An imaginary character made up by another imaginary character lied to me!
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- 4 mo. ago
- Posts
- 16
- Comments
- 941
- Joined
- 4 mo. ago
I mean, I watch the news to see how the world is CHANGING, not how it's staying the same.
And I see the world is getting worse, but it's steadily and predictably getting worse, so, again, not much reason to watch the news.
Thank you! This is a beautiful and thoughtfully presented list.
Oh, damn, yes, please! A "Violence IS the Answer" watchlist would give me a more balanced portrayal of how STNG looks at things.
Edit: Oops, misread you--I don´t think that's ever a case TNG makes even obliquely.
Yeah, it would be a bummer if the Enterprise just left behind systems in permanent war or genocide every third episode, or if a show had to turn into a seventeen-parter to get all the nuance right.
I don't really think we're disagreeing on anything.
You want me to understand that starving actually does suck, and I'm not disagreeing; I'm saying, "yes, and".
Yes, starving does suck, and so does not belonging to a community or having hope for the future or having no purpose in life. And if you want to play personal credibility, I've been in the hospital for wanting to kill myself more than once and I went in on a full belly each time.
People need a variety of things in a variety of combinations at different points of their lifes. There is not stable pyramid guiding human psychology the way their obviously is for human biology. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs has been criticized by smarter people than me on these points, and you can read their work if you're interested.
Yes, you've kind of highlighted my key philosophical and political with problem, of which TNG is the most egregious example.
The arc of history does NOT bend toward justice. Believing so lulls us into complacency and laziness. Eventually, if we just wait long enough, we will achieve utopia by default, no need to do much about it.
Of course, if TNG inspires you believe such a thing as possible, and thereby motivates you to WORK towards it, great! But I find more often it acts as a sedative.
The West Wing might be a good comparison for someone looking at how fictional narratives act as a social nepenthe. Like, yes, a good portion of those fans saw the discrepancy between the show and reality and worked to change it, but how many people were just happy to have the show? How many people saw the West Wing and didn't notice that it is absolutely not how America's politics operate and left every episode feeling happy that right always prevails.
And the whole aversion to violence is completely ahistorical fantasy, as far as I can tell, but very convenient for a class of people who have achieved everything they need materially but would like to maintain a sense of moral superiority while maintaining the status quo that they benefit from (see: New York Times editorial page).
Personally, I don't believe in progress. I think it's a myth. Technology is a glittering lure trapping us in a future that will never come, and that lure shines brightest in TNG. I believe societies rise and fall and there are mechanisms underneath it all that we can effectively do nothing about (including getting swept up in them). I don´t think humanity is groping towards perfection, but will continue to rise and fall until a catastrophe we foresaw and failed to prevent paves the way for the Age of Polydactyl Cats.
But I do love Star Trek because it is ABOUT this shit in a way many shows are not, even if I don't agree with their take; and often they'll at least RAISE objections to their own premise, sometimes answered, sometimes not. And, of course, weĺl always have DS9.
No one is worth skipping the bathroom for.
Nina Simone disagrees.
YouTube warning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=995S1v-yHE4&t=71s
Edit: also: feels warning. holy shit. hello to bojack horseman fans.
edit: but also youtube warning because they cut to commercial in the middle of this song. ugh.
edit: here you go, some kind of mirror so you can listen unmolested, but minus the interruption: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1YP4y1c72L/?uid=42563159503479316337324C
Oh, yeah, there probably is a Trek database somewhere doing this, no?
Hm. Maybe it's time to make a list of diplomacy episodes for me to ree-watch.
I watched so much TNG it's one of those shows that just sort of sits in my head and I don´t feel the need to watch it again because it quite alive in there, but it's lives in the perspective of a man 20 years younger than I am.
Does anyone else find the fetishization of mediation on TNG is kind of unrealistic at best and paternalistic at worst?
Just kind of gives the vibe of people that refuse to understand that populations are more than happy to fuck over other populations as a matter of conscious policy to maintain their own advantage.
These are the people that think, "All these people squabbling amongst themselves are stupid. We just need to get their leaders in a room and lock the door until they come to an agreement," as if there is always an even trade that a powerful population, that holds all the cards, can amicably make with an weak population that holds no cards because access to the deck has been denied them.
That all these social problems are not struggles to be fought and won, but puzzles to be solved by superior intellects.
Edit: Contribute to my TNG Negotiation watchlist here: https://sh.itjust.works/post/65181549
Oh, yes, I'm getting chemistry flashbacks, now.
One of the ends of the soap is hydrophilic and the other is hydrophobic, so the hydrophobic end buries itself into the grease.
?
I think the MCU did great translating comics to screen (though I have criticisms), but they can't keep up all these interlocking stories and have perfect continuity while at the same time have every movie be an action block buster where, at a bare minimum, Earth is saved from total destruction.
So they can do a total reset, but then you have to start completely over, and that pisses people off.
I never really read superhero comics qua comics, but I got the feeling things are MUCH more fluid, like a new writer takes over and makes some changes, and this is happening across multiple books across time.
I just was watching a video on Eldernring from someone who isn't much of a gamer, but is very much into myth. She really appreciated the deep lore that is underneath the world but never explicitly explained.
I think I might have to pick it up on a Steam sale one of these days.
I think people like piefed, which is kind of a separate thing but also federated. It's weird.
But think of it as going to a different culture: different culture do different things well and if you're just looking to COPY your cultural matrix onto another culture, you are going to miss out on what makes that culture unique.
Example:
French have a really amazing culture of comic books. A French person learning Spanish might think, "Oh, I'll just read a bunch of Spanish comic books" and be immediately disappointed. The solution isn't to say, "Well, I guess Spanish culture just sucks," it is to recognize that your current preferences are formed by what your culture was good at and take the time and effort to appreciate new things. ' Which is a big part of why I hate Soda Stereo so much, but that's a different story.
Cool stuff.
Sidebar:
I remember reading about soaps at one time, and there was this trend on websites to demonize sodium lauryl sulfate, the key chemical ingredient in soap, in order to sell their own soap.
There was complaint that always bothered me: exposure to sodium lauryl sulfate was used as a measure of skin irritability. This, they showed was an example of how HARSH SLS was.
I hated that, and kept thinking, maybe SLS is the measure because it's, cheap, easy to produce, and has a mild effect that ramps up slowly for more precise measurement.
And that I saw Fight Club and saw what lye actually does to skin and started wondered what the hell these people thought soap actually DOES to get you clean if they were so worried about "harsh chemicals."
Finally found GalaxyQuest at the thrift store; hoping for at least Cracked-level subtext.
friend group
😐
Trade off.
Less nichey and less specific, but more community, you run into the same people multiple places.
What are you looking for?
That's quite a simplified view of nature. Many cooperative species, from bees to elephants, build their societies on cooperation. And sometimes they get violent, too, whether internally or externally.
I'd really recommend you read anything about primates by Frans der Waal before basing your worldview on just-so stories.