"ignored" was a lax way of describing that they chose to invent a pseudo-science device to ignore the scientific problem of the transporter based on scanning something and recreating it elsewhere.
And they haven't really explained why no one seems to use transporter technology to create copies of people. I guess that is the No-Gemini Certainity Principle at work?
Star Trek has been really inconsistent on how clones are even treated. Most of the time we see stereotypical evil doppelgangers who are quickly dealt with. In TNG we see Riker and Pulaski take the stance of immediately executing clones of themselves. The ethics of this are never even raised by anyone, which is really disturbing to think about. The only real example I can think of where a clone was welcomed into Federation society was the case of the twin Rikers, and even they had a lot of ups and downs trying to integrate both of them into society.
My personal head-canon is that cloning inside the Federation is probably a restricted process, actively discouraged but rarely enforced. Considering how lax the Federation is in keeping track of its own internal affairs [bwwe might have entire planets of clones and not know about it.[/b]
Star Trek has been really inconsistent on how clones are even treated. Most of the time we see stereotypical evil doppelgangers who are quickly dealt with. In TNG we see Riker and Pulaski take the stance of immediately executing clones of themselves. The ethics of this are never even raised by anyone, which is really disturbing to think about. The only real example I can think of where a clone was welcomed into Federation society was the case of the twin Rikers, and even they had a lot of ups and downs trying to integrate both of them into society.
My personal head-canon is that cloning inside the Federation is probably a restricted process, actively discouraged but rarely enforced. Considering how lax the Federation is in keeping track of its own internal affairs we might have entire planets of clones and not know about it.
I wonder how would they handle things like property ownership [bwsince technically you and your clone(s) are the same person?[/b]
Only on a genetic level, and especially if the original's memories aren't somehow copied over. On the basic level, even a genetic clone, is really more along the lines of a twin, or like the duplicate Riker, who's different experiences lead to a (albeit slightly) different personality.
If all you need to make a clone is DNA, we scatter that stuff around everywhere we go. 'Stealing' it is akin to sweeping it up off the floor. It may be that in Trek what is needed to clone someone is stem cells, which would have to be harvested, and that is what appears to have happened. I can understand their anger.
However, once the growth process has begun, the clone is a human. Period. There is no moral ambiguity. What Riker and Pulaski did was murder innocent children who were helpless to even run away.
This is why Trek has suffered so long and a symptom of why Enterprise failed: the writers are generic cop show writers, and not science fiction writers. As has been said before, Science Fiction is more than a soap opera in space. It is not action adventure with gadgets. Science Fiction is not even horror shows with werewolves and vampires and mutated virus zombies. When it becomes those things it ceases to be science fiction.
Aside from all the gadgets and uniforms and ships, the stories must be about the continued evolution of humanity and its relationship to the universe. To write such stories requires science fiction writers. Generic cop show writers cannot do the job because they don't understand the genera. To a generic cop show writer a clone is something other than human by virtue of his origin, and so it's perfectly okay to terminate them: they aren't people.
I hope that Discovery's writing staff understands the difference between sci-fi and everything else, because I have zero interest in yet another zombie apocalypse soap opera, but with Klingons instead of zombies.
But I'm also not their target audience.
Yeah, that was a pretty reprehensible action, which faced zero repurcussions Because Plot >_< Then again, most everyone hated Pulaski anyway, and there's an awesome article floating about which points out what a creepy loser Riker actually is
"I fight for the Users!" - Tron
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
"ignored" was a lax way of describing that they chose to invent a pseudo-science device to ignore the scientific problem of the transporter based on scanning something and recreating it elsewhere.
And they haven't really explained why no one seems to use transporter technology to create copies of people. I guess that is the No-Gemini Certainity Principle at work?
Star Trek has been really inconsistent on how clones are even treated. Most of the time we see stereotypical evil doppelgangers who are quickly dealt with. In TNG we see Riker and Pulaski take the stance of immediately executing clones of themselves. The ethics of this are never even raised by anyone, which is really disturbing to think about. The only real example I can think of where a clone was welcomed into Federation society was the case of the twin Rikers, and even they had a lot of ups and downs trying to integrate both of them into society.
My personal head-canon is that cloning inside the Federation is probably a restricted process, actively discouraged but rarely enforced. Considering how lax the Federation is in keeping track of its own internal affairs [bwwe might have entire planets of clones and not know about it.[/b]
Star Trek has been really inconsistent on how clones are even treated. Most of the time we see stereotypical evil doppelgangers who are quickly dealt with. In TNG we see Riker and Pulaski take the stance of immediately executing clones of themselves. The ethics of this are never even raised by anyone, which is really disturbing to think about. The only real example I can think of where a clone was welcomed into Federation society was the case of the twin Rikers, and even they had a lot of ups and downs trying to integrate both of them into society.
My personal head-canon is that cloning inside the Federation is probably a restricted process, actively discouraged but rarely enforced. Considering how lax the Federation is in keeping track of its own internal affairs we might have entire planets of clones and not know about it.
I wonder how would they handle things like property ownership [bwsince technically you and your clone(s) are the same person?[/b]
Only on a genetic level, and especially if the original's memories aren't somehow copied over. On the basic level, even a genetic clone, is really more along the lines of a twin, or like the duplicate Riker, who's different experiences lead to a (albeit slightly) different personality.
If all you need to make a clone is DNA, we scatter that stuff around everywhere we go. 'Stealing' it is akin to sweeping it up off the floor. It may be that in Trek what is needed to clone someone is stem cells, which would have to be harvested, and that is what appears to have happened. I can understand their anger.
However, once the growth process has begun, the clone is a human. Period. There is no moral ambiguity. What Riker and Pulaski did was murder innocent children who were helpless to even run away.
This is why Trek has suffered so long and a symptom of why Enterprise failed: the writers are generic cop show writers, and not science fiction writers. As has been said before, Science Fiction is more than a soap opera in space. It is not action adventure with gadgets. Science Fiction is not even horror shows with werewolves and vampires and mutated virus zombies. When it becomes those things it ceases to be science fiction.
Aside from all the gadgets and uniforms and ships, the stories must be about the continued evolution of humanity and its relationship to the universe. To write such stories requires science fiction writers. Generic cop show writers cannot do the job because they don't understand the genera. To a generic cop show writer a clone is something other than human by virtue of his origin, and so it's perfectly okay to terminate them: they aren't people.
I hope that Discovery's writing staff understands the difference between sci-fi and everything else, because I have zero interest in yet another zombie apocalypse soap opera, but with Klingons instead of zombies.
But I'm also not their target audience.
Yeah, that was a pretty reprehensible action, which faced zero repurcussions Because Plot >_< Then again, most everyone hated Pulaski anyway, and there's an awesome article floating about which points out what a creepy loser Riker actually is
Hm... I've had that feeling with Riker since going back and re-watching TNG so many years later, admittedly with the benefit of hindsight to his character arc. At his best he was smug but well meaning, and at his worst he was a crybully who lorded over his juniors while whining about his seniors. If Riker had been a character on a non-hero ship I doubt he would have gotten much praise from audiences.
----
As for actual Discovery news, that promotion art of the person on top of Discovery's saucer is very stunning. It makes the ship look so small compared to its contemporaries... which makes the decision to have cutouts in the primary hull that much weirder.
Of course this is Hollywood, and the scale shifts to whatever they think looks cool at that particular moment. We will probably see the ship fluctuate from that size to being larger than the Enterprise depending on what is happening.
Mariposa seems to be special because the scriptwriter was probably chosen because she shared Gene's... eccentricities to a large extent. She intentionally put in the scene with Riker and Pulaski killing their clones as an analogue of abortion. Also she used the planet of hats trope in ways that even most bad writers would avoid. She was trying to write a story about why immigration is a good thing because she hated US immigration policy, so she intentionally made both flawed stereotypes. Mariposa had actually outlawed conventional childbirth entirely, and Bringloid intentionally had no tech and were about to get wiped out by a solar flare. The idea being that mixing the two would make the whole better.
Then there's her dubious attempts at "science" with the "replicative fading" nonsense, and writing the ending to note that for the merged colony to have long term viability each woman(Mariposan and Bringloidi alike) would need to have children with at least 3 different men. It's basically eugenics but aimed at selective breeding over culling the herd. Seriously, if the Mariposans had been smart they'd have been making customized clones instead of exact copies. But apparently their cloning technique relied on cultivating tissue samples and they didn't know how to tinker with the DNA of the clones.... um yeah... sure. If that was the case the clones wouldn't look identical since the "random mutations" that create replicative fading would also affect the appearance of the clones.
So... in summary, it's a combination of bad pseudo-science and using the script as a soap box...
I don't mind soap boxing or pseudo science in my sci-fi: Heinlein used both and he is among my favorite authors. Bad characterization and writing a story which contradicts its own intended message is an issue, though.
The assumption by the principles which allow them to kill their clones must be based on something, and in this case Riker declares the clones property by claiming the material used to make his clone was stolen from him and asserting his right to control what others do with his property. But we know from countless cases all around the world that it is perfectly legal for someone to create your offspring against your will, and that beyond a certain point that offspring attains rights of its own independent of the wishes of the genetic donor.
The precedent this established would have allowed Will to kill Thomas too, because he was created from Will's pattern against his will, and therefore was the property of the 'prime' Riker. But in one case the duplicate had rights and in the other he didn't, and there was no demarcation point to show why killing one is a crime and not the other.
So, the Riker and Pulaski clones had zero rights. How about the rest of the Mariposans? Are they similarly restrained in their personal liberty? Could Riker and Pulaski have killed them all just because they were clones and inherently lacking the basic freedoms guaranteed under the Federation Charter? This irreconcilable contradiction of logic is for me the primary issue with the episode, and it is the reason I keep hoping that Discovery hires actual science fiction writers rather than Game Of Thrones and CSI writers. Because even very smart people have limits, and writers tend to write what they know, even when they attempt to write in another genre.
Case in point: Issac Asimov wrote several love stories in his combined Robots & Foundation stories. How many come to mind?
I would argue that Democratic Socialism is a step backward, not forward, and that it has only proven sustainable as long as someone else pays for it, but that is another topic, and one likely to be booted from the forums in short order, (so please don't argue the point here!)
On the other hand, this is a truism of the Trek universe, and writers who cannot deal with it have no place in Trek. The setting is as much a character in Trek as any ship, captain, or crewman, and consistency of characterization is an important part of immersion into a story. Instead of discarding the premise of the setting, the writers who cannot write for it should be discarded and replaced with real SF writers who can.
Democratic socialism is a thing, you guys do realize that right? The more socialist it is, the less need for currency. Big things are organized as government programs, organizations like Starfleet are volunteer based with the primary "payment" for joining being prestige, and the main motivation belief in the cause and / or devotion to their profession --a profession which is itself driven by interest and passion and desire for self-improvement. Most people don't need to work, you think someone like Sisko's family runs a restaurant because they need to? They do it because they -want- to. Like most businesses in the Federation core territory, it's more a hobby and passion project rather than an economic necessity.
I'm still surprised people have trouble wrapping their head around such a system, when democratic socialist governments exist and we have a pretty close model to an "everything is free and infinitely able to be replicated for virtually free" sort of thing in the form of the internet. Who paid any of us here to produce all this content? 82 pages and counting, just in this thread alone... and we made it for free and will continue to do so. We do it because we're passionate about it. Before the big corporate platforms moved in, the vast majority of all websites and all web content was produced by individuals for reasons of passion and hobbyist enthusiasm. A great amount of the internet is still driven by those forces. Fan fiction, fan films, even fan video games are everywhere --representing countless hours of labor that very often were never paid for. When physical goods can be replicated just as easily, the basics will be free and value will be added by enthusiasts and hobbyists and volunteers who are motivated to do something they're interested in and have a talent for. Art, music, entertainment, artisan food, all sorts of things will not only continue to be made but will probably increase as far more people are freed from the drudgery of labor and allowed free time to pursue what they love.
Anything the hobbyist / enthusiast / volunteer sector cannot cover, the democratic socialist government can administrate. There will always be people who have a public service / altruistic mindset who will join such projects and organizations willingly, despite having no real economic incentive, and a government can still have things to offer such as a better choice of living spaces, or a form of credit to earn things that cannot be replicated like collectors items and such. Basically, the government can and will run its programs using a "freemium" model where rewards can be earned for participating in projects that are mostly pride / prestige items with only a marginal utility advantage over the rest of the "free to play" population. You can motivate people a lot with offers of status symbols and prestige items that are really mostly cosmetic. Titles and accolades, even. Position on a leaderboard. Awards and acknowledgements. Your name on a "Special Thanks" plaque.
Despite Mr Moore's claim that this concept is something to avoid because it limits storytelling possibilities (no, Mr Moore, it just eliminates cliches and tropes that your soap opera / generic cop drama ilk use as crutches to avoid having to think of real ideas), it's not just possible and core to the Star Trek setting. It is in fact something we need to be thinking about and learning to figure out how to deal with because automation and decentralized manufacturing and other such advancements are not slowing down. Changes are coming that WILL disrupt the capitalist model, and we're already using artificial scarcity and enforced monopolies to prop up outmoded business models as it is. As technology continues to advance, the effort required to keep that genie in the bottle will become greater and greater and more of it will slip through the cracks like mist through a sieve. The future cannot be held back forever. Capitalism has been artificially sustained long past the time it should have given way to the next step, which is a mixed socialist economy. One could even argue that we in fact have a mixed economy now, but the socialist aspects have been fought tooth and nail by entrenched forces not wishing to give up their power and privilege despite it being utterly impractical to hoard as much as they do. This cannot last forever.
Don't forget, Star Trek's future went through this as well. Old forces of selfish, primitive thinking prevailed for a long time after they should have been obsolete, and the transition was brutally difficult. Humanity nearly went extinct as the power players went to war with one another and destroyed nearly everything in their mad quest to have it all. The meek inherited the Earth after the aggressive and arrogant all killed each other and took almost everyone else with them. The survivors rebuilt from the ashes with a strong desire to never let anything like that happen again.
They didn't just wave a magic wand and turn themselves into a progressive utopia. The survivors of our mistakes learned from our ashes as they rebuilt a new world on the ruins of the old. They changed because they had to. We too will face those tests, advance and adapt or perish. I hope we manage to handle it a bit better than they did. But handle it we must. And thinking about these problems and imagining the solutions in advance in the form of science fiction gives us our best possible chance at successfully adapting to the coming future.
Democratic socialism is a thing, you guys do realize that right? The more socialist it is, the less need for currency. Big things are organized as government programs, organizations like Starfleet are volunteer based with the primary "payment" for joining being prestige, and the main motivation belief in the cause and / or devotion to their profession --a profession which is itself driven by interest and passion and desire for self-improvement. Most people don't need to work, you think someone like Sisko's family runs a restaurant because they need to? They do it because they -want- to. Like most businesses in the Federation core territory, it's more a hobby and passion project rather than an economic necessity.
Correct and as I recall mentioned (in an Enterprise episode IIRC), it was the advent of free, clean energy and replication technology that brought about the "final step" to human attitudes changing. Once you have that, there is not much need for currency.
Just gotta tell the bad guys, who have everything to lose in their evil regimes when these changes happen, to go smeg off.
"ignored" was a lax way of describing that they chose to invent a pseudo-science device to ignore the scientific problem of the transporter based on scanning something and recreating it elsewhere.
And they haven't really explained why no one seems to use transporter technology to create copies of people. I guess that is the No-Gemini Certainity Principle at work?
Star Trek has been really inconsistent on how clones are even treated. Most of the time we see stereotypical evil doppelgangers who are quickly dealt with. In TNG we see Riker and Pulaski take the stance of immediately executing clones of themselves. The ethics of this are never even raised by anyone, which is really disturbing to think about. The only real example I can think of where a clone was welcomed into Federation society was the case of the twin Rikers, and even they had a lot of ups and downs trying to integrate both of them into society.
My personal head-canon is that cloning inside the Federation is probably a restricted process, actively discouraged but rarely enforced. Considering how lax the Federation is in keeping track of its own internal affairs [bwwe might have entire planets of clones and not know about it.[/b]
Star Trek has been really inconsistent on how clones are even treated. Most of the time we see stereotypical evil doppelgangers who are quickly dealt with. In TNG we see Riker and Pulaski take the stance of immediately executing clones of themselves. The ethics of this are never even raised by anyone, which is really disturbing to think about. The only real example I can think of where a clone was welcomed into Federation society was the case of the twin Rikers, and even they had a lot of ups and downs trying to integrate both of them into society.
My personal head-canon is that cloning inside the Federation is probably a restricted process, actively discouraged but rarely enforced. Considering how lax the Federation is in keeping track of its own internal affairs we might have entire planets of clones and not know about it.
I wonder how would they handle things like property ownership [bwsince technically you and your clone(s) are the same person?[/b]
Only on a genetic level, and especially if the original's memories aren't somehow copied over. On the basic level, even a genetic clone, is really more along the lines of a twin, or like the duplicate Riker, who's different experiences lead to a (albeit slightly) different personality.
If all you need to make a clone is DNA, we scatter that stuff around everywhere we go. 'Stealing' it is akin to sweeping it up off the floor. It may be that in Trek what is needed to clone someone is stem cells, which would have to be harvested, and that is what appears to have happened. I can understand their anger.
However, once the growth process has begun, the clone is a human. Period. There is no moral ambiguity. What Riker and Pulaski did was murder innocent children who were helpless to even run away.
This is why Trek has suffered so long and a symptom of why Enterprise failed: the writers are generic cop show writers, and not science fiction writers. As has been said before, Science Fiction is more than a soap opera in space. It is not action adventure with gadgets. Science Fiction is not even horror shows with werewolves and vampires and mutated virus zombies. When it becomes those things it ceases to be science fiction.
Aside from all the gadgets and uniforms and ships, the stories must be about the continued evolution of humanity and its relationship to the universe. To write such stories requires science fiction writers. Generic cop show writers cannot do the job because they don't understand the genera. To a generic cop show writer a clone is something other than human by virtue of his origin, and so it's perfectly okay to terminate them: they aren't people.
I hope that Discovery's writing staff understands the difference between sci-fi and everything else, because I have zero interest in yet another zombie apocalypse soap opera, but with Klingons instead of zombies.
But I'm also not their target audience.
Yeah, that was a pretty reprehensible action, which faced zero repurcussions Because Plot >_< Then again, most everyone hated Pulaski anyway, and there's an awesome article floating about which points out what a creepy loser Riker actually is
I had no problem with Pulaski.
TBH, I didn't really mind her (other than the fact she wasn't Dr Crusher) but In General, she was a pretty unpopular character. She was written to be a no BS-taking Old Country doctor like McCoy, but that seemed to translate to unlikability amongst viewers.
"I fight for the Users!" - Tron
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
Hm... I've had that feeling with Riker since going back and re-watching TNG so many years later, admittedly with the benefit of hindsight to his character arc. At his best he was smug but well meaning, and at his worst he was a crybully who lorded over his juniors while whining about his seniors. If Riker had been a character on a non-hero ship I doubt he would have gotten much praise from audiences.
----
As for actual Discovery news, that promotion art of the person on top of Discovery's saucer is very stunning. It makes the ship look so small compared to its contemporaries... which makes the decision to have cutouts in the primary hull that much weirder.
Of course this is Hollywood, and the scale shifts to whatever they think looks cool at that particular moment. We will probably see the ship fluctuate from that size to being larger than the Enterprise depending on what is happening.
Democratic socialism is a thing, you guys do realize that right? The more socialist it is, the less need for currency. Big things are organized as government programs, organizations like Starfleet are volunteer based with the primary "payment" for joining being prestige, and the main motivation belief in the cause and / or devotion to their profession --a profession which is itself driven by interest and passion and desire for self-improvement. Most people don't need to work, you think someone like Sisko's family runs a restaurant because they need to? They do it because they -want- to. Like most businesses in the Federation core territory, it's more a hobby and passion project rather than an economic necessity.
I'm still surprised people have trouble wrapping their head around such a system, when democratic socialist governments exist and we have a pretty close model to an "everything is free and infinitely able to be replicated for virtually free" sort of thing in the form of the internet. Who paid any of us here to produce all this content? 82 pages and counting, just in this thread alone... and we made it for free and will continue to do so. We do it because we're passionate about it. Before the big corporate platforms moved in, the vast majority of all websites and all web content was produced by individuals for reasons of passion and hobbyist enthusiasm. A great amount of the internet is still driven by those forces. Fan fiction, fan films, even fan video games are everywhere --representing countless hours of labor that very often were never paid for. When physical goods can be replicated just as easily, the basics will be free and value will be added by enthusiasts and hobbyists and volunteers who are motivated to do something they're interested in and have a talent for. Art, music, entertainment, artisan food, all sorts of things will not only continue to be made but will probably increase as far more people are freed from the drudgery of labor and allowed free time to pursue what they love.
Anything the hobbyist / enthusiast / volunteer sector cannot cover, the democratic socialist government can administrate. There will always be people who have a public service / altruistic mindset who will join such projects and organizations willingly, despite having no real economic incentive, and a government can still have things to offer such as a better choice of living spaces, or a form of credit to earn things that cannot be replicated like collectors items and such. Basically, the government can and will run its programs using a "freemium" model where rewards can be earned for participating in projects that are mostly pride / prestige items with only a marginal utility advantage over the rest of the "free to play" population. You can motivate people a lot with offers of status symbols and prestige items that are really mostly cosmetic. Titles and accolades, even. Position on a leaderboard. Awards and acknowledgements. Your name on a "Special Thanks" plaque.
Despite Mr Moore's claim that this concept is something to avoid because it limits storytelling possibilities (no, Mr Moore, it just eliminates cliches and tropes that your soap opera / generic cop drama ilk use as crutches to avoid having to think of real ideas), it's not just possible and core to the Star Trek setting. It is in fact something we need to be thinking about and learning to figure out how to deal with because automation and decentralized manufacturing and other such advancements are not slowing down. Changes are coming that WILL disrupt the capitalist model, and we're already using artificial scarcity and enforced monopolies to prop up outmoded business models as it is. As technology continues to advance, the effort required to keep that genie in the bottle will become greater and greater and more of it will slip through the cracks like mist through a sieve. The future cannot be held back forever. Capitalism has been artificially sustained long past the time it should have given way to the next step, which is a mixed socialist economy. One could even argue that we in fact have a mixed economy now, but the socialist aspects have been fought tooth and nail by entrenched forces not wishing to give up their power and privilege despite it being utterly impractical to hoard as much as they do. This cannot last forever.
Don't forget, Star Trek's future went through this as well. Old forces of selfish, primitive thinking prevailed for a long time after they should have been obsolete, and the transition was brutally difficult. Humanity nearly went extinct as the power players went to war with one another and destroyed nearly everything in their mad quest to have it all. The meek inherited the Earth after the aggressive and arrogant all killed each other and took almost everyone else with them. The survivors rebuilt from the ashes with a strong desire to never let anything like that happen again.
They didn't just wave a magic wand and turn themselves into a progressive utopia. The survivors of our mistakes learned from our ashes as they rebuilt a new world on the ruins of the old. They changed because they had to. We too will face those tests, advance and adapt or perish. I hope we manage to handle it a bit better than they did. But handle it we must. And thinking about these problems and imagining the solutions in advance in the form of science fiction gives us our best possible chance at successfully adapting to the coming future.
"I fight for the Users!" - Tron
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
Anything the hobbyist / enthusiast / volunteer sector cannot cover, the democratic socialist government can administrate. There will always be people who have a public service / altruistic mindset who will join such projects and organizations willingly, despite having no real economic incentive, and a government can still have things to offer such as a better choice of living spaces, or a form of credit to earn things that cannot be replicated like collectors items and such. Basically, the government can and will run its programs using a "freemium" model where rewards can be earned for participating in projects that are mostly pride / prestige items with only a marginal utility advantage over the rest of the "free to play" population. You can motivate people a lot with offers of status symbols and prestige items that are really mostly cosmetic. Titles and accolades, even. Position on a leaderboard. Awards and acknowledgements. Your name on a "Special Thanks" plaque.
That is just describing money though. The simple reality is that even in a society where all basic needs are provided for free, there will still be things that can't be mass produced and provided in such a generous way. For those things people will need a tool to facilitate the exchanges of those goods or services, that tool is money and its nothing to be ashamed of.
I don't remember which stage the clones were in (it's been a while since I watched that episode), but I'm reasonably certain that they were still incubating. At that stage, they were somewhat equivalent to a fetus, in that they'd never been what we'd consider 'awake' (the brain would theoretically be a blank slate), and - depending on the specifics of the Mariposan cloning process - in that they might not be able to survive were they to be removed from their incubators.
Under those circumstances, the abortion parallel mentioned in one of the posts above is not quite so inaccurate, as the clones hadn't become a fully functional organism yet. (On the other hand, killing one of the existing Mariposans or Tom Riker would have been pretty much what we'd expect - murder.)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
I saw adult bodies being aged to adulthood which to me implies viability outside the incubators. Were the clones non-viable they would only have to unplug the incubators, but they used phasers to vaporize them.
Killing a viable human, regardless of his mental status, is murder in every case but war, and even in war the intentional slaying of helpless non-combatants is still murder. I do not belidve there were any moral loopholes or ethical ambiguity. What I saw was cold-blooded murder.
Hmm, I wonder if I can get a Trek Con to hold a kangaroo court to indict Riker and Pulaski?
I don't remember which stage the clones were in (it's been a while since I watched that episode), but I'm reasonably certain that they were still incubating. At that stage, they were somewhat equivalent to a fetus, in that they'd never been what we'd consider 'awake' (the brain would theoretically be a blank slate), and - depending on the specifics of the Mariposan cloning process - in that they might not be able to survive were they to be removed from their incubators.
Under those circumstances, the abortion parallel mentioned in one of the posts above is not quite so inaccurate, as the clones hadn't become a fully functional organism yet. (On the other hand, killing one of the existing Mariposans or Tom Riker would have been pretty much what we'd expect - murder.)
i mentioned something about if the clones were alive in their pods in a previous reply, these days when a fetus has a heartbeat and it was killed, it's considered murder. if the clones were alive it would also be murder as well irrespective of beliefs or if they were pre-programmed before they left the pods
.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Anything the hobbyist / enthusiast / volunteer sector cannot cover, the democratic socialist government can administrate. There will always be people who have a public service / altruistic mindset who will join such projects and organizations willingly, despite having no real economic incentive, and a government can still have things to offer such as a better choice of living spaces, or a form of credit to earn things that cannot be replicated like collectors items and such. Basically, the government can and will run its programs using a "freemium" model where rewards can be earned for participating in projects that are mostly pride / prestige items with only a marginal utility advantage over the rest of the "free to play" population. You can motivate people a lot with offers of status symbols and prestige items that are really mostly cosmetic. Titles and accolades, even. Position on a leaderboard. Awards and acknowledgements. Your name on a "Special Thanks" plaque.
That is just describing money though. The simple reality is that even in a society where all basic needs are provided for free, there will still be things that can't be mass produced and provided in such a generous way. For those things people will need a tool to facilitate the exchanges of those goods or services, that tool is money and its nothing to be ashamed of.
No, it's describing rewards not currency. Someone's name on a leaderboard, for example, doesn't get taken off, if that earns them a better living space, or Tholian silk jacket, which would happen, if someone was to spend their pay cheque on said item. Currency gets Spent. Prestige Points, for want of a better term, remain (until someone else tops the leaderboard, thus giving the other person the choice to gracefully accept being bested, or, to be inspired to redouble their efforts to reclaim their Position)
Working Hard in a reward-based economy, would produce noticeable results in terms of the reward received. Working Hard at most any paid job, will not get the person more money (unless bonus targets somehow get applied) The janitor who busts their TRIBBLE, gets paid just the same as the janitor who sits on theirs
"I fight for the Users!" - Tron
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
Correct and as I recall mentioned (in an Enterprise episode IIRC), it was the advent of free, clean energy and replication technology that brought about the "final step" to human attitudes changing. Once you have that, there is not much need for currency.
did it? Or did it simply raise the bar? also it's quite clearly demonstrated in many episodes, that this is NOT true of Federation colony worlds. several examples of this come from tOS where freighters loaded with food were needed to keep colonies from starving. I guess it's too expensive to put them everywhere? One could also take it as a scathign criticism of human nature that endless free food is the only way to keep people from fighting over it.
That is just describing money though. The simple reality is that even in a society where all basic needs are provided for free, there will still be things that can't be mass produced and provided in such a generous way. For those things people will need a tool to facilitate the exchanges of those goods or services, that tool is money and its nothing to be ashamed of.
that is quite true, Federation society isn't one where everyone is guaranteed everything they could ever want, but rather, the bare minimum to live.
I don't mind soap boxing or pseudo science in my sci-fi: Heinlein used both and he is among my favorite authors. Bad characterization and writing a story which contradicts its own intended message is an issue, though.
Yeah the writer tried to make a point and show something as good, when she actually made it look horrible.
The assumption by the principles which allow them to kill their clones must be based on something,
that scene was apparently meant as an analogy of abortion since the clones Riker destroyed were not fully formed yet. Thus it's one of those "my body, my right to choose" things... extrapolated to cloning. Which explains why Riker asked Pulaski's permission before destroying her clone. What? you think it still sounds horrible? Congrats you now understand abortion.
there was no demarcation point to show why killing one is a crime and not the other.
Well that demarcation would seem to be the point where one of them can say "I don't want to die"....
This irreconcilable contradiction of logic is for me the primary issue with the episode, and it is the reason I keep hoping that Discovery hires actual science fiction writers rather than Game Of Thrones and CSI writers. Because even very smart people have limits, and writers tend to write what they know, even when they attempt to write in another genre.
Enh, thing is that this case is not whether the person doing the writing knows how to write science fiction, but whether they try to force a POV onto a situation that doesn't support it.
Case in point: Issac Asimov wrote several love stories in his combined Robots & Foundation stories. How many come to mind?
Asimov also wrote a compilation of jokes(well, humorous short stories). It was quite good, but not what people remember him for.
TBH, I didn't really mind her (other than the fact she wasn't Dr Crusher) but In General, she was a pretty unpopular character. She was written to be a no BS-taking Old Country doctor like McCoy, but that seemed to translate to unlikability amongst viewers.
I think she just didn't fit in well. teh rest of the cast were typically soft spoken and then you toss in someone who is about as soft as a cactus.
TBH, I didn't really mind her (other than the fact she wasn't Dr Crusher) but In General, she was a pretty unpopular character. She was written to be a no BS-taking Old Country doctor like McCoy, but that seemed to translate to unlikability amongst viewers.
I think she just didn't fit in well. teh rest of the cast were typically soft spoken and then you toss in someone who is about as soft as a cactus.
In terms of to the rest of the crew, or with the viewers? The rest of the crew dealt with her, but many fans didn't take to her. Like I said, I didn't personally have an issue with her, but I can accept that others did, and I can understand why. That's how she was written, it just didn't go down well, with many of the viewers
"I fight for the Users!" - Tron
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
Indeed. There are efforts in some European countries to introduce a baseline income for every citizen so you don't have to work to survive. A society like this opens up every possibility for it's people to pursue self-fulfilment and improvement. It's still a very long way to go until conservatives learn that you cannot halt progress indefinitely - maybe that's why they want to end the world as we know it.
Regarding the Pulaski thing, did everyone forget that she was actually racist AF? She cosntantly attacked Data and refused to accept him as a self-determined being. Granted, the process that officially recognized him took time, but nobody but Pulaski showed their hate that aggressively. That's the number one reason for disliking her.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
If you don't have to work, then who is going to pay for the program? The redistribution of wealth does not necessarily work all that well.
While in principle this is an issue worth discussing, it is also blown way out of proportion. The conservative fear of the society collapsing since nobody would work any more is, to my knowledge, just baseless fear. On the contrary, it gravely underestimates peoples inherent drive to work towards self-improvement as evident by for example voluntary services performed by unemployed or retired people.
If you have to work multiple jobs just to survive you have a very hard time pursuing what it is that actually makes you happy, to pursue education. This in turn creates frustration and easily leads into a downward spiral that causes a lot of societal problems.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Indeed. There are efforts in some European countries to introduce a baseline income for every citizen so you don't have to work to survive. A society like this opens up every possibility for it's people to pursue self-fulfilment and improvement. It's still a very long way to go until conservatives learn that you cannot halt progress indefinitely - maybe that's why they want to end the world as we know it.
Regarding the Pulaski thing, did everyone forget that she was actually racist AF? She cosntantly attacked Data and refused to accept him as a self-determined being. Granted, the process that officially recognized him took time, but nobody but Pulaski showed their hate that aggressively. That's the number one reason for disliking her.
So racist, that she dosed herself up so she could go through a Klingon tea ceremony with Worf, after being sensitive to his cultural sensibilities about illness
But yeah, citizen's income is a fantastic idea. I remember reading some time back, that when this was trialed in Canada a while ago, the only people who actually didn't work, were full-time students, and those who were so close to retirement any, that it made no difference if they just retired early. Apparently, everyone else, continued working
PS Just gave my AoY toon a piggy boff on your recommendation... When the game's back up, and I next log in, I'll see if she handles herself as well as an Andorian waifu
"I fight for the Users!" - Tron
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
If you don't have to work, then who is going to pay for the program? The redistribution of wealth does not necessarily work all that well.
While in principle this is an issue worth discussing, it is also blown way out of proportion. The conservative fear of the society collapsing since nobody would work any more is, to my knowledge, just baseless fear. On the contrary, it gravely underestimates peoples inherent drive to work towards self-improvement as evident by for example voluntary services performed by unemployed or retired people.
If you have to work multiple jobs just to survive you have a very hard time pursuing what it is that actually makes you happy, to pursue education. This in turn creates frustration and easily leads into a downward spiral that causes a lot of societal problems.
Also, right NOW, most people are NOT doing the work they WANT to do, but the work they are pretty much forced to do to survive. I mean how many people really like their jobs...as opposed to those who hate their jobs and are miserable, and only doing it to live? Lots of folks have wants to do the sorta of thing that would make 'em happy, but, in this backwards world we live in, right now, a lot can't do it because 'it don't pay the bills'.
And let's face it.....when the top 1 or 2 percent owns a huge chunk of the world's wealth, and the other 98 or 99 percent gets mere scraps, something is wrong, imo. Also, the pentagon admitted to 'losing' about 8 trillion (about 2 in 2001, and another 6 in recent years) dollars......um...you don't lose 8 trillion dollars....someone TOOK it. And imagine if WE had that 8 trillion, rather than whomever actually has it. No one would have to compete and back stab each other for the proverbial bone with a few scraps of meat on it, whilst the big shot at the table laughs with amusement.
> @valoreah said: > angrytarg wrote: » > > There are efforts in some European countries to introduce a baseline income for every citizen so you don't have to work to survive. > > > > > If you don't have to work, then who is going to pay for the program? The redistribution of wealth does not necessarily work all that well.
It's already been done at a lower level. Back in the '70s Canada experimented with it in a couple towns, a project called Mincome. Duke University recently looked back at the data and made some interesting findings: employment rates only dropped a few percent, and the overwhelming majority of the people who stopped working were teenagers and new parents. (I'm having trouble linking it from my phone but it should be the top result if you Google "Duke Mincome study".) Alaska does the same thing: part of the tax revenues from the hydrocarbons industry in that state go into an investment fund that makes yearly payouts to the state's residents.
"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"
Also, right NOW, most people are NOT doing the work they WANT to do, but the work they are pretty much forced to do to survive. I mean how many people really like their jobs...as opposed to those who hate their jobs and are miserable, and only doing it to live? Lots of folks have wants to do the sorta of thing that would make 'em happy, but, in this backwards world we live in, right now, a lot can't do it because 'it don't pay the bills'.
And let's face it.....when the top 1 or 2 percent owns a huge chunk of the world's wealth, and the other 98 or 99 percent gets mere scraps, something is wrong, imo. Also, the pentagon admitted to 'losing' about 8 trillion (about 2 in 2001, and another 6 in recent years) dollars......um...you don't lose 8 trillion dollars....someone TOOK it. And imagine if WE had that 8 trillion, rather than whomever actually has it. No one would have to compete and back stab each other for the proverbial bone with a few scraps of meat on it, whilst the big shot at the table laughs with amusement.
Funny thing is that right now it's not just "the man" halting progress. According to my researches, the USA of all countries had a plan to have a base income in the sixties under President Johnson. A committee made up of economics, unions and people of public interest voted in favour of a plan like this - the committee's endeavour was highly unpopular though as the society at the time could just not agree to simply pay people for "nothing". A lot of people are deeply opposed to the idea of letting others "have" something, just because, even if they would profit as well.
But I think we are derailing the topic folks
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Comments
Only on a genetic level, and especially if the original's memories aren't somehow copied over. On the basic level, even a genetic clone, is really more along the lines of a twin, or like the duplicate Riker, who's different experiences lead to a (albeit slightly) different personality.
Yeah, that was a pretty reprehensible action, which faced zero repurcussions Because Plot >_< Then again, most everyone hated Pulaski anyway, and there's an awesome article floating about which points out what a creepy loser Riker actually is
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
I had no problem with Pulaski.
----
As for actual Discovery news, that promotion art of the person on top of Discovery's saucer is very stunning. It makes the ship look so small compared to its contemporaries... which makes the decision to have cutouts in the primary hull that much weirder.
Of course this is Hollywood, and the scale shifts to whatever they think looks cool at that particular moment. We will probably see the ship fluctuate from that size to being larger than the Enterprise depending on what is happening.
Mariposa seems to be special because the scriptwriter was probably chosen because she shared Gene's... eccentricities to a large extent. She intentionally put in the scene with Riker and Pulaski killing their clones as an analogue of abortion. Also she used the planet of hats trope in ways that even most bad writers would avoid. She was trying to write a story about why immigration is a good thing because she hated US immigration policy, so she intentionally made both flawed stereotypes. Mariposa had actually outlawed conventional childbirth entirely, and Bringloid intentionally had no tech and were about to get wiped out by a solar flare. The idea being that mixing the two would make the whole better.
Then there's her dubious attempts at "science" with the "replicative fading" nonsense, and writing the ending to note that for the merged colony to have long term viability each woman(Mariposan and Bringloidi alike) would need to have children with at least 3 different men. It's basically eugenics but aimed at selective breeding over culling the herd. Seriously, if the Mariposans had been smart they'd have been making customized clones instead of exact copies. But apparently their cloning technique relied on cultivating tissue samples and they didn't know how to tinker with the DNA of the clones.... um yeah... sure. If that was the case the clones wouldn't look identical since the "random mutations" that create replicative fading would also affect the appearance of the clones.
So... in summary, it's a combination of bad pseudo-science and using the script as a soap box...
My character Tsin'xing
The assumption by the principles which allow them to kill their clones must be based on something, and in this case Riker declares the clones property by claiming the material used to make his clone was stolen from him and asserting his right to control what others do with his property. But we know from countless cases all around the world that it is perfectly legal for someone to create your offspring against your will, and that beyond a certain point that offspring attains rights of its own independent of the wishes of the genetic donor.
The precedent this established would have allowed Will to kill Thomas too, because he was created from Will's pattern against his will, and therefore was the property of the 'prime' Riker. But in one case the duplicate had rights and in the other he didn't, and there was no demarcation point to show why killing one is a crime and not the other.
So, the Riker and Pulaski clones had zero rights. How about the rest of the Mariposans? Are they similarly restrained in their personal liberty? Could Riker and Pulaski have killed them all just because they were clones and inherently lacking the basic freedoms guaranteed under the Federation Charter? This irreconcilable contradiction of logic is for me the primary issue with the episode, and it is the reason I keep hoping that Discovery hires actual science fiction writers rather than Game Of Thrones and CSI writers. Because even very smart people have limits, and writers tend to write what they know, even when they attempt to write in another genre.
Case in point: Issac Asimov wrote several love stories in his combined Robots & Foundation stories. How many come to mind?
On the other hand, this is a truism of the Trek universe, and writers who cannot deal with it have no place in Trek. The setting is as much a character in Trek as any ship, captain, or crewman, and consistency of characterization is an important part of immersion into a story. Instead of discarding the premise of the setting, the writers who cannot write for it should be discarded and replaced with real SF writers who can.
Just gotta tell the bad guys, who have everything to lose in their evil regimes when these changes happen, to go smeg off.
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
Yup. Here's that article
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
That is just describing money though. The simple reality is that even in a society where all basic needs are provided for free, there will still be things that can't be mass produced and provided in such a generous way. For those things people will need a tool to facilitate the exchanges of those goods or services, that tool is money and its nothing to be ashamed of.
I don't remember which stage the clones were in (it's been a while since I watched that episode), but I'm reasonably certain that they were still incubating. At that stage, they were somewhat equivalent to a fetus, in that they'd never been what we'd consider 'awake' (the brain would theoretically be a blank slate), and - depending on the specifics of the Mariposan cloning process - in that they might not be able to survive were they to be removed from their incubators.
Under those circumstances, the abortion parallel mentioned in one of the posts above is not quite so inaccurate, as the clones hadn't become a fully functional organism yet. (On the other hand, killing one of the existing Mariposans or Tom Riker would have been pretty much what we'd expect - murder.)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
I saw adult bodies being aged to adulthood which to me implies viability outside the incubators. Were the clones non-viable they would only have to unplug the incubators, but they used phasers to vaporize them.
Killing a viable human, regardless of his mental status, is murder in every case but war, and even in war the intentional slaying of helpless non-combatants is still murder. I do not belidve there were any moral loopholes or ethical ambiguity. What I saw was cold-blooded murder.
Hmm, I wonder if I can get a Trek Con to hold a kangaroo court to indict Riker and Pulaski?
i mentioned something about if the clones were alive in their pods in a previous reply, these days when a fetus has a heartbeat and it was killed, it's considered murder. if the clones were alive it would also be murder as well irrespective of beliefs or if they were pre-programmed before they left the pods
.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Working Hard in a reward-based economy, would produce noticeable results in terms of the reward received. Working Hard at most any paid job, will not get the person more money (unless bonus targets somehow get applied) The janitor who busts their TRIBBLE, gets paid just the same as the janitor who sits on theirs
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
did they now? "Free food housing and clothing for everyone" seems like a potent magic wand to me.
that is quite true, Federation society isn't one where everyone is guaranteed everything they could ever want, but rather, the bare minimum to live.
Yeah the writer tried to make a point and show something as good, when she actually made it look horrible. that scene was apparently meant as an analogy of abortion since the clones Riker destroyed were not fully formed yet. Thus it's one of those "my body, my right to choose" things... extrapolated to cloning. Which explains why Riker asked Pulaski's permission before destroying her clone. What? you think it still sounds horrible? Congrats you now understand abortion. Well that demarcation would seem to be the point where one of them can say "I don't want to die".... Enh, thing is that this case is not whether the person doing the writing knows how to write science fiction, but whether they try to force a POV onto a situation that doesn't support it. Asimov also wrote a compilation of jokes(well, humorous short stories). It was quite good, but not what people remember him for.
I think she just didn't fit in well. teh rest of the cast were typically soft spoken and then you toss in someone who is about as soft as a cactus.
My character Tsin'xing
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
I'd prefer to go with "the point where one of them can think "I don't want to die"", so as to avoid discriminating against newborn children and mutes.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Indeed. There are efforts in some European countries to introduce a baseline income for every citizen so you don't have to work to survive. A society like this opens up every possibility for it's people to pursue self-fulfilment and improvement.
Regarding the Pulaski thing, did everyone forget that she was actually racist AF?
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While in principle this is an issue worth discussing, it is also blown way out of proportion. The conservative fear of the society collapsing since nobody would work any more is, to my knowledge, just baseless fear. On the contrary, it gravely underestimates peoples inherent drive to work towards self-improvement as evident by for example voluntary services performed by unemployed or retired people.
If you have to work multiple jobs just to survive you have a very hard time pursuing what it is that actually makes you happy, to pursue education. This in turn creates frustration and easily leads into a downward spiral that causes a lot of societal problems.
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But yeah, citizen's income is a fantastic idea. I remember reading some time back, that when this was trialed in Canada a while ago, the only people who actually didn't work, were full-time students, and those who were so close to retirement any, that it made no difference if they just retired early. Apparently, everyone else, continued working
PS Just gave my AoY toon a piggy boff on your recommendation... When the game's back up, and I next log in, I'll see if she handles herself as well as an Andorian waifu
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
Also, right NOW, most people are NOT doing the work they WANT to do, but the work they are pretty much forced to do to survive. I mean how many people really like their jobs...as opposed to those who hate their jobs and are miserable, and only doing it to live? Lots of folks have wants to do the sorta of thing that would make 'em happy, but, in this backwards world we live in, right now, a lot can't do it because 'it don't pay the bills'.
And let's face it.....when the top 1 or 2 percent owns a huge chunk of the world's wealth, and the other 98 or 99 percent gets mere scraps, something is wrong, imo. Also, the pentagon admitted to 'losing' about 8 trillion (about 2 in 2001, and another 6 in recent years) dollars......um...you don't lose 8 trillion dollars....someone TOOK it. And imagine if WE had that 8 trillion, rather than whomever actually has it. No one would have to compete and back stab each other for the proverbial bone with a few scraps of meat on it, whilst the big shot at the table laughs with amusement.
> angrytarg wrote: »
>
> There are efforts in some European countries to introduce a baseline income for every citizen so you don't have to work to survive.
>
>
>
>
> If you don't have to work, then who is going to pay for the program? The redistribution of wealth does not necessarily work all that well.
It's already been done at a lower level. Back in the '70s Canada experimented with it in a couple towns, a project called Mincome. Duke University recently looked back at the data and made some interesting findings: employment rates only dropped a few percent, and the overwhelming majority of the people who stopped working were teenagers and new parents. (I'm having trouble linking it from my phone but it should be the top result if you Google "Duke Mincome study".) Alaska does the same thing: part of the tax revenues from the hydrocarbons industry in that state go into an investment fund that makes yearly payouts to the state's residents.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Funny thing is that right now it's not just "the man" halting progress. According to my researches, the USA of all countries had a plan to have a base income in the sixties under President Johnson. A committee made up of economics, unions and people of public interest voted in favour of a plan like this - the committee's endeavour was highly unpopular though as the society at the time could just not agree to simply pay people for "nothing". A lot of people are deeply opposed to the idea of letting others "have" something, just because, even if they would profit as well.
But I think we are derailing the topic folks
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