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You're quite clear on the oppressive government point in that quote

Yes. The point is that you caricatured my position by saying "you yourself claimed that it's presence in the Federation alone justifies your characterization of said Federation as a dystopian hellscape" when, in fact, I said "You brought up the Law of Jante, and that simply provides additional support for my thesis about the government".

There's actually some pretty significant footage of numerous non-Federation worlds, and none of them are nearly as rich as the Federation proper.

Yes, kind of like East Germany was the richest and freest country behind the iron curtain, and communist propagandists simply ignored the rest. The fact that in Star Trek, humanity is surrounded by military dictatorships, failed communist states, crony capitalist empires, Borg, and a smattering of omnipotent beings only means that it is slightly less bad than the rest of that crappy galaxy. Nor is that a particularly unusual state: oppressive, statist, poverty-stricken regimes are the default for societies.

The Ferengi have a free market system,

No, they don't. The Ferengi are a Marxist caricature of capitalism, with a bit of anti-Semitism thrown in for good measure. In fact, many of the Ferengi storylines show that the Ferengi government has massive power to intervene in markets, and that government officials use it regularly for their own personal benefit.

And you keep calling it unrealistic, without actually supporting that argument. Assuming replicators, transporters, and some sort of national health system the only thing that hasn't been paid for is housing. And in a universe where 40% of the human race has moved to the stars, and the rest isn't obsessed with a suburban McMansion it's not exactly impossible to figure that out.

And as I keep pointing out: your problem is not that that description is wrong, your problem is that you think that that amounts to an advanced and wealthy civilization. That's because you look at 24th century society like a medieval peasant would have looked at East Germany. Actually, it's even worse, because you rarely even see ordinary life in the 24th century, mostly you see is the lives of a privileged and powerful human elite.

In any case, if you want to understand why economic freedom is necessary (though not sufficient) for political and individual freedom, a good place to start is von Mises' "Human Action".

WTF??? This is patently absurd.

You mean this discussion? Probably.

It's like neither of you realize that it's a work of fiction, defined and constrained by its creation, in all its various forms.

Including the funny noses. Klingons, Cardassians, Borg, even Vulcans, exist to serve the needs of the story, as manufactured as the Jem'Hadar and the Vorta.

And races like the Tholians or Species 8472 were just too expensive to depict very often.

Klingons have a rich warrior culture that values honor above all else. They made that abundantly clear in countless episodes.

And counter it in others, where Klingons are brutal, deceptive, and self-serving.

That's fiction for you. Especially fiction written by a multitude.

Humans (in this universe we inhabit) do not have a warrior culture, and definitely do not value honor. If we did, we would not be about to elect Trump or Hillary (or almost anyone else that was running).

The Klingons most resemble various old traditional cultures, such as the Japanese Samurai culture, which of course is long dead.

The Japanese Samurai Culture that was as corrupt and deceitful as any? Do you really believe the story they told about themselves, or are you simply unfamiliar with the real history?

Besides, check out Duras, Gowron, and more. Even that whole business with the Augment virus.

The ST race that was meant to most resemble modern humans is the Ferengi: profit above all. However, even the Ferengi had some real values; they thought it was important to properly assist underdeveloped cultures to develop economically and technologically, so that they could become good trading partners. Bombing them into submission was not part of their ethic.

No, the Ferengi were never meant to portray or resemble modern humans, they were meant to be a caricature that the writers could use, and they were an ill-defined one at first, only becoming somewhat better defined once DS:9 made use of them, but even then, some of the past was a constraint upon them, which eventually got addressed.

By the most grotesque appeal to cultural revisionism I could imagine. It still makes me cringe.

No, I think the Terran Empire depicted in several ST episodes (not just "Mirror, Mirror", but also an excellent ENT 2-parter called "In a Mirror, Darkly") is a very accurate depiction of modern human culture transposed into a future with warp drive.

But I do agree with your final assessment about good humans being the tiny tiny minority.

The Terran Empire has nothing to do with human culture. It was simply a creation for a story, and as limited as any of the others.

Really, you're trying to get milk from stones, the value you're trying to get, isn't there.

You might as well watch programs like GATE or The Irregular at Magic High School. Or Sliders.

The US has a choice between a politician so sleezy as to be a caricature of a cliche politician, and a narcicistic psychopath who would quite happily plunge the world into world war 3 if someone makes fun of the size of his hands.

I love how people assume Hillary is "a sleezy politician" based on the word of a "narcissistic psychopath and pathological liar who would plunge the world into world war 3."

Here's a wild idea. Maybe Hillary isn't a sleezy politician and the narcissistic pathological liar who would plunge the world into world war 3 is... *gasp* lying about her just like he lies about everything else.

The most dirt Trump seems to have on Hillary is:

1) She kept a private email server against institution best practices which ended up having 100 emails (out of hundreds of thousands) that had information the FBI considers top secret.
2) She kept a private email server against institution policy in which someone emailed her classified documents that were mis-labeled.
3) She passed NAFTA while first lady (which the CBO has concluded neither really hurt nor helped employment overall). (But Trump is totally fine with his VP who is a huge free trade advocate).
4) She voted for giving Bush the power to use military force against Sadaam. (But Trump is totally fine with his VP making the same choice.)
5) She won't say "Radical Islamic Terrorism" enough.

Even for a narcissistic pathological liar like Trump that's a pretty short list of attacks.

So I can't even hazard a guess as to what's gonna happen this election. The US has a choice between a politician so sleezy as to be a caricature of a cliche politician, and a narcicistic psychopath who would quite happily plunge the world into world war 3 if someone makes fun of the size of his hands.

I mean, really? W. T. F.?

The only real option is if the entire country banded together and voted for an independent, but I just don't see that happening cause all the majority of people can see is the romantic idea of what their "team" represents, rather than look at what's actually happening.

You know who else had a Master Plan?

HITLER!


I always said that Elon Musk character was a ridiculous caricature of a Bond villain and just plain bad writing.
But then we got a billionaire reality TV star, who was involved with Professional Wrestling, going to be President and the audience isn't howling for a purge of the writers' bullpen. Demand more sensible scripting of reality.

What the fuck are you smoking?

The lie inherent right from the get go[; that] money is a resource[. I]t is not, capital is an illusion,

First off, "money" and "capital" are separate concepts. You're talking about money. Capital actually DOES refer to real things. Goods, machines, roads, schools, and ALSO money. I get what you're saying, you're just technically wrong on this.

Second, yes, money is just a placeholder. A tool to help mange it all. The US$ is backed by nothing but hopes and dreams and 11 carriers and a bunch of nukes.

The resources are there, an administrative means of allocating and distributing those resources just needs to be found.

...We HAVE that. The "administrative means" we use to figure out who gets what is called "capitalism"*, with a healthy dose of taxes and socialism and welfare because we're not the monsters from the robber-baron era. You even mention this because you know that it's the

*The -ism portion is important. Capital and capitalism are two different things. Related, of course, but it's the difference between saying a friend is fucked up, and saying friendship is fucked up.

but wealth is only fun if it is based upon fairness and generosity

HohoHO! Said like someone who has never been wealthy. No kiddo, the vast majority of history shows us that most wealthy people have PLENTY of fun regardless of how fair and generous you'd consider their source of wealth.

Sweet jesus. ALL of that rant can be boiled down to "I don't like capitalism". The rest is a mad ranting of a laughable caricature of rich people. Even the actual robber-barons weren't that monstrous.

It's not constructive. Do you get that? This sort of stark-raving-mad soap-boxing doesn't help tear down capitalism. It doesn't support socialism. It doesn't feed the hungry or raise up the poor. (Poor as in actually physically poor. The group that don't have the resources they need and not some pseudo-intellectual "everything is a metaphor and the fault of capitalism" sort of poor). To be blunt, you're hurting the cause. The catch phrase "Eat the Rich" is supposed to be humorous.

No, not all rich people are psychopathic monsters. There are certainly monsters out there. Real-deal psychopaths that are so focused on climbing that corporate ladder that they don't pause to think about what the thousands of unemployed will do when they liquidate. There is a sector of business where those people excel. But they do not represent all rich people any more than dirty hippies strung out on heroin represent all socialists. The vast bulk of all of us want a stable functioning society. A good swath of them, they vote republican, they don't want to hand out money to people who aren't working for it. Another good swath of people, like you and I, see that we are really wealthy as a whole and there's no real reason people should be so screwed by technological improvements and shipping jobs overseas, and helping people down on their luck will end up helping all of us in the long run. There's currently a debate about which group is more correct and what kind of society we want to be.

But the answer is not to tear it all down. We've seen how that goes in the communist states. But the current system of welfare and subsidies and grants and scholarships and services are CERTAINLY not in the philosophical camp of capitalism. We've ALSO tried a more pure form of capitalism in the late 1800's. It sucked for most people. Dear god man, we've got to learn from the big lessons of the past. Take a look at the Nordic countries. Very socialist, but they STILL HAVE MONEY and they still operate by people working and getting paid in cash. MONEY, as a placeholder for wealth, WORKS.

Get your shit together. You're making us look bad.

He's a shill, a sheep, SJW and caricature.

People have difficulties of understanding sarcasm and caricaturization. The joke was probably too fresh after the recent events?

No caricatures here. I actually tune in to AM radio a couple times a month to keep myself awake when I drive.

Obama and Hillary are both very Centrist or Right-leaning. If they were willing to lie and say they thought fetal life Trumped a mothers choice (like the Republican candidates) they could pick some single issue voters, like my Mother. If they could grow a Penis or lighten their skin, the GOP would be in shambles.

I can't tell if you were serious or just trolling. The vast majority of Republicans don't care about race, ethnicity, or sex (yes, we do care about gender to an extent) when it comes to determining who best qualifies. Also, Obama seems to be a Socialist in Democrat's clothing; his agenda certainly doesn't follow the Right's. IMO, Hillary would be even more extreme, but I'm leery of Trump as President.

To be fair, many of the Republican candidates don't think Women should make any choices. I myself think abortion is terrible, but I realize that the Democratic policies will result in fewer abortions due to social changes.

You truly don't understand Republicans, instead you attack the caricatures painted by the Left. The vast majority of the Right believe that women have the same rights as men. The Left has labeled the Right's stance on abortion as "Women's choice". My view is heavily influenced by my religious upbringing. I believe that abortion is morally wrong in most cases; that we need to protect the rights of the fetus within reason. The woman (in most cases) made the choice to engage in activities which resulted in pregnancy; she should be held responsible for her decisions. The man should also be held responsible for providing for the child. There are cases where I don't think abortion would be morally wrong such as rape or when the fetus is not viable (eg. missing organs) or the mother's life is in peril. I think there should be safe places to perform abortions in such cases. Alas, these are just my morals (shared by many of the Right) so I don't know if it would be moral to force them on others. In any case, my tax dollars should not be used on elective abortions.

And what exactly would be wrong about this? Censoring hate speech, populist rhetoric, anti-EU propaganda and Trump supporters would only be of benefit to society. People need to be told what to think.

Nowadays it's hard to determine whether this is sarcasm or not.

It's an astroturf strawman. Basically, the grandparent is posting a caricature of what his political idelogy says its opponents think, so his fellow believers can then pretend its genuine and they're brave heroes fighting the forces of darkness. It's basically the same shit that went down in the 30's; time will tell how big a disaster the current cycle of self-deception will cause. In any case people escaping to such fantasies is a sure sign that an era is ending, after all it means they no longer believe its foundational myths hold true in reality.

If only there was some middle way where people act like normal human beings instead of extreme sociology caricatures.

Here's another radical idea. Some people are born without intimate knowledge of CS, and have to be trained. It's a terrible handicap for them, but occasionally they overcome.

You are assigning racism to the wrong party on this issue. Gun control is all about making sure that you don't meet an armed menacing non-white person far from the help of the police. The NRA wants responsible people of all backgrounds to have the means to protect themselves when they are far from the police. Did you miss the NRA cheering on all the LGBT people who went out to arm themselves in the past couple of weeks? That isn't the racist, homophobic, misogynistic caricature that you have in your head.

i guess the ones that aren't painting caricatures in tourist traps or talking to you about your long distance service

> Your argument rings pretty hollow considering that the vulnerability has nothing to do with the PDF format itself [...]

It's not this little single hole. It's the pattern, in case you didn't notice.

Bloat. The problem is with trying to replicate fucking $WORLD whithin the browser, as in "all those before us are idiots; we'll redo the whole operating system + desktop environment + application suite, ALL IN THE FRIGGIN' BROHSA, cuz we can".

Guess what? You end up with a sad caricature of whatever little has been achieved to date, riddled with to-date unknown (but eerily familiar) security holes, infinitely more inflexible (thus forcing some strange usage patterns on users who know better).

All that funded by the ad industry, gaining a foothold on my computer.

What's not to like?

No. The browser has stopped being my ally a couple of years ago.

As far as I could tell from just the TV shows, "Gold Pressed Latinum" was only a Ferengi currency, really (though currencies are of course exchangeable). They were obsessed with the stuff (really, could a racial stereotype caricature be any more blatant? I guess big noses instead of big ears would have been too much, but still, it always seemed creepy to me). The federation sort of shrugged at the whole notion.

The greater obstacle is that, even before that, humans had to already have eliminated religion, wealth inequality, corruption, nationalism, racism, otherwise even the first step would be impossible, and the real fantasy is that even one of those things is achievable.

Most of the is believable - it just moves up a level. Just as nationalism replaced tribalism (and was better!), fanaticism for galaxy-spanning empires replaced nationalism, and there were still plenty of prejudices around, just at a larger scale. It's easy to believe "we're all humans together - let's lynch us a Klingon", pr whatever outsider served the purpose.

I saw no sign that wealth inequality had been banished, however. The story focused on a semi-military crew, not society in general, so there were the formal inequalities of rank instead. We didn't see much of the common entity on the street, one way or the other.

This isnt a "whites versus idiots" issue; its "non-idiots versus idiots" one. I'm not even close to being white (from a third world country, and brown AF) and i find the idea that google should somehow PC-police their search results preposterous. There are legitimate race issues, why take caricature examples like this and decide based on them that there can never be a rational discussion around race? The winning move for whites, as well as with others, is to call out BS when they see it (like this example) and yet stay engaged in real problems that do in fact affect people everyday.
H

Try Googling "criminal face." Most of the people who appear are white. Try Googling "bad person." You get some cartoons and caricatures and they are mostly white! Likewise "uneducated idiot teenagers" turns up majority white with a small number of minorities. Google searches just aren't that biased against minority skin colors.

The SJW's who say "A private company isn't obligated to respect your civil rights" whenever some social site censors "hate speech" see no irony at all in the fact that this is the exact same argument that restaurants and landlords used in the 1960's to exclude minorities.

No, the SJW point out that there isn't a law restricting such activity, unlike how there is with renting and public commerce. Commerce isn't speech, and more importantly, asking the police to remove persons necessarily involves the state. As such, it's the same issue as restrictive covenants, you want the state to enforce your contracts, you have the problem of contracts that the state will be asked to enforce.

If you want the private companies to be forced to carry your speech, set up the laws to make that happen.

Another favorite is "Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences." My grandfather and uncle used to say that exact same phrase when they talked about beating up Vietnam-protesting hippies.

Oh my, somebody likes to appear as if they were tough by proxy, don't they? Can your dad beat up my dad too?

Of course, the irony of you taking on the cloak of violence yourself while trying to appear sanctimonious is amusing.

Why don't you just try to secede while you're at it? You're basically a caricature of the right-wing, so you might as well go all the way.

I have passwords from 8 years ago that I've struggled to remember. I had one that I used, once, 2 years back, to log into my HSA because they changed password requirements; I saved it in my browser and didn't think much about it. It took me two tries to remember what it was.

The memory is made up of words, images, intonation, caricature, emotion, everything. The original password was generated by pulling together concepts and images; one of the concepts was emotional, generated an emotional word, and thus generated the sense of a person making an exclamation. I *should* have spent eight seconds solidifying the entire set of data that arose from that little bit of effort, but I just picked something, typed it in, and continued on with my financial analysis; I still remembered it.

If I had just picked a word, or two words, or four words, or a phrase from a book, I would have forgotten it in like 10 seconds. Everybody does that: they grab a couple words, don't visualize them, don't render them vividly, and then forget them. Even for mnemonics world champions, memorizing long streams of text *perfectly* is hard; chunking a single concept works well enough, but you really have to generate a ton of associations to remember it.