded of this all morning. Tributes everywhere I look to the man who turned the brains of a generation of science fiction fans to utter mush. If only he had passed on ten years earlier. We would never have had to put up with the inane techno-babble ramblings and neo-communist preaching of the Next Generation.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefreehold.us ...
Or her sister...
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Very gently, and spinning in the opposite direction while moving laterally using the 'left thumb' rule. ;^)
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I spotted the collectivist assumptions when the show first came on the air. Adding these to the laughable production values made Star Trek unwatchable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b56e0u0EgQ
Captain Kirk Preamble
“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....
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