Except it wasn't murder and Picard/the Federation didn't have jurisdiction. It even strongly advanced the cause of the Federation, since the house of Duras was in league with the Romulans.
We're veering a bit off track, though. My point is the version of liberalism that Star Trek tended to embody was not of a separatist, relativist, identity politic-oriented sort. You said in your previous reply that this was because they've already achieved perfect equality, but this obviously isn't true regarding alien races (particularly the Cardassians and Klingons.)
If Roddenberry wished his works embody the perpetual-victimhood and relativist narratives that have existed in one form or another at least since the mid-twentieth century, he could have done so. But he did not.
As for special allowances, Worf murders at least two Klingons I can remember while serving in Starfleet. Picard is his captain at the time of the first one (Duros) and basically lets it side.
He's pissed as hell and comes very close to asking Worf to resign, despite it being a completely legal killing under Klingon law and being done "off the clock", not in Worf's official capacities. The second one I'm assuming is from late-season DS9, which (at that point) wasn't a very progressive-oriented show at all beyond perhaps Bashir's pushback against Section 31.
If you want to see the cultural sensitivity with which Worf's gruff, stoic, pragmatic Klingon attitudes and ideas were generally met, you need look no farther than the hilarious Worf Denied compilation.
Having said that there was an investigation of Riker and the claims made against him
Of the murder only, as I recall, because there was some forensic evidence there.
But yes, it was far from perfect in execution.
Out of curiosity, what would you have preferred to have seen?
The counselor's office was a safe space.
By "safe spaces", I'm obviously referring to public spaces designed for group interactions that discriminate against people based on ideology or race (or both.) I don't think that there are many anti-SJWers out there arguing that all forms of private, voluntary counseling are bad.
And yet, the same person may well turn around and say "Facebook allows for 71 genders - hm. This seems a little odd to me".
Non-SJW liberals/leftists shouldn't be aggrieved by what people choose to self-identify as, so long as they don't demand special rights or considerations that others don't have access to. Egalitarian means egalitarian.
If you think that the voluntary self-identifications and hobbies of the Tumblrsphere are a problem with today's society, or if you believe that what is in between a person's legs should define them socially, that's a socially conservative stance to take (and one that I'm against.) But if, for example, you're against totalitarian language police (trying to *force* certain pronouns) or think that people should be able to openly express sexual and romantic preferences, that's mostly justifiable.
Startrek was a huge success, because it preached a message of a non-militaristic, peaceful, and progressive future... No, idiots in the board room-- it DOES NOT need more boobie time, more teen angst, bad drama, or more explosions. What it needs, is that original formula of "A better future than one ruled by horrible corporations, big money, and authoritarian government *IS* possible, and this is how it can happen".
You hear this sentiment very frequently these days, but it's only half true. Even if we limit ourselves for the moment to just TOS and TNG, and it's clear that not every episode had such hopeful social themes. I don't even think the majority of them did. What were the hopeful themes of "The Trouble with Tribbles" or "The Doomsday Machine" or "The Best of Both Worlds" or "All Good Things" or "Goddamnit, the Holodeck Is On the Fritz Again"? And sure, the Federation tried to be peaceful if possible but there were a hell of a lot of episodes (and movies) that involved military situations.
I agree that the upbeat and socially liberal tone is *a* defining characteristic of Star Trek, and one that was often sadly neglected in later efforts, but there was a hell of other ingredients in there including good old fashioned, episodic, golden age-inspired sci fi craziness.
Possibly nothing is more emblematic of this elusive mixture of classic action/adventure and poignant social commentary than Star Trek I and II. Roddenberry was forced out of the latter due to the former being a boring flop, and The Wrath of Khan went on to be what many people still consider to be the best Star Trek movie, even though the conflict with its villain is rather one-dimensional, with the only perhaps quasi-social commentary being Kirk coming to terms with his aging. What did Spock's poignant drama in that movie have to do with a utopian future? It was just drama. But that's ok. Star Trek always had regular character-driven dramas going on, too.
I'm no huge fan of the new movies, but it would be a catastrophe if the studios tried to pander to the hardcore fans by swinging too hard in the other direction. We need action and adventure and drama in the framework of this strangely optimistic crew and society. It's a sci fi drama, not a public service announcement.
In recent years, I actually think that Doctor Who has come closer to the moral optimism blended and adventurous spirit of TOS and TNG than anything else, though obviously it uses a freewheeling zaniness in lieu of Star Trek's semi-realism.
Star Trek has always been socially liberal / leftist. That is, of course, true (and to Roddenberry's credit.) And it's economically leftist insofar as it represents a post-scarcity civilization (which, say what you will about it, isn't terribly relevant to today's civilizations.) However...
Star Trek has always been "SJW".
Ah, but I don't ever recall hearing the phrase "check your privilege", do you? I don't recall anyone screaming in O'Brien's face that he was a racist as he struggled to deal with the fact that he was uncomfortable around Cardassians due to his experiences in the war. I don't recall Picard making all kinds of special allowances for Worf's behavior as a proud Klingon living in a society where Klingons are extremely rare and Klingon stereotypes are constantly bandied about--on the contrary, he often insisted that Worf completely set aside all cultural biases in the name of duty. I don't recall calls for safe spaces or neo-segregation. In fact, this was pushed back against numerous times, particularly in DS9.
I don't know or much care about how the right sloppily uses labels like "SJW". For the rest of us, centrists and egalitarian leftists alike, it indicates first and foremost the anti-egalitarian, pro-identity politics, victimhood-obsessed sections of the left.
I often wonder how Hulu's numbers look these days[1]. It was freaking amazing back in 2008, with very short ads and a great library of old and new shows. Then they started pushing their subscription service heavily (which also had ads), their free catalog shrank dramatically, they disallowed free Hulu usage on traditional TV-connected devices, and they maintained their ~8 day delay on new episodes (so Hulu watchers would always be missing something important if they happened to watch a new episode on TV.)
They pretty much sent the keys to the streaming kingdom to Netflix in a velvet-lined box, back when the word "Netflix" to most people simply meant getting DVDs in the mail, apparently because old media were terrified of Hulu becoming too useful or popular of an alternative to cable TV.
I wonder what must go through those execs' heads these days... those people who chose to hobble Hulu, or even worse boycotted it entirely under the assumption that consumers would be willing to deal with a balkanized mismash of multiple content providers, and are now faced with the Netflix juggernaut. They're stuck in a Sibylline books situation, with their salvation becoming more and more costly each day. I wonder if they've reached the point where they will admit to themselves that there was a day when they could have easily put Netflix in its place, struck out a roadmap and revenue sharing model with Hulu and planned sensibly for the future.
Probably not; not yet, anyway. Heck, I doubt if most of them even realize the full extent of the danger. Even many people around here are still prone to saying stuff like "Netflix's library sucks now, so they're going to fade away", not realizing that not only is there no one in any position to offer a better library, but that Netflix has an entrenchment, both psychological and technical, that very few companies could even dream of.
1. Idly. I mean, I don't care enough to actually go Googling for it.
Once the people currently in charge of content production get too old, leave or lose their current edge in some other way the business will start to come undone a la HBO which certainly has seen much better days.
But what replaces it? That's the $64,000 question. That's been the flaw in all of these "Netflix is doomed because it sucks now / will soon start sucking" arguments. They've got the early brand name recognition (like "iPad" or "Skype" or "Google", it even flirts with genericism) and the legacy device compatibility. It's hard to overstate just how important these two things are. There are plenty of people out there are who watch Netflix on devices that can't be updated to include a competitor. Hell, my parents use a ~2009 bluray player with one of the shittiest and laggy-est Netflix UIs I've ever seen, but they have zero interest in replacing it.
They would have to screw up hard over an extended period of time, or multiple major studios (not just one) would have to band together and gear up for a protracted war in which they heavy market the "hey, do you remember what Netflix used to be like? Well come here and see our *huge* catalog of movies and TV shows that you've actually heard of or remember!" aspect.
And yet even that's an uphill battle... a war that would take five or ten years to win, even with a stronger competitor. Netflix has loyalty perhaps most of all because it panders to laziness, routine and familiarity. I think they have an almost unassailable entrenchment, although it's just barely conceivable that the breakdown of net neutrality (especially in today's political climate) could hurt them enough that a determined studio-backed competitor in collusion with the ISPs could muscle its way in.
The problem is deception and honesty are a lot more complicated thing than we make it out to be. The most nuance you typically see is a distinction between white lies and stereotypically 'bad' self-serving lies, but the rabbit hole goes a lot deeper than that.
In trump's case he regularly says the opposite of what he says the week month years before, so he's not honest by any measure.
Trump certainly isn't a particularly honest person overall, but this is a really, REALLY bad example. The biggest under-acknowledged source of untruth in the world is self-deception. Most people are constantly engaged in a convoluted enterprise of unconscious and semi-conscious basis. I've even met at two people I've been close to who have (over the course of one of those intimate, highly philosophical talks that goes 'till 3am) admitted they do it consciously, and were surprised when I admitted that not only could I not consciously choose what I believed, but I couldn't fathom how anyone possibly could.
The list of reasons for self-deception is a long one and a large portion of them actually have to do with manipulating other people (lies being much easier to tell and maintain when you begin by lying to yourself). Lying for narrative building, for consistency is something that has strong benefits both psychologically and socially. Most people want to feel consistent and *look* consistent, instead of admitting or even understanding the extent to which humanity relies on ephemeral gut feelings.
The ease with which Trump contradicts himself often appears to be a form of honesty, albeit one that seems largely rooted in incompetence or sloth. We can see many of his brazenly cynical, manipulative lies because they're not sensibly covered up by the normal concealing lies, but we can also see the entirely natural and honest process by which the human mind believes different things from one day to the next. Most people try to suppress this tendency. Even disregarding the social consequences, most people would find it psychologically uncomfortable to be so free-wheeling.
Most people like the idea of (and the social image of) believing in something, and this artificial self-imposed consistency leads to deception. But as Trump illustrates, there are plenty of other kinds of deception in which our species is hopelessly mired.
You're making a dichotomy where none exists. "Social conventions" are obviously, through several different mechanisms, the number one generator of lies.
I didn't say it was illegal. I would go so far to say they certainly deserve to keep their winnings if they were merely exploiting the casinos existing practices, i.e. if they hadn't specifically requested the deck of cards be used in addition to the other changes. As it stands, it's a bit murky.
If one learns that blowing on the dice for luck changes the outcome (say the breath causes that side of the die to be stickier), then the player, without touching the dice asks the dealer to let someone, anyone, blow on them, and you note the side that's blown on, and change your bet accordingly, you've not changed the long-term odds of the game, but have increased your knowledge of the next outcome of the roll.
Uh, you're changing the "long-term odds" if you're playing the game long term. The idea is you bet more when the odds for the next roll are in your favor (however slight), and if you formalize this into a system of rules it's easy to see how the long term payout could swing from negative to positive even if the edge were a slight one.
To construct a betting system with maximize payout, one obviously wouldn't bet at all when the odds for the next hand were unfavorable, but (depending on the game) this often isn't done in order to conceal the existence of that extra edge.
Of food? The USA will cut off all aid and risk allowing Islamist goons to take over Egypt if they send food into Gaza? Uh huh.
If one cares about helping the people of Gaza, the logical route is to go through Egypt, who regardless of any American pressures that may exist do not have the real or imagined prejudices that the Israelis do. The tactic to use, if this were really about helping the Palestinians (as opposed to it being primarily about screwing with Israel for the nth time) would be to shame Egyptians into acting, to never stop talking about the Egyptian blockade of Gaza. Regardless of whether or not US pressure is involved, this tactic stands a far, far greater chance of actually working and helping all of those millions of stunted Palestinian children the OP alleged.
It's a test of intellectual honesty, one of many tests that the popular Palestinian rights movement fails at spectacularly. The Egyptians are not only equally complicit, they are (at least in theory) much easier to persuade than the Zionist Entity. The null hypothesis is that this is a cocktail of masochistic bullshit invented for political purposes, and you've failed to reject that null hypothesis.
The whole thing is yet another scam to dupe people out of money. First, titanium is far from rare. Titanium dioxide has been used as a pigment since the 1800s. It's the most used white pigment. It's also in sunscreen, food, cosmetics, rubber, paper, plastics, and... well, you get the point. It's everywhere, and has been well before the '70s.
Nice try, but we're not falling for your psyops. Everyone knows that titanium tioxide is a component of pico-thermite. Which... is why no one ever found the body.
you're all contributing to the unknown and undisclosed project favoured by the big spenders
Yes but it would be an open process with, preferably, a third party guarantor who will issue refunds if the initial goals are not adequately delivered on. The big contributors wouldn't be allowed to remove the goals that previous contributors had agreed to by giving their money, and if the big contributors try to take the project in an unwelcome direction post-release then it can be forked like OpenOffice.org was.
It's a bad idea to exclude corporate money altogether. The better solution is to try and harness it, tame it. OSS itself turned out to be one such method, and it was an excellent beginning, but it isn't enough. Plenty of regular users would love to vote with their wallets, but how?
Just imagine for a moment a crowdfunded effort to flesh out a systemd alternative. I could certainly see Ubuntu chipping in on this if they liked what they saw, since they weren't exactly thrilled to be bowing to greater Red Hat hegemony. And if Ubuntu wants to go in their own special snowflake direction with it, that's fine, they can do that. Doesn't mean the rest of the contributors have to follow them.
A reasonable response, but I've often wondered why we haven't seen more efforts to crowdfund OSS.
The free rider effect will obviously be an issue, but I suspect plenty of people (even organizations) would still be very willing to pay into a project that provided reasonable guarantees of a refund if the spec wasn't at least 80% met or something. The existence of a fundraising deadline (such as the one Kickstarter has) would help push back against the free rider effect as people realize it won't happen if no one chips in. Also, those who chip in large amounts (including organizations) could perhaps add to the spec, or at least add stretch goals. And because it's OSS, the entire project would be transparent and technically competent contributors could, if they were interested, help with the development in their free time.
Can someone get on this, like right away? Some of you out of work programmers maybe? Like, put together a serious proposal for a new desktop environment and distro oriented towards power users or something. Stated goals of maximum configurability, GUI tools to handle as much configurability as possible, tabs for any application handled by the DE/WM[1], maybe advertise use of OpenRC instead of systemd, etc.
I'm poor as shit, but I'd still try to scrape together $10 if I saw a crowdfunding effort even for a lowly file browser that sounded like it wouldn't be a complete piece of crap.
1. I'm apparently not the first one to think of this, although if the DE does it the location of the tabs could be easily changed to on the title bar itself (like Chrome on Windows), below the title bar, above the task bar, etc.
After all you are asserting that the difference between whites and Latinos is entirely caused by undocumented workers.
Stop lying and/or work on your reading comprehension skills.
The people who sneaked into this country are POOR and generally had children who grew up POOR as well because poverty begets poverty. And that has nothing to do with racism.
The fact that there are additional non-racism-related effects due to some of them being undocumented (thus having significant barriers to employment) is merely an extra aggravating factor.
I like how you argue it's irrelevant and then argue that it's relevant. It definitely shows the level of clarity involved in your analysis.
Well, let's see if you can follow me if I put training wheels on it:
I was conceding (only for the sake of argument, since I strongly doubted it) your claim that the "vast majority" of Latinos have been here for "many" generations. Well, we KNOW that >11 million undocumented people are in the country. Most of those people have been here for less than one generation, and their kids have mostly inherited their parents' socioeconomic status. So, I don't know what the exact number is for 1-2 generation people, but it's definitely 8 figures. Without knowing the total number of Latinos in the country, I am confident saying that would be enough to drag down the average, thus potentially explaining the results of the study without racism being involved.
If you're disputing that there are more than 10 million 1-2 generation Latinos in the country, you really, really need some evidence to back that up, since the 11 million figure has been trumpted by the right and left wings in this country. (The latter using it to illustrate, quite correctly, the impracticality and barbarity involved when people talk about shipping them all home.)
it's abundantly clear giving you any statistics is an utter waste of time.
I don't know why I wasted my time carefully re-explaining the above. You cannot be bothered to understand the simplest of statements. I am talking about statistics that prove that the socioeconomic disparity is primarily caused by discrimination against Latinos. I don't dispute that discrimination exists. I dispute that it's anywhere near as bad as it is with Blacks, and I dispute that it's the primary cause of the average Latino income being less than the national average.
You can't find me any reputable statistics proving such a thing. I'll Paypal you $100 if you can.
Nope. What percentage of Latinos in the US is that 11 million?
Fine, I'll look it up.
20%. Twenty. Goddamn. Percent. The total percentage of first and second generation immigrants is almost certainly higher, and I would suspect that socioeconomic effects are commonly felt in the third and possibly even fourth generations as well.
If your grandparents were poor (because they came from a poor country), guess what? You're more likely to be poorer than average.
20%. Just think about that. Think about how it might throw the average income off just a tiny, tiny bit if a fifth of the population recently immigrated here, illegally/desperately, for primarily economic reasons.
I'm not the one lying. Technically, you aren't either since it's just a mountain of ignorance you're throwing around.
And yet you can't remember actual US history, and instead substitute the history of other countries.
So are you, in fact, a proponent of American Exceptionalism? Specifically the magical-thinking variety?
That would be incorrect. Because the US never has had an official language, much less multiple
Try refusing to use English in a government job. We obviously have a de facto official language.
In places where a non-English language is common, the government has always had either documents in the local dominant language,
Not "always", and certainly not all official documents. The law, for example, is written in English. It might be translated to Spanish or Mandarin for convenience, but if the specific wording of the law matters the courts will pay attention only to the original English version.
But they aren't Latinos, so it's OK.
I don't have a problem with Latinos. My son sometimes plays with the Latina who lives behind us, although not often because she's several years older than him.
This isn't about race. It's about immigration and assimilation. So far, Latinos are assimilating fine as far as I have see (granted, I haven't lived in Miami or LA.) There's no reason to change that by promoting official use of or instruction in Spanish at schools or government institutions. I don't hate the Spanish language. I don't freak the fuck out when someone composes and sings a Spanish version of the Star-Spangled Banner; I think it's a lovely gesture. I don't mind hispanic food or customs. But I'm not ignorant of history. Separatism is a fact of life. It's been extremely common. The melting pot can't function properly without a lingua franca and this is obviously prone to deterioration as the percentage of Latinos in specific areas increases and more moves are made to use Spanish in official capacities.
Yeah, remember how the country totally disintegrated when all those Europeans settled in the 1800s and kept speaking their native language?
I remember Crimea and Eastern Ukraine separatism. I remember several movements for Quebec to secede from Canada. I remember movements for Basque and Catalunya to secede. I remember the breakup of countless European states. I remember countless former and extant exclaves, such as Llívia, which obviously would not exist if not for separatism largely based on hundreds of years of the populations speaking different languages.
I also remember that lawmakers in the USA did not attempt to allow there to be multiple official languages in government institutions and schools in the 1800s and before.
What happened back then is the kids spoke two languages, and the grandkids spoke English. The same thing happens in Latino communities that are primarily immigrants. In the non-immigrant communities, they just speak English.
That can happen depending on population densities and cultural attitudes of the immigrants, but it certainly isn't guaranteed to happen, particularly if efforts to officially recognize, support and pander to a second language succeed. You're acting like this is just business as usual. This isn't a constant fact of life; it's a function of the legal situation and the demographics, both of which have significantly changed over the past few decades.
Ok, now actually look at the data showing that despite having greater academic achievement, all Millennials are worse off.
Yes. This is a topic that enrages me far more than anything else here, so much that I did not even attempt to address it in post form. I might do a podcast or something on the university scam some day, but I'm not going to compose a twenty thousand word dissertation on it and post it here.
Regardless, this is orthogonal to the claims about discrimination being the (implicit primary/only) cause for Latinos' lower than average income.
The vast majority of Latinos have been in the US for many generations.
Not necessarily relevant even if true (and I'm not sure that's true for many > 3.) If the tens of millions that came over more recently were significantly poorer than the average American, this would obviously significantly drag down the average socioeconomic status, yes?
Fucking far-left assholes and their insistence on statistics instead of pulled-from-the-ass claims that justify one's attitude towards those dark people.
What statistics? I skimmed the pdf and saw some "researchers believe" type comments but nothing whatsoever would justify their claims about causation for Latinos' socioeconomic status. It read like a propaganda piece with some correlative statistics tossed in, statistics that in no way backed either their vague assertions or USA Today's assertion (which was obviously inspired by the study's commentary, although that line wasn't a direct quote.)
Yeah, providing accurate information is an utterly terrible idea.
Keep lying and calling it truth. Definitely no danger whatsoever with the truth becoming a mere synonym for opinion.
Are you asserting that the 11 million undocumented Latinos (nevermind all of the documented Latinos who have been here for only a few generations) had assets, education and income equal or exceeding that of the average American when they entered the country? If not, by what mechanism do you assert that the average Latino income would not therefore be lower than the average American income?
Yeah, providing accurate information is an utterly terrible idea.
Yeah, I'm not sure where some people get off with saying the Jews control world media / public opinion. Seems pretty clear to me that, despite a reasonably powerful Washington lobby, they don't have anything on the mind controlling Palestinian overlords.
Ah, I see we're at the second talking point already.
Why can't they get their food and other imports from Egypt, with whom they share a common border (as well as a common language, ethnicity and religion)? Where are the legions of delusional and astroturfing internet trolls protesting Egypt's blockade? Why is everything automagically the Jews' fault, every goddamn time?
Hamas, the democratically elected government of Gaza, has sworn to kill all Jews. Not just Israelis, Jews. It's thus entirely reasonable for Israeli to deny Nazi Germany's retarded little brother[1] access to all imports from their side (but of course, they don't even go nearly that far.)
1. My profound apologies to both actual retards and actual Nazis for the comparison.
This is Hamas we're talking about here. They're based in Gaza, not the West Bank. Israel has not "taken" any land in Gaza for a very long time. On the contrary, they withdrew entirely from Gaza in 2005, and it was this withdrawal that allowed the murderous Hamas party to be immediately voted into power.
Now please, let's move on to your next talking about the blockade or perhaps "the world's largest open-air prison" so that I can remind everyone of Gaza's other border.
Slashdot Mirror
Except it wasn't murder and Picard/the Federation didn't have jurisdiction. It even strongly advanced the cause of the Federation, since the house of Duras was in league with the Romulans.
We're veering a bit off track, though. My point is the version of liberalism that Star Trek tended to embody was not of a separatist, relativist, identity politic-oriented sort. You said in your previous reply that this was because they've already achieved perfect equality, but this obviously isn't true regarding alien races (particularly the Cardassians and Klingons.)
If Roddenberry wished his works embody the perpetual-victimhood and relativist narratives that have existed in one form or another at least since the mid-twentieth century, he could have done so. But he did not.
As for special allowances, Worf murders at least two Klingons I can remember while serving in Starfleet. Picard is his captain at the time of the first one (Duros) and basically lets it side.
He's pissed as hell and comes very close to asking Worf to resign, despite it being a completely legal killing under Klingon law and being done "off the clock", not in Worf's official capacities. The second one I'm assuming is from late-season DS9, which (at that point) wasn't a very progressive-oriented show at all beyond perhaps Bashir's pushback against Section 31.
If you want to see the cultural sensitivity with which Worf's gruff, stoic, pragmatic Klingon attitudes and ideas were generally met, you need look no farther than the hilarious Worf Denied compilation.
Having said that there was an investigation of Riker and the claims made against him
Of the murder only, as I recall, because there was some forensic evidence there.
But yes, it was far from perfect in execution.
Out of curiosity, what would you have preferred to have seen?
The counselor's office was a safe space.
By "safe spaces", I'm obviously referring to public spaces designed for group interactions that discriminate against people based on ideology or race (or both.) I don't think that there are many anti-SJWers out there arguing that all forms of private, voluntary counseling are bad.
And yet, the same person may well turn around and say "Facebook allows for 71 genders - hm. This seems a little odd to me".
Non-SJW liberals/leftists shouldn't be aggrieved by what people choose to self-identify as, so long as they don't demand special rights or considerations that others don't have access to. Egalitarian means egalitarian.
If you think that the voluntary self-identifications and hobbies of the Tumblrsphere are a problem with today's society, or if you believe that what is in between a person's legs should define them socially, that's a socially conservative stance to take (and one that I'm against.) But if, for example, you're against totalitarian language police (trying to *force* certain pronouns) or think that people should be able to openly express sexual and romantic preferences, that's mostly justifiable.
Startrek was a huge success, because it preached a message of a non-militaristic, peaceful, and progressive future... No, idiots in the board room-- it DOES NOT need more boobie time, more teen angst, bad drama, or more explosions. What it needs, is that original formula of "A better future than one ruled by horrible corporations, big money, and authoritarian government *IS* possible, and this is how it can happen".
You hear this sentiment very frequently these days, but it's only half true. Even if we limit ourselves for the moment to just TOS and TNG, and it's clear that not every episode had such hopeful social themes. I don't even think the majority of them did. What were the hopeful themes of "The Trouble with Tribbles" or "The Doomsday Machine" or "The Best of Both Worlds" or "All Good Things" or "Goddamnit, the Holodeck Is On the Fritz Again"? And sure, the Federation tried to be peaceful if possible but there were a hell of a lot of episodes (and movies) that involved military situations.
I agree that the upbeat and socially liberal tone is *a* defining characteristic of Star Trek, and one that was often sadly neglected in later efforts, but there was a hell of other ingredients in there including good old fashioned, episodic, golden age-inspired sci fi craziness.
Possibly nothing is more emblematic of this elusive mixture of classic action/adventure and poignant social commentary than Star Trek I and II. Roddenberry was forced out of the latter due to the former being a boring flop, and The Wrath of Khan went on to be what many people still consider to be the best Star Trek movie, even though the conflict with its villain is rather one-dimensional, with the only perhaps quasi-social commentary being Kirk coming to terms with his aging. What did Spock's poignant drama in that movie have to do with a utopian future? It was just drama. But that's ok. Star Trek always had regular character-driven dramas going on, too.
I'm no huge fan of the new movies, but it would be a catastrophe if the studios tried to pander to the hardcore fans by swinging too hard in the other direction. We need action and adventure and drama in the framework of this strangely optimistic crew and society. It's a sci fi drama, not a public service announcement.
In recent years, I actually think that Doctor Who has come closer to the moral optimism blended and adventurous spirit of TOS and TNG than anything else, though obviously it uses a freewheeling zaniness in lieu of Star Trek's semi-realism.
Star Trek has always been "SJW".
Ah, but I don't ever recall hearing the phrase "check your privilege", do you? I don't recall anyone screaming in O'Brien's face that he was a racist as he struggled to deal with the fact that he was uncomfortable around Cardassians due to his experiences in the war. I don't recall Picard making all kinds of special allowances for Worf's behavior as a proud Klingon living in a society where Klingons are extremely rare and Klingon stereotypes are constantly bandied about--on the contrary, he often insisted that Worf completely set aside all cultural biases in the name of duty. I don't recall calls for safe spaces or neo-segregation. In fact, this was pushed back against numerous times, particularly in DS9.
And perhaps most illustrative of all, I really don't recall the leading males being demonized even if they exhibited aggressive sexual advances. Of course TOS leaps to mind, but I also recall an episode of ST:TNG where it's strongly implied that a woman who accuses Riker of attempted rape not only made it up, but is actually so self-delusional that she herself believes that that's what happened. Women can not only lie about sexual assault, but they can be completely self-delusional about it... and no one even bothered charging the man with sexual assault because there was no other evidence of it other than the woman's word. Yeah. So. Name me one SJW feminist who is OK with that.
I don't know or much care about how the right sloppily uses labels like "SJW". For the rest of us, centrists and egalitarian leftists alike, it indicates first and foremost the anti-egalitarian, pro-identity politics, victimhood-obsessed sections of the left.
And that was never what Star Trek was about.
I often wonder how Hulu's numbers look these days[1]. It was freaking amazing back in 2008, with very short ads and a great library of old and new shows. Then they started pushing their subscription service heavily (which also had ads), their free catalog shrank dramatically, they disallowed free Hulu usage on traditional TV-connected devices, and they maintained their ~8 day delay on new episodes (so Hulu watchers would always be missing something important if they happened to watch a new episode on TV.)
They pretty much sent the keys to the streaming kingdom to Netflix in a velvet-lined box, back when the word "Netflix" to most people simply meant getting DVDs in the mail, apparently because old media were terrified of Hulu becoming too useful or popular of an alternative to cable TV.
I wonder what must go through those execs' heads these days... those people who chose to hobble Hulu, or even worse boycotted it entirely under the assumption that consumers would be willing to deal with a balkanized mismash of multiple content providers, and are now faced with the Netflix juggernaut. They're stuck in a Sibylline books situation, with their salvation becoming more and more costly each day. I wonder if they've reached the point where they will admit to themselves that there was a day when they could have easily put Netflix in its place, struck out a roadmap and revenue sharing model with Hulu and planned sensibly for the future.
Probably not; not yet, anyway. Heck, I doubt if most of them even realize the full extent of the danger. Even many people around here are still prone to saying stuff like "Netflix's library sucks now, so they're going to fade away", not realizing that not only is there no one in any position to offer a better library, but that Netflix has an entrenchment, both psychological and technical, that very few companies could even dream of.
1. Idly. I mean, I don't care enough to actually go Googling for it.
Once the people currently in charge of content production get too old, leave or lose their current edge in some other way the business will start to come undone a la HBO which certainly has seen much better days.
But what replaces it? That's the $64,000 question. That's been the flaw in all of these "Netflix is doomed because it sucks now / will soon start sucking" arguments. They've got the early brand name recognition (like "iPad" or "Skype" or "Google", it even flirts with genericism) and the legacy device compatibility. It's hard to overstate just how important these two things are. There are plenty of people out there are who watch Netflix on devices that can't be updated to include a competitor. Hell, my parents use a ~2009 bluray player with one of the shittiest and laggy-est Netflix UIs I've ever seen, but they have zero interest in replacing it.
They would have to screw up hard over an extended period of time, or multiple major studios (not just one) would have to band together and gear up for a protracted war in which they heavy market the "hey, do you remember what Netflix used to be like? Well come here and see our *huge* catalog of movies and TV shows that you've actually heard of or remember!" aspect.
And yet even that's an uphill battle... a war that would take five or ten years to win, even with a stronger competitor. Netflix has loyalty perhaps most of all because it panders to laziness, routine and familiarity. I think they have an almost unassailable entrenchment, although it's just barely conceivable that the breakdown of net neutrality (especially in today's political climate) could hurt them enough that a determined studio-backed competitor in collusion with the ISPs could muscle its way in.
In trump's case he regularly says the opposite of what he says the week month years before, so he's not honest by any measure.
Trump certainly isn't a particularly honest person overall, but this is a really, REALLY bad example. The biggest under-acknowledged source of untruth in the world is self-deception. Most people are constantly engaged in a convoluted enterprise of unconscious and semi-conscious basis. I've even met at two people I've been close to who have (over the course of one of those intimate, highly philosophical talks that goes 'till 3am) admitted they do it consciously, and were surprised when I admitted that not only could I not consciously choose what I believed, but I couldn't fathom how anyone possibly could.
The list of reasons for self-deception is a long one and a large portion of them actually have to do with manipulating other people (lies being much easier to tell and maintain when you begin by lying to yourself). Lying for narrative building, for consistency is something that has strong benefits both psychologically and socially. Most people want to feel consistent and *look* consistent, instead of admitting or even understanding the extent to which humanity relies on ephemeral gut feelings.
The ease with which Trump contradicts himself often appears to be a form of honesty, albeit one that seems largely rooted in incompetence or sloth. We can see many of his brazenly cynical, manipulative lies because they're not sensibly covered up by the normal concealing lies, but we can also see the entirely natural and honest process by which the human mind believes different things from one day to the next. Most people try to suppress this tendency. Even disregarding the social consequences, most people would find it psychologically uncomfortable to be so free-wheeling.
Most people like the idea of (and the social image of) believing in something, and this artificial self-imposed consistency leads to deception. But as Trump illustrates, there are plenty of other kinds of deception in which our species is hopelessly mired.
You're making a dichotomy where none exists. "Social conventions" are obviously, through several different mechanisms, the number one generator of lies.
I didn't say it was illegal. I would go so far to say they certainly deserve to keep their winnings if they were merely exploiting the casinos existing practices, i.e. if they hadn't specifically requested the deck of cards be used in addition to the other changes. As it stands, it's a bit murky.
Or perhaps I should have said, you're changing the expected value, which is what counts (not the raw odds.)
If one learns that blowing on the dice for luck changes the outcome (say the breath causes that side of the die to be stickier), then the player, without touching the dice asks the dealer to let someone, anyone, blow on them, and you note the side that's blown on, and change your bet accordingly, you've not changed the long-term odds of the game, but have increased your knowledge of the next outcome of the roll.
Uh, you're changing the "long-term odds" if you're playing the game long term. The idea is you bet more when the odds for the next roll are in your favor (however slight), and if you formalize this into a system of rules it's easy to see how the long term payout could swing from negative to positive even if the edge were a slight one.
To construct a betting system with maximize payout, one obviously wouldn't bet at all when the odds for the next hand were unfavorable, but (depending on the game) this often isn't done in order to conceal the existence of that extra edge.
Of food? The USA will cut off all aid and risk allowing Islamist goons to take over Egypt if they send food into Gaza? Uh huh.
If one cares about helping the people of Gaza, the logical route is to go through Egypt, who regardless of any American pressures that may exist do not have the real or imagined prejudices that the Israelis do. The tactic to use, if this were really about helping the Palestinians (as opposed to it being primarily about screwing with Israel for the nth time) would be to shame Egyptians into acting, to never stop talking about the Egyptian blockade of Gaza. Regardless of whether or not US pressure is involved, this tactic stands a far, far greater chance of actually working and helping all of those millions of stunted Palestinian children the OP alleged.
It's a test of intellectual honesty, one of many tests that the popular Palestinian rights movement fails at spectacularly. The Egyptians are not only equally complicit, they are (at least in theory) much easier to persuade than the Zionist Entity. The null hypothesis is that this is a cocktail of masochistic bullshit invented for political purposes, and you've failed to reject that null hypothesis.
The whole thing is yet another scam to dupe people out of money. First, titanium is far from rare. Titanium dioxide has been used as a pigment since the 1800s. It's the most used white pigment. It's also in sunscreen, food, cosmetics, rubber, paper, plastics, and ... well, you get the point. It's everywhere, and has been well before the '70s.
Nice try, but we're not falling for your psyops. Everyone knows that titanium tioxide is a component of pico-thermite. Which... is why no one ever found the body.
you're all contributing to the unknown and undisclosed project favoured by the big spenders
Yes but it would be an open process with, preferably, a third party guarantor who will issue refunds if the initial goals are not adequately delivered on. The big contributors wouldn't be allowed to remove the goals that previous contributors had agreed to by giving their money, and if the big contributors try to take the project in an unwelcome direction post-release then it can be forked like OpenOffice.org was.
It's a bad idea to exclude corporate money altogether. The better solution is to try and harness it, tame it. OSS itself turned out to be one such method, and it was an excellent beginning, but it isn't enough. Plenty of regular users would love to vote with their wallets, but how?
Just imagine for a moment a crowdfunded effort to flesh out a systemd alternative. I could certainly see Ubuntu chipping in on this if they liked what they saw, since they weren't exactly thrilled to be bowing to greater Red Hat hegemony. And if Ubuntu wants to go in their own special snowflake direction with it, that's fine, they can do that. Doesn't mean the rest of the contributors have to follow them.
A reasonable response, but I've often wondered why we haven't seen more efforts to crowdfund OSS.
The free rider effect will obviously be an issue, but I suspect plenty of people (even organizations) would still be very willing to pay into a project that provided reasonable guarantees of a refund if the spec wasn't at least 80% met or something. The existence of a fundraising deadline (such as the one Kickstarter has) would help push back against the free rider effect as people realize it won't happen if no one chips in. Also, those who chip in large amounts (including organizations) could perhaps add to the spec, or at least add stretch goals. And because it's OSS, the entire project would be transparent and technically competent contributors could, if they were interested, help with the development in their free time.
Can someone get on this, like right away? Some of you out of work programmers maybe? Like, put together a serious proposal for a new desktop environment and distro oriented towards power users or something. Stated goals of maximum configurability, GUI tools to handle as much configurability as possible, tabs for any application handled by the DE/WM[1], maybe advertise use of OpenRC instead of systemd, etc.
I'm poor as shit, but I'd still try to scrape together $10 if I saw a crowdfunding effort even for a lowly file browser that sounded like it wouldn't be a complete piece of crap.
1. I'm apparently not the first one to think of this, although if the DE does it the location of the tabs could be easily changed to on the title bar itself (like Chrome on Windows), below the title bar, above the task bar, etc.
After all you are asserting that the difference between whites and Latinos is entirely caused by undocumented workers.
Stop lying and/or work on your reading comprehension skills.
The people who sneaked into this country are POOR and generally had children who grew up POOR as well because poverty begets poverty. And that has nothing to do with racism.
The fact that there are additional non-racism-related effects due to some of them being undocumented (thus having significant barriers to employment) is merely an extra aggravating factor.
I like how you argue it's irrelevant and then argue that it's relevant. It definitely shows the level of clarity involved in your analysis.
Well, let's see if you can follow me if I put training wheels on it:
I was conceding (only for the sake of argument, since I strongly doubted it) your claim that the "vast majority" of Latinos have been here for "many" generations. Well, we KNOW that >11 million undocumented people are in the country. Most of those people have been here for less than one generation, and their kids have mostly inherited their parents' socioeconomic status. So, I don't know what the exact number is for 1-2 generation people, but it's definitely 8 figures. Without knowing the total number of Latinos in the country, I am confident saying that would be enough to drag down the average, thus potentially explaining the results of the study without racism being involved.
If you're disputing that there are more than 10 million 1-2 generation Latinos in the country, you really, really need some evidence to back that up, since the 11 million figure has been trumpted by the right and left wings in this country. (The latter using it to illustrate, quite correctly, the impracticality and barbarity involved when people talk about shipping them all home.)
it's abundantly clear giving you any statistics is an utter waste of time.
I don't know why I wasted my time carefully re-explaining the above. You cannot be bothered to understand the simplest of statements. I am talking about statistics that prove that the socioeconomic disparity is primarily caused by discrimination against Latinos. I don't dispute that discrimination exists. I dispute that it's anywhere near as bad as it is with Blacks, and I dispute that it's the primary cause of the average Latino income being less than the national average.
You can't find me any reputable statistics proving such a thing. I'll Paypal you $100 if you can.
Nope. What percentage of Latinos in the US is that 11 million?
Fine, I'll look it up.
20%. Twenty. Goddamn. Percent. The total percentage of first and second generation immigrants is almost certainly higher, and I would suspect that socioeconomic effects are commonly felt in the third and possibly even fourth generations as well.
If your grandparents were poor (because they came from a poor country), guess what? You're more likely to be poorer than average.
20%. Just think about that. Think about how it might throw the average income off just a tiny, tiny bit if a fifth of the population recently immigrated here, illegally/desperately, for primarily economic reasons.
I'm not the one lying. Technically, you aren't either since it's just a mountain of ignorance you're throwing around.
Look in a motherfucking mirror.
And yet you can't remember actual US history, and instead substitute the history of other countries.
So are you, in fact, a proponent of American Exceptionalism? Specifically the magical-thinking variety?
That would be incorrect. Because the US never has had an official language, much less multiple
Try refusing to use English in a government job. We obviously have a de facto official language.
In places where a non-English language is common, the government has always had either documents in the local dominant language,
Not "always", and certainly not all official documents. The law, for example, is written in English. It might be translated to Spanish or Mandarin for convenience, but if the specific wording of the law matters the courts will pay attention only to the original English version.
But they aren't Latinos, so it's OK.
I don't have a problem with Latinos. My son sometimes plays with the Latina who lives behind us, although not often because she's several years older than him.
This isn't about race. It's about immigration and assimilation. So far, Latinos are assimilating fine as far as I have see (granted, I haven't lived in Miami or LA.) There's no reason to change that by promoting official use of or instruction in Spanish at schools or government institutions. I don't hate the Spanish language. I don't freak the fuck out when someone composes and sings a Spanish version of the Star-Spangled Banner; I think it's a lovely gesture. I don't mind hispanic food or customs. But I'm not ignorant of history. Separatism is a fact of life. It's been extremely common. The melting pot can't function properly without a lingua franca and this is obviously prone to deterioration as the percentage of Latinos in specific areas increases and more moves are made to use Spanish in official capacities.
Also, snarky observations on the Louisiana purchase will be ignored.
Yeah, remember how the country totally disintegrated when all those Europeans settled in the 1800s and kept speaking their native language?
I remember Crimea and Eastern Ukraine separatism. I remember several movements for Quebec to secede from Canada. I remember movements for Basque and Catalunya to secede. I remember the breakup of countless European states. I remember countless former and extant exclaves, such as Llívia, which obviously would not exist if not for separatism largely based on hundreds of years of the populations speaking different languages.
I also remember that lawmakers in the USA did not attempt to allow there to be multiple official languages in government institutions and schools in the 1800s and before.
What happened back then is the kids spoke two languages, and the grandkids spoke English. The same thing happens in Latino communities that are primarily immigrants. In the non-immigrant communities, they just speak English.
That can happen depending on population densities and cultural attitudes of the immigrants, but it certainly isn't guaranteed to happen, particularly if efforts to officially recognize, support and pander to a second language succeed. You're acting like this is just business as usual. This isn't a constant fact of life; it's a function of the legal situation and the demographics, both of which have significantly changed over the past few decades.
Ok, now actually look at the data showing that despite having greater academic achievement, all Millennials are worse off.
Yes. This is a topic that enrages me far more than anything else here, so much that I did not even attempt to address it in post form. I might do a podcast or something on the university scam some day, but I'm not going to compose a twenty thousand word dissertation on it and post it here.
Regardless, this is orthogonal to the claims about discrimination being the (implicit primary/only) cause for Latinos' lower than average income.
The vast majority of Latinos have been in the US for many generations.
Not necessarily relevant even if true (and I'm not sure that's true for many > 3.) If the tens of millions that came over more recently were significantly poorer than the average American, this would obviously significantly drag down the average socioeconomic status, yes?
Fucking far-left assholes and their insistence on statistics instead of pulled-from-the-ass claims that justify one's attitude towards those dark people.
What statistics? I skimmed the pdf and saw some "researchers believe" type comments but nothing whatsoever would justify their claims about causation for Latinos' socioeconomic status. It read like a propaganda piece with some correlative statistics tossed in, statistics that in no way backed either their vague assertions or USA Today's assertion (which was obviously inspired by the study's commentary, although that line wasn't a direct quote.)
Yeah, providing accurate information is an utterly terrible idea.
Keep lying and calling it truth. Definitely no danger whatsoever with the truth becoming a mere synonym for opinion.
Are you asserting that the 11 million undocumented Latinos (nevermind all of the documented Latinos who have been here for only a few generations) had assets, education and income equal or exceeding that of the average American when they entered the country? If not, by what mechanism do you assert that the average Latino income would not therefore be lower than the average American income?
Yeah, providing accurate information is an utterly terrible idea.
I wish you were being sarcastic.
Yeah, I'm not sure where some people get off with saying the Jews control world media / public opinion. Seems pretty clear to me that, despite a reasonably powerful Washington lobby, they don't have anything on the mind controlling Palestinian overlords.
Ah, I see we're at the second talking point already.
Why can't they get their food and other imports from Egypt, with whom they share a common border (as well as a common language, ethnicity and religion)? Where are the legions of delusional and astroturfing internet trolls protesting Egypt's blockade? Why is everything automagically the Jews' fault, every goddamn time?
Hamas, the democratically elected government of Gaza, has sworn to kill all Jews. Not just Israelis, Jews. It's thus entirely reasonable for Israeli to deny Nazi Germany's retarded little brother[1] access to all imports from their side (but of course, they don't even go nearly that far.)
1. My profound apologies to both actual retards and actual Nazis for the comparison.
This is Hamas we're talking about here. They're based in Gaza, not the West Bank. Israel has not "taken" any land in Gaza for a very long time. On the contrary, they withdrew entirely from Gaza in 2005, and it was this withdrawal that allowed the murderous Hamas party to be immediately voted into power.
Now please, let's move on to your next talking about the blockade or perhaps "the world's largest open-air prison" so that I can remind everyone of Gaza's other border.