I used to be one of those "right wingers" you speak of with such spite. Star Trek (tv shows) were instrumental in changing my opinion. I'm don't associate with the left or right wing, I guess you could say I'm an american idealist that believes in freedom and people's right to do what they want, without the government getting involved.
To some extent I agree with you, radical conservatives are insane, but I see where they're coming from. I used to be one after all.
Actually I used to be a right winger myself once upon a time. It was the Reagan administration that turned me into a liberal. I saw too many people lose everything (two friends committed suicide) after Reagan decided to leave people to their own devices after a major recession. The term "the Rust Belt" was coined in those days and led to 25% unemployment in the Midwest and a tripling of homeless people in the US. The right wing cared nothing for their plight; they only wanted to tame inflation even if it destroyed families along the way. The uncaring for the poor seems to be a staple attribute of the right wing. It's a level of selfishness that used to be unseemly but now Gordon Gecko's "Greed is Good" line seems to be adopted by the right. Just watch the business channels. In the face of all this suffering, much of which has lasted to this day, I did what a moral and caring man would do; I changed my views.
I speak with such spite because of the years in the trenches I spent with folks like the OP. I spent years as a political activist and writer, and I eventually got tired of the death threats and other silly stuff people do on the internet when they think there are no consequences even for threats of violence. I quit engaging on political sites and probably should have just chuckled at the OP and moved on, but sometimes I can't help myself.
I used to be Shakkar with thousands of posts. My very identity was stolen from me so now I am originalshakkar, the original.
The most ironic thing of all is that Gene did the WHOLE IP - for personal gain - and women and Booze!! As he was a notorious cheater. Kind of like the lines from First contact - I did it for Booze, money, and women. You can easily replace Cochrane with Rodenberry.
Yea, it's interesting how some people claim Gene was some kind of saint because of the lessons in Trek. However, all Trek was, was another product designed to earn money and put food on the table. And like you said, not to mention all the cheating. He ran around on his wife so much.
I too think the OP is off base with his criticism. It does seem that he never saw the First Contact movie. If you have not seen it, I would recommend it. It is one of the best TNG era films.
However, I did find it odd that the mission did talk about Zephram Cochrane's faults so openly. At one point, Cochrane was derogatorily referred to as an alcoholic. This seemed a little out of place to me for two reasons. As someone else posted, I could easily see the Enterprise's logs for this mission being classified as top secret because of the violations of the Temporal Prime Directive the crew performed. So Zephram Cochrane's true personal info would not be widely known.
Or, if people did know the personal details of Cochrane, it would be over shadowed by his legacy. The have been many great men in history who personally have not been so great. Jefferson owned slaves, Martin Luther King Jr. was a womanizer as was John F. Kennedy. Yet people don't talk about these things on times that we reflect on the great things they did achieve. If I had to be critical of the mission, I would ask the officers on the ships not to speak ill of the dead on a day of remembrance .
"Star Trek Online is powered by the most abundant resource in the galaxy . . . Gullibility"
However, I did find it odd that the mission did talk about Zephram Cochrane's faults so openly. At one point, Cochrane was derogatorily referred to as an alcoholic. This seemed a little out of place to me for two reasons. As someone else posted, I could easily see the Enterprise's logs for this mission being classified as top secret because of the violations of the Temporal Prime Directive the crew performed. So Zephram Cochrane's true personal info would not be widely known.
Yes, but the people who tell you about it are the command crew of the lead vessel of Starfleet. They would most likely all have whatever equivalent for top-secret clearance Starfleet has. As for the Temporal Prime Directive, the Borg broke it first and Enterprise was trying to fix the problem. There's been a strong series of precedents that if somebody else breaks it you're allowed to go in and run damage control. Likely there was a cursory board of inquiry to make sure they were being honest and then they were summarily cleared of any wrongdoing and sent back to active duty.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
get your head out of your TRIBBLE. capitalism and communism is the same thing because the same people are at the top - the royals and the rich.
PS: STAR TREK IS LEFTIST- always has been dude. It's why everything is free in STARTREK. Education, Spacetravel, Medicine, Food, Clothes, Housing- it's a well established theme that all federation worlds and members have 100% liberty to do as they please, and the federation will provide the tools to make it happen- aka, an education, food, clothes, a home.
love- A LEARNED AMERICAN.
Seriously, this typical whiny little right winger ought to go play Call of Duty or something.
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."
Is this the 25 point bonus round where you wrap yourself in a flag and claim to be a patriot while putting words in other peoples mouths to support your viewpoint? Never accused you of anything or called you names. Then again, experience in the past has shown this is how right wing cartelists proceed in any discussion.
And then next is the rapid fire round where you'll take the "victim" route and claim everyone is persecuting you. A lot of us have suffered though right wing cartelists hate and delusional discussions especially since 2000.
So you'll get zero sympathy from me, I've seen too many friends and family screwed over by right wing cartelists grossly out of touch with reality.
I think his point is you're chasing a straw man. You accuse him of being someone he is not, and supporting things he would despise. You deride his responses by saying 'that's just what a right-wing cartelist would say'. You assume his opinions match the most radical right-wingers you can imagine. And you snarkily predict how he's going to respond based on what you think those right-wingers do.
The truth is most conservatives are not the caricature you seem to see. The problems with public discourse in America mean that many people only see the most vocal and quite often ridiculous proponents of the other side. But we've made it such a battle that every discussion becomes 'us vs. them', and so even moderate opponents get cast in a radical light.
Part of the lessons of Trek is that we need to understand our opponents/enemies. If one watches Trek and only comes away thinking it's all about the superiority of leftist thought, a lot is being missed. We need to examine why our opponents believe what they do, and try to find common ground, instead of relegating all those who disagree with us to a radical category in our minds.
How many species in Trek had to put aside their memories of being 'screwed over' in order to achieve a better peace? And how many species actually got 'zero sympathy' from the Enterprise crew?
Take a look at my Foundry missions! Conjoined, Re-emergence, and . . .
Yeah, I've long thought that the show itself would not be a big hit with the right wing, but in terms of the game you're completely right. Considering that the single biggest thing we do in the game is kill lots and lots of people, the economic message can be ignored by those who disagree. I don't like it that we don't get to take prisoners instead of shooting every last enemy in a ground fight. I think Trek should have more missions where you have some option other than kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out. But I still play because I've loved Trek since the original series and this is the only game right now letting you play in that world.
So yeah, even the right wingers can enjoy STO. And maybe if their heads don't explode maybe they'll learn something along the way.
As someone who likely fits into your definition of what you might term a "right-winger" for a number of issues, I will be breaking my policy to avoid saying too much about politics on the forums, because frankly, you asked.
I do not watch any fiction with any sort with any intent to learn from it. If I "learn" from it, so be it, though I consider this very unlikely, since ultimately it is a fictitious story. However, I'm always going to take it with a grain of salt, because so many writers have an axe to grind, and so few fictional situations actually truly reflect reality, no matter how hard they may try to.
Allegory - of ANY sort - almost by definition requires oversimplification. The result is usually a puppet show constructed of straw men. It does not go into the hideous sociopolitical details, numerical pragmatics, or even basic laws of physics involved in any decision in most cases. Even if it does, the basic structure of the storytelling means that it is just that - a story - and attempting to apply conclusions made in the context of a story are often unwise in reality. The devil is always in the details, and what makes things seem plain, obvious and common sense in an allegorical situation can be completely and utterly ruinous when applied to a particular, exceedingly complicated real life situation. I don't care if I agree with "the message" or not - I feel this way about just about any sort of allegory, and consider most of them to be poorly done at best, at least insofar as the philosophical content.
However, it is unwise to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak, and so I try not to. Star Trek, no matter what it was intended for, constructs a rich tapestry of conflict, intrigue and camaraderie between different factions, crews, species and forms of technological advancement. Whether this is by accident or intentional, it results in an inherently good medium for telling interesting stories, and that is exactly what it does, message or no. I do not watch it out of any ideological belief. I never did - I watched it at first because it looked awesome when I was a kid, and it was. I am actually glad for this. I never even noticed there might be political aspects until it was pointed out - and I didn't really care, either. To me, Star Trek was and is not a guide of how to think or act.
I have not learned anything from STO. I have not learned anything from Star Trek, period, other than some storytelling techniques, and have mentally dissociated those pieces I find disagreeable or distasteful. For this I am grateful, because I loathe politics in general, and would rather do something with imaginary spaceships and bald captains than be lectured by proxy. I do not look at fiction as a source of morals or wisdom, and I would say that to do so is with very few exceptions ill-advised, no matter whether you agree with the content conveyed or not.
I am returning to my attempts at silence in politics now. In any case, I hope this has been helpful in understanding why someone like myself might enjoy Star Trek or other media that may espouse philosophies I do not necessarily agree with or subscribe to. However, I will say that I believe that OP needs to get their head examined - unless they're a troll, in which case I must say, "bravo."
Yea, it's interesting how some people claim Gene was some kind of saint because of the lessons in Trek. However, all Trek was, was another product designed to earn money and put food on the table. And like you said, not to mention all the cheating. He ran around on his wife so much.
I believe that Star Trek is the result of what type of man Gene wanted to be, but knew he would never reach that ideal. Whether that is actually true, then only Gene could answer that.
It was just poor script writing by the developers people. They probably thought it was a 'cute' reference to the movie but failed to realize how out of character someone like that would be in the ST universe.
Pretty much the whole Enterprise crew was gaga over Cochrane when they saw him in FC. Laforge especially. They didn't turn hateful and attack him (like a few posters are attacking others they disagree with) for just wanting money and an island of naked women. Cochrane's legacy is that he put his greed aside to unite humanity for the greater good. That one guy that goes off trying to wee all over that would probably be ignored or laughed at as that intolerant, bitter, hateful guy always popping off about something.
The bottom line is that Tem Inasi is entitled to her opinion on Cochrane' s motives. That said, she lives in a different world than you, me, and Cochrane. We don't have magic replicators, a free labor force, and 100% free time to "explore our humanity". We have bills to pay. She was born into all of that luxury and both she and her people have Starfleet and thus Cochrane to thank for it regardless of his motives.
The greatest "personal gain" one can achieve is complete freedom, security, and peace of mind and in our world, that costs money. Let her try living like the humans of post WW IV and see if she doesn't change her mind real quick.
It was just poor script writing by the developers people. They probably thought it was a 'cute' reference to the movie but failed to realize how out of character someone like that would be in the ST universe.
Pretty much the whole Enterprise crew was gaga over Cochrane when they saw him in FC. Laforge especially. They didn't turn hateful and attack him (like we are seeing in this thread) for just wanting money and an island of naked women. Cochrane's legacy is that he put his greed aside to unite humanity for the greater good. That one guy that goes off trying to wee all over that would probably be ignored or laughed at as that intolerant, bitter, hateful guy always popping off about something.
Let's not forget that Cochrance's, erm, 'earthly motives' were, in large, the result of movie makers wanting to contrast a future hero vs. a rather mundane man today. As these scripts are usually written so 12-year-olds won't miss the point, clearly said point lacked any form of subtlety. They pretty much did the same in Amadeus: pervy guy vs. the genius history remembers him for.
Subtract the 'dumb public' factor, and the 'real' Cochrane would likely, while still down-to-earth maybe, come out looking a lot less like a caricature of himself.
I just completed the First Contact mission event. I took the time to visit each of the bridge officers on the Enterprise-F and came across a very disturbing dialog.
While speaking with Lt. Com. Tem Inasi I was informed that Zefram Cochran was one of those evil capitalists types and his endeavor to prove Warp Drive was launched for the wrong reasons. For "personal gain".
This smacks of influence from the ChiCom arraignment and it serves as a leftist propaganda statement for kids playing STO that no self respecting American would condone. It is most definitely not part of the Star Trek story.
I would appreciate a response, especially since I'm a paying customer to one of those evil capitalist endeavors known as Star Trek online. I'm sure Cryptic, CBS, and others involved with this production work for free since "personal gain" is now a taboo.
You won't get any support from the trolls on this forum. Sorry man.
The bottom line is that Tem Inasi is entitled to her opinion on Cochrane' s motives. That said, she lives in a different world than you, me, and Cochrane. We don't have magic replicators, a free labor force, and 100% free time to "explore our humanity". We have bills to pay. She was born into all of that luxury and both she and her people have Starfleet and thus Cochrane to thank for it regardless of his motives.
The greatest "personal gain" one can achieve is complete freedom, security, and peace of mind and in our world, that costs money. Let her try living like the humans of post WW IV and see if she doesn't change her mind real quick.
The problems with public discourse in America mean that many people only see the most vocal and quite often ridiculous proponents of the other side.
Rather inevitable actually, when people like Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, and Michele Bachmann never met a camera or microphone they didn't want to become intimate with to let us all in on their shining wisdom. Add that there are equally attention-TRIBBLE caricatures doing the same thing from "the other side," and you've got a pretty predictable recipe.
But he DID develop warp drive for personal gain. Direct quote from First Contact: "You wanna know what my vision is? Dollar signs, money! I didn't build this ship to usher in a new era for humanity. You think I wanna see the stars? I don't even like to fly! I take trains! I built this ship so I could retire to some tropical island...filled with naked women. THAT'S Zefram Cochrane. THAT'S his vision. This other guy you keep talking about, this historical figure? I never met him. I can't imagine I ever will."
Erm. do you realize that, when he said that, he was drunk and really mad?. After he got into the rocket cabin, he changed his mind asap.. lol. So, we never knew if he wanted to build the ship for that.
There are a lot more pressing issues to be fixed in this game than a simple line of text (which happens to be fitting the Trek lore).
stardestroyer001, Admiral, Explorers Fury PvE/PvP Fleet | Retired PvP Player
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9 My List of Useful Links, Recently Updated November 25 2017!
Erm. do you realize that, when he said that, he was drunk and really mad?. After he got into the rocket cabin, he changed his mind asap.. lol. So, we never knew if he wanted to build the ship for that.
this is irrelevant but, I just wanted to say I can't get my STO to run, because this piece of trash company forced me to play it through this ARC program that I just downloaded, and it stays on initializing for hours now.....no matter how many times I try....ARC IS FAIL. PERFECT WORLD FAIL. IM RE INSTALLING STO ON STEAM. BUNCH OF INDUSTRY HACKS.
this is irrelevant but, I just wanted to say I can't get my STO to run, because this piece of trash company forced me to play it through this ARC program that I just downloaded, and it stays on initializing for hours now.....no matter how many times I try....ARC IS FAIL. PERFECT WORLD FAIL. IM RE INSTALLING STO ON STEAM. BUNCH OF INDUSTRY HACKS.
Dude, there are "Arc sucks" threads all over the forum. I should know, I've posted in most of them.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
this is irrelevant but, I just wanted to say I can't get my STO to run, because this piece of trash company forced me to play it through this ARC program that I just downloaded, and it stays on initializing for hours now.....no matter how many times I try....ARC IS FAIL. PERFECT WORLD FAIL. IM RE INSTALLING STO ON STEAM. BUNCH OF INDUSTRY HACKS.
Ok Question if you find them and the game a bunch of "Hacks" then why bother playing at all lol your logic is flawed and this is a flame post with no depth or merit.
It was just poor script writing by the developers people. They probably thought it was a 'cute' reference to the movie but failed to realize how out of character someone like that would be in the ST universe.
Pretty much the whole Enterprise crew was gaga over Cochrane when they saw him in FC. Laforge especially. They didn't turn hateful and attack him (like we are seeing in this thread) for just wanting money and an island of naked women. Cochrane's legacy is that he put his greed aside to unite humanity for the greater good. That one guy that goes off trying to wee all over that would probably be ignored or laughed at as that intolerant, bitter, hateful guy always popping off about something.
I haven't seen anyone turn hateful and attack Cochrane. Stating the facts need not involve any passions whatsoever, and that's what I've seen: people stating the facts. Cochrane's motives are established in canon. That said, he also grew and evolved (to some extent) beyond what he had been, as you noted.
The bottom line is that Tem Inasi is entitled to her opinion on Cochrane' s motives. That said, she lives in a different world than you, me, and Cochrane. We don't have magic replicators, a free labor force, and 100% free time to "explore our humanity". We have bills to pay. She was born into all of that luxury and both she and her people have Starfleet and thus Cochrane to thank for it regardless of his motives.
The greatest "personal gain" one can achieve is complete freedom, security, and peace of mind and in our world, that costs money. Let her try living like the humans of post WW IV and see if she doesn't change her mind real quick.
Actually, a growing topic in real economics is identifying the point when we can "go Star Trek" and what the consequences will be if we don't. It crops up in Ted Talks a lot.
Guys like Dan Arielly tend to look at, for example, whether Adam Smith's ideas could be right for production but whether Marx becomes right when you have an idea based economy and have automated to a point where human physical labor is obsolete. I don't think anyone would say that we're at that point but we are closer to that point than we were 100 or 200 years ago.
They have a lot of luxuries in Star Trek but when you remove or reduce scaricity past a certain point (you don't ever remove it totally since time or at least unique experiences remain scarce, barring reprogramming people's brains as a sort of "download memories of someone else's vacation" service), economics change. Less relevant scarcity makes management and distribution of surplus the more important economic task than scarcity management, generally.
And trying to artificially maintain scarcity or economic stratification when you have replicators would pretty much be fuel for scary scenarios. If you have near unlimited free stuff and near unlimited energy, you have to abandon the requirement to work to live and motivation to do anything has to become almost purely intrinsic.
It's not really a modern political system although, yeah, it's a hot topic with behavioral economists and folks examining economics past a point when scarcity is relevant on a global scale.
"since I never met an audience I didn't like I'll plow ahead anyway even though I opened with admitting I'm blowing air out the wrong end to call it talking." :rolleyes:
Oh man, you really need to watch First Contact. Zefram outright said he was a greedy, drunk arsehole. It's kind of the who point of the film. Don't ever meet your heroes, they'll only disappoint you.
Unless your heroes are either George Takai or Patrick Stewart. They're both pretty damn awesome people.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP"
Unless your heroes are either George Takai or Patrick Stewart. They're both pretty damn awesome people.
Which reminds me of a scene from American Dad.
Bullock: This control room is able to calibrate force fields so strong that the holographic images projected onto them feel real to the touch.
Richard: Oh, so it works like the holodeck?
Bullock: The what now?
Stan: From Star Trek.
Bullock: Some of us spent the late 80s and early 90s getting laid, Smith.
Bullock is played by Patrick Stewart and looks exactly like him. Had to rename the Richard character since the abbreviated form is censored.
I just completed the First Contact mission event. I took the time to visit each of the bridge officers on the Enterprise-F and came across a very disturbing dialog.
While speaking with Lt. Com. Tem Inasi I was informed that Zefram Cochran was one of those evil capitalists types and his endeavor to prove Warp Drive was launched for the wrong reasons. For "personal gain".
This smacks of influence from the ChiCom arraignment and it serves as a leftist propaganda statement for kids playing STO that no self respecting American would condone. It is most definitely not part of the Star Trek story.
I would appreciate a response, especially since I'm a paying customer to one of those evil capitalist endeavors known as Star Trek online. I'm sure Cryptic, CBS, and others involved with this production work for free since "personal gain" is now a taboo.
You do know that's EXACTLY why Zefram Cochrane started it, right? It wasn't until the movie 'First Contact' where the Enterprise and gang come from the future that he learns it's something bigger and better than just an attempt for a giant moneybag.
Comments
Actually I used to be a right winger myself once upon a time. It was the Reagan administration that turned me into a liberal. I saw too many people lose everything (two friends committed suicide) after Reagan decided to leave people to their own devices after a major recession. The term "the Rust Belt" was coined in those days and led to 25% unemployment in the Midwest and a tripling of homeless people in the US. The right wing cared nothing for their plight; they only wanted to tame inflation even if it destroyed families along the way. The uncaring for the poor seems to be a staple attribute of the right wing. It's a level of selfishness that used to be unseemly but now Gordon Gecko's "Greed is Good" line seems to be adopted by the right. Just watch the business channels. In the face of all this suffering, much of which has lasted to this day, I did what a moral and caring man would do; I changed my views.
I speak with such spite because of the years in the trenches I spent with folks like the OP. I spent years as a political activist and writer, and I eventually got tired of the death threats and other silly stuff people do on the internet when they think there are no consequences even for threats of violence. I quit engaging on political sites and probably should have just chuckled at the OP and moved on, but sometimes I can't help myself.
Yea, it's interesting how some people claim Gene was some kind of saint because of the lessons in Trek. However, all Trek was, was another product designed to earn money and put food on the table. And like you said, not to mention all the cheating. He ran around on his wife so much.
However, I did find it odd that the mission did talk about Zephram Cochrane's faults so openly. At one point, Cochrane was derogatorily referred to as an alcoholic. This seemed a little out of place to me for two reasons. As someone else posted, I could easily see the Enterprise's logs for this mission being classified as top secret because of the violations of the Temporal Prime Directive the crew performed. So Zephram Cochrane's true personal info would not be widely known.
Or, if people did know the personal details of Cochrane, it would be over shadowed by his legacy. The have been many great men in history who personally have not been so great. Jefferson owned slaves, Martin Luther King Jr. was a womanizer as was John F. Kennedy. Yet people don't talk about these things on times that we reflect on the great things they did achieve. If I had to be critical of the mission, I would ask the officers on the ships not to speak ill of the dead on a day of remembrance .
Yes, but the people who tell you about it are the command crew of the lead vessel of Starfleet. They would most likely all have whatever equivalent for top-secret clearance Starfleet has. As for the Temporal Prime Directive, the Borg broke it first and Enterprise was trying to fix the problem. There's been a strong series of precedents that if somebody else breaks it you're allowed to go in and run damage control. Likely there was a cursory board of inquiry to make sure they were being honest and then they were summarily cleared of any wrongdoing and sent back to active duty.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Seriously, this typical whiny little right winger ought to go play Call of Duty or something.
I think his point is you're chasing a straw man. You accuse him of being someone he is not, and supporting things he would despise. You deride his responses by saying 'that's just what a right-wing cartelist would say'. You assume his opinions match the most radical right-wingers you can imagine. And you snarkily predict how he's going to respond based on what you think those right-wingers do.
The truth is most conservatives are not the caricature you seem to see. The problems with public discourse in America mean that many people only see the most vocal and quite often ridiculous proponents of the other side. But we've made it such a battle that every discussion becomes 'us vs. them', and so even moderate opponents get cast in a radical light.
Part of the lessons of Trek is that we need to understand our opponents/enemies. If one watches Trek and only comes away thinking it's all about the superiority of leftist thought, a lot is being missed. We need to examine why our opponents believe what they do, and try to find common ground, instead of relegating all those who disagree with us to a radical category in our minds.
How many species in Trek had to put aside their memories of being 'screwed over' in order to achieve a better peace? And how many species actually got 'zero sympathy' from the Enterprise crew?
Conjoined, Re-emergence, and . . .
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
As someone who likely fits into your definition of what you might term a "right-winger" for a number of issues, I will be breaking my policy to avoid saying too much about politics on the forums, because frankly, you asked.
I do not watch any fiction with any sort with any intent to learn from it. If I "learn" from it, so be it, though I consider this very unlikely, since ultimately it is a fictitious story. However, I'm always going to take it with a grain of salt, because so many writers have an axe to grind, and so few fictional situations actually truly reflect reality, no matter how hard they may try to.
Allegory - of ANY sort - almost by definition requires oversimplification. The result is usually a puppet show constructed of straw men. It does not go into the hideous sociopolitical details, numerical pragmatics, or even basic laws of physics involved in any decision in most cases. Even if it does, the basic structure of the storytelling means that it is just that - a story - and attempting to apply conclusions made in the context of a story are often unwise in reality. The devil is always in the details, and what makes things seem plain, obvious and common sense in an allegorical situation can be completely and utterly ruinous when applied to a particular, exceedingly complicated real life situation. I don't care if I agree with "the message" or not - I feel this way about just about any sort of allegory, and consider most of them to be poorly done at best, at least insofar as the philosophical content.
However, it is unwise to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak, and so I try not to. Star Trek, no matter what it was intended for, constructs a rich tapestry of conflict, intrigue and camaraderie between different factions, crews, species and forms of technological advancement. Whether this is by accident or intentional, it results in an inherently good medium for telling interesting stories, and that is exactly what it does, message or no. I do not watch it out of any ideological belief. I never did - I watched it at first because it looked awesome when I was a kid, and it was. I am actually glad for this. I never even noticed there might be political aspects until it was pointed out - and I didn't really care, either. To me, Star Trek was and is not a guide of how to think or act.
I have not learned anything from STO. I have not learned anything from Star Trek, period, other than some storytelling techniques, and have mentally dissociated those pieces I find disagreeable or distasteful. For this I am grateful, because I loathe politics in general, and would rather do something with imaginary spaceships and bald captains than be lectured by proxy. I do not look at fiction as a source of morals or wisdom, and I would say that to do so is with very few exceptions ill-advised, no matter whether you agree with the content conveyed or not.
I am returning to my attempts at silence in politics now. In any case, I hope this has been helpful in understanding why someone like myself might enjoy Star Trek or other media that may espouse philosophies I do not necessarily agree with or subscribe to. However, I will say that I believe that OP needs to get their head examined - unless they're a troll, in which case I must say, "bravo."
I believe that Star Trek is the result of what type of man Gene wanted to be, but knew he would never reach that ideal. Whether that is actually true, then only Gene could answer that.
Pretty much the whole Enterprise crew was gaga over Cochrane when they saw him in FC. Laforge especially. They didn't turn hateful and attack him (like a few posters are attacking others they disagree with) for just wanting money and an island of naked women. Cochrane's legacy is that he put his greed aside to unite humanity for the greater good. That one guy that goes off trying to wee all over that would probably be ignored or laughed at as that intolerant, bitter, hateful guy always popping off about something.
The greatest "personal gain" one can achieve is complete freedom, security, and peace of mind and in our world, that costs money. Let her try living like the humans of post WW IV and see if she doesn't change her mind real quick.
Let's not forget that Cochrance's, erm, 'earthly motives' were, in large, the result of movie makers wanting to contrast a future hero vs. a rather mundane man today. As these scripts are usually written so 12-year-olds won't miss the point, clearly said point lacked any form of subtlety. They pretty much did the same in Amadeus: pervy guy vs. the genius history remembers him for.
Subtract the 'dumb public' factor, and the 'real' Cochrane would likely, while still down-to-earth maybe, come out looking a lot less like a caricature of himself.
You won't get any support from the trolls on this forum. Sorry man.
I thought WoW's forums had angry elitist snobs, but I never could have imagined the level STO forums has.
The is the best response on here.
I thought WoW's forums had angry elitist snobs, but I never could have imagined the level STO forums has.
Rather inevitable actually, when people like Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, and Michele Bachmann never met a camera or microphone they didn't want to become intimate with to let us all in on their shining wisdom. Add that there are equally attention-TRIBBLE caricatures doing the same thing from "the other side," and you've got a pretty predictable recipe.
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Erm. do you realize that, when he said that, he was drunk and really mad?. After he got into the rocket cabin, he changed his mind asap.. lol. So, we never knew if he wanted to build the ship for that.
There are a lot more pressing issues to be fixed in this game than a simple line of text (which happens to be fitting the Trek lore).
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Erm. You do realize that for him "drunk and really mad" and "awake" seemed to be interchangeable?
Dude, there are "Arc sucks" threads all over the forum. I should know, I've posted in most of them.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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Ok Question if you find them and the game a bunch of "Hacks" then why bother playing at all lol your logic is flawed and this is a flame post with no depth or merit.
I haven't seen anyone turn hateful and attack Cochrane. Stating the facts need not involve any passions whatsoever, and that's what I've seen: people stating the facts. Cochrane's motives are established in canon. That said, he also grew and evolved (to some extent) beyond what he had been, as you noted.
Actually, a growing topic in real economics is identifying the point when we can "go Star Trek" and what the consequences will be if we don't. It crops up in Ted Talks a lot.
Guys like Dan Arielly tend to look at, for example, whether Adam Smith's ideas could be right for production but whether Marx becomes right when you have an idea based economy and have automated to a point where human physical labor is obsolete. I don't think anyone would say that we're at that point but we are closer to that point than we were 100 or 200 years ago.
They have a lot of luxuries in Star Trek but when you remove or reduce scaricity past a certain point (you don't ever remove it totally since time or at least unique experiences remain scarce, barring reprogramming people's brains as a sort of "download memories of someone else's vacation" service), economics change. Less relevant scarcity makes management and distribution of surplus the more important economic task than scarcity management, generally.
And trying to artificially maintain scarcity or economic stratification when you have replicators would pretty much be fuel for scary scenarios. If you have near unlimited free stuff and near unlimited energy, you have to abandon the requirement to work to live and motivation to do anything has to become almost purely intrinsic.
It's not really a modern political system although, yeah, it's a hot topic with behavioral economists and folks examining economics past a point when scarcity is relevant on a global scale.
"since I never met an audience I didn't like I'll plow ahead anyway even though I opened with admitting I'm blowing air out the wrong end to call it talking." :rolleyes:
Unless your heroes are either George Takai or Patrick Stewart. They're both pretty damn awesome people.
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
Which reminds me of a scene from American Dad.
Bullock: This control room is able to calibrate force fields so strong that the holographic images projected onto them feel real to the touch.
Richard: Oh, so it works like the holodeck?
Bullock: The what now?
Stan: From Star Trek.
Bullock: Some of us spent the late 80s and early 90s getting laid, Smith.
Bullock is played by Patrick Stewart and looks exactly like him. Had to rename the Richard character since the abbreviated form is censored.
You do know that's EXACTLY why Zefram Cochrane started it, right? It wasn't until the movie 'First Contact' where the Enterprise and gang come from the future that he learns it's something bigger and better than just an attempt for a giant moneybag.