Recently had an argument with my conservative father, he’s always been big into Trek and Wars, and I had just started really watching Trek again, never watched a lot of the shows all the way through. So this father of mine started going on about how woke Trek was now, and I just lost it on him, I just get so tired of the “anti-woke” nonsense and he just finds some way to insert it into every conversation. So I was like “oh no, not woke Star Trek, the series about a socialist utopia, the series that holds the title of “the American show with the first interracial kiss”, the show where Kirk throws his dick at every species with a quim, the show that had a Ruskie character in the middle of the f’n Red Scare.” Star Trek was always woke, and my father was always too dumb, racially biased, and narcissistic to pick up on the lessons that they were trying to teach us when he watched it as a child in the 60’s.
I have not even tried to bring up Star Wars since the Disney acquisition, I’m sure my father has an insufferable take on that series now as well.
I have met conservative Trek fans. I think some people really do watch stuff without ever thinking about it beyond its superficial spectacle.
It’s like conservative Always Sunny fans.
It’s like conservatives with [insert 99% of media they consume, excluding Fox “news”]
Lol yeah fair enough
They thought Colbert wasn’t playing an absurd caricature of a right wing pundit when he was doing the Report
It is worth noting that the rapist Bill O’Reilly knew, because it was so blindly obviously a parody of him, and whatever else you might say of him he isn’t outright stupid.
The interesting bit is Ol Rapey Bill has quotes about Jan 6th saying his Fox would never have downplayed or enabled it, and yet, he’s now supporting Trump in 2024.
It’s almost like the actual truth doesn’t matter to them. Like they just want a comfortable lie that benefits them personally, some kind of “Truthiness” perhaps.
Any echo chamber can produce illusory truth effect. Repeated exposure to misinformation can result in a person failing to identify it as a lie, and begin to register it as fact and the lie gets amplified.
IASP is a pretty funny show. Even the most recent season was gold, covering inflation during covid.
I appreciate your avatar
I appreciate you!
They view the show as a documentary, not a comedy.
IASP is a pretty funny show. Even the most recent season was gold, covering inflation during covid.
There are a surprisingly high number of educated conservatives in the high tech fields, engineers/programmers/etc.
It’s sad :/
One of the smartest people i knew was a former systems designer for NASA, I live close enough to the Cape to watch every launch from my backyard, anyway, this guy definitely worked for NASA, had his office decorated with the Patents that he held, really smart guy, complete conspiracy nut who was immediately on the Trump train.
I’ve always loved conspiracies too and we got along through that stuff, but then he went down the rabbit hole of Right wing and Russian propaganda/disinformation and no matter how much i tried to prove everything wrong, with good evidence, he went deeper down that hole, he died during COVID and one of the last things he sent me was about the “stolen election”, it was after January 6, to which my reply was “do you mean the 2016 election or the 2000 election?” and never got a response back and I’d heard he passed away a few months later from a mutual friend.
My dad navigated satellites and exploration probes for NASA his entire career, even doing work in getting better climate data. He’s a total MAGA and FOX loyalist now. Misses Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlson.
The educated laborers that perform highly skilled labor convince themselves that they have it better than everyone else because Capitalism worked and selected for them, it’s a comfy and delusional position to hold that requires having absolutely zero self-awareness. Unfortunately common.
Fear and prejudice transcends all education.
Same with conservative Fallout fans that somehow unironically think it’s pro-Capitalism, despite nearly every instance of actual Capitalism and not just bartering being absurdly evil.
Because muh rugged individual
It’s worse than that, it’s the unironic Legion, House, and Enclave support that’s absurd.
Sheesh. Satire really ain’t shit to a fascist
“You know those Ferengi really have some good ideas…”
The non-woke Trekkies (or do they call themselves Trekkers? ) didn’t think about interracial kisses or the post-scarcity society in which capitalists were small-time traders. They see Captain Kirk running roughshod over other societies and turning them into America (see The Apple and A Taste of Armageddon ) which was more about 60s Hollywood imagining cold war United States as the height of civilization.
The Next Generation dared to imagine a more internationalist sense of culture and got into the notion that even extremely weird aliens might be deserving of civil rights. But by DS9 the Federation was reimagined as a failing coalition with multiple rising renegade factions and worlds teeming with disregarded peoples. The story became less about rising to ideals and more about dealing with grimdark realities and compromising principles to preserve status quo.
Then the Kelvin Timeline Reboot got J. J. Abrams’d and Paramount got litigeous about fan films it previously endorsed and I became so disgusted with the state of Trek, I divested myself from it. Star Wars would suffer a similar fate, and I don’t watch many movies these days.
Corporations have a tendency to ruin all art for the sake of profit. It’s infuriating.
Not understanding how anything works, and being angry about it, is a core tenet of conservatism.
“when did star trek get all woke?!” “1966”
I think the best response to that kind of crap is what you said, with the addition of “and when did you start caring? When Fox news told you to care.”
If you’re feeling extra spicy you can add a comment about being a sheep lol
I just lost it on him, I just get so tired of the “anti-woke” nonsense and he just finds some way to insert it into every conversation.
This is what I mean when I think “everything is political” is BS. That statement doesn’t mean one has to talk about politics 24/7.
At this point media illiteracy is a requirement to be a Republican.
Username checks out
Username checks out. Not sure if you were waiting for that…
I’m waiting to enjoy your appropriate meme for this topic.
There is a weird right-wing contingent of Trekkies who think it’s all about pew pew fights with the Borg and they confuse the rest of us who love the idea of a socialist utopia where indigenous cultures are respected and people try to talk things out before shooting in hostile situations.
Trek has no money in the Federation; no barter. Nobody who’s watched a season of any Trek show can avoid noticing that. It might be a bit murky with characters like Harry Mudd, or the Ferengi, but those operate outside the Federation; you’d have to be daft to miss that. TNG was more careful with their “capitalist” characters like Kivas Fajo, who was clearly a collector and trader rather than a travelling salesman.
Right-wing free-market Trekkies are self-deluding.
It’s a special case of the more general rule: right-wing free-market anyone is self-deluding.
That’s why I prefer Picard over the others. He represented the best of those ideals while respecting the history that led humanity to the Federation. They even took the time to reveal his humility when he went too far, by his choice or no.
“ Star Wars is bad now”
I mean yah, the vertical integration, means tested everything, nostalgia bating and assembly line techniques that Disney does sure do ruin otherwise fine properties.
“No, I don’t mind that, that’s just good business. I just hate the gay people who kissed in the background”
Oh, OH ok, you’re just an idiot…
Disney bad. Star Wars is Disney. Star Wars woke. Star Trek not Disney. Star Trek not woke. Star Trek good.
Star Trek not woke.
Star Trek first interacial kiss on screen. Star Trek early with minorities in major roles without calling attention to it.
first interacial kiss
First black/white kiss. There was an earlier white/Asian kiss.
Asians aren’t people! /S
Although, tbf in the US, because of slavery(then segregation). Black/White race relations trends to overshadow everything else.
Interestingly, the first interracial kiss also featured William Shatner, when he kissed France Nuyen on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Doesn’t count because Asians are “good” minorities. /s
George Takei might not agree since he was kept in a camp as a child.
I’m not trying to undermine the idea that Star Trek was progressive for its time, far from it, but since no one else has pointed this out, I thought I’d say it. Star Trek was NOT the first interracial kiss on television. In fact, the actors’ lips never touched in the shot.
Well, sort of. I’ve been reading William Shatner’s autobiography, and they had to fight really hard to include an interracial kiss. The network was going to forbid it, telling Rodenberry that televisions across the South would rather black out their televisions for an hour than allow something so highly offensive. When he insisted upon it, they kept making concessions Rodenberry wouldn’t agree to, like instead having Uhura kiss Spock, since it there would be a little more disconnect between reality. Eventually, Rodenberry offered to film the kiss both ways—one way with their lips actually touching, the other with Uhura’s back to the camera as they embraced, giving the illusion that they kissed without their lips ever touching. The actors were really upset about it, because It was originally going to be a passionate kiss, but the only way they allowed it to be filmed on television was if the actors displayed clear discomfort—which could be used to reinforce the idea that interracial relationships were bad.
Soo…yeah! That’s your Star Trek history lesson for the day! (I’ve never watched the original episode, I’ve only watched TNG and Discovery for myself, so this is all secondary info, but if you watch the episode, you can see for yourself.)
I think with Disney and a lot of companies now it’s more obvious that they are consciously trying to “look good” vs Star Trek was a lot more genuine and authentic with it’s intention to include these things, and it was challenging status quo back then whereas today it’s very mainstream (which is a good thing). This is also what I think is (sometimes intentionally) misinterpreted with the “woke” concerns from the right, cause criticizing the company for morally branding themselves can be legit, but only if the actual idea of including and respecting people isn’t lumped in with it. A legit issue with these huge companies that exploit workers is how they commodify their visibly “diverse” employees and claim the virtue for themselves rather than all the effort it took from workers to actually be treated with dignity. Amazon may very well be welcoming and inclusive but they’re gonna fight their diverse employees when they want better conditions and pay. DEI doesn’t erase the inherent conflict between employers and employees.
StAr tReK is TOO DIVERSE, tHatS wHy I lIkE Babylon 5!
[insert heavy breathing and unchecked drooling]
she probably cheered for the bajor occupation or the government during the bell riots
Eugenics program? So this Khan guy is a good guy?
Babylon 5 is too liberal, that’s why I like Farscape
Farscape is cool. Star Trek is cool. Star Wars is okay too I guess; not hating, I just don’t like them as much as the rest of the world seems to.
Disney did accidentally turn the two part story arc of space liberals restoring the status quo after it fell to space fascism into a three part warning that liberalism will always fall to fascism by allowing it to thrive in the first place by refusing to address wealth inequality and outright complacency in spite of all the warnings in the galaxy so that’s fun.
Farscape is too queer, that’s why i like Lexx
Hey, Babylon 5 gave us
BesterMirror Chekov.Talk to me about Babylon 5. What all is woke in it. Never watched it so I don’t know.
It has an alien species where the religious group has quotes that are directly from Carl Sagan (and they’re have more of a philosophy than a religion, at least in most ways). It generally treats religion with more respect than Roddenberry did, in a “all religion has some good parts to it, but extremism is a problem” kind of way.
One of its major plot arcs is all about how democracies fall into fascism. I thought it was a bit heavy handed at the time, but now it feels too real.
Skirts around a pair of characters in a lesbian relationship, but like most shows at the time, it doesn’t come right out and say it. They 100% banged one night, though.
It’s also military science fiction. That always seems to invite right wingers who love the asthetic but ignore the themes. Same problem with Star Trek and Star Wars.
Well let’s see, there’s an episode with a dockworker’s strike, in which a “negotiator” is sent in who’s position is basically “I’ll pretend to ask nicely but the only tactic I have is this in-universe law that says I can use the military to force you back to work.” The letter of that in-universe law (the “Rush Act”) is “The local military commander can break strikes by any means he deems necessary.” And Commander Sinclair decides to pay the dockworkers what they demand out of the military budget of the station. So the union ultimately wins.
There’s several times when some character, often a human but sometimes an alien, walks up to some other kind of alien and says “We don’t want you FREAKS coming in and stealing our JOBS!” and they’re always depicted as obviously in the wrong. Basically in the script it says “A Republican happens, and gets dealt with.”
There’s a whole episode with a religious exchange, all the various aliens are invited to demonstrate their planet’s “dominant religion.” When it’s the human’s turn, Sinclair takes the alien crew down a hallway with a long line of various different kinds of priests, ministers, monks, etc. The first guy in line is an atheist. The point being “Earth is diverse as fuck, yo.”
The show just barely glances off a lesbian relationship, and the show’s attitude says “What? You didn’t have a problem with the five other romantic couples we’ve seen so far, what’s your problem with this one?”
Oh, then there’s the whole major plot of a socially conservative president sliding Earth’s entire government into totalitarianism with the backing of a hostile alien race thing.
Haven’t watched it in years myself, but unless you can define “woke” I’m not going to make any assumptions.
“Woke” has come to mean “Not completely adhering to Republican culture war dogma.”
Even that doesn’t really define it.
Just making sure here, you want me to rigorously define the political position and identity of platformless reactionaries?
Not at all, in fact I’d rather “woke” be defined by what they really mean - feminism, inclusivity, equality, etc. Let’s make them say what they actually mean without hiding behind a nebulous term like “woke”.
the concept of science fiction is way to librul, since it suggests that science is real
But it says right in the name science fiction!
Money doesn’t exist in Star Trek but credits do in Star Wars.
Money exists in Star Trek, the Federation just doesn’t use it. the Ferengi love the stuff though
They occasionally reference “Federation Credits”, but I think it’s mainly for use outside the Federation.
Federation credits? Federation credits are no good out here. I need something more real.
This is just a world building issue that comes with hundreds of writers over the decades. Who knows how money works. Someone will say something, then ten years later, another writer wont get the note and write something that conflicts.
My latinum! It’s a fake! It’s all worthless gold!!!
Star Wars never got replicators, but they did get sweet laser swords
Fuck laser swords, i want food without cooking.
Best I can do is different colored milk, but I will throw in some space wizards and what the hell personal starships for everyone.
Star wars kind of has that, if ‘just add water’ counts as ‘without cooking’
Pressed latinum bars?
deleted by creator
update even got dragged by george takei
I know she’s smarter, better, and stronger than I and would find a way to help explain and educate this woman on how she’s pissing into the wind wrong…
But I can’t help but imagine Janeway just kicking the shit out of that foxbot on principle and for the security of the federations reputation.
Janeway would straight up murder them. She’s done worse for less reason.
Everyone thinks she killed Tuvix to save her ship or crew or some utilitarian bullshit, but the reality?
She knew. She knew this was her chance to kill a man and call it duty.
Nah, it was pragmatic. She was losing crew that couldn’t really be replaced. And she was on the verge of losing a very important crew member, Tuvok.
She wasn’t about to let that happen.
If Tuvix retained Tuvoks skills, keeping Tuvix would mean not having to deal with Neelix, however. Im sure she considered that as a reason to keep Tuvix, before her bloodlust won out.
Nah, there was the clear risk that Tuvix exhibited the worst traits of Tuvok and Neelix. That would be a total nightmare. Restoring the original was the proper choice. At some point an opportunity to get rid of Neelix could appear, and you could retain the original Tuvok without loss.
I don’t know, man. She killed Tuvix. I could see her kicking the shit out of this lady.
Attempts and fails at Vulcan greeting.
Two in the pinkie, two in the stinky…
The Klingon way!
It does take a bit of practice let not gatekeep here /s
Star Wars is literally space conservatives rebelling against the galactic communist (1970s US propagandized version of invented communism-fascist aesthetic*) empire…
Firefly is to an even greater degree, like libertarian Browncoats rebelling. I love the fan fic take that the Alliance were the “good guys.”
ok but the empire were literally fascists trying to rule the imperial senate with absolute authority…
Yeah it’s not actual communism but more like a reflection of the fears of communism in pop culture from the time when it was written in the late 70s. Comment was a bit inprecise but amended.
Even the empire’s uniforms were pretty obviously based on nazi uniforms, what makes you think the empire is supposed to represent communism?
George Lucas said Vietnam inspired the writing, and communism in American pop culture was synonymous with basically every “bad” thing.
He said the Ewoks were inspired by the Viet Cong. Were the guerilla fighters fighting against the guerilla Empire?
The empire was the US
is it a coincidence that vader is derived from the german word for father?
Is that the case? It’s both written and pronounced differently
well i did say “derived from” and not “the exact same word” but as it turns out the connection to vater was a rumor george lucas himself started, likely to make originating vision for the series appear stronger and more planned. there is evidence that the name existed in the scripts before he was changed to be lukes father, so that does contradict the later assertion.
I’m not sure about Vader being more than a coincidence, but the roots of the word for “father” goes a lot further back than German. Linguists have traced it back through many cultures into prehistory. It’s probably more ancient than we can ever discover. This blew my mind the other day.
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Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/BUIQAGqhSj0?si=qnmadJhGOjcRM8G3
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Why are you spreading this around like it’s true? Also, this is you:
Very interesting! I knew the Vietnam thing but I’m not into Star Wars.
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George Lucas mentions Vietnam as an influence
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Fascism is clearly represented as well
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Star Wars is not a politically consistent universe or critique
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It’s a typical story arc where the antagonist is an amalgamation of things that were considered bad at the time
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It’s Star Wars so I ultimately don’t care that much
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that makes sense! fair point!
It’s just based on what other’s have said about the Vietnam allegory but it’s also whatever, I’m sure Lucas’ wasn’t thinking of it as a primarily political mission to produce Star Wars, since it’s very much a standard plot with your usual archetype characters and roles.
There’s a similar fan take on Lord of the Rings too which is interesting.
George Lucas has said that it was the Vietnam War that inspired the conflict in Star Wars, with the Empire representing the US, but also the rebels could represent the US against the British Empire from the Revolutionary War.
I don’t recall reading that anywhere. I do remember seeing WW2 referenced, especially with respect to the dogfights.
Very interesting! I knew the Vietnam thing but I’m not into Star Wars.
The Empire was in no way representative of Communism, it’s a fascist Empire with literal “Stormtroopers.” Lucas has shown more antifascist sentiment, and no anti-socialist sentiment. Lucas said the Empire represents the US, and the rebels the Viet Cong, in inspiration.
One time, he even said despite the censorship in the USSR, he felt that move directors and writers were more free to make what they wanted without the profit motive getting in the way, specifically citing artistic freedom being higher (in his words).
Post scarcity societies can’t be approached in any meaningful way with modern economic theories.
Star Trek is neither socialist nor capitalist, as both are systems designed to manage and portion out scarcity, and are based on economic theories that lack any predictive abilities in systems that don’t work in a context of scarce resources that need administration.
Neither the labour theory of value nor marginal utility theory make any sense when all resources are trivial to obtain for individuals and whatever resources your community uses can be reused virtually endlessly within the limits of entropy.
Are we really dealing with “scarcity” at this point?
Supermarkets throw away literal millions of tonnes of food annually. “Reduce, reuse, recycle” has become a hollow mantra that cannot be truly adopted by the profit driven design philosophies of consumer products. Sustainability is being treated like some chic perk rather than a critical topic that must be taken seriously if we want any hope for our futures.
All these things are profoundly capitalist problems. Of course, it’s not like marxist-leninist ‘experiments’ fared any better, devolving into their own variants of capitalism, but there are many other socialist ideologies to consider (such as anarchism…)
We are, because people want luxury goods too. Post-scarcity is about being able to produce most goods with barely any human labor (would absolutely be true for food if every person on earth only worked in food production or to produce machinery needed for it), which we aren’t even close to. AI and automation might get us there (though it’s questionable when the cycle of just investing the newfound labor capacity into more luxuries will stop, if ever), but people are actively resisting that (reasonably so) because the current economic system basically everywhere is horribly rigged towards funnelling the excess wealth to rich individuals rather than improving the living standards of society as a whole.
Idk, I’d say we want quality goods, and are lead to believe that these desires can be fulfilled by the lofty luxury goods market which is founded more on artificial scarcity than material scarcity. Even when rare materials and expensive labour are involved the fact that this simply makes them “more valuable” seems more important than any actual need, or lack of alternatives. Meanwhile, affordable products get enshittified, shorter lifespans, etc.
though it’s questionable when the cycle of just investing the newfound labor capacity into more luxuries will stop, if ever
Which is precisely why “post-scarcity” can only be reached with actual societal change, not just technological advancement.
While that may be true about Star Trek after the fact, the truth is that in order to get the federation off the ground, and the world economy in line to create the first Enterprise and crew and all the scientific advancements they made, required the entire world moving to a purely socialistic platform/agenda to achieve.
I don’t think you can discount first contact’s affect on that shift. Finding out you’re not alone in the universe would surely have a massive societal impact.
Just say you don’t watch sci fi movies. Sheesh so desperate to fit in. Why does everyone want to be a nerd now? Didn’t boomers invent beating up nerds???
