We are creating the West India Companie-like companeis but in space and people aren't seeing the inherent problems in that... We are literally watching history repeating itself without a single thought of "should we be doing this again?" as a society.
A big part of what made companies like the East India Company terrible is the lands they were "exploring" and exploiting were already inhabited by civilizations that, by and large by people who would rather they were not around exploring and exploiting. In space, at least within our local solar system, all the science we have suggests there is no life around to be victimized by this sort of behaviour, and is all but certain there is no *intelligent* life. (There's a few very niche cases like the depths of the ice moon Europa which might support an ocean capable of supporting life, and while the expectation is more like microbes if that rather than anything significant (beyond, y'know, the demonstration of life on a planet other than Earth in general, which is pretty darn significant!), for all we know there could be an underwater civilization of some kind that just sees the ice as the roof of the universe. This is not to say "oh well, this is a situation where corpo-colonialism is actually fine and good because there are no victims" - such organizations historically exploited the underclasses of their countries of origin too - which is exactly the kind of problem this video is delving into. That's definitely a problem. But at least Elon Musk on Mars, assuming that happens (my money's on no) doesn't crush a thriving Martian civilization the way Isabella in now-Latin America crushed *several* thriving civilizations like the Maya, Aztec, and Inca.
‘ When I said “Take me to the moon” I never meant take me alone / I thought if mankind toured the sky, it meant all of us could go / but I don’t want to see the stars if they’re just one more piece of land / for us to colonise / for us to turn to sand ‘ - Rät, Penelope Scott
The show went from portraying a "how we get to Star Trek" in its socialist ideologies to "how we get to The Expanse" as we see it at the start of the series with its absolute capitalist hellscape caused by runaway consumerism and corporate independence.
This is an excellent comparison. It really did seem like a proto Star Trek journey had the beginning... And definitely felt more like proto expanse in the end.
I appreciate the mention of "essential workers". I was living paycheck to paycheck at the time working for McDonald's; driving down those empty roads was a scary experience. It felt like I was working in a fast-food joint at the end of the world. Coming from a multi-generational household with a family history of respiratory issues, it felt like we were being thrown to the wolves. This is the mindset that the masses think will propel them towards a future like Star Trek? More like Lethal Company.
@@thegodplace7887 You're essential to the share price & for the CEO to get bonuses...if you're not doing that, they can always get another essential cog.
As someone going into STEM as an AFAB who presents feminine, it's really hard to feel passionate about STEM bc of how many men I have to fight to be taken seriously
it really is kinda a boys club, especially in engineering which is what i went to university for. i presented masc at the time (i'm transfem, figured that out in like 3rd year), and like the kinda shit people will say about women or lgbtq+ people in stem because they think you're just one of the guys is really off-putting to say the least.
It has been quite a journey as I transitioned, growing up masc presenting STEM was like obvious, but as I presented fem, I went through a bit of an existential crisis and feeling like I didn't belong anymore. I did take a class on the topic which was useful, but also really hard, because it sometimes it does feel hopeless. I have been trying to embrace fancy scientist, who's whole thing is highlighting people who are not just some white guy in a lab coat.
@enbydeadly Yeah, and I'm in biology. I was told by my professor to "stop using so many big words" after turning in a lab report on genetics... yeah, the big word I used was deviation/deviated, which is used a LOT in genetics
@@wallflowerwithoutperks um yeah, that is messed up. Would love to have my students use more descriptive words in their lab reports to check their understanding.
It is better in some areas than others. Please don't desist. Find your supportive group of feelow queers and women and push each other. We are here and we need you. (Sadly for me I'm in a very, very male dominated field. But if I'm something it's stubborn and arrogant enough to think I can do this 😅)
As a materials scientist, there was this period where tons of my colleagues all wanted to go work for Tesla or SpaceX, kinda like how google was for computer science students for a time. Our field more broadly does strong, lightweight materials, battery technologies, semiconductors (I do metals personally), so it's a natural fit and both SpaceX and Tesla aggressively recruited at our conferences. It didn't take long for everyone to know someone with a horror story. It is now pretty universally understood among my colleagues that you do not work for a Musk company if you value your health, your passion to do science, your career, or your life because he will destroy all of them to get an ego-boosting headline.
Good to know the icky vibes I was picking up from end of FAM season 2 were correct. When they whitewashed Regan's handling of the AIDS epidemic I was like, nope.
I've never seen the show but that is a massive yikes. I have found that it's a pretty good barometer for if you want to interact with a piece of media or an individual on how they interpret what happened then. If they try to defend him or say he didn't know (or I recently had an incident where someone was in my home and they actually said to me "it was caused by drug addicts and ho-mo-sexuals they don't care who they kill" (and then went on a rant about gay orgies "the infectected would put on") btw; this rant came out of NOWHERE. Also the woman's name was Karen I'm not even joking. I have zero time for that.
@@searchingfororion it's pretty condescending what they did in the show. Because Regan had Ellen, the closeted lesbian with a closeted gay husband in the Senate somehow magically the Republicans passed AIDS research funding in the 80s. Y'know instead of having to be shamed into it by militant gay activists like really happened.
Yeah, president Ellen solved gayness, so now there's not even any LGBTQ characters on the show, cause it's post-gay. This was a terrible season, I hated the whole 'screw getting this wealth/resource to earth quickly in order to improve people's lives, instead lets follow this billionaire and fired white guy who want's get back at the black woman who took over his job and make Mars into a crappy buisness hub.
Must be tiring to always be looking at the world in such a black and white & "I need alphabet people or else" type of way. It's wild how Americans will just go on tangents about "how evil white guys" are, or use the words "black women" almost reverently, like they're ready to capitalize the words like religious people do with god, heaven and hell.
You just have to spin it a bunch. That will either allow centripetal force to do the same work as gravity, or cause the whole tower to collapse. Win-win.
Trickle-down economics as a metaphor is actually really useful if you think of it from space. Gravity doesn't pull things "down". It accelerates them towards wherever mass is already concentrated. Thus do market economies. They pull resources towards the great concentrations of wealth, forming sinkholes that only operate in order to swallow more.
Hearing you both be frustrated about this gives me a lot of hope. These frustrations are so important to make loud. And I love how much you both care about the art you make and the art that you are witness to, taking it as something that is seriously impacting the real world. As someone who is in the industry and feeling like I have to carve out space for myself at every step because of my gender, it's amazing to know that the two of you are out there carving that same space, too.
20:12 When you deconstruct the iPhone many underlying and key technologies are funded by government investments. Private investors only get into the game, when they can guarantee profit in the near future. So for example satellites, GPS, Internet, Cellular Communication, etc. are all funded by the state. The narrative of capitalists as sole innovators is misleading when we consider which entity (the government/the people) invested in the innovation process.
This is actually severely incorrect lmao, also the government doesn't represent the people anymore. Btw there will never be a revolution and corporations will always rule.
@@danieltodorov7753 Thanks :) For scientific correctness: I didn't came up with this. It is the work of Mariana Mazzucato, who researches in this field.
Someone with sources in a youtube comment... can't believe it. In all seriousness, I do really appreciate giving credit. I make sure to check out het work@@vornamenachname9331
I hope you understand free market supporters are aware of how corporations use government funding. They hate that, and think it should be outlawed with extreme levels of punishment including the disbandingbof said corporation.
America, the place where you can be employee of the month twice, almost be crushed to death at work twice, save them a million dollars twice and then get fired twice(illegally) so they don't have to promote you twice.x.
There’s a book called Capitalist Realism that says that we can imagine the end of the world but can’t imagine the end of capitalism. And this is shown in how many apocalyptic stories we had in the last few years and how we, as society, feel about the future. I can understand what Erin is feeling, specially as a woman/demigirl scientist. We have to fight so much and seeing something we love saying “you don’t belong here” is heartbreaking. Thanks so much for this video, Jessie. Both and Erin are amazing and so adorable!
Can you imagine being so ruthlessly inept that you end up ruining children’s and teens’ enthusiasm for SPACE. Arguably one of the coolest things ever. Horrifying.
Erin's heartfelt expression of how the finale made her feel was a real gutpunch. As a Black creative, I definitely feel that feeling of "Well, they've put me in my place" from time to time. It's crazy that media like this can gaslight us so thoroughly that Erin (a real life Science Queen) can be brought low (however momentarily) by some hacky, lazy creator's attempt to justify their own bootlicking. Another excellent video.
This video hits me in the feels as a queer that chose to be an aerospace engineer because of the Star Trekian hope, but now that I graduated and basically options are military industrial complex and all these space corpos, just really have been a motivation killer.
Idk how comfortable you are with this idea, but would you be able to give lectures about the possible impact of capitalism on space travel and stuff to other students of the same topics, since you studied things that involve this scenario?
To be fair SpaceX supposedly has a vibrant queer community among the employees but I honestly don't understand how that can work with the company boss so transphobic at least publically. I guess some of the smaller startups may not be as colonistic and capitalistic necessarily also
Yeah my parents are both aerospace engineers and they went the military industial complex way, and they joke about the nightmare of working at the corporations within the industry. It does feel just frustrating that because everything has to make a profit, we can't do the missions to study the surface of more moons, or play with novel ecology on space craft.
Not to mock (I'm from the Oil & Gas side of engineering, so I get the "wow, it's all crappy companies" feeling), but what did you think you'd be working on, as a student Aerospace Engineer? Defense/Aerospace (due to the 80's/90's corporate cannibalism, those are basically the same things in the US) and a handful of VC-backed Space Corps are pretty much the whole ballgame for AE types. It's not like MechE, where you could end up working for John Deere or designing commercial HVAC systems. You had to know that, way before you graduated.
@@mimmikibilly Sorry for the late reply. Honestly that would be very interesting to do, part of me is gravitating towards wanting to teach and help others. Although personally I am personally going though figuring out that as well and I am still in the process of looking for internships. Wondering how I can do such lectures.
For all mankind was really not about all mankind: the world outside of the US (and a very bleak USSR) barely exists. Very American to make such a narrow minded short sighted series and call that for All Mankind. Exeptionalism is boring.
I wrote a much longer general post before scrolling through them, but yeah, you hit the short version nail on the head. I went into more detail but from the first ten minutes of this video just hearing how they handled the premise it was already clear that whether deliberate or whether genuine ignorance from being immersed in US propaganda their whole lives the showrunners set out to make a neoliberal propaganda piece about how specifically US-brand capitalism is the only source of innovation and societal progress on Earth.
reminds me of good ol' Monroe Doctrine: america for the americans. In my history classes in Brazil, I learned the phrase was part of the "good neighbourhood" policies the US had at the time (Carmen Miranda, Zé Carioca, that green parrot from Disney's Three Caballeros). Since it could mean America (the continent) for the Americans (USians) and vice versa. Made sense at the time Then I went to North America and learned that no, the Monroe Doctrine was obviously just for the USians, the "good neighbourhood" part was just a "what's yours is mine what's mine is mine" situation, at least for everyone else who isn't Canada or maybe Mexico. Which eventually led to presidents like Nixon with his Condor Operations, meddling in south american democracies, backing dictatorships and whatnot. Not to mention the September 11 massacre on Chile.
We've understood for more than a century that the class dialectic will make incremental, soft transition out of capitalism impossible. One way or another, capitalist class interest will always mobilize reactionary effort to undermine meaningful, systemic progress. Conflict is inevitable.
I powered thru all four seasons of FAM over the holidays and loved it, then got super depressed over the weekend after I watched the Season 4 finale. Thanks for voicing some of the thoughts I had, and for still believing we can do better.
Something that should not be understated about Kessler Syndrome is that it potentially means *no more satellites.* Also, it sounds like For All Mankind was made by libertarians.
Yeah I'm not buying the "because of societal advancement" line regarding a black billionaire I think that they just did the typical villan casting and then put a top hat and a monocle on it.
@@searchingfororion I completely get that, what I'm saying is I doubt the writers room sees him as the villain. Look at everything else they're doing. They clearly see elon musk as a hero.
I want to work in space industry, worked in aerospace for 3 years and left. It was so toxic at least in the private sector. And yeah they expect you to put your life and well being on the line for profit.
Do you follow @acollierastro? She has an amazing video dissecting everything wrong with NASA's decision to new flagship after James Webb. She touches on many of the same points of this video concerning the message it sends kids as they learn about space.
I haven’t even heard of For All Mankind until now. Probably won’t get into it because of what it ends up being. And I relate to the conversation in the video so much cause I feel like in such a corporatized world we’re living in, I feel like my words or stories wouldn’t matter to the point of giving up. Part of that may be because I self sabotage myself with doomerism. But I keep going anyway cause I have some hope left in me, I guess.
I loved the mention of Battlestar Galactica and it’s heavy cynicism in regards to a spacefaring society On one hand, I appreciated the shows grittiness and the moral ambiguity of its characters On the other hand (spoilers), the implication that humanity is so intrinsically flawed that a genetic rewrite is required, and that technology makes us evil, is so reductionist that I was very turned off by the series finale It also didn’t even work anyway, so I was a little confused as to the deeper message of BSG Actually it would be great if For All Mankind was the sequel series of BSG and they discovered that the Galactica crashed on Venus or Mercury on its way to the Sun 🫢
If Musky Husky wants to go to Mars, I wish him bon voyage. Let's see how long he'll last without any servants to boss around and attend to his every need. I give him three days before he resorts to growing potatoes in poop. Then another day before he gives up and eats that directly.
Watching this while working on character designs for my sci-fi comic. It's post-apocalyptic (I'm jokingly referring to it as cyber post-punk) but not as bleak as the genre usually gets. It's more about the new worlds that come after the collapse of space-capitalism.
I'm watching this while working on character designs for my sci-fi game. It's a military sci-fi game, where the League of Nations prevented WWII from happening, and for hundreds of years, things pretty much went well for people. And then hundreds of years later, once humanity is truly post-capitalist, with a mix of different systems depending on where people live, we encounter a capitalist and fascist space-empire. They almost immediately go to war. I find the concept of trying to balance a society's continued survival by funding the war effort, and the comfort and safety of it's citizens really interesting, and I want to show that capitalism is not the most effective way to do that. It's also got a lot of retro sci-fi stuff going on, I'm trying to balance a dated aesthetic with a more progressive and generally better society.
Ayy, kinda similar! I'm writing a sci-fi book set in a Randian post-apocalypse of the far future (think Warhammer 40k, except instead of there being only war there's only corporate liberalism). The setting is bleak but the main cast and the communities they build will, hopefully, more than balance that out.
@@henryfleischer404 oo that's really interesting, so is it like a grand strategy game or focused on characters within the world? I'm also finding any excuse to use retro tech aesthetics lmao. In my case I'm reasoning that chunky, 70s sci-fi tech aesthetics were going through a nostalgia cycle when the apocalypse happened and the sturdier designs were the ones that survived into the post-apocalyptic future.
@@kadnhart6661YES YES YES. I need a hundred million more takes on space apocalypse. Mine is set far into the post-apocalypse (more Horizon: Zero Dawn than Fallout in that sense) so the only remains of free market space capitalism are the machines and ruined worlds it left behind.
Ayyyy sci-fi writer thread! Mine's post-apocalyptic, about disparate satellite cities which have all become insular in their focus towards re-terraforming their little patch of earth, and the different kinds of approaches and mindsets that sprung up out of it.
such a great convo, it exposes the horrors of capitalism, and really does give me hope for the future knowing people like you and Erin are fighting for a better future
For an imaginative corporatized science fiction future I can't recommend the Murderbot Diaries more highly; very much a work written within the hellscape of sci-fi capitalism while also being a treatise against it.
Dr Erin's despair at the ending really resonated with me. I've suffered this pain before, when a story and world I loved with all my heart betrayed me. I realized that no matter how powerful, capable and competent the characters I cherished were, they would never be allowed to make actual progress and win a substantial victory against the oppression rooted at the heart of the world. It was such n unexpected, insidious betrayal.
Seasons 1 and 2 of FAM filled me with so much hope and happiness for the future. Seasons 3 and 4 might have tense moments and lots of drama, but they're missing all the characters I grew to love and adore in the first two seasons and that overwhelming feeling of hope for the future. This finale was a perfectly well made episode of television. It just isn't FAM anymore though.
The last part of the video, the one regarding the power of an optimistic vision of the future, is the one that struck me the most. It's the reason why I've always loved TNG and DS9, the reason why I've never appreciated the "pessimistic" vision (albeit in an optimistic context) of DIS. The future must be made by people who think of the good of others and who care about improving the lives of their fellow humans, and as a pansexual Italian who currently lives under a pseudo-fascist government (maybe you have heard of Giorgia Meloni) this touches me deeply. We must open our ports (and our walls, for you Americans) to immigrants seeking a better life, because their well-being is as important as that of the citizens of the country that hosts them, we must learn to sacrifice a part of the our interests in favor of those of others and in this way serve the interests of all. Only in this way will we reach the utopia of Infinite Diversity In Infinite Combinations. Long live and prosper you all 🖖
One of my favorite parts about the script im working from quite some time is wrighting the villain because its not as much of a person as it is a Corporation. Created by a american emperialist, guided by nothing but money and control at the point of manipulating the truth and taking over the goverment (inspired by how the us caused a military dictatorship on my country during the 50's). Its just a good catarsis to make a work mainly about anti capitalism and inperialism
I've been interested in space since I was a little girl, but yeah, I've been feeling so disillusioned with it recently for the reasons you discussed here. I'm always so grateful when something (a new discovery, footage, etc) can remind me of my love for the stars.
Once again, thank you for this video Jessie. The Starfield one really encouraged me in my writing, and this one has done it again. Hopefully people like us can push fictions of real change and hope into the mainstream.
I've been thinking a lot about this especially in light of all the articles about how Star Trek's history is different in 'For All Mankind's universe. This implies that Star Trek may have stayed close to the TOS model the entire way along instead of taking the more progressive tangents of the TNG era onward (though it does make me wonder how that version of Roddenberry would have maintained control of the show in the face of a more militarized space program IRL). I have a feeling this version of TNG looks very different from the one we know. I can't decide if this would have been an improvement as I have high doubts a show such as Deep Space Nine would come to exist in For All Mankind's world due to it being way too critical of the capitalist and pro-colonial underpinnings of it.
We had that, first contact, wher cocrin was actually a good boss, but also in for money, i mean he gets shown the beauty and isnt a bad person at heart that just became cynical, but there was the capitalism, it should at best be an element, not the motivation.
Thank you for having this conversation. While not this series specifically, I've had so many series in the past let me down in similar ways (and yes, I've shed tears too), I relate completely to what you are expressing here. And I also agree that the best remedy is to write my own stories, making the points that I believe need to me made.
I think the show is extremely critical of Helios and the politicization of space. I don't feel like it endorses the fact that Helios gets their way at the end of season 4, rather that it is heart breaking that people like Margo get stepped on and that that process pushes her into seemingly agreeing with the people at helios. I also feel like Danielle is put explicitly in the position of being righteous and Ed being unreasonable. It also feels like a critic of how capitalism, trough Helios and Dev, manipulates and uses people, but he's a bad person, he's a good engineer, but a bad person, even Ed knows it. I also feel like when Ed says "this is my home" it's not a heartfelt moment, it's a moment of him giving his back to everyone for his own purposes and motivations, because he's unreasonable. As a tangent, and if you get it you get it, I've been seeing gundam recently and Ed thinking of mars as "his home" and thinking lesser of the people who are thinking of earth first, sounds to me like that "their souls are weighed down by gravity so they can't fly" Char's line, from Gundam. And Char is a villain, Ed is a villain now. Helios is evil now. At least that's truly the way I read the season
I'm glad someone else caught the similarity between Ed and Char. I feel like the whole political ideal of Zeon is pretty much the same as what Ed was stated to believe in this video essay.
Especially when taking into account what people involved in planning the show have said, there may be a strain of "capitalist exploitation is bad" but it's accompanied by "...but there's no way towards progress except with capitalist patriarchy having its way for the indefinite future."
I had a handful of questions/mixed feelings after finishing S4, like “seems like it would be better for humanity if the asteroid were sent to Earth…?” and “I don’t get why Ellen is a Republican”. Your discussion helped me understand more of what wasn’t so hot about S3 and S4.
Hey just wanted to answer your questions! It would be better for humanity if the asteroid were sent to Earth as it would get the resources faster. This was the whole point of of NASA and Ros Cosmos pushing for it but it would take away funding from Mars which was point of "stealing " the asteroid. Why Ellen is a Republican you must understand that the parties were not so divided back then plus she was a very liberal Republican. She even talked about it when running for president, Also she was very close with Regan (main reason probably).
I feel so seen by this. I'd been keeping my loss of passion for new technology and space travel to myself for years. No better worlds, only new markets. Will I ever get out of this hole? No idea, but not being alone makes it a little brighter.
In the strike on Mars Dev was lying to their faces to find the people who weren't fooled by capitalism. Dev's point is the resource of Goldilocks elevating Mars Independence and it's too early to talk about what kind of economic system would be in place and probably not trickle down economics since that's what the workers were fighting against and wouldn't make thematic sense. When Norway found oil they made sure that their people got their share and traded with the rest of the world to benefit their people, there is nothing to say that, that isn't the plan. It just seems like we didn't watch the same show.
unfortunately, this problem isn't just present in the sci-fi genre it's become a massive problem with the streaming wars so many shows that come out on streaming services, specifically Disney+, just feel like corporate products (with the exception of Andor, and Loki Season 2) and it's genuinely so sad that aspiring writers and directors are having trouble getting work that isn't under a large corporate studio, or that isn't attached to some I.P. it serves as a perfect example about how capitalism and corporatization kills creativity, and as someone who loves the sci-fi genre, it's truly heartbreaking (although, Jesse, I've heard that the sci-fi drama series 'Scavenger's Reign' is really good, so I recommend you check that out)
As a guy 50+ (but not bald) stereotypical guy (albeit gay), you all had me in tears in parts of this, and yet this whole discussion really brightened my day. I remember as a kid loving and wanting to be a part of space, but the Musk / Capitalistic view of it is just revolting, but I didn't have clarity as to why until I watched this, and realized the altruism and (I use this next word cautiously and with no references to MAGA chumps) freedom space provides could be such a benefit truly for all mankind. In short, thank you both for what you do to keep the dream alive.
I'm torn on this. On the one hand I hate capitalist realism but on the other hand it is meant to be an alternate history and even in the present day we do live in this system so portraying it accurately makes sense. Also season 4 has done the most in critiquing the system. The problem with Dev Ayesa will always be that he is actually competent and thus part of the Elon Musk hype in real life.
While Dev is certainly a sticking point, the bigger narrative problem at this point is Ed. As discussed, he's a walking ball of entitlement at this point and it seems clear by now that the show has no interest in holding him accountable for that. Quite the opposite, really, and at the expense of every character in his orbit.
My real problem with the alt-history (and I know the answer to it is 'they wanted to focus on space,') is that I really wished they would spend more time focusing on how the developments in Space exploration and research has impacted Earth. They seem to have gone with a very simplistic "USSR still exists and is harsh and cruel, America continues much as it always has also." It would be much more interesting to have a deep dive in the differences caused by the greater co-operation, new conflicts and new technology in this world and I feel like that has been allowed to slip by the wayside. Its still an intriguing, hard sci-fi & interpersonal drama, but the sociological and political issues haven't been focused on as much as I would like. There's a whole, fascinating political world in FAM that just hasn't been leveraged sufficiently.
@@queenvagabond8787 One theory I've heard that I'd love to get more information on is that in this world, DARPANet stayed a military project instead of becoming the internet we know today, even as computational technology appears to be moving along much faster. Which wouldn't necessarily prevent the internet from forming but would certainly have kept it from being as free. Those changes alone have the possibility of completely upending most events of the last twenty five years, especially in terms of grassroots organizing, whistleblowing, and exposing the truth.
I've been fascinated by space travel since I can remember. I had a leap pad type tablet that showed the solar system and would recite facts about each planet when i tapped on it. I set it up in my closet with some blankets and plushies and made my closet into a little spaceship. thats where i went when my parents fought or my siblings were terrorizing me. In another universe i would be an astronaut. Now that ive moved out, my room is entirely space themed. I wanted so badly to believe that there was a future worth surviving for. That potential future seems less and less possible with each passing year. It hurts. The feeling is hard to process. Fear, grief for something that hasnt happened, rage with no outlet... its overwhelming. Im using that feeling to fuel my writing and reach others who feel the same. My current project is about people who try to build a solarpunk future while living in a cyberpunk dystopia.
I could type an essay about all the problems and disillusionment I have with 'For All Mankind' on top of the great points and perspective y'all raised. This was a great and cathartic watch. Thank you!
I haven’t heard of this until the other day when I watched this video on Nebula. Am always dubious of alt history show because there is only so much actual history that can be accounted for when it’s being made and what if left out is usually the more radical and uncomfortable elements. Example is Warner Van Bruan. While it would have been great for the US to remove him from NASA, from what I understand, there isn’t a real look at how a man like him got there in the first place. Or the fact that gender/racial “equality “ is moved by the space race, which over looks all of the radical groups that fought tooth and nail , and many that died, to achieve what we got today.
We are scientists, and there is no failure in science. There is only data to collect and improve upon. The data can disappoint us, yes, but it always informs us, often how we can do better.
@@brook_angel No. Because then we would know why we can't leave the planet and can take that data to find a way through again. Maybe not us, but our descendants. We must continue recording and experimenting, always. We must advance for futures we can't imagine.
@@nomisunrider6472 I think you don't quite understand that a debris field flying around the earth at insane speed is pretty much a game over for space exploration. We know it will be a problem, we know what is causing it and we know how to prevent it. Failing to do so is a failure. Same as with climate change, if we fail to limit the effects we did exactly that. Fail. If a prototype for a cure is created and it turns out that it actually does nothing then that prototype I'd a failure. Science is full of failure and there is no sense in denying that. Failure just doesn't mean that we can't learn anything from it.
There's a bit in Iain M. Banks' "The Player of Games" where Gurgeh, a cishet guy (or nearest thing to) in the Culture, is told that the Azadian empire has a dominant sex and he's genuinely confused by the concept. I'd trade the normalisation of that attitude for a mars base anyday.
This corporate deterioration of *_For All Mankind_* is unspeakably cruel. It sounds as though it was taken over by someone who despised the original premise of the series and wanted to punish the creator and its fans. If that's NOT what happened, what DID?
It’s a timeline that mirrors our own messy one, but space exploration is continued. You can, however, see glimpses of hope through different moments in the series. S2 is definitely a criticism of space militarization. S3 has points that are critical of the runaway capitalism that our timeline has had. S4 even moreso, considering the main conflict of the last few episodes is preventing Mars from becoming obsolete and home to a skeleton crew of scientists instead of the growth of Happy Valley to become a home because capitalism demands an asteroid goes to Earth for maximum profit. Does it make the most sense? No. Is it an analogy for us leaving the Moon because Low Earth Orbit is more profitable? Uh, yeah.
@@SpartanNat My question is, was there in fact a change in Producer or a change in creative direction mandated by AppleTV? That's sure what it sounds like.
@@arcadiaberger9204 I think Ronald D. Moore stepped back in some official sense but still has some sort of direction over the series. What I’d consider the approach to the series though is not to lead into Star Trek (especially considering Star Trek is part of the show’s canon) but instead portray a more realistic and messy path into the future. If you want to have the Star Trek timeline you have to go back and make McCarthyism not a thing and not have Nixon or especially Reagan win office, as well as have more labor laws passed.
@@SpartanNat Heh, I've always liked the idea of *_Star Trek_* being part of the actual history of the *_Star Trek_* universe, especially if there were no films and no new series after the Third World War of 1976. That is implied by the introduction to the *_Starfleet Technical Manual._* But as for *_For All Mankind,_* I wonder what did happen, in that case. It does sound as though something drastic happened to the series, as though its heart has changed. I really do want to watch it. I see it's available on DVD.
'Changes happen faster in the US'A? What the hell is that director guy talking about?? The discussion was very insightful, and I must agree with most points. Yeah, billionaires ruin everything, nothing new, Capitalism is shit, neoliberalism is pure shit and its twin fascism will always accompany it. We need revolution. And on that note, to demerit the USSR experience and call it horrible, as if it was an undisputed fact, won't help the movement. There is much we can learn and be inspired by it, just as from Cuba right freaking now. The way Soviets viewed space and even its sci-fi is inspiring! Compared to the sad, imperialistic and fearful view that USA Hollywood created.
To the last point, yeah, I always find it a bit frustrating that thanks to American media using the Soviets as generic evil antagonists (gotta love that subtle propaganda), everyone in the Anglo-sphere has this knee jerk reaction to treat the Soviet Union as being comparable to one of the circles of hell or something. I've met a lot of people from that part of the world and most of my family is from Yugoslavia, and they all have things both good and bad to say to say about how things were in that society. We could really use a movie like Das Boot but for the USSR one of these days.
Hope for the future is very crucial now because we are at a dangerous point- capitalism and fascism can destroy us, for real !! Thanks Jessie for the great video 💕💕
Thank you both! I’ve subscribed to Dr. Erin’s channel. I dropped FAH a while ago because there are only so many hours in the day. After this discussion, I won’t be back.
Thank you so much for making this, it put into words what I’ve been feeling for awhile now. Loved and still love anything around space and seeing the corporatization of space exploration and how that’s been lauded by many in even the scientific community has been so depressing and frustrating to watch. I could go on and on but again thank you ❤
Thank you so much for this video. My wife and I are huge fans of the show and couldn't figure out why we disliked this season so deeply. It didn't resonate to our queer, feminist leftist hearts, and that is so so heartbreaking.
I love the start with "we have these conversations all the time and decided we should record this one" because my favorite anime podcast started with two friends ranting about the flawed anime and anime inspired media they were frustrated with.
I always thought it was funny that Musk has made a bunch of references to The Culture books while he's essentially Veppers the greedy and cowardly villain from Surface Detail.
Great conversation and definitely jabs the right fingers at everything wrong in Season 4. I felt the same thing while watching it. "Why does Elon get to be the Labor Whisperer in this show? Why are the women getting ejected out the plot's airlock? How come capitalism is winning now?!" But I just thought that this was the 4th season of a planned 7 seasons. Maybe this is the show's Empire? They set up this bucolic capitalist-realism winning montage at the end of the season to raise the stakes high enough to extend the fight for space socialism over the next three seasons. Am I wrong that there is still going to be seven seasons?
I don't think I've ever watched SciFi, really. Not that I'd not enjoy it (esp Star Trek) but I never was exposed to it and nowadays didn't manage to watch any of it yet. But even without knowing anything from this genre, I just really enjoy listening to your POVs and analyses. This was enriching and wonderful as always but also rather sobering. I hope we will all do better and take the chances to build a nicer future together - a kind and inspirational future we all are dying for instead of despairing to live into. Thanks a lot💜
I hadn't heard of For All Mankind before but a worker's uprising leading into an independent Mars during the cold war got me imagining a story of an independent Mars as a stand in for smaller socialist/communist nations that formed during the cold war.
Congrats on this video, your channel is really great. Sorry for commenting late, but around the 47:10 mark you mention something about studies that shows humans tend to for societies of caring and community, could you pleas share this studies? I would love to read. Congrats again for you anda your friend :) (sorry for any spelling errors)
Compared to S3 and S4 of 'For All Mankind', Aaron Sorkin's neoliberal soapboxing and personal prejudices masquerading as "drama" and "character" on 'The West Wing' looks like a Jean-Luc Godard exercise in Marxist condemnation of Capitalism. It's like if they made an 'Alien' show that glorified Weyland-Yutani.
Thank you for this! It’s been so frustrating to see publications like ars technica cheering the privatization of space even as women and other marginalized people are pushed out. I don’t know what the answer is, but it’s nice not being the only one who sees the problem
I haven't watched this yet, but youtube is obviously already hindering it (no notification even though I have the bell set to "all", not showing up anywhere on my front page even though I watch Jessie's videos on premiere day most of the time), so here's a comment in hopes that it helps boost the algorithm a little bit.
Genuinely baffled by the labor union plotline. Started off this season excitedly chanting, "Space union! Space union!" and excited for Ed to get his comeuppance for his deeply boomerish anti-labor sentiments. What could go wrong?? After all, this show is written by SCREENWRITERS. Screenwriters who are, you know, UNION MEMBERS?? Who literally went on strike THIS YEAR and had to deal with months of propaganda from the studios painting them as cynical and entitled, the same way Ed describes the Helios workers? How could they NOT have a very well-earned pro-union bias??? Then I had to sit there and watch the entire plotline fizzle out halfway through the season, with half the cast describing the organizers as literal TERRORISTS--which makes sense given their political alignment, but it felt like there was no one ever pushing back. Even the Helios workers themselves didn't seem to care or want to talk about the strike once it was over. Seriously, what happened in that writer's room??
I easily distrusted For All Mankind just on its portrait of Third World. Countries like Brazil just doesn't exist in the show. Brazil which have a space program since early 90 and satellite stuff since the 80's... I cannot respect a alt history show who disrespects the global south like this.
I noped out of this show after the first few episodes of season 3 because they had killed off Tracy (and Gordo) and had Karen bang a minor because she was unhappy and Ed was absent at the end of season 2. I don't think I'll be revisiting the show anytime soon. The funny thing is that I pretend that BSG doesn't have a season 3 or 4 because of the Starbuck nonsense that happened, so I guess Ronald Moore can keep me engaged for 2 seasons and that's it? What an odd takeaway...
fantastic video, thanks to both of you. it was quite touching and i too want to fight that apathy that feels overwhelming sometimes. we can have a better future!
I don't want to sound cynical but I feel like a lot of people had convinced themselves that the very act of travelling into space would be the solution to late stage capitalism when it was never gonna be as easy as that. And believe me as a star trek fan id love for that to be true but capitalism will take a lot of struggle to shake off
The "Where are you standing now" conversation, is very much conversations I have been part of in both the Games Industry and Beer Industry. "Hey, the forced overtime is really burning people out" and their response was pretty much "But you work in video games!", or "hey this is a huge safety violation", "but you work in beer!!! Enjoy some underfills".
Have not seen the latest season of For All Mankind, so it's disappointing to hear the show's taken this turn. It felt like it was starting to go the wrong direction in season 3, so I'm not too surprised, but still disappointed. This was quite a nice conversation, and I was so surprised (and happy) to see Jane from Outside Xbox's comments on Starfield included (not just referenced) - I'm a big fan of those channels, too, and her comments had really struck a chord with me, particularly after playing Outer Worlds, which frankly felt like a half-baked satire of that stuff (in a way that Borderlands already was, to an extent). Actually, I am happy to see FD Signifier in this video, too. Overall, it definitely does feel that a show originally suggested as a prequel to Star Trek is now more of a prequel to The Expanse and that's...kind of disappointing, it's not the direction I'd been hoping this show would go. Interesting to hear the theory that Moore's cynicism may be playing a role, that would be unfortunate but understandable.
I think any future space colony should at least be a Scandinavian style social democracy, with heavy regulations on what corporations can and can't do. They should also nationalize all natural resources found so everyone can benefit from them.
Season 1 & 2 were so great criticising the Cold War mentality and specifically the United States posture and imperialism. I began season 3 and started to see a shift towards a more classical “Russia evil empire” propaganda take common of the Cold War media season 1 and 2 were criticising.
What a message for the show, "if the Soviets won this part of the space race like they did the rest, the only meaningful change would be we'd reach our current dystopia a few years sooner"
The thing that was so exciting for me about season one WAS the Soviet Union, especially in space, and the opportunity for comparison and contrast it brought. It was one of my favorite elements in the movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact, working with the Soviet crew to reach the Discovery and find out what's happened. The hosts of Kill James Bond, I think when discussing The Hunt For Red October, put it in a way that stuck with me: It's not that the Soviet Union was good, it wasn't, but it was kind of the last time any country even *tried* anything differently. Like, it's debatable to what extent anything was more than pretext, but after the Soviet Union there's barely even pretext left. "Yeah, it's shit. It's supposed to be shit. If you don't like it, there's the door." I was so excited to see them make their own moon landings and set up their own base. And all the paranoia and aggression seemed so strange compared to the closest parallel I can think of, 26 December 1959, when Soviet scientists driving their massive Kharkovchankas paid an unexpected visit to US scientists at Amundsen-Scott Base at the South Pole. They were welcomed with open arms, housed and fed and refueled for three days before heading thousands of miles back to their base. And the whole time they stayed at Amundsen-Scott the US and Soviet flags flew side by side. I don't know, I'm rambling. It's just so disappointing to make a show about a continued space race and decide that the driving force behind so much of it, the side that racked up so many of the "firsts" then just fades to a bogeyman in the background. What a wasted chance to explore, even as a pretext, some non-capitalist reasons for space exploration, you know, like the betterment of humanity and stuff. And I know Star Trek is pretty clear about "first we improved ourselves, then that allowed us to do all this cool space stuff," but I also want to flag up Iain Banks' Culture series, because whenever I hear Elon Musk talk he's so often incorrectly parroting Banks' ideas, much more than Star Trek. Banks is completely clear in his books that space and automation and other high-tech gadgets are not the key to utopia. There are numerous other civilizations in the setting who have all the same technology and are still nightmarish dystopias. The point has always been that we could have utopia, or damn near it, right NOW if we chose to, if we just organized society around providing for people's needs and enabling them to do what they want, rather than around giving all the power and resources to a shrinking handful of overlords. (How Musk managed to read anything about the Culture and completely miss the Anarcho-Communism, the complete disdain for money and hierarchy, and literally all the Culture citizens being genderfluid, and instead latch onto "AI means utopia" never ceased to baffle me)
Loved the discussion! It really is discouraging how much sci-fi media has go so pro capitalist. Ngl, seeing Jane (and Outside Xbox) mentioned in this video made me too excited!
I actually got the first season of FAM for Christmas and I think it's really well written and executed. I look forward to Season Two, but after hearing this, I'm having pauses on the other seasons. As an autistic black person (male), space has ALWAYS a gateway for me to escape a very difficult upbringing. Hell, I'm even making a model space station. Yeah, the private space industry is starting to get on my nerves...😒😒😒😒
Also the use of torture to get information from Miles (which to the show's credit isn't what works, it's the blackmail threat to his family that causes him to crack) and capitalism's institutions pass it off as the actions of a few rogue individuals rather than a feature of the system in a blink and you'll miss it scene in the denouement.
Question: While we are still talking about ideologies and alternate histories, are there any feminist scifi nerds somewhere talking about Soviet science fiction? Because yes, of course the Soviet Union was not a very great place, but they did have some really amazing scifi, and the anglophone Internet seems to just collectively ignore its existence. I haven't seen much, but Per Aspera Ad Astra (1981) for example is still one of the major stories I think of when it comes to environmental activism in fiction. They also have the superious Sherlock Holmes and Mary Poppins, but that is a different subject. ;-) Also, not Soviet, but fans of Star Trek are also sleeping on the German Spaceship Orion (Raumpatrouille - Die phantastishen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion) series.
30:21 I haven't caught up with For All Mankind since early in season 3, but now, based on the (eagerly sought out) spoilers from this video, it kind of seems like it's leading up *to* The Expanse rather than Star Trek. Though The Expanse has Basic, at least??
"Dont get into show business to work with your heroes. Meet your peers and become the heroes." Very succinct, very true... Even if you eventually do get to direct John Delancey & Abigail Thorn 😉 (can't wait to see it!) Thanks again Jessie!
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
We are creating the West India Companie-like companeis but in space and people aren't seeing the inherent problems in that... We are literally watching history repeating itself without a single thought of "should we be doing this again?" as a society.
A big part of what made companies like the East India Company terrible is the lands they were "exploring" and exploiting were already inhabited by civilizations that, by and large by people who would rather they were not around exploring and exploiting. In space, at least within our local solar system, all the science we have suggests there is no life around to be victimized by this sort of behaviour, and is all but certain there is no *intelligent* life. (There's a few very niche cases like the depths of the ice moon Europa which might support an ocean capable of supporting life, and while the expectation is more like microbes if that rather than anything significant (beyond, y'know, the demonstration of life on a planet other than Earth in general, which is pretty darn significant!), for all we know there could be an underwater civilization of some kind that just sees the ice as the roof of the universe.
This is not to say "oh well, this is a situation where corpo-colonialism is actually fine and good because there are no victims" - such organizations historically exploited the underclasses of their countries of origin too - which is exactly the kind of problem this video is delving into. That's definitely a problem. But at least Elon Musk on Mars, assuming that happens (my money's on no) doesn't crush a thriving Martian civilization the way Isabella in now-Latin America crushed *several* thriving civilizations like the Maya, Aztec, and Inca.
History is just a flat circle.
Elon is indeed building de facto corporate sovereignty on Mars by first testing the electric cars and self drivers here in Earth:e marketplace.
In order to not repeat history, we have to be aware of it without inherent biases blocking or misrepresenting history for what it was
Capitalism will tend to capitalism. "Society" doesn't really make any decisions. It's just rich people.
‘ When I said “Take me to the moon” I never meant take me alone / I thought if mankind toured the sky, it meant all of us could go / but I don’t want to see the stars if they’re just one more piece of land / for us to colonise / for us to turn to sand ‘
- Rät, Penelope Scott
LORD that is beautiful
That part of the song never fails to choke me up.
I've been listening to a lot of Penelope Scott, lately.
... What's wrong with colonizing space?
@@aaronkelly1762 The problem isn't colonising space. The problem is destroying any new land or society we create out there with Capitalism
The show went from portraying a "how we get to Star Trek" in its socialist ideologies to "how we get to The Expanse" as we see it at the start of the series with its absolute capitalist hellscape caused by runaway consumerism and corporate independence.
Like at least aim for writing about how we get to like one of the Gundam timelines that is more beloved by the fans
at this point even getting the expanse seems overly optimistic
@@phoenixfritzinger9185 the one where space people nuke a third of earth by dropping a colony on it?
This is an excellent comparison.
It really did seem like a proto Star Trek journey had the beginning... And definitely felt more like proto expanse in the end.
I'd say perfect cowboy bebop prequel
I appreciate the mention of "essential workers". I was living paycheck to paycheck at the time working for McDonald's; driving down those empty roads was a scary experience. It felt like I was working in a fast-food joint at the end of the world. Coming from a multi-generational household with a family history of respiratory issues, it felt like we were being thrown to the wolves. This is the mindset that the masses think will propel them towards a future like Star Trek? More like Lethal Company.
@@thegodplace7887 You're essential to the share price & for the CEO to get bonuses...if you're not doing that, they can always get another essential cog.
LETHAL COMPANY MENTIONED
As someone going into STEM as an AFAB who presents feminine, it's really hard to feel passionate about STEM bc of how many men I have to fight to be taken seriously
it really is kinda a boys club, especially in engineering which is what i went to university for. i presented masc at the time (i'm transfem, figured that out in like 3rd year), and like the kinda shit people will say about women or lgbtq+ people in stem because they think you're just one of the guys is really off-putting to say the least.
It has been quite a journey as I transitioned, growing up masc presenting STEM was like obvious, but as I presented fem, I went through a bit of an existential crisis and feeling like I didn't belong anymore. I did take a class on the topic which was useful, but also really hard, because it sometimes it does feel hopeless. I have been trying to embrace fancy scientist, who's whole thing is highlighting people who are not just some white guy in a lab coat.
@enbydeadly Yeah, and I'm in biology. I was told by my professor to "stop using so many big words" after turning in a lab report on genetics... yeah, the big word I used was deviation/deviated, which is used a LOT in genetics
@@wallflowerwithoutperks um yeah, that is messed up. Would love to have my students use more descriptive words in their lab reports to check their understanding.
It is better in some areas than others. Please don't desist. Find your supportive group of feelow queers and women and push each other. We are here and we need you. (Sadly for me I'm in a very, very male dominated field. But if I'm something it's stubborn and arrogant enough to think I can do this 😅)
As a materials scientist, there was this period where tons of my colleagues all wanted to go work for Tesla or SpaceX, kinda like how google was for computer science students for a time. Our field more broadly does strong, lightweight materials, battery technologies, semiconductors (I do metals personally), so it's a natural fit and both SpaceX and Tesla aggressively recruited at our conferences.
It didn't take long for everyone to know someone with a horror story. It is now pretty universally understood among my colleagues that you do not work for a Musk company if you value your health, your passion to do science, your career, or your life because he will destroy all of them to get an ego-boosting headline.
Good to know the icky vibes I was picking up from end of FAM season 2 were correct. When they whitewashed Regan's handling of the AIDS epidemic I was like, nope.
I've never seen the show but that is a massive yikes.
I have found that it's a pretty good barometer for if you want to interact with a piece of media or an individual on how they interpret what happened then.
If they try to defend him or say he didn't know (or I recently had an incident where someone was in my home and they actually said to me "it was caused by drug addicts and ho-mo-sexuals they don't care who they kill" (and then went on a rant about gay orgies "the infectected would put on") btw; this rant came out of NOWHERE. Also the woman's name was Karen I'm not even joking. I have zero time for that.
@@searchingfororion it's pretty condescending what they did in the show. Because Regan had Ellen, the closeted lesbian with a closeted gay husband in the Senate somehow magically the Republicans passed AIDS research funding in the 80s. Y'know instead of having to be shamed into it by militant gay activists like really happened.
I still really enjoy the show.
I think the point of what we see is that Capitalism in space is flawed.
Aww, it's the space capitalism version of the "They say the next [drones] will be sent by a woman" comic...
Holy fuck it IS 😂
Yeah, president Ellen solved gayness, so now there's not even any LGBTQ characters on the show, cause it's post-gay. This was a terrible season, I hated the whole 'screw getting this wealth/resource to earth quickly in order to improve people's lives, instead lets follow this billionaire and fired white guy who want's get back at the black woman who took over his job and make Mars into a crappy buisness hub.
I DETEST Ed. I can’t stand this show’s obsession with that character.
Must be tiring to always be looking at the world in such a black and white & "I need alphabet people or else" type of way. It's wild how Americans will just go on tangents about "how evil white guys" are, or use the words "black women" almost reverently, like they're ready to capitalize the words like religious people do with god, heaven and hell.
@@josephfernandez8015 You aren't supposed to like him. He's been an incredibly flawed character since season 1
How can trickle down economics work in zero gravity?
Pinata economics would be even more fun, though!
You just have to spin it a bunch. That will either allow centripetal force to do the same work as gravity, or cause the whole tower to collapse. Win-win.
Trickle-down economics as a metaphor is actually really useful if you think of it from space.
Gravity doesn't pull things "down". It accelerates them towards wherever mass is already concentrated.
Thus do market economies.
They pull resources towards the great concentrations of wealth, forming sinkholes that only operate in order to swallow more.
Is he (Musk) stupid?
@@cortomaltese5206Yes.
Hearing you both be frustrated about this gives me a lot of hope. These frustrations are so important to make loud. And I love how much you both care about the art you make and the art that you are witness to, taking it as something that is seriously impacting the real world. As someone who is in the industry and feeling like I have to carve out space for myself at every step because of my gender, it's amazing to know that the two of you are out there carving that same space, too.
20:12 When you deconstruct the iPhone many underlying and key technologies are funded by government investments. Private investors only get into the game, when they can guarantee profit in the near future. So for example satellites, GPS, Internet, Cellular Communication, etc. are all funded by the state. The narrative of capitalists as sole innovators is misleading when we consider which entity (the government/the people) invested in the innovation process.
This is actually severely incorrect lmao, also the government doesn't represent the people anymore.
Btw there will never be a revolution and corporations will always rule.
Perfectly said.
@@danieltodorov7753 Thanks :) For scientific correctness: I didn't came up with this. It is the work of Mariana Mazzucato, who researches in this field.
Someone with sources in a youtube comment... can't believe it. In all seriousness, I do really appreciate giving credit. I make sure to check out het work@@vornamenachname9331
I hope you understand free market supporters are aware of how corporations use government funding. They hate that, and think it should be outlawed with extreme levels of punishment including the disbandingbof said corporation.
America, the place where you can be employee of the month twice, almost be crushed to death at work twice, save them a million dollars twice and then get fired twice(illegally) so they don't have to promote you twice.x.
There’s a book called Capitalist Realism that says that we can imagine the end of the world but can’t imagine the end of capitalism. And this is shown in how many apocalyptic stories we had in the last few years and how we, as society, feel about the future.
I can understand what Erin is feeling, specially as a woman/demigirl scientist. We have to fight so much and seeing something we love saying “you don’t belong here” is heartbreaking.
Thanks so much for this video, Jessie. Both and Erin are amazing and so adorable!
Capitalism is the end of the world.
Can you imagine being so ruthlessly inept that you end up ruining children’s and teens’ enthusiasm for SPACE. Arguably one of the coolest things ever. Horrifying.
Erin's heartfelt expression of how the finale made her feel was a real gutpunch. As a Black creative, I definitely feel that feeling of "Well, they've put me in my place" from time to time. It's crazy that media like this can gaslight us so thoroughly that Erin (a real life Science Queen) can be brought low (however momentarily) by some hacky, lazy creator's attempt to justify their own bootlicking. Another excellent video.
This video hits me in the feels as a queer that chose to be an aerospace engineer because of the Star Trekian hope, but now that I graduated and basically options are military industrial complex and all these space corpos, just really have been a motivation killer.
Idk how comfortable you are with this idea, but would you be able to give lectures about the possible impact of capitalism on space travel and stuff to other students of the same topics, since you studied things that involve this scenario?
To be fair SpaceX supposedly has a vibrant queer community among the employees but I honestly don't understand how that can work with the company boss so transphobic at least publically. I guess some of the smaller startups may not be as colonistic and capitalistic necessarily also
Yeah my parents are both aerospace engineers and they went the military industial complex way, and they joke about the nightmare of working at the corporations within the industry. It does feel just frustrating that because everything has to make a profit, we can't do the missions to study the surface of more moons, or play with novel ecology on space craft.
Not to mock (I'm from the Oil & Gas side of engineering, so I get the "wow, it's all crappy companies" feeling), but what did you think you'd be working on, as a student Aerospace Engineer? Defense/Aerospace (due to the 80's/90's corporate cannibalism, those are basically the same things in the US) and a handful of VC-backed Space Corps are pretty much the whole ballgame for AE types. It's not like MechE, where you could end up working for John Deere or designing commercial HVAC systems. You had to know that, way before you graduated.
@@mimmikibilly Sorry for the late reply. Honestly that would be very interesting to do, part of me is gravitating towards wanting to teach and help others. Although personally I am personally going though figuring out that as well and I am still in the process of looking for internships. Wondering how I can do such lectures.
For all mankind was really not about all mankind: the world outside of the US (and a very bleak USSR) barely exists. Very American to make such a narrow minded short sighted series and call that for All Mankind. Exeptionalism is boring.
Yup yup :/
I wrote a much longer general post before scrolling through them, but yeah, you hit the short version nail on the head. I went into more detail but from the first ten minutes of this video just hearing how they handled the premise it was already clear that whether deliberate or whether genuine ignorance from being immersed in US propaganda their whole lives the showrunners set out to make a neoliberal propaganda piece about how specifically US-brand capitalism is the only source of innovation and societal progress on Earth.
reminds me of good ol' Monroe Doctrine: america for the americans. In my history classes in Brazil, I learned the phrase was part of the "good neighbourhood" policies the US had at the time (Carmen Miranda, Zé Carioca, that green parrot from Disney's Three Caballeros). Since it could mean America (the continent) for the Americans (USians) and vice versa. Made sense at the time
Then I went to North America and learned that no, the Monroe Doctrine was obviously just for the USians, the "good neighbourhood" part was just a "what's yours is mine what's mine is mine" situation, at least for everyone else who isn't Canada or maybe Mexico.
Which eventually led to presidents like Nixon with his Condor Operations, meddling in south american democracies, backing dictatorships and whatnot. Not to mention the September 11 massacre on Chile.
We've understood for more than a century that the class dialectic will make incremental, soft transition out of capitalism impossible. One way or another, capitalist class interest will always mobilize reactionary effort to undermine meaningful, systemic progress. Conflict is inevitable.
Someone dreaming about glorious, violent revolutions?
@@ExtremeMadnessX They tend to be less glorious and more messy and full of human tragedy, but they're also a historical necessity.
@@boodleboy Like creating power vacuum and making other dictators raising in power...
@@ExtremeMadnessX Yeah no. Like workers refusing to be exploited anymore and taking control of their own destiny.
@@boodleboy Never read Animal Farm, aren't you?
I powered thru all four seasons of FAM over the holidays and loved it, then got super depressed over the weekend after I watched the Season 4 finale. Thanks for voicing some of the thoughts I had, and for still believing we can do better.
Thanks Jessie and Erin for a great discussion.
Something that should not be understated about Kessler Syndrome is that it potentially means *no more satellites.*
Also, it sounds like For All Mankind was made by libertarians.
Yeah I'm not buying the "because of societal advancement" line regarding a black billionaire I think that they just did the typical villan casting and then put a top hat and a monocle on it.
@@searchingfororion Except I'm not convinced that in Moore's mind Dev is the villain of the show.
@@claytonberg721 Doesn't have to be *the* villain to be *a* villain.
@@searchingfororion I completely get that, what I'm saying is I doubt the writers room sees him as the villain. Look at everything else they're doing. They clearly see elon musk as a hero.
that means no more gps or cellphones etc....
I want to work in space industry, worked in aerospace for 3 years and left. It was so toxic at least in the private sector. And yeah they expect you to put your life and well being on the line for profit.
Do you follow @acollierastro? She has an amazing video dissecting everything wrong with NASA's decision to new flagship after James Webb. She touches on many of the same points of this video concerning the message it sends kids as they learn about space.
I can believe were all at the mercy of a billionaires fanfic
I haven’t even heard of For All Mankind until now. Probably won’t get into it because of what it ends up being. And I relate to the conversation in the video so much cause I feel like in such a corporatized world we’re living in, I feel like my words or stories wouldn’t matter to the point of giving up. Part of that may be because I self sabotage myself with doomerism. But I keep going anyway cause I have some hope left in me, I guess.
Keep using that hope to create. Apathy is the greatest weapon a tyrant can wield against us.
The first two seasons are for sure worth watching, but it does fall off after that. I liked s03 as well, but haven't watched 4.
I've enjoyed the entire show but I'm not going to act like they don't have a point.
It's Apple TV ... that's kinda like a filter to popularity IMHO
I loved the mention of Battlestar Galactica and it’s heavy cynicism in regards to a spacefaring society
On one hand, I appreciated the shows grittiness and the moral ambiguity of its characters
On the other hand (spoilers), the implication that humanity is so intrinsically flawed that a genetic rewrite is required, and that technology makes us evil, is so reductionist that I was very turned off by the series finale
It also didn’t even work anyway, so I was a little confused as to the deeper message of BSG
Actually it would be great if For All Mankind was the sequel series of BSG and they discovered that the Galactica crashed on Venus or Mercury on its way to the Sun 🫢
If Musky Husky wants to go to Mars, I wish him bon voyage. Let's see how long he'll last without any servants to boss around and attend to his every need. I give him three days before he resorts to growing potatoes in poop. Then another day before he gives up and eats that directly.
He doesn't want to go, he wants to get paid from people who will live as slaves and build his martian business.
Watching this while working on character designs for my sci-fi comic. It's post-apocalyptic (I'm jokingly referring to it as cyber post-punk) but not as bleak as the genre usually gets. It's more about the new worlds that come after the collapse of space-capitalism.
I'm watching this while working on character designs for my sci-fi game. It's a military sci-fi game, where the League of Nations prevented WWII from happening, and for hundreds of years, things pretty much went well for people. And then hundreds of years later, once humanity is truly post-capitalist, with a mix of different systems depending on where people live, we encounter a capitalist and fascist space-empire. They almost immediately go to war. I find the concept of trying to balance a society's continued survival by funding the war effort, and the comfort and safety of it's citizens really interesting, and I want to show that capitalism is not the most effective way to do that.
It's also got a lot of retro sci-fi stuff going on, I'm trying to balance a dated aesthetic with a more progressive and generally better society.
Ayy, kinda similar! I'm writing a sci-fi book set in a Randian post-apocalypse of the far future (think Warhammer 40k, except instead of there being only war there's only corporate liberalism). The setting is bleak but the main cast and the communities they build will, hopefully, more than balance that out.
@@henryfleischer404 oo that's really interesting, so is it like a grand strategy game or focused on characters within the world?
I'm also finding any excuse to use retro tech aesthetics lmao. In my case I'm reasoning that chunky, 70s sci-fi tech aesthetics were going through a nostalgia cycle when the apocalypse happened and the sturdier designs were the ones that survived into the post-apocalyptic future.
@@kadnhart6661YES YES YES. I need a hundred million more takes on space apocalypse. Mine is set far into the post-apocalypse (more Horizon: Zero Dawn than Fallout in that sense) so the only remains of free market space capitalism are the machines and ruined worlds it left behind.
Ayyyy sci-fi writer thread! Mine's post-apocalyptic, about disparate satellite cities which have all become insular in their focus towards re-terraforming their little patch of earth, and the different kinds of approaches and mindsets that sprung up out of it.
such a great convo, it exposes the horrors of capitalism, and really does give me hope for the future knowing people like you and Erin are fighting for a better future
For an imaginative corporatized science fiction future I can't recommend the Murderbot Diaries more highly; very much a work written within the hellscape of sci-fi capitalism while also being a treatise against it.
Yes yes yes!!!! This! I literally scrolled down in comments to see if anyone else had already screamed Murderbot!
I felt the burn in this review of For All Mankind Season 4. "Tell a story of hope ... not of trickle-down Reagan-omics."
Loved this conversation! I used to be completely swept up in the elon musk dream of space but of course it has sourced on me over time.
Dr Erin's despair at the ending really resonated with me. I've suffered this pain before, when a story and world I loved with all my heart betrayed me. I realized that no matter how powerful, capable and competent the characters I cherished were, they would never be allowed to make actual progress and win a substantial victory against the oppression rooted at the heart of the world. It was such n unexpected, insidious betrayal.
Seasons 1 and 2 of FAM filled me with so much hope and happiness for the future. Seasons 3 and 4 might have tense moments and lots of drama, but they're missing all the characters I grew to love and adore in the first two seasons and that overwhelming feeling of hope for the future. This finale was a perfectly well made episode of television. It just isn't FAM anymore though.
The last part of the video, the one regarding the power of an optimistic vision of the future, is the one that struck me the most. It's the reason why I've always loved TNG and DS9, the reason why I've never appreciated the "pessimistic" vision (albeit in an optimistic context) of DIS. The future must be made by people who think of the good of others and who care about improving the lives of their fellow humans, and as a pansexual Italian who currently lives under a pseudo-fascist government (maybe you have heard of Giorgia Meloni) this touches me deeply. We must open our ports (and our walls, for you Americans) to immigrants seeking a better life, because their well-being is as important as that of the citizens of the country that hosts them, we must learn to sacrifice a part of the our interests in favor of those of others and in this way serve the interests of all. Only in this way will we reach the utopia of Infinite Diversity In Infinite Combinations. Long live and prosper you all 🖖
One of my favorite parts about the script im working from quite some time is wrighting the villain because its not as much of a person as it is a Corporation. Created by a american emperialist, guided by nothing but money and control at the point of manipulating the truth and taking over the goverment (inspired by how the us caused a military dictatorship on my country during the 50's). Its just a good catarsis to make a work mainly about anti capitalism and inperialism
It's pretty sad that I have to ask this, but which country are you referring to.
@@gollossalkitty Brazil, yea preatty much the entire latino America passed trough this
I've been interested in space since I was a little girl, but yeah, I've been feeling so disillusioned with it recently for the reasons you discussed here. I'm always so grateful when something (a new discovery, footage, etc) can remind me of my love for the stars.
Once again, thank you for this video Jessie. The Starfield one really encouraged me in my writing, and this one has done it again. Hopefully people like us can push fictions of real change and hope into the mainstream.
I've been thinking a lot about this especially in light of all the articles about how Star Trek's history is different in 'For All Mankind's universe. This implies that Star Trek may have stayed close to the TOS model the entire way along instead of taking the more progressive tangents of the TNG era onward (though it does make me wonder how that version of Roddenberry would have maintained control of the show in the face of a more militarized space program IRL). I have a feeling this version of TNG looks very different from the one we know.
I can't decide if this would have been an improvement as I have high doubts a show such as Deep Space Nine would come to exist in For All Mankind's world due to it being way too critical of the capitalist and pro-colonial underpinnings of it.
We had that, first contact, wher cocrin was actually a good boss, but also in for money, i mean he gets shown the beauty and isnt a bad person at heart that just became cynical, but there was the capitalism, it should at best be an element, not the motivation.
Thank you for having this conversation. While not this series specifically, I've had so many series in the past let me down in similar ways (and yes, I've shed tears too), I relate completely to what you are expressing here. And I also agree that the best remedy is to write my own stories, making the points that I believe need to me made.
Jessie I am so glad youre still here, still fighting, still doing "this"
Hope 2024 is awesome for you
I think the show is extremely critical of Helios and the politicization of space. I don't feel like it endorses the fact that Helios gets their way at the end of season 4, rather that it is heart breaking that people like Margo get stepped on and that that process pushes her into seemingly agreeing with the people at helios. I also feel like Danielle is put explicitly in the position of being righteous and Ed being unreasonable. It also feels like a critic of how capitalism, trough Helios and Dev, manipulates and uses people, but he's a bad person, he's a good engineer, but a bad person, even Ed knows it. I also feel like when Ed says "this is my home" it's not a heartfelt moment, it's a moment of him giving his back to everyone for his own purposes and motivations, because he's unreasonable.
As a tangent, and if you get it you get it, I've been seeing gundam recently and Ed thinking of mars as "his home" and thinking lesser of the people who are thinking of earth first, sounds to me like that "their souls are weighed down by gravity so they can't fly" Char's line, from Gundam. And Char is a villain, Ed is a villain now. Helios is evil now. At least that's truly the way I read the season
I'm glad someone else caught the similarity between Ed and Char. I feel like the whole political ideal of Zeon is pretty much the same as what Ed was stated to believe in this video essay.
Especially when taking into account what people involved in planning the show have said, there may be a strain of "capitalist exploitation is bad" but it's accompanied by "...but there's no way towards progress except with capitalist patriarchy having its way for the indefinite future."
Was not expecting Outside Xbox getting mentioned, but I’m so glad that it was
I had a handful of questions/mixed feelings after finishing S4, like “seems like it would be better for humanity if the asteroid were sent to Earth…?” and “I don’t get why Ellen is a Republican”. Your discussion helped me understand more of what wasn’t so hot about S3 and S4.
Hey just wanted to answer your questions! It would be better for humanity if the asteroid were sent to Earth as it would get the resources faster. This was the whole point of of NASA and Ros Cosmos pushing for it but it would take away funding from Mars which was point of "stealing " the asteroid. Why Ellen is a Republican you must understand that the parties were not so divided back then plus she was a very liberal Republican. She even talked about it when running for president, Also she was very close with Regan (main reason probably).
I feel so seen by this. I'd been keeping my loss of passion for new technology and space travel to myself for years. No better worlds, only new markets.
Will I ever get out of this hole? No idea, but not being alone makes it a little brighter.
In the strike on Mars Dev was lying to their faces to find the people who weren't fooled by capitalism. Dev's point is the resource of Goldilocks elevating Mars Independence and it's too early to talk about what kind of economic system would be in place and probably not trickle down economics since that's what the workers were fighting against and wouldn't make thematic sense. When Norway found oil they made sure that their people got their share and traded with the rest of the world to benefit their people, there is nothing to say that, that isn't the plan. It just seems like we didn't watch the same show.
unfortunately, this problem isn't just present in the sci-fi genre
it's become a massive problem with the streaming wars
so many shows that come out on streaming services, specifically Disney+, just feel like corporate products (with the exception of Andor, and Loki Season 2) and it's genuinely so sad that aspiring writers and directors are having trouble getting work that isn't under a large corporate studio, or that isn't attached to some I.P.
it serves as a perfect example about how capitalism and corporatization kills creativity, and as someone who loves the sci-fi genre, it's truly heartbreaking
(although, Jesse, I've heard that the sci-fi drama series 'Scavenger's Reign' is really good, so I recommend you check that out)
Maybe we will just have to return to books and listen to podcasts.
I just bought legends and Lattes to fill my fantasy meter
@@sillygo0oser cool!
I’ve rarely seen ‘For All Mankind’ discourse but very interesting nonetheless. Also, BRILLIANT thumbnail 😂
As a guy 50+ (but not bald) stereotypical guy (albeit gay), you all had me in tears in parts of this, and yet this whole discussion really brightened my day. I remember as a kid loving and wanting to be a part of space, but the Musk / Capitalistic view of it is just revolting, but I didn't have clarity as to why until I watched this, and realized the altruism and (I use this next word cautiously and with no references to MAGA chumps) freedom space provides could be such a benefit truly for all mankind. In short, thank you both for what you do to keep the dream alive.
I'm torn on this. On the one hand I hate capitalist realism but on the other hand it is meant to be an alternate history and even in the present day we do live in this system so portraying it accurately makes sense. Also season 4 has done the most in critiquing the system. The problem with Dev Ayesa will always be that he is actually competent and thus part of the Elon Musk hype in real life.
While Dev is certainly a sticking point, the bigger narrative problem at this point is Ed. As discussed, he's a walking ball of entitlement at this point and it seems clear by now that the show has no interest in holding him accountable for that. Quite the opposite, really, and at the expense of every character in his orbit.
My real problem with the alt-history (and I know the answer to it is 'they wanted to focus on space,') is that I really wished they would spend more time focusing on how the developments in Space exploration and research has impacted Earth. They seem to have gone with a very simplistic "USSR still exists and is harsh and cruel, America continues much as it always has also." It would be much more interesting to have a deep dive in the differences caused by the greater co-operation, new conflicts and new technology in this world and I feel like that has been allowed to slip by the wayside. Its still an intriguing, hard sci-fi & interpersonal drama, but the sociological and political issues haven't been focused on as much as I would like. There's a whole, fascinating political world in FAM that just hasn't been leveraged sufficiently.
@@queenvagabond8787 One theory I've heard that I'd love to get more information on is that in this world, DARPANet stayed a military project instead of becoming the internet we know today, even as computational technology appears to be moving along much faster. Which wouldn't necessarily prevent the internet from forming but would certainly have kept it from being as free. Those changes alone have the possibility of completely upending most events of the last twenty five years, especially in terms of grassroots organizing, whistleblowing, and exposing the truth.
I've been fascinated by space travel since I can remember. I had a leap pad type tablet that showed the solar system and would recite facts about each planet when i tapped on it. I set it up in my closet with some blankets and plushies and made my closet into a little spaceship. thats where i went when my parents fought or my siblings were terrorizing me. In another universe i would be an astronaut. Now that ive moved out, my room is entirely space themed. I wanted so badly to believe that there was a future worth surviving for. That potential future seems less and less possible with each passing year. It hurts. The feeling is hard to process. Fear, grief for something that hasnt happened, rage with no outlet... its overwhelming. Im using that feeling to fuel my writing and reach others who feel the same. My current project is about people who try to build a solarpunk future while living in a cyberpunk dystopia.
I found the exact tablet online just now. The Smithsonian edutronics solar system.
I could type an essay about all the problems and disillusionment I have with 'For All Mankind' on top of the great points and perspective y'all raised. This was a great and cathartic watch. Thank you!
I haven’t heard of this until the other day when I watched this video on Nebula. Am always dubious of alt history show because there is only so much actual history that can be accounted for when it’s being made and what if left out is usually the more radical and uncomfortable elements. Example is Warner Van Bruan. While it would have been great for the US to remove him from NASA, from what I understand, there isn’t a real look at how a man like him got there in the first place.
Or the fact that gender/racial “equality “ is moved by the space race, which over looks all of the radical groups that fought tooth and nail , and many that died, to achieve what we got today.
We are scientists, and there is no failure in science. There is only data to collect and improve upon. The data can disappoint us, yes, but it always informs us, often how we can do better.
Once it becomes impossible to do further research because we can't leave the planet anymore I would say that counts as failure.
@@brook_angel No. Because then we would know why we can't leave the planet and can take that data to find a way through again. Maybe not us, but our descendants. We must continue recording and experimenting, always. We must advance for futures we can't imagine.
@@nomisunrider6472 I think you don't quite understand that a debris field flying around the earth at insane speed is pretty much a game over for space exploration.
We know it will be a problem, we know what is causing it and we know how to prevent it.
Failing to do so is a failure.
Same as with climate change, if we fail to limit the effects we did exactly that. Fail.
If a prototype for a cure is created and it turns out that it actually does nothing then that prototype I'd a failure.
Science is full of failure and there is no sense in denying that. Failure just doesn't mean that we can't learn anything from it.
For 49% of All Mankind. *sad trombone
There's a bit in Iain M. Banks' "The Player of Games" where Gurgeh, a cishet guy (or nearest thing to) in the Culture, is told that the Azadian empire has a dominant sex and he's genuinely confused by the concept. I'd trade the normalisation of that attitude for a mars base anyday.
This corporate deterioration of *_For All Mankind_* is unspeakably cruel.
It sounds as though it was taken over by someone who despised the original premise of the series and wanted to punish the creator and its fans.
If that's NOT what happened, what DID?
It’s a timeline that mirrors our own messy one, but space exploration is continued. You can, however, see glimpses of hope through different moments in the series. S2 is definitely a criticism of space militarization. S3 has points that are critical of the runaway capitalism that our timeline has had. S4 even moreso, considering the main conflict of the last few episodes is preventing Mars from becoming obsolete and home to a skeleton crew of scientists instead of the growth of Happy Valley to become a home because capitalism demands an asteroid goes to Earth for maximum profit. Does it make the most sense? No. Is it an analogy for us leaving the Moon because Low Earth Orbit is more profitable? Uh, yeah.
@@SpartanNat My question is, was there in fact a change in Producer or a change in creative direction mandated by AppleTV? That's sure what it sounds like.
@@arcadiaberger9204 I think Ronald D. Moore stepped back in some official sense but still has some sort of direction over the series. What I’d consider the approach to the series though is not to lead into Star Trek (especially considering Star Trek is part of the show’s canon) but instead portray a more realistic and messy path into the future. If you want to have the Star Trek timeline you have to go back and make McCarthyism not a thing and not have Nixon or especially Reagan win office, as well as have more labor laws passed.
@@SpartanNat Heh, I've always liked the idea of *_Star Trek_* being part of the actual history of the *_Star Trek_* universe, especially if there were no films and no new series after the Third World War of 1976. That is implied by the introduction to the *_Starfleet Technical Manual._*
But as for *_For All Mankind,_* I wonder what did happen, in that case. It does sound as though something drastic happened to the series, as though its heart has changed.
I really do want to watch it. I see it's available on DVD.
'Changes happen faster in the US'A? What the hell is that director guy talking about??
The discussion was very insightful, and I must agree with most points.
Yeah, billionaires ruin everything, nothing new, Capitalism is shit, neoliberalism is pure shit and its twin fascism will always accompany it. We need revolution.
And on that note, to demerit the USSR experience and call it horrible, as if it was an undisputed fact, won't help the movement. There is much we can learn and be inspired by it, just as from Cuba right freaking now.
The way Soviets viewed space and even its sci-fi is inspiring! Compared to the sad, imperialistic and fearful view that USA Hollywood created.
To the last point, yeah, I always find it a bit frustrating that thanks to American media using the Soviets as generic evil antagonists (gotta love that subtle propaganda), everyone in the Anglo-sphere has this knee jerk reaction to treat the Soviet Union as being comparable to one of the circles of hell or something. I've met a lot of people from that part of the world and most of my family is from Yugoslavia, and they all have things both good and bad to say to say about how things were in that society. We could really use a movie like Das Boot but for the USSR one of these days.
Hope for the future is very crucial now because we are at a dangerous point- capitalism and fascism can destroy us, for real !! Thanks Jessie for the great video 💕💕
Thank you both! I’ve subscribed to Dr. Erin’s channel. I dropped FAH a while ago because there are only so many hours in the day. After this discussion, I won’t be back.
Thank you so much for making this, it put into words what I’ve been feeling for awhile now. Loved and still love anything around space and seeing the corporatization of space exploration and how that’s been lauded by many in even the scientific community has been so depressing and frustrating to watch. I could go on and on but again thank you ❤
Let's go! Always love seeing a big Jessie video. Commenting for the algorithm
Thank you so much for this video. My wife and I are huge fans of the show and couldn't figure out why we disliked this season so deeply. It didn't resonate to our queer, feminist leftist hearts, and that is so so heartbreaking.
I love the start with "we have these conversations all the time and decided we should record this one" because my favorite anime podcast started with two friends ranting about the flawed anime and anime inspired media they were frustrated with.
I always thought it was funny that Musk has made a bunch of references to The Culture books while he's essentially Veppers the greedy and cowardly villain from Surface Detail.
This was a great discussion. Thank you!
Great conversation and definitely jabs the right fingers at everything wrong in Season 4. I felt the same thing while watching it. "Why does Elon get to be the Labor Whisperer in this show? Why are the women getting ejected out the plot's airlock? How come capitalism is winning now?!" But I just thought that this was the 4th season of a planned 7 seasons. Maybe this is the show's Empire? They set up this bucolic capitalist-realism winning montage at the end of the season to raise the stakes high enough to extend the fight for space socialism over the next three seasons. Am I wrong that there is still going to be seven seasons?
I'm almost done with the video, and this was such a food video. I really enjoyed your critiques
Yes, very food
I can't believe the petplay universe with giant plant ladies is the most optimistic sci fi going around these days
The...The what?
@@TransientWitch sounds like the Human Domestication Guide.....which.....is pretty much exactly as is described by @sananaryon4061
Never even heard of the show. Oh it's on Apple Tv... Well that explains that.
I don't think I've ever watched SciFi, really. Not that I'd not enjoy it (esp Star Trek) but I never was exposed to it and nowadays didn't manage to watch any of it yet.
But even without knowing anything from this genre, I just really enjoy listening to your POVs and analyses. This was enriching and wonderful as always but also rather sobering. I hope we will all do better and take the chances to build a nicer future together - a kind and inspirational future we all are dying for instead of despairing to live into.
Thanks a lot💜
I hadn't heard of For All Mankind before but a worker's uprising leading into an independent Mars during the cold war got me imagining a story of an independent Mars as a stand in for smaller socialist/communist nations that formed during the cold war.
35:25 you have no idea how good it feels to hear a leftist online admit that the USSR was bad. You seriously have no idea.
Congrats on this video, your channel is really great. Sorry for commenting late, but around the 47:10 mark you mention something about studies that shows humans tend to for societies of caring and community, could you pleas share this studies? I would love to read. Congrats again for you anda your friend :) (sorry for any spelling errors)
Compared to S3 and S4 of 'For All Mankind', Aaron Sorkin's neoliberal soapboxing and personal prejudices masquerading as "drama" and "character" on 'The West Wing' looks like a Jean-Luc Godard exercise in Marxist condemnation of Capitalism. It's like if they made an 'Alien' show that glorified Weyland-Yutani.
Thank you for this! It’s been so frustrating to see publications like ars technica cheering the privatization of space even as women and other marginalized people are pushed out. I don’t know what the answer is, but it’s nice not being the only one who sees the problem
I haven't watched this yet, but youtube is obviously already hindering it (no notification even though I have the bell set to "all", not showing up anywhere on my front page even though I watch Jessie's videos on premiere day most of the time), so here's a comment in hopes that it helps boost the algorithm a little bit.
Genuinely baffled by the labor union plotline. Started off this season excitedly chanting, "Space union! Space union!" and excited for Ed to get his comeuppance for his deeply boomerish anti-labor sentiments. What could go wrong?? After all, this show is written by SCREENWRITERS. Screenwriters who are, you know, UNION MEMBERS?? Who literally went on strike THIS YEAR and had to deal with months of propaganda from the studios painting them as cynical and entitled, the same way Ed describes the Helios workers? How could they NOT have a very well-earned pro-union bias??? Then I had to sit there and watch the entire plotline fizzle out halfway through the season, with half the cast describing the organizers as literal TERRORISTS--which makes sense given their political alignment, but it felt like there was no one ever pushing back. Even the Helios workers themselves didn't seem to care or want to talk about the strike once it was over. Seriously, what happened in that writer's room??
I easily distrusted For All Mankind just on its portrait of Third World.
Countries like Brazil just doesn't exist in the show. Brazil which have a space program since early 90 and satellite stuff since the 80's...
I cannot respect a alt history show who disrespects the global south like this.
I've not watched For All Mankind, but still thought this discussion was great
I noped out of this show after the first few episodes of season 3 because they had killed off Tracy (and Gordo) and had Karen bang a minor because she was unhappy and Ed was absent at the end of season 2. I don't think I'll be revisiting the show anytime soon. The funny thing is that I pretend that BSG doesn't have a season 3 or 4 because of the Starbuck nonsense that happened, so I guess Ronald Moore can keep me engaged for 2 seasons and that's it? What an odd takeaway...
I should have noped the hell out at season 3 too. What they did to Karen's character was gross as hell.
Such a great conversation
fantastic video, thanks to both of you. it was quite touching and i too want to fight that apathy that feels overwhelming sometimes. we can have a better future!
I don't want to sound cynical but I feel like a lot of people had convinced themselves that the very act of travelling into space would be the solution to late stage capitalism when it was never gonna be as easy as that. And believe me as a star trek fan id love for that to be true but capitalism will take a lot of struggle to shake off
The "Where are you standing now" conversation, is very much conversations I have been part of in both the Games Industry and Beer Industry. "Hey, the forced overtime is really burning people out" and their response was pretty much "But you work in video games!", or "hey this is a huge safety violation", "but you work in beer!!! Enjoy some underfills".
Have not seen the latest season of For All Mankind, so it's disappointing to hear the show's taken this turn. It felt like it was starting to go the wrong direction in season 3, so I'm not too surprised, but still disappointed. This was quite a nice conversation, and I was so surprised (and happy) to see Jane from Outside Xbox's comments on Starfield included (not just referenced) - I'm a big fan of those channels, too, and her comments had really struck a chord with me, particularly after playing Outer Worlds, which frankly felt like a half-baked satire of that stuff (in a way that Borderlands already was, to an extent). Actually, I am happy to see FD Signifier in this video, too.
Overall, it definitely does feel that a show originally suggested as a prequel to Star Trek is now more of a prequel to The Expanse and that's...kind of disappointing, it's not the direction I'd been hoping this show would go. Interesting to hear the theory that Moore's cynicism may be playing a role, that would be unfortunate but understandable.
I think any future space colony should at least be a Scandinavian style social democracy, with heavy regulations on what corporations can and can't do. They should also nationalize all natural resources found so everyone can benefit from them.
Season 1 & 2 were so great criticising the Cold War mentality and specifically the United States posture and imperialism. I began season 3 and started to see a shift towards a more classical “Russia evil empire” propaganda take common of the Cold War media season 1 and 2 were criticising.
Excited for this one!
Jessie, this is a great video!!:)
It's a cold war inspired show made by Americans. I'm not surprised they'd portray capitalism as good and communism as bad.
❤🔥 video as usual!
What a message for the show, "if the Soviets won this part of the space race like they did the rest, the only meaningful change would be we'd reach our current dystopia a few years sooner"
The thing that was so exciting for me about season one WAS the Soviet Union, especially in space, and the opportunity for comparison and contrast it brought. It was one of my favorite elements in the movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact, working with the Soviet crew to reach the Discovery and find out what's happened.
The hosts of Kill James Bond, I think when discussing The Hunt For Red October, put it in a way that stuck with me: It's not that the Soviet Union was good, it wasn't, but it was kind of the last time any country even *tried* anything differently. Like, it's debatable to what extent anything was more than pretext, but after the Soviet Union there's barely even pretext left. "Yeah, it's shit. It's supposed to be shit. If you don't like it, there's the door."
I was so excited to see them make their own moon landings and set up their own base. And all the paranoia and aggression seemed so strange compared to the closest parallel I can think of, 26 December 1959, when Soviet scientists driving their massive Kharkovchankas paid an unexpected visit to US scientists at Amundsen-Scott Base at the South Pole. They were welcomed with open arms, housed and fed and refueled for three days before heading thousands of miles back to their base. And the whole time they stayed at Amundsen-Scott the US and Soviet flags flew side by side.
I don't know, I'm rambling. It's just so disappointing to make a show about a continued space race and decide that the driving force behind so much of it, the side that racked up so many of the "firsts" then just fades to a bogeyman in the background. What a wasted chance to explore, even as a pretext, some non-capitalist reasons for space exploration, you know, like the betterment of humanity and stuff.
And I know Star Trek is pretty clear about "first we improved ourselves, then that allowed us to do all this cool space stuff," but I also want to flag up Iain Banks' Culture series, because whenever I hear Elon Musk talk he's so often incorrectly parroting Banks' ideas, much more than Star Trek.
Banks is completely clear in his books that space and automation and other high-tech gadgets are not the key to utopia. There are numerous other civilizations in the setting who have all the same technology and are still nightmarish dystopias. The point has always been that we could have utopia, or damn near it, right NOW if we chose to, if we just organized society around providing for people's needs and enabling them to do what they want, rather than around giving all the power and resources to a shrinking handful of overlords. (How Musk managed to read anything about the Culture and completely miss the Anarcho-Communism, the complete disdain for money and hierarchy, and literally all the Culture citizens being genderfluid, and instead latch onto "AI means utopia" never ceased to baffle me)
I just realized you have every color of Jingo behind you. I'm now an even bigger fan.
Loved the discussion! It really is discouraging how much sci-fi media has go so pro capitalist.
Ngl, seeing Jane (and Outside Xbox) mentioned in this video made me too excited!
I actually got the first season of FAM for Christmas and I think it's really well written and executed. I look forward to Season Two, but after hearing this, I'm having pauses on the other seasons. As an autistic black person (male), space has ALWAYS a gateway for me to escape a very difficult upbringing. Hell, I'm even making a model space station. Yeah, the private space industry is starting to get on my nerves...😒😒😒😒
Also the use of torture to get information from Miles (which to the show's credit isn't what works, it's the blackmail threat to his family that causes him to crack) and capitalism's institutions pass it off as the actions of a few rogue individuals rather than a feature of the system in a blink and you'll miss it scene in the denouement.
Question: While we are still talking about ideologies and alternate histories, are there any feminist scifi nerds somewhere talking about Soviet science fiction? Because yes, of course the Soviet Union was not a very great place, but they did have some really amazing scifi, and the anglophone Internet seems to just collectively ignore its existence. I haven't seen much, but Per Aspera Ad Astra (1981) for example is still one of the major stories I think of when it comes to environmental activism in fiction. They also have the superious Sherlock Holmes and Mary Poppins, but that is a different subject. ;-)
Also, not Soviet, but fans of Star Trek are also sleeping on the German Spaceship Orion (Raumpatrouille - Die phantastishen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion) series.
30:21 I haven't caught up with For All Mankind since early in season 3, but now, based on the (eagerly sought out) spoilers from this video, it kind of seems like it's leading up *to* The Expanse rather than Star Trek. Though The Expanse has Basic, at least??
End of the video: I'm glad she's talking about science and science fiction as a person, and at the same time HBIC Erin being the change!
"Dont get into show business to work with your heroes. Meet your peers and become the heroes." Very succinct, very true... Even if you eventually do get to direct John Delancey & Abigail Thorn 😉 (can't wait to see it!)
Thanks again Jessie!