_Captain Catherine "Genocidal" Janeway is a cold blooded premeditated _*_MURDERER_*_ , who ordered the _*_slaughter_*_ of an innocent lifeform, _*_TUVIX_* ! And because Tuvix was the only member of his alien species, Half Talakxian/Half Vulcan, then she is also guilty of *GENOCIDE* and should be put on trial for such a bloodthirsty and savage criminal act as well as conduct unbecoming of a Starfleet Officer upon Voyager's immediate return to Federation space.
Why? All it does is spend 9 hours per topic, explaining why [topic] is [bad], whilst repeating yourself twenty-seven times over. For money. And that's not to be made fun of. But you'll have a hard time convincing me you care about star trek's technology whatsoever, rather than trying to ride on the waves of your takedowns of star wars rants. Your first example is Kirk whisking eggs. Why does he do it? Same reason he climbs a mountain - "Because it's *there*". I also cook, chopping vegetables, adding spices and seasoning and tasting etc. Because I enjoy it. Riker enjoys cooking too. Just because someone doesn't USE a device doesn't mean they're hidden or there's a secret thing about them. I don't use mandolins because whilst they're amazing at cutting vegetables, the risk to my fingers is too great for me to grate. Basically, you're full of shit. But well done on the money. That you don't pay tax on. On Mann.
Star Trek has a strange dichotomy with continously showing how's the free access to technology can improve lives, but also having lots of "technology gone wrong" plots because it's fertile ground for an episodic sci-fi series.
While the dichotomy existing is fair enogh, I would not call it "strange". The Federation as a whole has a number of Species, most of which are only mentioned in passing, who do e.g. cybernetic augmentations. The Bynars being one example. Humanity as well uses highly advanced prosthetics wherever and whenever someone looses a limb or organ, they just make them look as human like as possible. Which is not all that surprising either, what with the body horror that is the Borg being an antagonist, and and the cultural Trauma of genetic engineered humans starting a war just two centuries ago.
I think that the key point is that technology is a tool and, as any tool, it can only improve what you can already do with it or help you achieve something beyond your reach. Problems arise when technology becomes a substitute for skill, ingenuity and creativity.
Every technological advance has brought with it unexpected consequences. Industrialization brought mass production, but also filthy factories and pollution. Einstein's discovery about the nature of matter and energy will bring about practical fusion generators, but it first brought nuclear bombs. The Internet was meant to bring us all together, but has also given anonymity and license to the most backwards and barbaric voices. Star Trek's creators understood this, understood that if "our weapons outgrew our wisdom," we risk becoming like the brutal Klingons or the dehumanized Borg.
I think that's just how sci-fi and fantasy shows work in general: show novel concept, then base stories on that novel concept. Often that story is that novel concept goes wrong. Some of the shows are just dramas, and the sci-fi/fantasy aspect is just the setting, instead of being the main focus. But the ones that showcase their whole world will also show you what can go wrong with the novel aspects of that world. Narnia and Stargate, among many others, do the same.
Star Trek in many ways epitomizes the lunch scene in first Jurassic Park. To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcom, 'Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.'
Well said. Star Trek's optimism is really about humanity's growth and maturity as a species. We've evolved enough to manage the technology responsibly. Unlike our world today which I must agree looks a lot more similar to the Borg than the Federation.
Except the Borg DO advance, even if they can only do so by stripmining other species. Our own world is starting to cease advancing anything but information technologies that can be used to make a few people very rich - and will collapse when the resources needed to maintain and construct high technology start to become scarce.
Thinking of Star Trek in terms of "rustic" made me think of Firefly and how that show used a similar set-up for very different reasons. In Star Trek the log cabins with just a little bit of technology seems like an emblem of a world that found a balace between technology, morality and nature, in Firefly the old aestethic (and technology) springs from a society that need reliable tech rather than fancy one.
Humanism is self improvement and species being (enjoying fruits of labor). So, a lack of automation is important. Also, you want to keep a productive and skilled populace. Philosophy does not supply the answer here, pragmatic need does. It is parallel with the Vulcans keeping their survivalism trials despite eshewing violence. And remember you need a society that knows how to repair stuff and respect personal property. Yes, you could get a robot to patrol the streets like in ST2009. Likely, there were not enough humans to be cops at that moment. However, you have a human gardener at SF Academy in TNG because a human applied to the job at the time. He wanted to be a gardener and was not exploited at it.
There’s a line in Frank Herbert’s Dune series that’s quite interesting- about how if people turn their thinking over to machines, other people with machines can enslave them
I guess Star Trek is a saga of the soul not being overshadowed by the cold clinical technology. If all we wanted to do is explore worlds we'd have sent out a fleet of probes, not ships with crews. We're humans, always wanting to cross the next hill, next ocean, next world. Plant our footprints on those new lands and see it how it was meant to be seen and felt, with our own eyes and hands.
Your comment reminded me of the great scene of Captain Janeway explaining to Seven of Nine how vital it was that Starfleet crews explore the Final Frontier in person rather than just sending out unmanned probes.
I find the machine part going rogue is more of an allegory for unaccountable bureaucracies, couple perverse wrong incentives, that are completely disconnected from reality and trivializes humanism to the point of abstraction, which which automation and computing has only make it so much easier with the added never ending desire to want to control more and in it's pursuit dehumanize the individual in the process.
That's a great take. And the unaccountable bureaucracies doesn't always have to be government agencies. The recent strikes in Hollywood was caused by movie studios becoming so detached and unaccountable that they thought replacing writers, actors, and other creatives with AI was a really good idea. They missed the vital human element that makes art truly art.
@@TheVeritas1 I was talking more in a broad, generalized, sense that would include corporation, but yeah, should have made it more the focus, corporations perusing the goal of making more money capital at every cost, including the wellbeing of individuals, society environment and family which are figures that are completely dismissed of ignored, which is the perverse incentive part. It all tries to atomize everything to mini-max everything to maximize revenue.
No we really shouldn't. Technology isn't good or bad, it's how we use it. We could have green energy sources to a much greater extent if we put our resources into it. We could cure so many diseases and extend human life if we stopped letting greed and money be the defining factors in our lives. We are held back so much in our advancement by fear and gred and superstition. We should embrace technology and medical research and let it improve our lives.
In the intro to ST:TMP, Roddenberry wrote that it was necessary for people like Kirk to retain an ordinary humanity because for many explorers it was too easy to become enthralled by the advanced species being met and losing oneself.
That some of the writers thought crime would disappear because of replicators. Apparently they didn't realize that some people just want to see the world burn.
I liked this video, but I think there is another point that could have been addressed that fits the bill. I think you’re absolutely spot on when it comes to romanticism. I think that the inclusion of the eugenics wars. I always took this as a baked in “price of progress”, which limits the pursuit of knowledge because of where it took humanity.
The Borg, which I admit are my favorite Star Trek villains, are the perfect antagonists for a show like Trek. They are, as you said, the dark mirror of The Federation. Could technology become so advanced, or our pursuit of that advancement go so far, that humans lose everything that makes us human? The Borg don't care about art or music. They don't admire physical beauty or have a spirit of adventure. They don't invent new things, they absorb what someone else has already created. They don't form friendships or get married, they force a being to be a drone in a violent way. They don't eat or enjoy a cold beverage, they regenerate standing rigidly still like a zombie. The idea of The Borg should terrify every Star Trek viewer, maybe even more than The Eugenics War.
The Borg have been badly ruined by people who didn't understand what made them frightening and turned them into mere technozombies. Especially by giving them a "queen' who was a single point of failure, for ease in writing stories in which the heroes triumph. The Queen was a cool character and a terrible deus ex machina. The whole point of their horror was that they were a dark reflection of the Federation itself, with all its virtues minimized and all its defects magnified.
@@Matt42MSG The Borg Queen was not only a bad decision from a world building standpoint, but a very lazy decision as a way to have **conversations** with an antagonist. Human writers prefer a bad guy to defeat; it's harder to have a hive mind monologue about " I will destroy you. ".
@@doktor_ghul Wasn't that the justification for Locutus, both in-world and real-world? Something that could interface with the individual organisms and communicate with them.
Starfleet needs technology, not necessarily the rest of Humanity on Earth. I always found that it seems that in ST, Earthlings love their freedom to stay rustic if they so wish. Of course, you can find holosuites and food or industrial replicators on Earth but they do not represent the end all be all of all Humans on Earth, that's the beauty of it. Some places on Earth are just barely technologically advanced although they all benefit from the weather control system to some extend which makes maintenance of all buildings and traditionnal agriculture easier without the fear of a tornado or hail destroying your old wooden house or your crops. Letting people decide if they want advanced tech under their rooves is a sane way to see progress because it might not suit everyone. For example I would be perfectly alright with NO SOCIAL MEDIA, no DATING APPS or all those stupid things we don't actually need... I don't use them, if others want to lose their time with those, so be it, that's THEIR problem, not mine. It's just that if they complain I won't tell them "I warned you..." To quote the Federation President in Undiscovered Country "It would be good to redefine the notion of progress: it's not because we can do a thing that we necessarily need to DO that thing."
@RowanJColeman I love your detailed and nuance analysis of Star Trek and technology. With its "technobabble" reputation, the mythos of Trek gets labeled those unfamiliar with it as devoid of humanity and emotion. Thanks for reminding us of the Romanticism and humanity as the heart of Trek. Your video is also timely in light of the debate of AI and its impact on various industries. Tyler Perry and Tim Burton are the latest filmmakers to warn of how blindly embracing AI could cause the loss of humanity in the arts.
0:43 - Even as a child when my age was still just a 'one-digit' number, I never understood the lack of robots and androids on Star Trek (TNG aired back then); except for the presence of Data, of course. You, Rowan, state up here that this 'omission' almost certainly must have been caused by budgetary constraints, BUT having people in a simple make-up playing some 'automatons', akin to what Brent Spiner did as Data, should not have been a financial problem at all. You may argue that the creators wanted to make Data special by his being alone and unique, but this still could have been achieved by his being the only one with the super-advanced positronic brain and with full sentience and sapience. The other "run-of-the-mill" androids could, firstly, sport a different make-up in order to visually differentiate them and mainly they would've been non-sentient "dumbos" (either by design or by the UFP's technological limitations of the TNG era) akin to the ones we've seen on Picard's first season. I do not believe that this was about money, but rather a creative mishap; like a bad prediction of what the future will bring about.
What is the point of having a humanoid robot when you can do manufacture with replicators? Seriously, what do they need robots FOR? That being said, there is a video on youtube called "the enterprise is insanely huge" that puts the insane scale of the Enterprise D into perspective. That thing is enormous. And its crew, by comparison, is tiny at just a thousand people. A Nimitz class carrier is a fraction of the size and has a crew of 4,600... So Starfleet isn't actually missing in automation at all. The entire ship is automated to an insane degree. They just don't do automation via humanoid robots. Picard dropped the ball on the Android thing to a ridiculous degree, because it assigned work to those androids that for all intents and purposes simply should not exist in the first place. Watch the Enterprise Episode "Dead Stop" if you want to know how Starfleet likely builds their space ships. They simply do not NEED robots.
You're also assuming a great deal about AI and AGI that we simply don't understand yet. Perhaps Data-like artificial people are very hard to understand and so create. Perhaps non-AGI AI is just too dumb for the tasks you're describing. I think the persistent failure of the recent push for self-driving cars is indicative that this may be the case.
Actually, the _Enterprise-D,_ _Voyager,_ and other 24th century ships are absolutely loaded with robotics. It's just that the system is centralized in the ship's main computer. It handles every automated task from cleaning, to feeding new pattern data into replicators, to putting out fires with force field projectors. A crewmember could simply request a security lockout in a given area and the ship could handle erecting security force fields by extrapolating the situation from that instruction. It's useful to remember two things about shows like Star Trek. One is their fictional history and culture -- humans learned certain values post-nuclear war, and the lessons they learned have evolved over generations into the snapshots we get in the mid-23rd and mid-to-late-24th centuries. The other is storytelling -- it muddies the meaning of the story if Kirk outmaneuvers M-5, Nomad, or any other computer, and then the 1960s audience sees a Starfleet Roomba working in the background, because they'd have to come up with a way to explain to the audience why _that_ robot is okay. Roddenberry didn't even want to waste screen time explaining how weapons or shields work, never mind some boxy machine in the background that has no bearing on the story. Besides, if there were dolphins aboard the _Enterprise-D_ during its entire journey on their own aquatic deck, and we never saw them . . . how do we know there weren't all kinds of robots out and about at certain times of day, maybe doing all their work over the course of 5 minutes? I'm sure they were high-tech and very efficient. All the engineers would rather double-check everything with diagnostic routines just to make sure, though.
@@willmfrank You obviously don't understand what they are typing about up here. None of the two episodes featured any widespread androids made and used by the UFP and Starfleet. Those were basically "one-offs".
I love how Lower Decks jokes about how many "Rogue, malevolent AIs" how up in Trek by having a whole prison for them at the Daystrom Institute. Of course, this being Star Trek, Jeffery Combs gets to voice one of them. :)
It's interesting that Trek, particularly TNG, features forms of a lot of tech we today view with deep suspicion as largely good things. Give Data a phaser, and he's an autonomous weapon system capable of deciding which targets to attack without human input. The ship's computer knows where everyone onboard is at all times and harvests enough data to work out exactly what they're doing (and with whom!). The holodeck is capable of creating works of fiction and art from little more than a few prompts. You could argue that the last one is only a 'problem' because generative AI taking jobs from actual artists is a problem in a cash-based society, but there're still some interesting disconnects there.
Give anyone a phaser, and they're an autonomous weapon system capable of deciding which targets to attack without (other) human input. The cell phone network knows where every phone is at all times. The holodeck malfunctions or has negative effects more often than it's shown as a good, or even neutral, thing. The key with Data is that he is a person, and the question becomes one of trusting that specific person. Massive data harvesting is only an issue because of the uses that data gets put to. If we trusted our current-day corporate overlords to act in our interest rather than trying to perpetually increase quarterly profits, there'd be a lot less concern about some computer somewhere knowing enough about our interests and activities to be able to let us know, for example, when a new movie we might be interested in is about to release. Technologies are tools - if you trust the hands wielding the tools, then the tech isn't a problem.
@@rmsgrey Also, it's Starfleet. There are a lot of safety and security issues in space travel, exploration, and militaristic concerns that are solved with the technology as used by Starfleet. I doubt Ben Sisko's father, or off-duty Leonard McCoy, would appreciate those same technologies in civilian life. We're following Starfleet in the shows, though, not all of human culture. It's not like NASA doesn't want to know the location and condition of astronauts at all times, right?
Trek showed us how to be both techno-optimistic and humanistic. It eschews transhumanistic values (for example, genetic engineering is illegal and frowned upon)
Love this video. I've always thought that the technological advancements we strive for it to serve mankind - all humans & our pets - and make life easier & better for us so we can go on to do other things that better the human experience. Technology should help us to cook, clean, feed and cloth us and keep yourselves safe & protected. I hope that in the future we get to such an advanced stage where technology goes hand in hand with human empathy and kindness. I would love to have a cozy log cabin, fitted with the comforts of modern technology like replicators and computers.
If by fear you mean “Acknowledge and respect the dangers that can come from using it” then yes. A torch can be a useful tool for seeing in the dark and lighting a cooking fire. It can also burn anyone who gets too close. Should we therefore stop using torches? Of course not. But we should teach those who are going to use them the dangers and responsibilities that come with it. Technology ultimately means tools, and any tool can be dangerous used the wrong way. We must teach people to use them wisely.
I love the log cabins in Star Trek. I think it's emblematic how even with our advanced technology today, many people (those that can afford it and have the choice) prefer to live in the country or close to nature or in traditional houses. Lots of rich people also design themselves very rustic log cabins. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Aaron Paul come to mind. I think in Trek it's a Symbol of how we Value both technological advancements but also our history.
Spock : "Computers make efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them." Rowan: "Thanks for watching, if you liked this video. Hit the thumbs-up..." well, at least you didn't mention any algorithms, so it seems legit :)
Star Trek is in many ways a hippy's dream of the future. Earth's population has decreased massively, large cities are the exception rather than the norm, and technology is so advanced and concentrated that most of the planet has been returned to nature. Overall, it fits rather well together, even though I do not think we would ever actually go that route if we had their technology.
If humanity in Star Trek were a Stellaris faction, they'd probably be fanatic egalitarians and spiritualists. To an outside observer, they seem to be some flavor of xenophilic and materialist, but that's only skin-deep. At their core is an unshakable conviction in the sanctity of life and the inherent equality of all beings. (With some cultural hangups about machine life such as Data, of course.)
(Well, to be fair, the reason all those appearances of Kirk and Pike have the rustic cabins and horses and all is cause that's where the original Pike came from and was about in the original pilot, and that character idea was carried over when they created Kirk for the original *series.* (And I do think it's clear that Earth has a major nostalgic streak in general and values that, plus keeping technology fairly unobtrusive at least if you don't live in a big metro area with the gleaming buildings and all. I can see wanting to keep some kind of sense of *heritage,* probably including France wanting to keep traditional wineries alive and authentic, New Orleans needing its famous cuisine and such, etc. I think just designwise there's been a tendency for tech advancement and computer design to just get more and more generic despite theoretically being able to make anything you like, so it's also natural to refer back to how some of the more iconic or interesting or traditional things and materials at least appeared and all. I can only imagine it'd be more so in a galaxy full of fairly similar humanoids that always seem to make at least office buildings look like they could be anywhere. So, what's an 'Earth house' look like? Yaknow?
I think you made a mistake not including a section about the Doctor in this video. He is ultimately a kind and caring machine who is horrified when he is kidnapped and had that part of him ripped away and he became a cold uncaring machine.
I'd love to see you do more takes on The Culture. To my mind it's the perfect sci-fi and succeeds everywhere that other franchises don't. It's the only creation that genuinely makes me hope it's somehow a real thing out there and any minute is going to find us and fix everything wrong with our world.
UBI is subsistence level of living while the oligarchs would lord it over the masses..... Nevertheless, UBI would be the best outcome as long as the oligarchs remain in control. And UBI is far from being guaranteed.....
What an interesting video. I know barely anything about Star Trek but after RUclips recommended me your video on how the Star Trek universe has no money I was intrigued. How could such a universe even work I wondered. I would love to know more about the character Data and his pursuit to become more human. Where that idea came from and who it is implemented in the Star Trek universe. I think this trope comes from the story of Pinokkio, famously portrayed in the Disney adaptation and I've seen it repeated many times, such as Spielberg's AI and the movie Becentennial Man. I've looked at the vids in your channel, but I haven't found one related to this. It may be a subject you'd like to dive deeper in, in a future video.
@ 0:15 the The Tillman Water Reclamation Plant (aka Sewer system treatment) really shows up a lot on this channel's videos. You can visit the place and it's Chinese gardens (because two great things go great together????) if you want for a small fee. It's in Van Nuys, CA right next to the 405 and about 2 miles from where they filmed the base and helicopter section of Escape From New York. Yep, New York is really a giant flood dam in the San Fernando Valley. So many bursting bubbles.
Excellent essay in an interesting series, RJC. The optimistic vision of the future is what roped me into Star Trek as a child. Your featured TOS episodes, A Taste of Armageddon and The Ultimate Computer, really underscore your point. In Armageddon, technology enables utopia with a horrible hole in its soul. In Ultimate Computer, automation undermines human advancement and judgement. I really credit Star Trek (particularly TOS and TNG, now that I'm becoming more familiar with it) for their emphasis on humanity as a positive trait of humans, with all our flaws. As much as I enjoy some dystopia and social satire, it's refreshing to see some positive visions of the future.
Years ago I watched made for TV Robocop miniseries. There was one line from that miniseries that stuck with me: "Technology is our friend" (I'm not sure if that's correct version, as I watched it in polish). I find the idea that we should fear technology we create absurd. We control that technology, we operate and maintain every part of it that's necessary for it to work. For example, if someone actually develops a general purpose AI computer, there will be someone standing by mains switch, just in case. And even if it gets out of control, then what? It can't use robots, and most of them are either toys or stationary, industrial machines. It also can't cause extinction event, because without us, the ugly bags of mostly water, it won't be able to maintain infrastructure, or even keep itself powered on. "Technology is our friend", and in last 50 years we achieved more progress than in 500 years before that. We should embrace it and celebrate it. Star Trek, as any major work, reflects the times it was created in. When TOS was made, people were afraid of rapid advancement of technology, especially of computers, while computer scientists themselves were optimistically claiming we will have thinking machines in 5-10 years. TNG is more optimistic, reflecting the late 80's and early 90's, when Cold War ended, and Soviet Union lost. Now shows like Discovery and Pickard reflect current times, and again, current fears...
I love technology. It's merely an application of ever growing human knowledge. It's also a force multiplier, allowing a human to do more tasks that would require many more humans without the technology. I don't fear losing control over it--I'm disturbed that a malevolent or careless person could use technology harm an increasing number of people. AI will be an incredible tool--I'm not afraid of it going Skynet. I'm more concerned some egotistical feckless tech billionaire who never grew out of being a a playground bully could weaponize AI to manipulate masses, impoverish societies while enriching themselves, and subjugating people without them even being aware of it.
We should be cautious of AI technology, as this could be problematic if emotion and humanity is taken out of security and enforcement by governments. There should definitely be restrictions and laws to the use of AI.
I watched this video and the previous and you talked about how low tech it is and how there arent things like robots doing menial labor. However it is Canon there are “Synths” which are basically humanesqe robots. So there are instances of robotic labor being done and lead to the destruction of Utopia Planitia. Either way yet another good video! Glad the youtube algorithm showed me your videos
IRL the more hi-tech something becomes the more invisible it is and the more accepted it becomes. Things like augmented reality and VR headsets won't take off until they are indistinguishable from a pair of sunglasses.
Part of Star Trek has been to hold up a mirror showing us where we are now, to where we can reach to. If Star Trek was Post-Human, Trans-Human, Cyberization and the like, then the image becomes too distorted. It could become a goal that we cannot reach.
Star Trek is where technology needs to be respected. There is a huge amount of automation in Star Fleet how else can button presses change a large amount of the ship's functions. Reversioning the ... of the deflector disk is just a few button presses away. Replicator takes the place of most methods of building which made hand-crafted items more desirable and that is the same thing that happened with introduction of player pianos. The danger comes from when respect is laxed or ignored.
For once I agree with you I mean you hit the nail on the head Technology is a good thing, but it must be tempered with responsibility. It’s just like this insanity idea of artificial intelligence. I don’t like it it scares me because it can be huge so easily we can we’ve already seen the most surface level of that googles misuse of Gemini, and I like you, Elon Musk he is a bright man and trying to bring a bragger future to us all but the idea of sticking a chip in somebody’s head even though it is supposed to be only for people who are paralyzed. What’s the stop some government from trying to force us all to get these things in our head so they can control us even further. There is such a thing is too much technology and technology has to be tempered with responsible individuals have to bounce that with the human factor because you let AI run amok and we could get in the number of situations where we become the outnumbered and robots are trying to take over. They’re trying to take over in every job and force people out and I don’t wanna see that, sometimes a man has to do the job not some bleeping beeping and android that doesn’t care about humanity
TNG’s most impressive prediction for future tech was how everyone has iPhones and iPads for doing everything throughout the show. The ship’s computer is basically ChatGPT. The communicators are basically speakerphone pin-on versions of Bluetooth earbuds. But, the smartphone and tablet thing always impresses me when you consider how nothing of that era looked even remotely close to that, and no other major sci-fi of that time envisioned slim, flat, touchscreen pocket computers quite like TNG.
Tablets were tried lots of times through the 80s. Some commercially released the same year as TNG and were showcased well before. But the first success was the GRIDPad in 89.
I was referring specifically to the form factor and interface designs of their devices. I had a PDA from the late 80’s that had apps and internet stuff, even a relatively flat screen. It’s the fact of the form factor for their iPad and iPhone things. Even the little buttons you can see on their screens look like early iPhone apps📱
And yet, when they wanted to show someone overloaded with work, they'd give them a stack of tablets. As if you needed more than one tablet and a wireless connection to the ship's computer.
But there is bad or good context in which tech is put to use....such as the current economic system, Capitalism: a system which prioritizes profit above all else can only put tech to "bad use", from the perspective of the masses.
@@alals6794 Absolutely. That fits in with what I said. The tech itself is neither good nor bad, only how it's used, and unfortunately you're right, it's used against us.
Diversity is the antithesis of individuality the desire for diversity crushes individuality exchange for the groupthink mentality that comes with searching for diversity and end up losing everything does people become only the color of their skin rather than the content of their character
This is where I part with Trek/ the Federation. They have the tech to enhance their lives in ways we can't even understand and instead they want to RP some sort of weird cottagecore fantasy.
There's no such thing as "technology gone wrong". As so many good episodes of TREK's best show, it's never the AI itself that goes wrong; it's the creator who doesn't create with insight and wisdom. After all, back in the day, the Borg were humanoids who didn't consider losing their humanity to the technology, and now have forgotten how to be what they once were. Kirk kept running into humanoids who had taken their tech that step too far and made logical efficiency more important than wisdom. You can have an efficient war, but suicide booths aren't a replacement for sitting down and talking diplomacy. The Archon's LANDRU wanted his people to be happy, but mindless happiness eased by a day and night of rampant hedonistic destruction doesn't fix it. Tech is a fine tool , but it's not a replacement for social wellness and interactivity; as Spock said in TMP, V'Ger doesn't understand a simple hand to hold, a hug, a moment of emotional connection. We lose that, and we lose it all.
Intentionally or incidentally, this also solves two problems that may arise from advanced automated societies: 1. Social alienation - when everything is provided by robots, there is little need of other humans. Most notable on the world of Solaria, from Asimov's novel "Robots and Empire". 2. Lack of purpose - perhaps the most famous example is the world of Judge Dredd: "2000 AD" There, automation has advanced so much that it put most people out of work - which leads many of them to all sorts of destructive (including self-destructive) behaviour. Star Trek presents a balance between that type of dystopia, and our current reality where most of us need to work in order to survive, regardless of whether we find that work fulfilling or not.
Okay... but the federation IS a highly automated society. No one NEEDS to work. Pretty much everyone is unemployed, unless they choose to do something that is for all intents and purposes a novelty service. If all you have is a replicator in every other household, combined with an industrial replicator in the nearby city for more complicated stuff, combined with a teleporter to deliver said complicated stuff, then all you need is a power plant to keep that society going. That's it. Those two, the industrial replicator and the power plant are the only two necessary jobs of the entre civilization. Everything else has been automated, from sewage to repairing sewage pipes. They have completely automated every single step of every single production chain. The only reason the citizens of the Federation do ANY kind of work is because they have chosen to do so. They don't even need to grow food, they do that just for fun and out of tradition, while the majority of their calories comes from replicators.
@@Alexander_KaleFirst of all, how do you know that so much of the industrial system is automated? Nor do we have evidence that replicators and teleporters are so ubiquitous - and accessible. If Federation were so highly automated, we would be seeing tons of drones - yet we hardly see any. You commonly see people working in various capabilities - look at a space dock, and how much work is done by technicians. That's one thing. The other thing is: If people do want to work, there seems to be no shortage of meaningful jobs for them. And by that, I mean jobs that are useful for the functioning of society - like the aforementioned space-dock techs, or medics, engineers, etc. That's why I said it's a good balance: Yes, you have your basic needs assured, so you don't need to work in order to survive - but if you do choose to work, there is a lot of stuff you can do. You are not forced to just sit at home because there are no jobs for you - like, for example, most of the civilians on Earth in The Expanse. Note that I'm only referring to the shows and movies, I'm ignoring any novels. Also, I haven't watched Picard, or Discovery past season 2, nor do I intend to.
@@JustGrowingUp84 "First of all, how do you know that so much of the industrial system is automated?" - Because that is what a replicator is. How many production steps do you think are involved in the production of a 20th century mobile phone? Meanwhile, in the 24th century, all you need do is press a button. Replicator cannot make everything, but they absolutely CAN make most things. "Nor do we have evidence that replicators and teleporters are so ubiquitous - and accessible." - Yes, actually. We do. On several occasions we see Replicators in private citizen homes. "If Federation were so highly automated, we would be seeing tons of drones" - Again, why? YOu don't need delivery drones, because you hardly need to deliver anything. You do not need drones in manufacturing, because Replicators. What would those drones of yours do? "If people do want to work, there seems to be no shortage of meaningful jobs for them." - The point here is that the people who do not have a job do not languish in abject poverty like the citizens of Expanse Earth. Take a look at our workforce today. the vast, vast majority of our jobs would not exist in the Federation. No one is going to work in manufacturing, because replicators do 98 percent of the work. Hardly any truckers, because the amount of stuff that needs to be transported long distance will be tiny. Massively reduced farming sector. Thanks to powerful tech, ten or so people will probably be enough to pull up a skyscraper in weeks. MOST people will not have a job that by and large benefits society. You have people like Sisko's dad, who provides what is effectively a luxury public service. You will have carpenters, for people who prefer hand made wooden tables over replicated ones.
@@Alexander_Kale "What would those drones of yours do?" All that automated repairing of sewage pipes you mentioned. And everything else requiring repairing and maintenance. Construction. Transportation - all the replicators and teleporters we've seen are relatively small, there are plenty of things that would require more "classic" transportation - especially for large buildings - so stuff like automated barges. That also includes loading and unloading, of course. After all, not everything could be built from small prefabs made by replicators, and then assembled by hand or teleporter, again: especially for large buildings. Taking care of the elderly and infirm: we are shown that even with the Federation's advanced medical technology, there are still some (perhaps many) people who suffer debilitating infirmities due to old age or some incurable disease. Like in TNG Season 1 episode 15: "Too short a season". These people may not have relatives or friends able (or willing) to take care of them, and there might not be enough people willing to work as assistants. And, due to the aforementioned medical tech, there would be a lot of people reaching a highly advanced age. This is already a problem in the real world - and Japan has been pioneering robots to take care of the elderly for over two decades now, both as aid and companionship. And yet, we hardly see any such critical equipment. And yes, many, perhaps most jobs would be stuff like "luxury" and "entertainment". But plenty of others would require skilled personnel, especially in Starfleet (including civilian posts), science outposts, new colonies etc. Private security would be required when dealing with species from outside the Federation. Also, just because some people have teleporters and replicators inside their homes, doesn't mean that's a universal constant. Just like on Starships not all personnel would have access to large personal cabins. In fact, if you look at most other starships, they don't seem anywhere near as luxurious as top-of-the-line Federation Capital ships like the Enterprise - which were built primarily for diplomacy and exploration, not war or freight. And the same might be true even on well populated and developed Federation planets like Earth - would a random nobody who just plays videogames all day have access to the same luxuries that a Starfleet admiral would have? Basically, there should be tons of drones around - unless we are shown replication and teleportation technology used on a massive scale - massive both in the sense of widespread and physically large, as in: able to build a skyscraper and automatically repairing everything just by using those two technologies. I haven't seen anything like that. Not only that, but replication and teleportation technology seem to have critical limitations. How many times has the crew on Enterprise - the most luxurious and advanced piece of tech of the Federation - been forced to crawl through its tunnels and pipes in order to fix stuff? Wouldn't have been easier and faster to just teleport away the damaged parts, and teleport in newly replicated ones? Especially in emergency situations, like being fired upon by a Romulan Warbird? Romanticism is all nice and dandy, but shouldn't it take a step back when it comes to survival?
@@Alexander_Kale From wiki: "in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "For the Cause", industrial replicators are used to replicate large components of ships, shuttlecraft, and other pieces of this sort, which are later used in shipyards to construct such vessels. In this manner, as few as 15 industrial replicators are enough to replicate the components needed to build a fleet of starships or to help a civilization recover from a planet-wide natural disaster." Okay, so they can replicate semi-large stuff, they don't need to make it from real stone, wood, metal, plastic etc. - but transportation and assembly seems to still be done through non-teleport technology. We are not actually shown how said industrial replicators function, we are just told about them. This also relates to questions about how exactly the replicator and transporter (teleporter) technologies work. They do seem related, being able to create matter from energy, and deconstruct matter into energy.
That would require an entire galactic population thousands oupon thousands of species, to have deceived themselves independently from one another into believeing that their murder copy machines actually are teleporters instead. I find it more likely to believe that the Transporter are exactly what it says on the tin.
@@Faction.Paradox I saw a German documentary on some German TV channel when I was a kid and it was about people getting chipped. Back then I couldn't make a distinction if it was real or not and the imagery freaked the hell out of me. One shot I still vividly remember today is how some doctor or something shoots some chip with some gun into the neck of a child. That freaked the hell out of me when I was a child. Back then it was probably just a look at what it could look like, but my 7- or 8-year-old self didn't know that and thought it was real and it freaked the hell out of me. I didn't know of the Borg or even Star Trek back then. Or Doctor Who and the Cybermen. I did know of Anakin's cybernetic arm however, but that somehow didn't freak me out for some reason.
You don't tear down a perfectly good house to get an upgrade. My house is 64 years old. I'm only 39 and have owned the place for only eight. You just add upgrades that you need. If you don't have a practical use for a new technology you don't waste your time acquiring it. The old phone lines go unused, while I added Ethernet and use it daily. There are people who are still living in houses that are a century old or more in the US. In Europe it's even longer. No one uses the coal chutes in those old houses anymore, nor the milk doors. STD still sucks.
Can somebody explain to me why humans are referred to as such in ST? The planet is not called "Huma" but "Earth" and every other species is called after their home world. It should be "Earthlings" or "Terrans", right? Or am I way off?
Probably because the stories are written from the human's perspective by humans. Logically, since our solar system is referred to as the "Sol System" in canon, then Earth should be Sol Prime and we should be Solites.
Again I noticed you think that piece and zero crime came after the replicator. Even though in Star Trek history it didn’t. in Star Trek history piece and zero crime came from meeting the Vulcans who taught humanity how to embrace logic, and adopt AI and automated method of system organization. At this point, I think you’re doing it on purpose, in order to create a disconnect from the possibility of this future coming into fruition. After all, if the entire benchmark of a utopian society is the replicator based on a science we haven’t created yet. It would make Utopia impossible to conceive of now.
So, there's a controversy I suppose between progressives who think TOS was this amazingly progressive show and conservatives who think it wasn't. They're both wrong. TOS did have a progressive message, but it was, if anything, a lot less progressive than some of its contemporaries. Most Star Trek fans don't know that because they've never really watched TV from that era, other than maybe Gilligan's Island. For that matter, I know plenty of fans who have never seen more than an episode or two of TOS. It's a pointless controversy, because the philosophy of Star Trek has dramatically changed in ways that are only tangentially related to the American culture wars. The consistent theme of TOS being: Machines are amazingly useful tools. But when humans allow machines to think or dream for them, they eventually become soulless autonomations, subordinate to more efficient machines. This message was especially strong in The Ultimate Computer, Court Martial, and especially The Cage- literally the very first Star Trek episode. But it was a running theme throughout. While most of Star Trek since then, with the exception of the better DS9 episodes, has been a celebration of soullessness, written by and for the soulless autonomations that TOS warned us we would become. That's why some people think what Chat GPT generates is actually comparable to human writing. The "human" writing they're comparing it to isn't actually all that human. Most people have already lost the capacity to tell the difference.
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Stargate sg1 retrospektive next week or in 2 weeks?
_Captain Catherine "Genocidal" Janeway is a cold blooded premeditated _*_MURDERER_*_ , who ordered the _*_slaughter_*_ of an innocent lifeform, _*_TUVIX_* ! And because Tuvix was the only member of his alien species, Half Talakxian/Half Vulcan, then she is also guilty of *GENOCIDE* and should be put on trial for such a bloodthirsty and savage criminal act as well as conduct unbecoming of a Starfleet Officer upon Voyager's immediate return to Federation space.
Why? All it does is spend 9 hours per topic, explaining why [topic] is [bad], whilst repeating yourself twenty-seven times over. For money. And that's not to be made fun of. But you'll have a hard time convincing me you care about star trek's technology whatsoever, rather than trying to ride on the waves of your takedowns of star wars rants.
Your first example is Kirk whisking eggs. Why does he do it? Same reason he climbs a mountain - "Because it's *there*".
I also cook, chopping vegetables, adding spices and seasoning and tasting etc. Because I enjoy it.
Riker enjoys cooking too.
Just because someone doesn't USE a device doesn't mean they're hidden or there's a secret thing about them. I don't use mandolins because whilst they're amazing at cutting vegetables, the risk to my fingers is too great for me to grate.
Basically, you're full of shit. But well done on the money. That you don't pay tax on. On Mann.
Star Trek has a strange dichotomy with continously showing how's the free access to technology can improve lives, but also having lots of "technology gone wrong" plots because it's fertile ground for an episodic sci-fi series.
While the dichotomy existing is fair enogh, I would not call it "strange". The Federation as a whole has a number of Species, most of which are only mentioned in passing, who do e.g. cybernetic augmentations. The Bynars being one example.
Humanity as well uses highly advanced prosthetics wherever and whenever someone looses a limb or organ, they just make them look as human like as possible.
Which is not all that surprising either, what with the body horror that is the Borg being an antagonist, and and the cultural Trauma of genetic engineered humans starting a war just two centuries ago.
I think that the key point is that technology is a tool and, as any tool, it can only improve what you can already do with it or help you achieve something beyond your reach.
Problems arise when technology becomes a substitute for skill, ingenuity and creativity.
Every technological advance has brought with it unexpected consequences. Industrialization brought mass production, but also filthy factories and pollution. Einstein's discovery about the nature of matter and energy will bring about practical fusion generators, but it first brought nuclear bombs. The Internet was meant to bring us all together, but has also given anonymity and license to the most backwards and barbaric voices. Star Trek's creators understood this, understood that if "our weapons outgrew our wisdom," we risk becoming like the brutal Klingons or the dehumanized Borg.
I think that's just how sci-fi and fantasy shows work in general: show novel concept, then base stories on that novel concept. Often that story is that novel concept goes wrong.
Some of the shows are just dramas, and the sci-fi/fantasy aspect is just the setting, instead of being the main focus. But the ones that showcase their whole world will also show you what can go wrong with the novel aspects of that world. Narnia and Stargate, among many others, do the same.
Star Trek in many ways epitomizes the lunch scene in first Jurassic Park. To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcom, 'Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.'
Well said. Star Trek's optimism is really about humanity's growth and maturity as a species. We've evolved enough to manage the technology responsibly. Unlike our world today which I must agree looks a lot more similar to the Borg than the Federation.
Except the Borg DO advance, even if they can only do so by stripmining other species. Our own world is starting to cease advancing anything but information technologies that can be used to make a few people very rich - and will collapse when the resources needed to maintain and construct high technology start to become scarce.
it's also technology provided to the masses but primarily for the benefit of a relative few. It's weird like that, haha.
@@Matt42MSGImmunology has advanced considerably in the last 4 years
Thinking of Star Trek in terms of "rustic" made me think of Firefly and how that show used a similar set-up for very different reasons.
In Star Trek the log cabins with just a little bit of technology seems like an emblem of a world that found a balace between technology, morality and nature, in Firefly the old aestethic (and technology) springs from a society that need reliable tech rather than fancy one.
Humanism is self improvement and species being (enjoying fruits of labor). So, a lack of automation is important. Also, you want to keep a productive and skilled populace. Philosophy does not supply the answer here, pragmatic need does. It is parallel with the Vulcans keeping their survivalism trials despite eshewing violence. And remember you need a society that knows how to repair stuff and respect personal property. Yes, you could get a robot to patrol the streets like in ST2009. Likely, there were not enough humans to be cops at that moment. However, you have a human gardener at SF Academy in TNG because a human applied to the job at the time. He wanted to be a gardener and was not exploited at it.
There’s a line in Frank Herbert’s Dune series that’s quite interesting- about how if people turn their thinking over to machines, other people with machines can enslave them
I guess Star Trek is a saga of the soul not being overshadowed by the cold clinical technology. If all we wanted to do is explore worlds we'd have sent out a fleet of probes, not ships with crews.
We're humans, always wanting to cross the next hill, next ocean, next world. Plant our footprints on those new lands and see it how it was meant to be seen and felt, with our own eyes and hands.
Your comment reminded me of the great scene of Captain Janeway explaining to Seven of Nine how vital it was that Starfleet crews explore the Final Frontier in person rather than just sending out unmanned probes.
I find the machine part going rogue is more of an allegory for unaccountable bureaucracies, couple perverse wrong incentives, that are completely disconnected from reality and trivializes humanism to the point of abstraction, which which automation and computing has only make it so much easier with the added never ending desire to want to control more and in it's pursuit dehumanize the individual in the process.
That's a great take. And the unaccountable bureaucracies doesn't always have to be government agencies.
The recent strikes in Hollywood was caused by movie studios becoming so detached and unaccountable that they thought replacing writers, actors, and other creatives with AI was a really good idea. They missed the vital human element that makes art truly art.
@@TheVeritas1 I was talking more in a broad, generalized, sense that would include corporation, but yeah, should have made it more the focus, corporations perusing the goal of making more money capital at every cost, including the wellbeing of individuals, society environment and family which are figures that are completely dismissed of ignored, which is the perverse incentive part. It all tries to atomize everything to mini-max everything to maximize revenue.
No we really shouldn't. Technology isn't good or bad, it's how we use it. We could have green energy sources to a much greater extent if we put our resources into it.
We could cure so many diseases and extend human life if we stopped letting greed and money be the defining factors in our lives.
We are held back so much in our advancement by fear and gred and superstition. We should embrace technology and medical research and let it improve our lives.
We all know if we lived in the Star Trek universe most of us would spend 99% of our time in the holodeck
In the intro to ST:TMP, Roddenberry wrote that it was necessary for people like Kirk to retain an ordinary humanity because for many explorers it was too easy to become enthralled by the advanced species being met and losing oneself.
That some of the writers thought crime would disappear because of replicators. Apparently they didn't realize that some people just want to see the world burn.
"Not blind opposition to progress, but opposition to blind progress." - John Muir
I liked this video, but I think there is another point that could have been addressed that fits the bill.
I think you’re absolutely spot on when it comes to romanticism. I think that the inclusion of the eugenics wars. I always took this as a baked in “price of progress”, which limits the pursuit of knowledge because of where it took humanity.
The Borg, which I admit are my favorite Star Trek villains, are the perfect antagonists for a show like Trek. They are, as you said, the dark mirror of The Federation. Could technology become so advanced, or our pursuit of that advancement go so far, that humans lose everything that makes us human? The Borg don't care about art or music. They don't admire physical beauty or have a spirit of adventure. They don't invent new things, they absorb what someone else has already created. They don't form friendships or get married, they force a being to be a drone in a violent way. They don't eat or enjoy a cold beverage, they regenerate standing rigidly still like a zombie. The idea of The Borg should terrify every Star Trek viewer, maybe even more than The Eugenics War.
borg reminds me of elon and the transhumanist we have now. it is like they never seen a sci fi movie before.
The Borg have been badly ruined by people who didn't understand what made them frightening and turned them into mere technozombies. Especially by giving them a "queen' who was a single point of failure, for ease in writing stories in which the heroes triumph. The Queen was a cool character and a terrible deus ex machina. The whole point of their horror was that they were a dark reflection of the Federation itself, with all its virtues minimized and all its defects magnified.
@@Matt42MSG I agree, the Queen wasn't a good idea
@@Matt42MSG The Borg Queen was not only a bad decision from a world building standpoint, but a very lazy decision as a way to have **conversations** with an antagonist. Human writers prefer a bad guy to defeat; it's harder to have a hive mind monologue about " I will destroy you. ".
@@doktor_ghul Wasn't that the justification for Locutus, both in-world and real-world? Something that could interface with the individual organisms and communicate with them.
Man, you are giving me so much "munitions" for my several attempts to convince everybody around me to watch star trek. Two new trekkies already...
Starfleet needs technology, not necessarily the rest of Humanity on Earth. I always found that it seems that in ST, Earthlings love their freedom to stay rustic if they so wish. Of course, you can find holosuites and food or industrial replicators on Earth but they do not represent the end all be all of all Humans on Earth, that's the beauty of it. Some places on Earth are just barely technologically advanced although they all benefit from the weather control system to some extend which makes maintenance of all buildings and traditionnal agriculture easier without the fear of a tornado or hail destroying your old wooden house or your crops.
Letting people decide if they want advanced tech under their rooves is a sane way to see progress because it might not suit everyone.
For example I would be perfectly alright with NO SOCIAL MEDIA, no DATING APPS or all those stupid things we don't actually need... I don't use them, if others want to lose their time with those, so be it, that's THEIR problem, not mine. It's just that if they complain I won't tell them "I warned you..."
To quote the Federation President in Undiscovered Country "It would be good to redefine the notion of progress: it's not because we can do a thing that we necessarily need to DO that thing."
@RowanJColeman
I love your detailed and nuance analysis of Star Trek and technology. With its "technobabble" reputation, the mythos of Trek gets labeled those unfamiliar with it as devoid of humanity and emotion. Thanks for reminding us of the Romanticism and humanity as the heart of Trek.
Your video is also timely in light of the debate of AI and its impact on various industries. Tyler Perry and Tim Burton are the latest filmmakers to warn of how blindly embracing AI could cause the loss of humanity in the arts.
0:43 - Even as a child when my age was still just a 'one-digit' number, I never understood the lack of robots and androids on Star Trek (TNG aired back then); except for the presence of Data, of course.
You, Rowan, state up here that this 'omission' almost certainly must have been caused by budgetary constraints, BUT having people in a simple make-up playing some 'automatons', akin to what Brent Spiner did as Data, should not have been a financial problem at all.
You may argue that the creators wanted to make Data special by his being alone and unique, but this still could have been achieved by his being the only one with the super-advanced positronic brain and with full sentience and sapience. The other "run-of-the-mill" androids could, firstly, sport a different make-up in order to visually differentiate them and mainly they would've been non-sentient "dumbos" (either by design or by the UFP's technological limitations of the TNG era) akin to the ones we've seen on Picard's first season.
I do not believe that this was about money, but rather a creative mishap; like a bad prediction of what the future will bring about.
I'm guessing that you've never seen "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" or "I, Mudd," both TOS episodes featuring humanoid android-type robots.
What is the point of having a humanoid robot when you can do manufacture with replicators? Seriously, what do they need robots FOR?
That being said, there is a video on youtube called "the enterprise is insanely huge" that puts the insane scale of the Enterprise D into perspective. That thing is enormous. And its crew, by comparison, is tiny at just a thousand people. A Nimitz class carrier is a fraction of the size and has a crew of 4,600...
So Starfleet isn't actually missing in automation at all. The entire ship is automated to an insane degree. They just don't do automation via humanoid robots.
Picard dropped the ball on the Android thing to a ridiculous degree, because it assigned work to those androids that for all intents and purposes simply should not exist in the first place. Watch the Enterprise Episode "Dead Stop" if you want to know how Starfleet likely builds their space ships.
They simply do not NEED robots.
You're also assuming a great deal about AI and AGI that we simply don't understand yet. Perhaps Data-like artificial people are very hard to understand and so create. Perhaps non-AGI AI is just too dumb for the tasks you're describing. I think the persistent failure of the recent push for self-driving cars is indicative that this may be the case.
Actually, the _Enterprise-D,_ _Voyager,_ and other 24th century ships are absolutely loaded with robotics. It's just that the system is centralized in the ship's main computer. It handles every automated task from cleaning, to feeding new pattern data into replicators, to putting out fires with force field projectors. A crewmember could simply request a security lockout in a given area and the ship could handle erecting security force fields by extrapolating the situation from that instruction.
It's useful to remember two things about shows like Star Trek. One is their fictional history and culture -- humans learned certain values post-nuclear war, and the lessons they learned have evolved over generations into the snapshots we get in the mid-23rd and mid-to-late-24th centuries. The other is storytelling -- it muddies the meaning of the story if Kirk outmaneuvers M-5, Nomad, or any other computer, and then the 1960s audience sees a Starfleet Roomba working in the background, because they'd have to come up with a way to explain to the audience why _that_ robot is okay. Roddenberry didn't even want to waste screen time explaining how weapons or shields work, never mind some boxy machine in the background that has no bearing on the story.
Besides, if there were dolphins aboard the _Enterprise-D_ during its entire journey on their own aquatic deck, and we never saw them . . . how do we know there weren't all kinds of robots out and about at certain times of day, maybe doing all their work over the course of 5 minutes? I'm sure they were high-tech and very efficient. All the engineers would rather double-check everything with diagnostic routines just to make sure, though.
@@willmfrank You obviously don't understand what they are typing about up here.
None of the two episodes featured any widespread androids made and used by the UFP and Starfleet. Those were basically "one-offs".
Rowan video? Must drop everything and CLICK!
I love how Lower Decks jokes about how many "Rogue, malevolent AIs" how up in Trek by having a whole prison for them at the Daystrom Institute.
Of course, this being Star Trek, Jeffery Combs gets to voice one of them. :)
It's interesting that Trek, particularly TNG, features forms of a lot of tech we today view with deep suspicion as largely good things. Give Data a phaser, and he's an autonomous weapon system capable of deciding which targets to attack without human input. The ship's computer knows where everyone onboard is at all times and harvests enough data to work out exactly what they're doing (and with whom!). The holodeck is capable of creating works of fiction and art from little more than a few prompts. You could argue that the last one is only a 'problem' because generative AI taking jobs from actual artists is a problem in a cash-based society, but there're still some interesting disconnects there.
Give anyone a phaser, and they're an autonomous weapon system capable of deciding which targets to attack without (other) human input. The cell phone network knows where every phone is at all times. The holodeck malfunctions or has negative effects more often than it's shown as a good, or even neutral, thing.
The key with Data is that he is a person, and the question becomes one of trusting that specific person.
Massive data harvesting is only an issue because of the uses that data gets put to. If we trusted our current-day corporate overlords to act in our interest rather than trying to perpetually increase quarterly profits, there'd be a lot less concern about some computer somewhere knowing enough about our interests and activities to be able to let us know, for example, when a new movie we might be interested in is about to release.
Technologies are tools - if you trust the hands wielding the tools, then the tech isn't a problem.
@@rmsgrey Also, it's Starfleet. There are a lot of safety and security issues in space travel, exploration, and militaristic concerns that are solved with the technology as used by Starfleet. I doubt Ben Sisko's father, or off-duty Leonard McCoy, would appreciate those same technologies in civilian life. We're following Starfleet in the shows, though, not all of human culture. It's not like NASA doesn't want to know the location and condition of astronauts at all times, right?
Data's brother killed an entire colony. And the tracking by the ship is so invasive that it could get an employer in jail.
Trek showed us how to be both techno-optimistic and humanistic. It eschews transhumanistic values (for example, genetic engineering is illegal and frowned upon)
Fear tech? Nah.
Fear the people using tech? Yeah.
Love this video. I've always thought that the technological advancements we strive for it to serve mankind - all humans & our pets - and make life easier & better for us so we can go on to do other things that better the human experience. Technology should help us to cook, clean, feed and cloth us and keep yourselves safe & protected. I hope that in the future we get to such an advanced stage where technology goes hand in hand with human empathy and kindness. I would love to have a cozy log cabin, fitted with the comforts of modern technology like replicators and computers.
If by fear you mean “Acknowledge and respect the dangers that can come from using it” then yes. A torch can be a useful tool for seeing in the dark and lighting a cooking fire. It can also burn anyone who gets too close. Should we therefore stop using torches? Of course not. But we should teach those who are going to use them the dangers and responsibilities that come with it. Technology ultimately means tools, and any tool can be dangerous used the wrong way. We must teach people to use them wisely.
I love the log cabins in Star Trek. I think it's emblematic how even with our advanced technology today, many people (those that can afford it and have the choice) prefer to live in the country or close to nature or in traditional houses. Lots of rich people also design themselves very rustic log cabins. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Aaron Paul come to mind.
I think in Trek it's a Symbol of how we Value both technological advancements but also our history.
Spock : "Computers make efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them."
Rowan: "Thanks for watching, if you liked this video. Hit the thumbs-up..."
well, at least you didn't mention any algorithms, so it seems legit :)
Star Trek is in many ways a hippy's dream of the future. Earth's population has decreased massively, large cities are the exception rather than the norm, and technology is so advanced and concentrated that most of the planet has been returned to nature.
Overall, it fits rather well together, even though I do not think we would ever actually go that route if we had their technology.
If humanity in Star Trek were a Stellaris faction, they'd probably be fanatic egalitarians and spiritualists. To an outside observer, they seem to be some flavor of xenophilic and materialist, but that's only skin-deep. At their core is an unshakable conviction in the sanctity of life and the inherent equality of all beings. (With some cultural hangups about machine life such as Data, of course.)
(Well, to be fair, the reason all those appearances of Kirk and Pike have the rustic cabins and horses and all is cause that's where the original Pike came from and was about in the original pilot, and that character idea was carried over when they created Kirk for the original *series.* (And I do think it's clear that Earth has a major nostalgic streak in general and values that, plus keeping technology fairly unobtrusive at least if you don't live in a big metro area with the gleaming buildings and all. I can see wanting to keep some kind of sense of *heritage,* probably including France wanting to keep traditional wineries alive and authentic, New Orleans needing its famous cuisine and such, etc. I think just designwise there's been a tendency for tech advancement and computer design to just get more and more generic despite theoretically being able to make anything you like, so it's also natural to refer back to how some of the more iconic or interesting or traditional things and materials at least appeared and all.
I can only imagine it'd be more so in a galaxy full of fairly similar humanoids that always seem to make at least office buildings look like they could be anywhere. So, what's an 'Earth house' look like? Yaknow?
I think you made a mistake not including a section about the Doctor in this video. He is ultimately a kind and caring machine who is horrified when he is kidnapped and had that part of him ripped away and he became a cold uncaring machine.
Star Trek's always been on McCoy's side against Spock.
The Brasseye clip at the end was great
I think I hear some of Star Trek Legacy's OST- a good choice
I'd love to see you do more takes on The Culture. To my mind it's the perfect sci-fi and succeeds everywhere that other franchises don't. It's the only creation that genuinely makes me hope it's somehow a real thing out there and any minute is going to find us and fix everything wrong with our world.
Very important wisdom especially in our days. AI must remain a servant to us. Not lord over us.
The highest technology looks like no technology.
So with this philosophy AI and UBI would be a bad choice to achieve a society like in Star Trek?
UBI is subsistence level of living while the oligarchs would lord it over the masses..... Nevertheless, UBI would be the best outcome as long as the oligarchs remain in control. And UBI is far from being guaranteed.....
Conclusion: Technology is our greatest asset In evolution so long as we don’t use it as a crutch
Other Conclusion: once again Star Trek called it😅
What an interesting video. I know barely anything about Star Trek but after RUclips recommended me your video on how the Star Trek universe has no money I was intrigued. How could such a universe even work I wondered.
I would love to know more about the character Data and his pursuit to become more human. Where that idea came from and who it is implemented in the Star Trek universe. I think this trope comes from the story of Pinokkio, famously portrayed in the Disney adaptation and I've seen it repeated many times, such as Spielberg's AI and the movie Becentennial Man. I've looked at the vids in your channel, but I haven't found one related to this. It may be a subject you'd like to dive deeper in, in a future video.
@ 0:15 the The Tillman Water Reclamation Plant (aka Sewer system treatment) really shows up a lot on this channel's videos. You can visit the place and it's Chinese gardens (because two great things go great together????) if you want for a small fee. It's in Van Nuys, CA right next to the 405 and about 2 miles from where they filmed the base and helicopter section of Escape From New York. Yep, New York is really a giant flood dam in the San Fernando Valley. So many bursting bubbles.
Excellent essay in an interesting series, RJC. The optimistic vision of the future is what roped me into Star Trek as a child. Your featured TOS episodes, A Taste of Armageddon and The Ultimate Computer, really underscore your point. In Armageddon, technology enables utopia with a horrible hole in its soul. In Ultimate Computer, automation undermines human advancement and judgement. I really credit Star Trek (particularly TOS and TNG, now that I'm becoming more familiar with it) for their emphasis on humanity as a positive trait of humans, with all our flaws.
As much as I enjoy some dystopia and social satire, it's refreshing to see some positive visions of the future.
Years ago I watched made for TV Robocop miniseries. There was one line from that miniseries that stuck with me: "Technology is our friend" (I'm not sure if that's correct version, as I watched it in polish). I find the idea that we should fear technology we create absurd. We control that technology, we operate and maintain every part of it that's necessary for it to work.
For example, if someone actually develops a general purpose AI computer, there will be someone standing by mains switch, just in case. And even if it gets out of control, then what? It can't use robots, and most of them are either toys or stationary, industrial machines. It also can't cause extinction event, because without us, the ugly bags of mostly water, it won't be able to maintain infrastructure, or even keep itself powered on.
"Technology is our friend", and in last 50 years we achieved more progress than in 500 years before that. We should embrace it and celebrate it.
Star Trek, as any major work, reflects the times it was created in. When TOS was made, people were afraid of rapid advancement of technology, especially of computers, while computer scientists themselves were optimistically claiming we will have thinking machines in 5-10 years. TNG is more optimistic, reflecting the late 80's and early 90's, when Cold War ended, and Soviet Union lost. Now shows like Discovery and Pickard reflect current times, and again, current fears...
1:53 you had the chance to show a clip of Dr. Crusher's spooky boyfriend.
I love technology. It's merely an application of ever growing human knowledge. It's also a force multiplier, allowing a human to do more tasks that would require many more humans without the technology. I don't fear losing control over it--I'm disturbed that a malevolent or careless person could use technology harm an increasing number of people. AI will be an incredible tool--I'm not afraid of it going Skynet. I'm more concerned some egotistical feckless tech billionaire who never grew out of being a a playground bully could weaponize AI to manipulate masses, impoverish societies while enriching themselves, and subjugating people without them even being aware of it.
Well done..!!
We should be cautious of AI technology, as this could be problematic if emotion and humanity is taken out of security and enforcement by governments. There should definitely be restrictions and laws to the use of AI.
I watched this video and the previous and you talked about how low tech it is and how there arent things like robots doing menial labor. However it is Canon there are “Synths” which are basically humanesqe robots. So there are instances of robotic labor being done and lead to the destruction of Utopia Planitia.
Either way yet another good video! Glad the youtube algorithm showed me your videos
IRL the more hi-tech something becomes the more invisible it is and the more accepted it becomes. Things like augmented reality and VR headsets won't take off until they are indistinguishable from a pair of sunglasses.
Part of Star Trek has been to hold up a mirror showing us where we are now, to where we can reach to. If Star Trek was Post-Human, Trans-Human, Cyberization and the like, then the image becomes too distorted. It could become a goal that we cannot reach.
Star Trek is where technology needs to be respected. There is a huge amount of automation in Star Fleet how else can button presses change a large amount of the ship's functions. Reversioning the ... of the deflector disk is just a few button presses away. Replicator takes the place of most methods of building which made hand-crafted items more desirable and that is the same thing that happened with introduction of player pianos.
The danger comes from when respect is laxed or ignored.
For once I agree with you I mean you hit the nail on the head Technology is a good thing, but it must be tempered with responsibility. It’s just like this insanity idea of artificial intelligence. I don’t like it it scares me because it can be huge so easily we can we’ve already seen the most surface level of that googles misuse of Gemini, and I like you, Elon Musk he is a bright man and trying to bring a bragger future to us all but the idea of sticking a chip in somebody’s head even though it is supposed to be only for people who are paralyzed. What’s the stop some government from trying to force us all to get these things in our head so they can control us even further. There is such a thing is too much technology and technology has to be tempered with responsible individuals have to bounce that with the human factor because you let AI run amok and we could get in the number of situations where we become the outnumbered and robots are trying to take over. They’re trying to take over in every job and force people out and I don’t wanna see that, sometimes a man has to do the job not some bleeping beeping and android that doesn’t care about humanity
Glad to see the upscale efforts
I hate the saying "Don't mess around with something until you're ready." How will you know if you're ready without messing with it?
U believe that we shouldn't fear tech itself. Rather we should fear misuse of tech especially for personal gains.
TNG’s most impressive prediction for future tech was how everyone has iPhones and iPads for doing everything throughout the show. The ship’s computer is basically ChatGPT. The communicators are basically speakerphone pin-on versions of Bluetooth earbuds. But, the smartphone and tablet thing always impresses me when you consider how nothing of that era looked even remotely close to that, and no other major sci-fi of that time envisioned slim, flat, touchscreen pocket computers quite like TNG.
Tablets were tried lots of times through the 80s. Some commercially released the same year as TNG and were showcased well before. But the first success was the GRIDPad in 89.
2001 had flat, tablet computers sitting on desks long before TNG. It's not a hard technology to imagine when you know flat screens are coming.
It wasn't any kind of early prediction. These ideas were all over sci-fi and tech domain experts for decades before TNG.
I was referring specifically to the form factor and interface designs of their devices. I had a PDA from the late 80’s that had apps and internet stuff, even a relatively flat screen. It’s the fact of the form factor for their iPad and iPhone things. Even the little buttons you can see on their screens look like early iPhone apps📱
And yet, when they wanted to show someone overloaded with work, they'd give them a stack of tablets. As if you needed more than one tablet and a wireless connection to the ship's computer.
As I always say - there is no bad technology or good technology - there's only the uses to which technology is put
But there is bad or good context in which tech is put to use....such as the current economic system, Capitalism: a system which prioritizes profit above all else can only put tech to "bad use", from the perspective of the masses.
@@alals6794 Absolutely. That fits in with what I said. The tech itself is neither good nor bad, only how it's used, and unfortunately you're right, it's used against us.
Diversity is the antithesis of individuality the desire for diversity crushes individuality exchange for the groupthink mentality that comes with searching for diversity and end up losing everything does people become only the color of their skin rather than the content of their character
Another interesting video, thanks Rowan
This is where I part with Trek/ the Federation. They have the tech to enhance their lives in ways we can't even understand and instead they want to RP some sort of weird cottagecore fantasy.
Once a person hits a billion dollar net worth they should be required to watch all of star trek before the can access that money. XD
Rowan, to me this is one of your very best videos. Downright inspiring!
Please share your views on the Mass effect universe
There's no such thing as "technology gone wrong". As so many good episodes of TREK's best show, it's never the AI itself that goes wrong; it's the creator who doesn't create with insight and wisdom. After all, back in the day, the Borg were humanoids who didn't consider losing their humanity to the technology, and now have forgotten how to be what they once were. Kirk kept running into humanoids who had taken their tech that step too far and made logical efficiency more important than wisdom. You can have an efficient war, but suicide booths aren't a replacement for sitting down and talking diplomacy. The Archon's LANDRU wanted his people to be happy, but mindless happiness eased by a day and night of rampant hedonistic destruction doesn't fix it. Tech is a fine tool , but it's not a replacement for social wellness and interactivity; as Spock said in TMP, V'Ger doesn't understand a simple hand to hold, a hug, a moment of emotional connection. We lose that, and we lose it all.
Intentionally or incidentally, this also solves two problems that may arise from advanced automated societies:
1. Social alienation - when everything is provided by robots, there is little need of other humans.
Most notable on the world of Solaria, from Asimov's novel "Robots and Empire".
2. Lack of purpose - perhaps the most famous example is the world of Judge Dredd: "2000 AD"
There, automation has advanced so much that it put most people out of work - which leads many of them to all sorts of destructive (including self-destructive) behaviour.
Star Trek presents a balance between that type of dystopia, and our current reality where most of us need to work in order to survive, regardless of whether we find that work fulfilling or not.
Okay... but the federation IS a highly automated society. No one NEEDS to work. Pretty much everyone is unemployed, unless they choose to do something that is for all intents and purposes a novelty service.
If all you have is a replicator in every other household, combined with an industrial replicator in the nearby city for more complicated stuff, combined with a teleporter to deliver said complicated stuff, then all you need is a power plant to keep that society going. That's it. Those two, the industrial replicator and the power plant are the only two necessary jobs of the entre civilization. Everything else has been automated, from sewage to repairing sewage pipes.
They have completely automated every single step of every single production chain. The only reason the citizens of the Federation do ANY kind of work is because they have chosen to do so. They don't even need to grow food, they do that just for fun and out of tradition, while the majority of their calories comes from replicators.
@@Alexander_KaleFirst of all, how do you know that so much of the industrial system is automated?
Nor do we have evidence that replicators and teleporters are so ubiquitous - and accessible.
If Federation were so highly automated, we would be seeing tons of drones - yet we hardly see any.
You commonly see people working in various capabilities - look at a space dock, and how much work is done by technicians.
That's one thing.
The other thing is:
If people do want to work, there seems to be no shortage of meaningful jobs for them.
And by that, I mean jobs that are useful for the functioning of society - like the aforementioned space-dock techs, or medics, engineers, etc.
That's why I said it's a good balance:
Yes, you have your basic needs assured, so you don't need to work in order to survive - but if you do choose to work, there is a lot of stuff you can do.
You are not forced to just sit at home because there are no jobs for you - like, for example, most of the civilians on Earth in The Expanse.
Note that I'm only referring to the shows and movies, I'm ignoring any novels.
Also, I haven't watched Picard, or Discovery past season 2, nor do I intend to.
@@JustGrowingUp84 "First of all, how do you know that so much of the industrial system is automated?" - Because that is what a replicator is. How many production steps do you think are involved in the production of a 20th century mobile phone? Meanwhile, in the 24th century, all you need do is press a button. Replicator cannot make everything, but they absolutely CAN make most things.
"Nor do we have evidence that replicators and teleporters are so ubiquitous - and accessible." - Yes, actually. We do. On several occasions we see Replicators in private citizen homes.
"If Federation were so highly automated, we would be seeing tons of drones" - Again, why? YOu don't need delivery drones, because you hardly need to deliver anything. You do not need drones in manufacturing, because Replicators. What would those drones of yours do?
"If people do want to work, there seems to be no shortage of meaningful jobs for them." - The point here is that the people who do not have a job do not languish in abject poverty like the citizens of Expanse Earth. Take a look at our workforce today. the vast, vast majority of our jobs would not exist in the Federation.
No one is going to work in manufacturing, because replicators do 98 percent of the work.
Hardly any truckers, because the amount of stuff that needs to be transported long distance will be tiny.
Massively reduced farming sector.
Thanks to powerful tech, ten or so people will probably be enough to pull up a skyscraper in weeks.
MOST people will not have a job that by and large benefits society. You have people like Sisko's dad, who provides what is effectively a luxury public service. You will have carpenters, for people who prefer hand made wooden tables over replicated ones.
@@Alexander_Kale
"What would those drones of yours do?"
All that automated repairing of sewage pipes you mentioned.
And everything else requiring repairing and maintenance.
Construction.
Transportation - all the replicators and teleporters we've seen are relatively small, there are plenty of things that would require more "classic" transportation - especially for large buildings - so stuff like automated barges. That also includes loading and unloading, of course.
After all, not everything could be built from small prefabs made by replicators, and then assembled by hand or teleporter, again: especially for large buildings.
Taking care of the elderly and infirm: we are shown that even with the Federation's advanced medical technology, there are still some (perhaps many) people who suffer debilitating infirmities due to old age or some incurable disease. Like in TNG Season 1 episode 15: "Too short a season".
These people may not have relatives or friends able (or willing) to take care of them, and there might not be enough people willing to work as assistants.
And, due to the aforementioned medical tech, there would be a lot of people reaching a highly advanced age.
This is already a problem in the real world - and Japan has been pioneering robots to take care of the elderly for over two decades now, both as aid and companionship.
And yet, we hardly see any such critical equipment.
And yes, many, perhaps most jobs would be stuff like "luxury" and "entertainment".
But plenty of others would require skilled personnel, especially in Starfleet (including civilian posts), science outposts, new colonies etc.
Private security would be required when dealing with species from outside the Federation.
Also, just because some people have teleporters and replicators inside their homes, doesn't mean that's a universal constant.
Just like on Starships not all personnel would have access to large personal cabins.
In fact, if you look at most other starships, they don't seem anywhere near as luxurious as top-of-the-line Federation Capital ships like the Enterprise - which were built primarily for diplomacy and exploration, not war or freight.
And the same might be true even on well populated and developed Federation planets like Earth - would a random nobody who just plays videogames all day have access to the same luxuries that a Starfleet admiral would have?
Basically, there should be tons of drones around - unless we are shown replication and teleportation technology used on a massive scale - massive both in the sense of widespread and physically large, as in: able to build a skyscraper and automatically repairing everything just by using those two technologies.
I haven't seen anything like that.
Not only that, but replication and teleportation technology seem to have critical limitations.
How many times has the crew on Enterprise - the most luxurious and advanced piece of tech of the Federation - been forced to crawl through its tunnels and pipes in order to fix stuff?
Wouldn't have been easier and faster to just teleport away the damaged parts, and teleport in newly replicated ones?
Especially in emergency situations, like being fired upon by a Romulan Warbird?
Romanticism is all nice and dandy, but shouldn't it take a step back when it comes to survival?
@@Alexander_Kale
From wiki:
"in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "For the Cause", industrial replicators are used to replicate large components of ships, shuttlecraft, and other pieces of this sort, which are later used in shipyards to construct such vessels. In this manner, as few as 15 industrial replicators are enough to replicate the components needed to build a fleet of starships or to help a civilization recover from a planet-wide natural disaster."
Okay, so they can replicate semi-large stuff, they don't need to make it from real stone, wood, metal, plastic etc. - but transportation and assembly seems to still be done through non-teleport technology.
We are not actually shown how said industrial replicators function, we are just told about them.
This also relates to questions about how exactly the replicator and transporter (teleporter) technologies work. They do seem related, being able to create matter from energy, and deconstruct matter into energy.
We should be wary of how we approach technology.
Thou shall not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.
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I adore these essays so much!
Stargate sg1 retrospektive in 2 weeks or next week
We should fear those that hold the reins to it.
Thank you!!
Great 10 minutes of a video.
Oh wow, spot on, amazing
Consider this, the industrial revolution and its consciences have been a disaster for mankind.
great video and something we can definately apply to our everyday lives!
Excellent video
Rowan, are there any plans to do a Seaquest Retrospective?
I have never watched SeaQuest so not at present, no.
@@RowanJColeman 😭 bummer, but thanks for responding
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@5:21 from your lips to NASA and JPL's very deaf ears.
Th transporters scan you down to the molecular level, disintegrate you and creates a new copy that is so perfect that you never know
That would require an entire galactic population thousands oupon thousands of species, to have deceived themselves independently from one another into believeing that their murder copy machines actually are teleporters instead.
I find it more likely to believe that the Transporter are exactly what it says on the tin.
Meanwhile in 2024 reality, we're already slaves to our technology.....
I fear technology inside my body. But outside of it not so much. Still a little due to AI and whatnot, but that doesn't impact my everyday life.
Yeah, little terrifies me as much as people like Elon Musk wanting to put chips in people's brains
@@Faction.Paradox I saw a German documentary on some German TV channel when I was a kid and it was about people getting chipped. Back then I couldn't make a distinction if it was real or not and the imagery freaked the hell out of me. One shot I still vividly remember today is how some doctor or something shoots some chip with some gun into the neck of a child. That freaked the hell out of me when I was a child. Back then it was probably just a look at what it could look like, but my 7- or 8-year-old self didn't know that and thought it was real and it freaked the hell out of me.
I didn't know of the Borg or even Star Trek back then. Or Doctor Who and the Cybermen. I did know of Anakin's cybernetic arm however, but that somehow didn't freak me out for some reason.
You don't tear down a perfectly good house to get an upgrade. My house is 64 years old. I'm only 39 and have owned the place for only eight. You just add upgrades that you need. If you don't have a practical use for a new technology you don't waste your time acquiring it. The old phone lines go unused, while I added Ethernet and use it daily.
There are people who are still living in houses that are a century old or more in the US. In Europe it's even longer. No one uses the coal chutes in those old houses anymore, nor the milk doors.
STD still sucks.
There's a reason why Dystopian gets commissioned.
Can somebody explain to me why humans are referred to as such in ST? The planet is not called "Huma" but "Earth" and every other species is called after their home world. It should be "Earthlings" or "Terrans", right? Or am I way off?
Probably because the stories are written from the human's perspective by humans. Logically, since our solar system is referred to as the "Sol System" in canon, then Earth should be Sol Prime and we should be Solites.
@@afoolandhismoneychannel Solians? Solans?
Again I noticed you think that piece and zero crime came after the replicator. Even though in Star Trek history it didn’t. in Star Trek history piece and zero crime came from meeting the Vulcans who taught humanity how to embrace logic, and adopt AI and automated method of system organization.
At this point, I think you’re doing it on purpose, in order to create a disconnect from the possibility of this future coming into fruition. After all, if the entire benchmark of a utopian society is the replicator based on a science we haven’t created yet. It would make Utopia impossible to conceive of now.
So, there's a controversy I suppose between progressives who think TOS was this amazingly progressive show and conservatives who think it wasn't. They're both wrong. TOS did have a progressive message, but it was, if anything, a lot less progressive than some of its contemporaries. Most Star Trek fans don't know that because they've never really watched TV from that era, other than maybe Gilligan's Island. For that matter, I know plenty of fans who have never seen more than an episode or two of TOS.
It's a pointless controversy, because the philosophy of Star Trek has dramatically changed in ways that are only tangentially related to the American culture wars. The consistent theme of TOS being: Machines are amazingly useful tools. But when humans allow machines to think or dream for them, they eventually become soulless autonomations, subordinate to more efficient machines. This message was especially strong in The Ultimate Computer, Court Martial, and especially The Cage- literally the very first Star Trek episode. But it was a running theme throughout.
While most of Star Trek since then, with the exception of the better DS9 episodes, has been a celebration of soullessness, written by and for the soulless autonomations that TOS warned us we would become. That's why some people think what Chat GPT generates is actually comparable to human writing. The "human" writing they're comparing it to isn't actually all that human. Most people have already lost the capacity to tell the difference.
As we grew up on Trek, how is our current year?
Did a philosopher just say "begs the question" in place of "raises the question"? Shame!