From solving societal problems like war, hunger, or greed, to achieving technological advancements and expansion like traveling to distant star systems, to medical advancements like being able to cure advanced cancers, do you believe we'll ever get there, even partly?
I think we're closer to achieving a peaceful planet than we've ever been, but we still have a LONG way to go. I have high hopes we'll eventually break the light barrier and get to other stars. I have the most faith in our ability to achieve greater medical advancements.
What do you think about these or any other issues we see Humanity having mostly resolved in the shows?
Don't let them promote you. Don't let them transfer you. Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship, because while you're there... you can make a difference.
-Captain James T. Kirk
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We won't get there, but maybe our children will.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
This sadly
While the middle part of the 20th century saw huge leaps in technology, it also saw huge leaps in solving at least SOME societal issues of the time. Yet as we are half way through the second decade of the 21st century, things have been creeping backwards.
We see commercials about how great technology is, and robots doing surgery, and robots doing this, and people with access to vast amounts of information at their fingertips. Yet, those robotic surgeons seem to be reserved for the lucky few. All that vast information is being ignored by the masses in favor of " pokemon" or the latest trend of popculture.
We here politicos talk about " wealth inequality", yet they are millionaires. How does one become a millionaire on a senators salary of $180k a year? Our supposed leaders are the most corrupt, manipulative, irrational, liars that humanity has to offer.
We are on verge of a paradigm shift: If humanity lets go of the ancient hatreds that seem to be embedded in our DNA. If society stops pointing out what others have and don't have, if we stop yelling at each other over words, and if we stop trying to convince everyone to THINK exactly the same way, then MAYBE,, just MAYBE humanity will survive to reach the stars. The way things are going not I'd be surprised if humanity survives in it's current form another 20 years.
Is that a cynical, negative way of looking at things? Sure. Perhaps my views are tainted by the fact that I watch what is going on around me, and I have a tendency to see things from history's points of view. Right now I see the quote " Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." Right now, Rome is about to burn.
HAVE A NICE DAY!
Fleet Admiral In charge of Bacon
Fighting 5th Attack Squadron
The Devils Henchman
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Well your name is, afterall, CaptainChaos!
Don't let them promote you. Don't let them transfer you. Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship, because while you're there... you can make a difference.
-Captain James T. Kirk
A: Eventually...
I tell you, from a perspective of both reading history and having lived through better than half a century of it, that this world has never been better. Yes, we have a looong way to go before we're founding the United Federation of Planets, and we have to fight nearly constantly to keep the progress we've made - but we've made progress that our ancestors could scarcely have imagined. (Just look at the number of you who feel comfortable dismissing Uhura in TOS as "a token telephone operator", not even realizing the advances implied by a black female officer of a space exploration corps, with an important function that wasn't just cleaning up after the white menfolks. Ask Whoopi Goldberg, or Mae Jemison, for an explanation of just what that meant. Or try to imagine the response of a general of the wars of the 19th century, when confronted with the idea that "peace" might actually mean no fighting for years at a time.)
The only question is whether we can achieve a post-scarcity society, and if we can ever find a way around the lightspeed limit. Either one requires our understanding of physics to be incorrect on a fundamental level, or the discovery of something that extends said understanding greatly (for instance, if Alcubierre-White theory is correct, and we can find some way of mass-producing exotic matter, there might be a way to fool Einstein). On those, all I can say is that I hope we can find a way to get there...
We talk about sending people to Mars while there are children starving in Africa, without access to clean drinking water. We talk about a bright, hopeful future where we go out and colonize the stars while there are people in India who still defecate out in the open, without access to working toilets.
We talk about these wonderful new clean technologies that we're developing, while other countries continue to spew pollutants into the environment because of government corruption and the all-powerful 'bottom line'.
Gene Roddenberry had some great ideas, but these were moral ideas, moral questions to be asking ourselves.
Unfortunately, in asking ourselves these moral questions proposed in Star Trek, sometimes the answer isn't pre-determined by what the script calls for. Sometimes the answer is very, very ugly.
Humans are flawed. There will always be people who want what someone else has, and are willing to do horrible things to get it. There will also always be people who hate and/or fear other people because they look different or because they don't understand them. These things will never change.
That is how the whole war on Space Battleship Yamato started.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Not with our current attitudes as a species, it's been like that throughout human history
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
(Edit: If we survive that long)
"When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway
#Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
Humanity turning out like in Warhammer 40K is scarily believable. Much more believable than Trek's vision I'm afraid.
Do find 40K's setting a fascinating one to read about though, very rich in lore and high-octane nightmare fuel mwuhaha!
I am well aware of world hunger, but it's important to stress that it's getting better. It's still there, but it's not as widespread as it used to be, which is a remarkable achievement when our population is growing.
I see environmental degradation, often toted as evidence that humanity is just plain bad. We're getting better at it, polluting less, restoring more, and managing more efficiently.
Further, there are people whose careers are to solve these problems. I'm training to be one of them. All these things mentioned in this thread are problems, but problems can be fixed.
If it seems like we're being painfully slow, allow me to suggest that that's merely an artifact of our perspective: change seems slow to us only because we're used to doing everything so monumentally quickly. We've gone from eating other animals' leftovers to reshaping the ecosystem in ~10,000 years, which is a blink of an eye on an evolutionary timeframe. We're newborn babies building rockets and ecosystems and solving problems nature could never handle. Expect teething.
There will be cities underwater in just decades, and their built up pollutants washed out into the fisheries we eat from even as we abandon those cities. The terminal saltwater contamination of the Florida aquifers will consume the cities even before the waves do. Insurance companies know it's coming; just try and get reasonable costing coverage for a house on a coast.
We were not stirred to action when the Gulf of Mexico filled with oil. British Petroleum's report on the rebound is still seen as authoritative until it can be disproven. I am sad to see that the perpetrator gets to triage their victim. I have no expectation it will change.
I can hope. I do not expect it.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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It should be noted that while it is very easy to point the finger at space budgets and say "what a waste of money", it's also true that many of the inventions and discoveries by NASA do have positive implications... indeed, even in some of the very examples you cited.
The question then becomes not about how money is being used in research... but how humanity applies that technology once it has been discovered. Does it do so for the mutual benefit of humankind, or does it box it up... stick an inflated price tag on it and treat it as a commodity out of avarice? That's where the problem lies... and you only have to look at the amorality demonstrated by Martin Shkreli, inflating antimalarial drug prices by 5,000%, to see it at work.
But the IDEA of reaching those goals, the idea of continuing to improve hunger and poverty, the idea of continuing to unite as human brothers and sisters, the idea of using our technological advancements FOR the benefit of mankind instead of for selfish gain-I would have to say I believe in these ideas...and I believe we are capable of getting there. It's just going to take MANY generations of hard work and positive teaching to change mindsets....until the number of people who passionately believe in these principles outnumber the ones who would derail them.
Don't let them promote you. Don't let them transfer you. Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship, because while you're there... you can make a difference.
-Captain James T. Kirk