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Rule 239: Never be afraid to mislabel a product.
“Full self driving”
“Free speech”
It’s amazing to realise Jeffrey Coombs played all those characters.
I just wanted to add how I enjoy this community and all the witty banter. Thanks for boldly going where no meme or gif has gone before.
Does this mean we only have five years for this mission?
We have a continuing mission. None of that 5 year jazz. We also have jazz.
When my Jizz is playing my Jazz
You know I hate to keep saying this bit it’s absolutely true, I would rather trust the ferrangi than American capitalists.
The ferrangi have a book of rules detailing the ways that they are allowed to rip you off, you can be well-versed in them and by doing so actually get a good deal from a ferangi.
A human capitalist is just going to take their ball and go home with the slightest push, and help yourself to whatever they can take from you, ethics be damned.
Capitalists have a book they use too, and like the Ferengi, it has nothing to do with ethics. Unfortunately it has a lot more rules than the Ferengi book.
No the Ferengi are actually too nice even for Elon
Well, they have world peace, and don’t practice things like genocide or threats of mutual assured destruction.
One of my favorite moments in Deep Space Nine is when quark and Sisko are on a camping trip, and Sisko goes on the usual spiel about how greedy ferrangi are…
And Quark fires back by pointing out that his people have never had war, genocide, or slavery, and Sisko’s got nothing because he knows humans can’t say the same
I feel the scene is deeper than that. Quark isn’t just dunking Sisko, he’s shining a light on the fact that Sisko doesn’t see the Ferengi as they are, rather he uses the surface level similarities of capitalism to apply his human anxiety about pre-post-scarcity to them instead.
There’s also the episode where the three Ferengi go back in time to (I think) the Roswell incident in mid 20th century USA.
Quark is repeatedly appalled at the stuff the hu-mons are doing to hurt themselves and destroy the planet. Smoking and testing nuclear fission bombs come to mind.
One of my favourite lines in all of DS9 is when Rom and Quark are arguing about where they’ve crash landed.
Quark says something like, “maybe we’ve died and gone to [ferengi heaven]”.
Rom then says “or maybe we’ve gone to [Ferengi Hell]?”
Quark responds (and Armin absolutely crushed this line IMO): “The bar was turning a profit!”
“Leading”
Hyper capitalist, hyper misogyny, monopolies of business are legal, but unionizing is illegal.
He only wants the space-living because he’s a nerd and wants to create a 0th world, which is to the 1st world is to the 3rd world.
Leads? Not me, at least.
They may be greedy, but at least Ferengi are not usually racist shitbags.
Rule of Acquisition 17: A contract is a contract is a contract… but only between Ferengi
They don’t exactly treat everyone equally.
I think it’s hinted that they are. I don’t think they say “humARNS” like that due to a speech defect. I think they say it cos they don’t like Xenos like us. They like our latinum.
Uhh… the misogyny though
It got addressed, they let females have jobs and stuff
Oh great, sexism solved then.
Did they let them wear clothes though?
Probably
Dang it!
There are multiple levels of misogyny. It doesn’t end by letting them gain employment.
Also that happened at the very end of ds9, and only when the least ferengi-like ferengi ever became grand nagus, and his advisors were, his non-ferengi wife and his give-no-fucks civil rights leader mother.
That ending is hilarious to me. Societies just don’t do a compete 180° over the course of a year or so. Changes at that level are very, very slow. Taking centuries in some cases. But all of a sudden, they have taxes, social programs, environmental programs, etc…
I know Ferengis are portrayed as non-violent, but I would think makes such rapid, unpopular changes would lead to some level of violence/civil uprising.
I know Ferengis are portrayed as non-violent
Even leaving the early-installment weirdness of TNG Ferengi aside, there were always Eliminators like Leck…
Sometimes they do, but not usually peacefully. Revolutions lead to rapid changes.
What are you, some kind HOO-MON feminist?
They’re racist and horribly sexist.
I’ll give you a nickel for a disc of dessicated Elon spine
Don’t you sully the Ferengi name like that. They do a valuable service to the federation. Where else are you going to buy self sealing stem bolts on the edge of federation space?
He likes naming stuff after Culture ships but he’s really Joiler Veppers
Greed is one the most powerful of all human emotions. There’s nothing wrong with being greedy, what’s wrong is trying to pretend you’re not. We all are. Every human wants truckloads of cash and endless amounts of power. It’s no good pretending you are “above that.” If you’re human, that’s really what you ARE all about. I say we give everyone a gun and let the one who kills the most people have all the wealth. At least that would be an honest human accomplishment with no hypocrisy.
I couldn’t give a wet fart about power. It comes with too much attention and responsibility. I’ll take that truck load of cash though please and thank you.
Anyone who actually wants power should not be trusted, with it, or in general
I agree - humans cannot be trusted no matter who they are.
Do you believe that humans intrinsically lust for power as an essentialist point?
EDIT: for a dropped ‘m’
I think all humans lust for power over others, to make them believe as they do, or worship as they do or some other way conform to their own way of behaving and thinking. Maybe it’s a tribal thing, left over from when we were on the Savannah in “cave man” days, and needed to feel in control of our group (or something). I do believe some desire for power is an intrinsic part of human existence.
See, I think that’s where we disagree-- because I don’t see it as an intrinsic codified that far back. If anything, I think that’s just part and parcel of being socialized under the dictatorship of capital; where we’re literally raised to prioritize competition against our peers, and more importantly, winning that competition. I only see ‘power’ as the means to the end of accomplishing the objectives we were socialized to chase from birth.
tl;dr change the society, change the socialization, eradicate the common, but not all-encompassing desire for power over another.
You have a more practical and perhaps more economic based view of the situation, which I don’t disagree with at all. It’s just that I’m a much more nihilistic person in my beliefs, I personally (and this is ONLY an opinion) believe that all humans are intrinsically horrible and evil to the core. I’ve never seen any iota of goodness in anyone. So I cannot simply see it as a matter of how we’re nurtured by our society but as a fundamental part of the disease of human psychosis.
As long as we become space faring super survivors, I’m fine with that. Good intentions don’t make rocket fuel for the vroom vroom. We need to vroom some explorers to other places, just in case.
Well, I mean that’s a lie. “Good intentions don’t make rocket fuel.” The first rocket that was ever designed was designed specifically to go to space. It was used in WW2 by the Nazis but its creator said “The rocket worked perfectly, but it fell on the wrong planet.” Those good intentions are needed for every step of space exploration. You don’t get to suddenly become a rampant narcissistic, misogynistic, arrogant piece of human garbage the second that you clear the gravity well of your home planet. You hold true to those purposes because they will inform your every decision. If you start doing horrible things in the pursuit of a lofty goal, you corrupt that goal and all actions you take in the future. You will be looking through things in a dirtied, bloodied lens. Or, as someone once put it far better…
“You cannot explain away a wantonly immoral act because you think that it is connected to some higher purpose.” - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Whether you do good things or bad things is who you are. If you start taking terrible actions then you become a terrible person. Or, as the man again once said…
“It’s our morality that defines us. It’s part of the truth of our existence.”
Then there’s the fact that Elon constantly shits on everyone below him. Guess what? There’s a few quotes for that too. Here are my favorites.
“No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another.”
“You know, there are some words I’ve known since I was a schoolboy. “With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.” Those words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie as wisdom and warning. The first time any man’s freedom is trodden on, we’re all damaged.”
Or what about this interaction between Worf and Picard?
Picard: We think we’ve come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, is all ancient history. Then, before you can blink an eye, suddenly, it threatens to start all over again.
Worf: I believed her. I… helped her. I did not see her for what she was.
Picard: Mr. Worf, villains who twirl their moustache are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well-camouflaged.
Worf: I think… after yesterday people will not be so ready to trust her.
Picard: Maybe. But she, or someone like her, will always be with us. Waiting for the right climate in which to flourish, spreading fear in the name of righteousness. […] Vigilance, Mr. Worf. That is the price we must continually pay.
Now lemme top all this ramble off with one final slightly edited quote to cement my point.
The first duty of every Star Trek fan is to the truth, whether it’s scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based! If you can’t find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don’t deserve to wear that cosplay.
Beautifully said and wraps up everything I love about Trek culture.
I saw James Cromwell, the actor who portrayed Zefram Cochrane, on a flight into Albuquerque about a decade or so ago. He was wearing a colorful kufi hat, and he’s so god damned tall I could easily see him from like three rows back. I was 99% sure it was him, and when I saw him again picking up his luggage I became 100% sure. He’s a freaking giant.
I have a very strong introvert aspect to myself. I very badly wanted to tell him how much his portrayal of Cochrane influenced my life and my career, but I chickened out. For the record, I am a research scientist who now works in big tech.
I think what I loved about him was his flaws. I especially loved how his self-awareness of the chasm between the person he saw himself to be and the legend that grew around him caused him to freak out and panic. I also really understood his whole self-destructive and self-sabotaging stage. And despite all of that, he won through, and Starfleet was the end product.
I love what you’ve written and I think it speaks to the ethos Roddenberry built into his universe to show us what is possible, but I really loved the idea that it grew from this flawed human before it blossomed.
That’s not to say the vroom vroom person was correct. Quite the opposite. A mirror universe Cochrane reimagined as Elon Musk would have lead to… probably the mirror universe but worse. It was more about the struggle possibly being worth it, despite how you feel about yourself and even if the end is something you can’t even imagine.
I always love that logic … our planet is too dangerous and dying, so we have to leave to make sure we survive
At this point in our evolution … we would ensure our long term survival in our galaxy if we stayed put and maintained our current environment. It’s the only liveable atmosphere, environment and planet that we know of that we can live on and have access to.
How are we going to restart life on Mars where there is no atmosphere or resources when we’re doing such a terrible job maintaining the existing atmosphere and environment we were born into?
I always like burning house metaphors … space exploration to save our species at this point in time is like burning your house down, telling everyone you can’t live there any more and saying that you’re leaving to go live somewhere else where you can decorate a better bedroom. Except your burning house is located in an isolated desert with no shelter for hundreds of miles around.
How bout we stay where the fuck we’re at, fix the planet we fucked up, and stop colonizing new places?
The main problem with colonizing places is the displacement of the people already living there. You’ll notice that space is notorious for not having people. It’s one of the defining traits of space, really.
As to staying where we are, well. That comes with all sorts of issues. The first of which are big rocks. Then there’s gamma ray bursts, and coronal mass ejections, and a host of other potentially life ending things that could hit our planet at any time.
We have all of our eggs in one basket. This is the height of stupidity when we could do something about it.
As to fixing our own planet? Why the fuck do you think we can’t also work on that? There are billions of humans, we can surely multitask. Especially since actually living on the moon or Mars or whatnot will be a monumentally hard task in and of itself.
The first moon base will need to be 100% science to figure out some pretty important biology, like is it even possible to maintain a population at 1/6 Earth gravity.
That’s a huge question that we don’t actually have an answer for.
As to fixing our own planet? Why the fuck do you think we can’t also work on that? There are billions of humans, we can surely multitask. Especially since actually living on the moon or Mars or whatnot will be a monumentally hard task in and of itself.
Then where are those efforts? When will the fossil fuel companies be shuttered, and their CEOs executed for crimes against nature and humanity? When can we trust the leaders of the most powerful nations on Earth to actually start trying to restrain the runaway global temperature increases? We just sailed straight past 2C globally; a full 25 years ahead of schedule.
If we can multitask, I’m sure as fuckin shit not seeing it; and it’s either naiveté you’re speaking from, or downright IFLS-type, bazinga-flavored malice. I don’t care about questions we haven’t asked about space yet.
I care about "how are we going to not fucking die here for the profit of some gaggle of fossil-sucking sociopaths".
Why survive if we’re going to be so wretched? How do people value life itself above the quality of that life?
