Not much of a revelation, just an observation, but how much of sci-fi pushes the ideal that Humanity's path forward is unification?
Star Trek is a major one, and many would state it was a progressive show, and it earnestly was.
It also stated that in its ideal future, there's a Federation of like-minded extraterrestrials, and as a member species, Humanity lives in a united, post-scarcity society under a single government.
To that end, how many alien species in these stories are so inhuman, in that they have no differences, a world-wide government, a single language?
It's laughable how direct the propaganda was, and continues to be.
Generally that is down to lazy writing, you see it in fantasy as well, all elves, all vulcans, all dwarves are all the same because it is easier to just write them that way. An in universe explanation would be that since the media is generally presented from a human centric perspective that they don't recognize the differences between say a high elf and a wood elf while it would be instantly recognizable to any elf those differences. Which is actually very realistic when you have one ethnicity looking at other cultural groups and not seeing the difference between similar subsets in those groups.
I disagree. I think they purposefully promote all "good" races as sharing the exact same core values: equality being the top value. This is obvious progressive programming and conditioning.
What's wrong with equality?
Everyone should be treated equally unless they have proven that they are not equal.
Nice try dude...
Regarding Berman, Ron Moore reflected, "He really thought that Gene (Roddenberry) wouldn't have liked the whole Maquis story line."
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Maquis
"I know you. I was like you once, but then I opened my eyes. Open your eyes, captain. Why is the Federation so obsessed with the Maquis? We've never harmed you. And yet we're constantly arrested and charged with terrorism. Starships chase us through the Badlands and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed. Why? Because we've left the Federation, and that's the one thing you can't accept. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation. Hell, you even want the Cardassians to join. You're only sending them replicators because one day they can take their 'rightful place' on the Federation Council. You know, in some ways you're even worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You're more insidious. You assimilate people and they don't even know it." - Michael Eddington
I've become extremely sympathetic to the Maquis. The Cardassians know exactly how to manipulate the Federation and do so every chance they get. They play chess while the Federation plays Tic Tac Toe. The Maquis know this, see the Cardassians do it, and then also see that the Federation institutions that potentially could help them (eg. Section 31) don't lift a finger to do so. Then when they fight back the Federation goes after them.
The Cardassians must get a real good chuckle whenever they goad the Federation into attacking their own citizens.
Kind of like a modern allegory for the non-Trump USA vs. CCP situation.
Interesting thing about that...
The Maquis and Bajorans are basically just Martians and Narns from Babylon 5. And no I'm not implying Paramount stole some idea, I'm flat out saying they did.
Straczynski gave Paramount the "show bible" and they ended up turning him down. Then they decided to come out with a show about a station on the border of federation space, with a powerful unknown race working behind the scenes as the main antagonist stoking hostilities between two races where one was once enslaved to the other, at roughly the same time as Babylon 5.
I know that two people can come up with the same idea at the same time from different starting points, but this is too close to simply be coincidence.
I’m almost done with season 1 of Babylon 5. I really like it so far
Seasons 2-4 are infinitely better. One of if not the best Sci Fi series ever
And then season five happens...
...fight club rules.
That's awesome. That's recognizing Roddenberry's beliefs as cult-like and anti-reason and critical thought.
I kinda like "The Orville" take on the whole confederation thing... Like the humans are allied with some races mostly due to convenience, rather than true fellowship. In fact, one of them in particular is presented mostly in a negative connotation... Their gimmick is that they are only a "male" species, and they make sure of this by forcing a sex change in their young in the very rare cases a female member is born. And this is obviously presented as barbaric, even if due to politics it is allowed to happen to a child in one of the episodes. I thought it was a GREAT commentary/parody of today's insanity.
If they projected any harder, you could open an IMAX theatre using them.
Probably yeah, it was still presented in a negative light, and I liked that the message was grey (respecting a races customs, not imposing your own rules even if you don't agree, respect differences, etc... And that all of that is moot behind political gains). Also the "Moclan" hate women, so you would like them a lot haha.
It's also heavily implied in that episode that the cultural differences between the Moclans and Humans are large enough as to jeopardize their being in the Planetary Union. Which is probably true given how the reaction of so many of the Human crew was declaring the practice "barbaric". I know I wouldn't want to be in a political union with a bunch of people who considered me and my values "barbaric". But no doubt the Planetary Union much like the Federation it's modeled on hoped that through a continued political alliance they could "civilize" the Moclans.
Yes! That's what made it so interesting to me, the Orville is surprisingly clever sometimes!
I see your video, and raise you a video: https://youtu.be/6VhSm6G7cVk?t=92
That whole dialog is fantastic, and was apparently supposed to be a throwaway exchange the writers thought would be a gag to fill time. And it ended up being one of the most profound dialogues in the series because the acting is so phenomenal.
The thing is, they're conflating "male" with "masculine", and the two are NOT THE SAME (though the latter is based on the former, of course).
Think of Namekians - they "present" as masculine. Deep voices, male-ish body shape. But they're kind of reptilian-looking, and they reproduce asexually, by sporing an egg out of their mouths (and can even control the traits of the offspring within, apparently.) So they're not male. They're asexual "its". But it's just polite to refer to them in the masculine, as if they were male.
Moclans are similar, somehow, but still mate sexually. Maybe like snails, but without impregnating each other at the same time. They're masculine, but not "male". The "feminine" variant is likely just that. Can they breed with each other, like the masculines? Can masculines and feminines interbreed? If the latter is not true, but the former is, then they're DIFFERENT SPECIES.
There's a European crustacean that spawned an asexual species about 25 years ago or so. One day, a double-X with the ability to clone itself was born, but this creature - and its clones - can't breed with its own father (or creatures like its father.) So, different species.
It’s easy to rag on Star Trek as being progressive crap, but if you look at it through Enterprise, it’s generally preaching classical liberal values. Mainstay elements of the series are completely opposed to modern leftist attitudes.
Just a few random thoughts: The Romulan neutral zone is a hard border. Wars are still fought. DS9 did a good job making things more realistic, and suggesting there’s still an economy of sorts, things don’t just magically work. Any number of Kirk and Picard’s speeches would leave an SJW seething. The shows (again, up to ENT) had sexy women who were clearly there to entice male viewers.
Was Roddenberry an irredeemable lefty? Yeah, I think that’s pretty clear. But thankfully all the series enjoyed other writers and producers that were trying to tell good stories about good people.
The biggest thing to me is that Star Trek basically only makes sense within a strict militarist society. Despite how much Starfleet and the Federation want to pretend they're not a military, they are a military. More importantly, the Federation's values are only effectively maintained inside of a command structure which requires strict regulation.
Society isn't a star ship, and is very fluid. But a ship or vessel of any kind requires a very strict kind of regular maintenance and control.
Star Trek preaches Liberalism, but it's social order is effectively militarist. In fact, the military leaders are all effectively intellectuals of one sort or another. This leads to a strange situation where the military doesn't just maintain political order, but effectively maintains a non-democratic meritocracy. Outside of Starfleet, the Federation can be all over the place (except for Earth which is a utopia stand-in).
Star Trek isn't communism, but Star Fleet is effectively... uh... Liberal Militarism?
For story telling purposes, it's fine because the social ordering allows for moral plays to be explored in a controlled environment, but no environment is as controlled as the moral plays would like to be. The fact that in a post scarcity world, Liberalism is maintained by a Militarist Meritocracy is something that should be deeply philosophically investigated.
Star Trek only works because it shows you a very narrow and heavily curated glimpse of its universe via the crew and adventures of, primarily, one starship. The people onboard the Enterprise have been carefully filtered by the federation to allow only highly specific and compatible ideologies to be present. Even in those cases where a crew member holds cultural values that diverge from the norm, like the Klingon Wharf, these differences are almost entirely paved over through a combination of shoddy writing and sheer selective blindness.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the social and cultural dynamics of Star trek are even more retardedly unrealistic than the technology.
Worf, not Wharf. But that is funny.
I mean, fair enough. As a morality play, it has to be so constrained.
Currently, globalists are teaching white children to hate themselves for being white and this is considered a good thing. Star Trek is in direct conflict with modern globalist ideals.
Modern globalism is trying to pretend differences between races don't exist and if there is a difference in outcome it is because of white supremacy. This goes against Star Trek's teachings.
Modern globalists because in lowering standards such that they can promote diversity and inclusion which goes against the meritocracy of Star Trek.
Modern globalists want to pretend there are no differences between races and force integration between races while pretending the conflict that arises due to race/culture mixing isn't real. This goes against the obvious truth that Star Trek promoted.
Modern globalists want to destroy any values that white men promoted and replace them with non "racist" values because white men are inherently racist.
This is extremely well explained, thank you!
Star Trek is the ultimate fictional commie universe, there is UBI, people pursue whatever they want, they dont have to work for a living, there is a replicator or something that can produce any goods.
Ever see Star Trek 3? It is literally about saving the whales.
The people I know who don't need to work either spend their days high or spend their days on twitter. In the Trek universe what people would really do is spend their days in the holodeck.
Star Trek 3 was the Search for Spock.
4 was about the whales and the space probe.
The one that time traveled to San Francisco to get a whale sound to save the future. Either way, it was a complete shit movie.
" there is UBI, people pursue whatever they want, they dont have to work for a living, there is a replicator or something that can produce any goods"
Sounds like paradise tbh....
That's the point of fiction....
I don’t think it’s just sci-fi related but rather space related. It seems that going to space just makes people want unity. All the NASA guys and astronauts seemed to have that perspective during Apollo and all that and I guess the sci-fi writers just took it and ran with it.
Going to space probably rekindles the frontier mentality that makes you want to work together to ensure survival.
I'd actually say most of the popular Sci-Fi was Leftist, as intended by the media.
The Day The Earth Stood Still, is allegedly an anti-war movie, but it's not. It's actually a Fabian Socialist movie. One thing you must understand about western Fabian Socialism is that they have always harped on the idea of them being the only people interested in world peace. And their concept of world peace comes through the total submission of your ability to act without consulting them.
Klaatu's speech is actually extremely evil from an anti-Leftist position.
No aggression can be tolerated from anyone anywhere? That makes no sense on it's face as a statement because it requires aggressive intolerance... which is exactly what Klaatu's threatening to do: commit genocide in the name of collective self-defense, a very common Communist trope.
He mentions that "your ancestors" created laws and made police to enforce them. Just to be clear, police are not an ancient invention, they are a modern invention necessitated by industrialized high-density cities. The Left assert that a government authoritarian force to coerce peace is a necessary concept, even though it's effectively a new concept (that it currently being challenged by the Left).
Klaatu's concept of policing is supreme, totalitarian, and unrestricted rule to an unsympathetic and uncaring robot. ... a non-human form of Judge Dredd...
Klaatu's civilization is secure from war and aggression, because they have voluntarily submitted and disarmed themselves to absolute tyranny and unrestrained violence by machines.
He mentions that he doesn't care how you run your own planets, but is prepared to exterminate all life on the Earth if "violence is extended" towards the other planets. Mind you, Earth hasn't even achieved space flight yet. In the movie people are already dead, and we are all well aware of how loose the concept of "violence" can be.
The mentality of the Left is everywhere in this movie: an absolutely cynical and disgusted view of humanity, deserving of any disaster that befalls it. A sense of absolute superiority and morality in the view of the person promoting an effectively anti-human belief. Arguing that any offense against the smug one's perfect order should be met with unrestrained violence. The idea that disarmament and tyranny leads to perfect utopian safety. And to complete the smugness: the implicit assertion that you'll make the "correct" decision if you were only civilized enough to understand how much better the Left is than you.
Fundamentally, I always felt like the aliens were never actually good because they always seemed so menacing. But now it really seems like the aliens are truly evil. What's worse is that, as with Thanos, the Left basically agrees with the villain on principle.
... That's a bad thing you crazy fucking pinkos.
Good analysis.
It doesn't really feel necessary to break down leftist thought any further than this: they are good, and you are bad. From this simple truism, they can conjure justification for any action required to maintain their authority and systematically condemn any action that threatens to reduce or restrict their control.
One of the most glaring recent examples is the kids in cages. When 2400 kids were in cages under Trump, it was an unnecessary cruelty purposely perpetrated by an uncaring monster. But now that 5x as many kids are in cages under Biden, it's an unavoidable product of circumstance, a regrettable but necessary course of action undertaken by a good and compassionate man with no other choice.
Meanwhile, we've got 5x as many kids in cages.
Thomas Sowell brings this up repeatedly in his books about intellectuals and intellectualism never having to face the consequences of their own actions and policies, and thus never even considering the potential that they are wrong. So, when Leftist policy inevitably does the opposite of what it intends, they continue the policy, claim it wasn't done hard enough, claim that other persons might have had to do it, but never take responsibility themselves for the activity.
And while that's true to a point, I would go further to say that many of them never cared in the first place, and were simply focusing on power alone.
I think the single greatest Hollywood demonstration of Leftist moral absolutism, supremacism, and what I call "Leftist Inevitability Doctrine" comes from a little seen film called "Fall Of Eagles". It's a Hollywood Dramatization of the events leading up to Lenin's arrival in Moscow.
As is typical for western Leftists, the dramatization portrays Trotsky in a fairly favorable light, and Lenin as a highly charismatic but absolutely ruthless person. There is one scene where Kaiser Wilhelm is discussing the dangers of the secret plot to send Lenin into Moscow in order to foment a revolution and knock the Russian Empire out of the war.
There is a specific line in that film that always makes me lose my shit. When one of the Socialist conspirators looks Wilhelm right in the eye and says "the Bolsheviks only want peace". Kaiser, rightly, doesn't believe that.
The film tries to portray Wilhelm as a bit mad in this scene, but the socialist as a stern but humble man attempting at any price to create a peaceful world.
This narrative is the Western Fabain Socialist self-narrative in a nut shell, particularly of the time. The Socialists of the era made all sorts of noise about how WW1 was capitalists and monarchists attempting to seize power for their particular state, and that Internationalist Socialists needed to oppose the war and even their own states in order to bring about peace, which could then bring about the slow usurpation of these states through socialism. And if Russia just so happened to have a revolution which brought about a Socialist state, who could complain about the expansion of a peaceful and inevitable ideology? This narrative is actually around the same time when Mussolini separated from the Internationalist Socialists and started advocating for socialism that was not so tied to internationalism, but was more tied to nationalism. He agreed more with the State Socialist line of thinking that only the state could maintain the socialist revolution.
The absolute absurdity of claiming that the Bolsheviks only wanted peace is truly galling. Every single place the Bolsheviks touched descended into war, famine, ethnic cleansing, and murder. Even outside of Russia in neighboring states where Bolsheviks had effectively set up their own autonomous zones, they were using starvation as a political weapon to maintain control. The Bolsheviks didn't just not want peace, they started a civil war, they committed mass murder, they even formed an army and invaded Poland, not in 1939, but in 1919. The Civil War wasn't even fully over before the Bolshevik Red Army, led by Lenin, Stalin, and what-do-you-know Trotsky (so peaceful), attacked all of Eastern Europe (and supported a Communist uprising in Berlin), in a desperate attempt to overthrow the German government and take Berlin... because Lenin never wanted to seize control of Russia, he always wanted to seize control of Germany.
And there was never any allowed opposition to the Bolsheviks either, the White Army fought until their death or merging with other forces because the Bolsheviks wanted to fucking exterminate them. When Eastern European states like Estonia and Poland wanted independence from Russia, the Bolsheviks were determined to destroy them and install Bolshevik/Communist puppet governments in those states and call it "independent" despite being entirely dependent upon Moscow. It didn't help that Germany was actually also trying to do the same thing, just specifically with non-communist puppet governments.
Given the first opportunity to create peace, the Bolsheviks started a war. Trotsky didn't really shed a fucking tear about it, and Stalin was eventually the man who truly brought peace to the communists... because he was the absolute tyrant that you submit yourself to if you don't want death.
Now compare Fall of Eagles to Klaatu's speech.
It's basically the same speech when it comes to "peace" and "inevitability". But who enforces that peace and disarmament? In The Day The Earth Stood Still, it was Gort. But in reality, It was Stalin.
True peace can only come when you submit to Stalin. Thank's socialists. You're not fucking crazy at all.
From an old Gamergate content creator I'd suggest watching this video which goes over some of that.
Woah, furboy avatar alert!
Thanks, though, I'm listening to it now.
I haven't played too much of Death Stranding, but I'm assuming there is no nuance to that at all, right? There is no "legitimate reason to isolate ourselves" given by the antagonists, correct?
This is quite odd coming from anyone originating from Japan.
The globalist flood’s been wearing down their culture ever since Commodore Matthew C. Perry forced them to open up.
Their staunch “xenophobia” (not a term I agree with, tbh; I prefer “understandable in-group preference”) has just done a lot to curb the effects of globalization, but it’s only a matter of time.
Just checkout Cyberpunk as a genre from the beginning, cool as shit genre but the politics are ALWAYS pro socialist or commie or at the very least anti capitalist.
TBF, I don't think you're going to find anyone who writes about evil megacorps in fiction yet still extols the virtues of capitalism within that same work.
Obviously, it's cronyism leading to corporations adopting a de facto government model that would be to blame, but people's heads don't fire on all cylinders when they're passionate about their feelings.
Right now we have socialists and communists actively cheering massive global corporations as they circumvent our rights in order to enforce leftist tyranny from the safety of the "free market". It's fucking weird.
And that's why DS9 is best Trek. Because it shows a lot of the warts and even breaks that would inevitably come with something like the Federation. The Maquis, as cited by ProdigalPlainswalker, are the obvious example. Then there's the Bajorans who like the Federation (or at least the Federation's protection), but their highly religious society is a constant point of contention with the Federation's values. The Ferengi spend a lot of time mocking and looking down on the Federation while filling their pockets with their money. And then the ultimate compromises of the Federation's values in some cases where things get too hot - whether the increasing restrictions the Federation puts in due to the threat of changelings (scarily similar to the last year IMO, with Sisko's own Dad turning into the equivalent of a lockdown skeptic), Quark's observations on AR-558, and Sisko's guilt on what he did to get the Romulans involved.
I keep watching Quark and going "Holy Shit he's right again!"
Quark's character created a very sympathetic trade-oriented, effectively right wing, character on the show. Which, considering how the Ferengi were being portrayed by Roddenberry's design... it's a pretty big step up.
The conflict between the Federation and Bajorans on religion is interesting because by any reasonable definition of the word the Wormhole Aliens are gods.
Yet the Federation refuses to call them gods, instead simply calling them "aliens". Because the Federation thinks there are no gods, therefore by definition the Wormhole Aliens cannot be gods despite them having characteristics one would normally ascribe to a god.
The Richard Dawkins crowd always liked to argue that if the Christian god made some sign they'd believe in him, but I suspect the reality of what they would do is closer to what the Federation does when shown evidence of the existence of the Bajoran gods: declare them not gods but extremely powerful aliens and refuse to worship them because "aliens" are undeserving of worship.
I would defend this position in the same way that they are still not gods. They are not opnipitent, they are not omnipresent.
They are closer to the polytheist constructions of gods which effectively have little care for the earthly realm, but may bless humans with some occasional thing. They are also capable of being fallible, wrathful, vengeful, arrogant, etc.
Why should you simply worship an alien that may be biologically or technologically advanced or superior to you? No human has ever garnered such worship from a lesser animal. No human would deserve it either. Even your dog does not worship you as unfailing. In many cases, dogs assist humans. The contributes something in the relationship. Cats... well don't even consider themselves to be the lesser animal, the arrogant little shits. (I wouldn't even be surprised if we found out cats were an advanced civilization that intentionally 'returned to mokey' at this point).
There is no point in that kind of absolute worship, particularly to living beings. What makes God useful, at least in the Christian sense, is that it serves as an an inspiration to improve yourself. But enslaving yourself to the whims of another, particularly when they can't even really comprehend any suffering you may encounter, is dangerously stupid.
As you note, the ancient polytheist religions didn't really ascribe omnipresence to their gods. I think that is mostly a Christian concept (I don't even think early Judaism had omnipresence, which is why sometimes god would be surprised or caught off-guard by some action taken by someone). If for example the Greek or Roman gods were actually highly advanced aliens I doubt that would change those religions much, nor would their adherents care much.
On the one hand I agree with you, and I probably wouldn't worship such beings. And I can understand why the Federation doesn't: because most of their civilization is outside the scope of influence of the Wormhole Aliens. On the other hand I can understand why the Bajorans would worship them: because they do intervene and have intervened and are within the scope of influence of the aliens. And it's baked into their culture to such a large extent it would be difficult not to.
My point is it's a value judgment, and the whenever it came up the Federation's secularized approach to dealing with the aliens was treated as "value-neutral" and "empirical". But they very easily could have taken the opposite "empirical" approach and said "well the aliens clearly do intercede and respond based on this religion the Bajorans have constructed, and they've also declared one of our officers a 'Prophet' within that religion; so maybe there's something to taking a non-secular approach in our interactions with them"
I don't think that means they need to worship the Wormhole Aliens, but they seem to have an unusually high level of disregard for the Bajoran religion considering how often they objectively see it work. Cisco is the only one who even tries to respect it, and even he sometimes feels uncomfortable having to operate within that framework.
I think it may even be down to monotheism because it's so hard to explain how one entity could do all that crap.
Yeah, and I wouldn't disagree with that. It's reasonable, especially if you'r the alien's protected class.
There's an aspect of incentive to be grateful for a hyper-intelligent and seemingly all powerful being that actually tries to be nice to you and help you out of catastrophic dilemmas. That being said, I would still push a "don't meet your heroes" point: the closer you get to your "Gods" the more you would not be willing to just arbitrarily worship them. Distance from their subjects promotes mysticism as imagination fills the void. But the more you know of your "Gods" the more you would come to see them as simply alien.
Imagine if you actually lived in Metropolis and hung out with Superman. Why would you ever worship him if you knew the guy. He could be your friend, but not your God no matter how truly powerful he is.
The Federation, while not purely secular, is written by people who are. And not even in the good way. As anti-theist as I am, I can still respect the concept of how people use religion to orient themselves and their society. I believe they can do better because I'm one of those "God is dead and it is we who have killed him... ... ... and that's a good thing" style people.
They don't really know how to actually deal with religion properly, the best they can do is "Magic Sky fairy?", which I can understand, but is un-nuanced to a people who have a fuck-load more to go on than most religions.
"No no. Our Gods literally manipulate space-time. There is no God Of The Gaps. We know precisely how powerful they are... and it's a bit scary."
As far as Earth having a single government, I think there's this idea that what you might call "political identity" scales with the "known world". For example, medieval people didn't no much about the world and thought of themselves as being from this village, barony, county, etc. In modern times, we think on a more national scale. In a time where we might know people from other stars, one would assume we'd think of ourselves on a planetary scale.
This may or may not actually be the case, but there's a method to the madness.
And yet the village, the town, the nation have not disappeared. Because local government will always be more sensitive to the needs of the local people than any distant and disconnected authority. And it doesn't really matter if that authority is on the other side of a planet or the other side of a galaxy because neither of them are here.
That's because Sci-Fi doesn't need basic technological reality. They just have future shit, and that makes things work.
Which means you can ignore things like scarcity, biology, or even science itself whenever you need by just inventing new tech/alien materials.
Well, they treat "aliens" as "just like humans, only different culture" that are eager to breed with humans (or at least would tolerate it). Which is where they conflate "race" with "species", either like deliberate propagandists, or total retards. They still see some need to make some "distinction" between humans and other animals. Yet why would an alien species want to mix its genes with humans, any more than humans want to mix their genes (in a laboratory) with chimps? Why would any star-hopping species just sort of kind of accept humans as "equals"? They might see beavers as more their style ...
The Left is really narcissistic. So are humans in general, and species narcissism is probably natural, normal and healthy to a point (like most other things) but, like most other things, there are those who love to take things way too far ....
Stargate SG1 was pretty bad too.
Great. Now get redpilled and watch these shows again. Even off-hand comments made as statements of fact are heavily engineered to promote a female-centric ideology.
Once you see it, it makes most TV shows unwatchable.
The later seasons having Stargate Command bring in the Russian and Chinese governments always made me laugh. Its especially funny when Daniel Jackson is the character being sympathetic to their representative, considering his values and their governments actions.
Jesus Christ, will you guys stop complaining for 5 fucking minutes please?!
Sci fi is usually written by incels. So duh
Wouldn't incels write negatively about leftist ideology, considering how it's a vehicle for female power?