this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
805 points (90.5% liked)
Political Memes
5355 readers
2287 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Just to be clear star trek also had a nuclear war
And the Whales go extinct. The Star Trek timeline isn't as bright and cheery as most people believe. The franchise has always been collapse-aware, its just not front and center. Gene Roddenberry just envisioned that post capitalist collapse (And with the discovery of intelligent alien life) that humanity would be able to rebuild better from the ashes.
We only know that humpback whales go extinct. The rest of the whales could be doing fine in the 23rd century.
Also I believe Star Trek is speculative fiction.
People always forget that Star Trek is post-apocalyptic in addition to being utopian.
And only embraced space communism when they invented (got access to? I'm not a Trekkie) a device that can literally make anything from anything, resulting in a post scarcity society and no need for work.
And time travelers who fought off time traveling space cyborgs to protect them.
This is incorrect. Luxury Gay Space Communism came first. It was embraced widely after the discovery of intelligent alien life united Humanity. The Replicator only became wide-spread in the time between The Original Series and The Next Generation. Even then there were other cultures with access to replicators that weren't "Communist" such as the Ferengi and Cardassians. Equality has to be valued for a society to be truly post-scarcity.
Which is why I'd like fully automated luxury gay space communism. We can't be trusted to govern ourselves, take me to The Culture now please.
I, Robot did it first.
Man straight up said "robots would make the best leaders because they can be made to be honest, rational, and selfless," and people just remember the stories about the malfunctions.
The biggest problem would be making sure that the robots are acting in our best interests in a sustainable way and that no bad actors or loopholes make their way in. Though that's the topic of decades of speculation so I'm hardly bringing anything new up, yeah. And as you've said, I robot covered a lot of these things way back in the earlier sci-fi days.
Joining an already-existing galactic civilization also results in a post-scarcity world, especially after the depopulation of the planet, but yes I already confessed I am not a Trekkie.
Regardless, communism, like Star Trek, is a fun fancy that won't ever happen.
People that are blindly anti-capitalism and pro something else (usually social/communism) tend to justify their feelings by saying that all of human weakness (greed, corruption, laziness) are the fault of capitalism.
People that are blindly pro-capitalism tend to blame all the failures of capitalism on regulation.
Really, all the failures of all our systems seem to be that humans are greedy, selfish creatures. And regulation is the (only?) thing that governs human weaknesses.
MAYBE, if we manage to generate a post-scarcity world, we'll be able to manage that greed problem. I definitely experience feelings of kindness and generosity with my friends, family, or in times/places where I'm not stressed/rushed/feeling scarcity.
But I don't know how pathetic, greedy humans ever generate a post scarcity world.
I'm "blindly pro-capitalism" and I blame it on perverse incentives and unaddressed externalities.
Then you're not blind, my friend 😂
It's possible I don't understand the usage of "blindly" here lol