Topic: The Retarded shit Glenn Beck excrets out topic!
Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
What's a Glenn Beck?
And Fox has something other than The Simpsons now?
I should watch more TV, or not.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: There's at least basoc commerce- Kirk describes having sold his cabin in Generations. Definitely not socialism.
I like to think it'd actually be something more akin to freecycle, where ownership of property can be offered up to any who wants it. In a society that's apparantly eliminated greed, want and overpopulation this may not be as ludicrous as it would be in a capitalist economy.
So (in my mind at least) when Kirk says he "sold" his house or when Scotty says he "bought" a boat they're actually talking about a voluntary transfer of ownership. After all, it's not uncommon for archaic terminology to stick around in common usage despite their original meaning no longer being applicable.
Getting back to the Federation government, yeah I think there's a mention in DS9 that a discriminatory caste based system disqualifies a government from membership (the episode with that ancient Bajoran poet who thought he was the emissary IIRC.)
Mind you, while that sounds nice and reasonable, it's not the most well thought out policy. What about super-organism type races like the Formics from Ender's Game or the Gaim from Babylon 5? Both are sentient and sapient races that has no concept of the individual? Where they would view the death of their own the same way we might consider trimming off unwanted hair or toenails. It's not because they're callous or vicious, it's just a fact of their biology and evolution.
Look at it from the other side, imagine how a race that reproduces exclusively via parthenogenesis might view sexual reproduction. They'd probably find it abhorrent that a another being would implant a genetically hybridised offspring in another and be forced to carry it like a parasite. A race's biology would naturally shape and influence any form of government they might adopt. We come from communal apes so we're psychologically included towards consensus balanced by the strong leadership of an alpha. A race where males are rare, naturally nomadic and only the females build communities and raise young for example might create a perfectly harmonious society where the genders are not and cannot be considered equal. But by the human centric standards of the Federation, they'd be denied membership.
I often thought that Trek too often stuck with the idea that aliens would either be humans with funny looking faces, unrelated monsters or green wibbly lights. Concepts like self determination, democracy and free will are very particular to only certain types of life-forms.
posted
Well, consider the Bynars- they wre probabaly not the popular Federation members once the Borg started attacking- and from their POV, the Borg may represent an Omega Point in evolution- or it may scare the crap out of them, as they'd be particularly vulnerable to assmilation.
They may view their own super-organism consiousness as unique in the same way everyone else views their indivuality as unique.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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