JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
Some times Charlie was in the trees.
User ID: 4009
For my part I got into trek around 9 or 10, the gateway drug was re-runs of the original series that one of our local stations would play along-side Lost In Space, Twilight Zone and a few others. Regarding specific episodes, A Piece of the Action, The Corbomite Maneuver, and Trouble With Tribbles all stick in my mind. From there I got into the TOS crew movies, practically wearing out our copy of Wrath of Kahn on VHS.
Additionally my grandad had a whole shelving unit full of old paperbacks in his study/man-cave that included a bunch of the Star Trek expanded universe books as well as a lot classic sci-fi. Stuff like Doc Smith's Lensmen books, Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom stories, and a bunch of Heinlein and Bradbury's early stuff. Grandad would let me check books out like a library and between those two vectors I was well and truly hooked.
I've tried to infect with my own kids with the Star Trek bug but it hasn't taken. That said over the last year or two, my eldest and a couple of their friends (all middle-school aged) have gotten really into Stargate, and it's clear from talking to them and watching them play that Stargate is to them what Trek was to me when I was their age, which is probably worth a post in itself.
I recently rewatched a bunch of Berman-era Trek including a good chunk of Season 1 Enterprise in part because I needed a pallet cleanser from the latest Kurtzman nonsense, and pop-song aside I feel that it is unfairly maligned. See the various re-dubbs of the Enterprise opening using other series' scores
TNG was "my Trek" but even I have to admit that the first season was pretty rough, if we compare season 1 of Enterprise to season 1 of TNG I'd argue that the former acquits itself well.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
2d ago
End birthright citizenship, and make citizenship by blood only.
I agree that "the Franchise" is too important to to entrust to accidents of birth which is why, if we are going to openly embrace empire, I would say that we ought borrow a page from the late-Republic / early-Empire and go full Heinlein. Tie citizenship and voting rights to military service or at least being a revenue-producing taxpayer. We want voters who feel invested, and granting citizenship at birth, be it by blood or by soil, has the opposite effect.
As for the rest, I have the same questions for you as @sun_the_second.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
2d ago
You're preaching to the choir.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
2d ago
what do you imagine you are offering?
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
2d ago
Many of the things you describe can still be had, and at a reasonable price too if you're willing to look outside blue-state urban cores. the proliferation of electric bikes and scooters give my kids and their friends a radius of action that 13 year-old me could have only dreamed of.
The recent flurry of posts on family formation, @PyotrVerkhovensky's post on Chesterton and MAGA, along with the proliferation of Penguin and Starfleet Academy memes in my feed has gotten me thinking about Star Trek again, and the role that aspiration plays in fiction, politics, and life in general.
What can a 24 year-old spin-off of a 60 year-old TV series teach us today's Culture War?
Star Trek is often presented as utopian, but it would be more accurate to describe it as post-post-apocalyptic. While the date and circumstances of "Post-Atomic Horror" have shifted over the decades, the idea that Trek's world is separated from ours by a massive catastrophic event that wiped out a significant portion of humanity has been present since Trek's inception. I find this interesting not, only from a lore perspective but in context of how the real-world has changed around it over the last six decades.
From the original series' premiere in 1966 through the end of the 20th century Star Trek had always been "linear" always moving forward into its own future. That is until "Star Trek: Enterprise". (STE) Enterprise jumped backwards in Trek's timeline to the early days of Starfleet.
In Trek's lore this is a frontier period full of unbounded optimism, but Enterprise premiered in September of 2001, and as those Americans here old enough to have first seen Fight Club in the theater or experience 9/11 as adults will recall, the early 2000s were not exactly an optimistic time. The dot com bubble had just burst, and the US was on a bit of a downs-slope both culturally and economically, the first cracks in the presumptions of progressivism had already appeared, and the quiet suggestion in Star Trek's backstory that "you can't get there from here" was starting to feel much louder. Enterprise sought to be a bridge, not just between the atomic wasteland and utopian vision of the original series, but between the progressive optimism of the late 20th century and the cultural "funk" of the year 2000. This is why, for me at least, Enterprise is simultaneously the most under-developed and under-rated iteration of Star Trek.
The series opens approximately 30 years after a drunken mad scientist living in the black hills converted a surplus nuclear missile into mankind's first FTL-capable spacecraft (*1). This triggers an intervention on the part of a paternalist Vulcan civilization to prevent this band of psychotic gun-monkeys from disrupting the delicate balance of power in our local galactic region. Earth now exists as sort of an indulged vassal of the Vulcans. A vassalage that while largely benign has begun to chafe. There is an increasing vocal faction of humans, most of whom who came of age post-Horror, who wish to see Earth set its own path and develop its own technology base. The situation is somewhat analogous to that of Japan in the 50s and 60s, economically vibrant but also still somewhat traumatized, the mass death and devastation of the Horror still very much within living memory. It is with this as background that the NX Program, a project to build and launch mankind's first proper Starships, is undertaken.
Our heroes are the captain and crew of the NX-1. All through the first season, there of this of their mission being this watershed moment that will determine whether Humanity sets its own path in galactic affairs or simply settles for having ended hunger, war, and disease. At best stagnating under the benevolent colonialism of the Vulcans, at worst losing some vital part of our collective soul.
Unlike the smugly enlightened Starfleet of the TNG era, the humans we meet in STE are clearly rooted in our modern world both aesthetically; The NX series ships follow NASA naming conventions (Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger), while their crews wear uniforms based on contemporary NASA astronaut uniforms. And more fundamentally; They have bitter political disputes and a bit of xenophobic streak. They can also be recklessly forthright when something gets their ire up. They have one ally, the Vulcans, and Archer burns them by revealing one of their covert listening posts operation to the wider galaxy. These humans are arrogant, violent, impulsive, illogical, and they're effectively betting the future of their entire species on a single ship. If the Enterprise gets destroyed or accidentally starts a war with the Klingon Empire that might just be the end of humanity's story right there.
Speaking of the Klingons, let's take a moment to talk about them...
The modern pop-culture image of Klingons as these weird Samurai space-orcs with bumpy foreheads talking endlessly about "honor" while they stab each other in the back mostly comes from Christopher Lloyd's Captain Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Kruge seems to be more of a pirate or privateer than a naval officer, operating on his own initiative rather than as part of a wider organization. While subsequent portrayals would try to walk this back, they were never quite able to shake that image. Even in Star Trek: Deep Space 9, a series that was usually pretty good about giving its aliens depth and nuance, the Klingons come across as a remarkably simplistic and socially primitive society. This is in substantial contrast to how they were presented in the original series.
While originally envisioned by Star Trek producer Gene L. Coon as a mash up of the Soviet, Ottoman, and Mongol Empires, ie a stand-in for every "Eastern Horde" that has threatened Western civilization throughout its history, the original series gives them a lot of background for what could have easily been a just another throw-away villain of the week. The Klingons of TOS are presented as a fully functional society with scientists, lawyers, and diplomats, as well as warriors. They engage in diplomacy and undertake organized campaigns as seen in their introductory episode Errand of Mercy, they make use of proxies as shown in the episodes like Day of the Dove and A Private Little War. They have deep cover operatives as shown in *The Trouble With Tribbles". We even get passing references to famous Klingon actors, popular songs, and mytho-historical figures. While aggressive and expansionistic the Klingons of TOS are a civilization that venerates its warriors rather than a civilization of warriors. A distinction that STE explicitly calls out in the Season 2 episode Judgment.
Kolos: "You didn't believe all Klingons were soldiers?"
Archer: "I guess I did."
Though much of it is now considered non-canon, the Original Series expanded universe novels, fan-guides (presented as in-universe guidebooks), and TTRPG took this even further, fleshing out the Klingons' history, and religion. Even giving them an entire constructed language that would be spoken on-screen in subsequent Star Trek movies and spin-off series. These Klingons are not just mindless brutes slobbering Gahg, while their children may train for war as part of their basic schooling, they also enjoy theme-parks and schlocky teleplays. Klingon adults listen to opera and have nuanced conversations about history and philosophy over glasses of Blood Wine. These Klingons are warlike, but they aren't obsessed with war for war's sake. Rather their militarism is an expression of a broader multi-domain aggressiveness.
And it is through this aggressiveness that they perceive something crucial about the other races they come in contact with. There are "Eev" that is beings like themselves, possessed of individual agency and ambition (The Humans,, Vulcans, Romulans, and Andorrans, all falling into this category), and then there are "Kuve", zombies, servitors, livestock, contemptible creatures worthy only of being conquered or consumed. There are shades of the Bene Gesserit's Gom Jabbar test in this distinction complete with Klingon youth having to be "tested with pain sticks" before becoming a legal adult (Coon, Fontana, Ford, Et Al. had clearly read Dune).
It is with this as context that I would like to highlight a scene from the novel The Final Reflection by John Ford, published the same year that Star Trek III would cement the pop culture image of the Klingons. In this scene a Klingon envoy is meeting with a wealthy Earth tycoon, Maxwell Grandisson the Third (this was written before Star Trek IV dropped that line about people in the 24th century not using money into the lore without any thought about how it would work). This man, Grandisson, is the leader of a "Back to Earth" movement that wants to do away with all this expensive and dangerous colonization of other planets bullshit in favor of building a paradise on Earth and he is trying to convince the Klingons to back his political campaign on the basis that if he wins there will be no need for conflict between their two peoples. The Klingon response to his overtures is worth thinking on...
"We have a word in our tongue, Komerex. Your translator has probably told you it means Empire, but what it truly means is the structure that grows. It has an opposite, Khesterex the structure that dies. We are taught by those you wish to receive your story that there are no other cultures than these and in all my years and all my travels I have seen nothing to indicate that my teaching was wrong. There are only Empires and Kuve."
Krenn saw Grandisson's long jaw go slack, he knew how the human's machine had translated that last word. "...and this is the change you say you wish to make in yourselves, is it?"
To me, this speaks to the core story/premise of Enterprise. At the start of the series Earth is well on it's way to becoming a post-scarcity society but humanity is also starting to lean toward the Khesterex side of things. A vassal to the Vulcans, a junior ally at best. The NX Program is the physical manifestation of a conscious decision not to sink into comfortable dependency. This isn't the end of the humanity's story where we live boringly ever after, it is the beginning of "To Boldly Go..."
...and it is by "boldly going where no man has gone before", by inserting themselves into the middle of galactic affairs as though they belong, that by the end of Season 3 Humanity has gone from an indulged vassal to regional player and full partner in a powerful 3-way alliance that would have never come about had this band of psychotic gun-monkeys not disrupted the status quo. It is a quintessentially "American" story in that it's both the story of a child culture supplanting its parent as Hegemon and deeply rooted in the frontier mythos. But it's also a more universally human story about how cultures rise, fall, and occasionally merge. At the start of the series the Vulcans are powerful but also stagnant. Too rigid to adapt to changing circumstances and too conservative to tolerate uncertainty or risk even when doing so is arguably necessary. Meanwhile Humanity is both staggeringly ignorant and boundlessly confident. A confidence buoyed in part by the fact that there is nothing anyone can threaten them with short of extinction that they haven't already done to themselves. By the end of the series the two have moderated each other and become the closest of allies. It's a story about finding that balance between realistically assessing your limitations but also having the sense of confidence, self-worth, and "fuck it we ball" attitude necessary to pursue greatness. A worthwhile message for not just for individuals but for entire cultures.
Which brings us to the Culture War angle.
A common critique I see leveled against conservative populists on this forum be is that they lack the intelligence and positive vision for the future necessary to attract "elite human capital". MAGA is obviously the central example here, defined as it is looking backwards to try and recapture a piece of what once was, but I've seen similar complaints leveled against Abe and the LDP in Japan, and as as characters like Javier Milei in Argentina. But something the critics don't seem to grasp is that positive vision or no, their messages resonate, they win elections, and their rallies draw passionate crowds because it's a better story than anything the other side has to offer. A question our resident anti-Populists are going to have to grapple with is what does "elite human capital" have to offer the base-model human other than growing social dysfunction and death via "managed decline"?
I still think we can get to a better future without a catastrophic hard reset but we can't do it with the sort of "Khesterex" thinking that seems to have become endemic to blue spaces. Grievance-mongering might stir up a crowd but gripes alone are not a solid foundation to build upon, nor are the likely to inspire anyone to greatness. If we are going to build a better future, we will need to get away from both the nostalgia of the right and the doubling down on failure that is the left. We need a unifying myth, and I feel like we might be in the early stages of figuring that out.
- 1 see the 1996 movie Star Trek: First Contact
- 2 see Enterprise Season 1 Episode 7 The Andorran Incident
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
3d ago
That "suffering is an intrinsic part of life" is neither a new nor novel insight.
It seems trivially true to me that pretty much every single person posting here today lives a life of wealth and abundance that my grandparents would have quite literally been willing to die for, and that at the very least I think it's safe to assume that anyone posting here is probably doing better financially than the 37 year-old ex-con who runs the kitchen at my local sports bar.
Accordingly I find the complaint that "kids are too expensive" to be laughable on it's face. Anyone posting here about how they can't afford kids can absolutely afford kids, they just don't want to. See @LazyLongposter's comment down thread or my own from a month ago
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
3d ago
I don't think life without children has gotten more fun, the idea that singles today are having more fun than singles at the height of the 60s or even the 80s just doesn't pass the smell test. What I do think is happening is that people are becoming less mature and less "human" in the Bene Gesserit sense of the word.
Having kids has always entailed the making of significant sacrifices in the short to medium term, something I have written about on multiple occasions. Being completely free of responsibilities has always been more "fun" than having responsibilities, the availability of the internet-streaming did not change this. What has changed is people's willingness and/or ability to think beyond the short to medium term and thus make those sacrifices.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
3d ago
My impression is that the IOC burned a lot of social capital over the last decade pushing "the message" and as a result normies have largely tuned out.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
5d ago
And you believe that this is an argument in favor of your preferred position?
People win Darwin awards all the time.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
5d ago
While I would Romanize it a bit differently, when spoken aloud the alias sounds a lot like "verified to the smoke" in Turkish.
In engineering it means to test something to the point of failure (IE till it smokes or catches fire), but it is also used in the US as slang for killing somebody.
I don't know if "Smoke Check" has the same meaning or connotations in Turkey, Bulgaria, Chechnya, or wherever these guys hail from, but "Ali Smoke Check" just sounds like an alias that an edgy 22 year-old would come up with to me.
If you are who I suspect you are you are, you're what? Around 30 years-old now give or take? If a 7 - 10 year age-gap is what you really want, why not date a 22 year-old?
Likewise if the goal is to improve TFR, why not advise boys to take few years after high-school to build up some experience and equity before going to college so they'll be more attractive mates?
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
7d ago
Why is it unfortunate?
If we are going to allow people to bet on the outcome of an election or a war, why should it be treated any differently from betting on the Super Bowl?
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
7d ago
This would seem to dovetail nicely with my observation that prediction markets aren't really "markets" in the "market economy" sense of the word so much as Casinos cosplaying as markets.
The irony calling Trump and his supporters "Fascist" is that MAGA does not buy into the idea of the state as ultimate sovereign/final arbiter of authority. MAGA does not want a rational materialist technocracy society run by "Elite Human Capital" (or a racial spoils system for that matter) nor does MAGA see itself as socialist (though they are certainly nationalist).
To the extent that mid 20th century fascism is an active and vital force in US politics today, it is embodied by the sort of affluent white liberal who writes for the New York Times and voted for Zohran Mamdani on the high-end, and would-be brownshirts like Alex Pretti on the low end.
I would argue that MAGA is (amongst many things) a popular reaction against the fascistic and anti-western tendencies that have been allowed to fester amongst our so-called "best and brightest" for far too long. But acknowledging that would force the NYT to grapple with their own checkered history regarding Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, the German Bund, Et Al, whereas doubling down on calling anyone to the right of Karl Marx a secret Nazi costs them nothing but readership.
LLMs are generally terrible at any sort of task where accuracy and rigor are core constraints. Imagine the full range of legal opinions that exist on the internet, intelligent, retarded, and everything in between. Now imagine what the average of that mass of opinions would look like. That's effectively what you're getting when you ask an LLM for legal advice.
Otherwise see @gattsuru's comment below.
Because the Governor and the Attorney General of Minnesota have been protecting the protestors from facing state-level charges.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
14d ago
it may feel like a loss but is it?
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
14d ago
I'm no tech-Guru, but I feel like I have enough of a background in math (a Bachelor's degree) to follow what my friend is talking about when they go off on a tangent about "sensitivity matrices" and "multi-layer tensors", and this is kind of how I feel about rationalist takes on AI in general.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
14d ago
A gain is still a gain
Seconding the recommendation of Heinlein's Juveniles, Star Beast and Farmer in the Sky are both excellent reads for a kid of that age.
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