Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

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>Its an interesting paradox, why yould piew piew make compelling television?

It isn't a paradox. Star Trek is entertainment, first and foremost, and conflict is entertaining. Gene Roddenberry may have wanted to portray a post-human utopia of luxury space communism, as it were, where humans all evolved beyond their base desires and vices and everyone was a paragon of superior intellect and virtue, but no one wants to watch that all the time. His ideal of the perfect Federation human was Wesley Crusher, the most hated character in Star Trek history (long before the identity politics around hating the new Star Trek series came about.) People want dogfights in space and snarling Klingons and scheming Romulans. Drama and violence. Sturm und Drang.

>Is there anything else that isnt dystopia?

There is no utopia or dystopia. Star Trek was never very utopian, except maybe on paper. Idealistic and hopeful, sure, but the struggle for liberation from an oppressive order is by definition idealistic and hopeful. Star Trek doesn't become dystopian when it bothers to examine its own ideals, or acknowledge the flaws in human nature, nor is it utopian when it pretends they don't exist. I think that looking at science fiction in terms of utopia and dystopia is missing the forest for the trees. These are two opposing and impossible ideals, while most stories (excepting purposely grimdark stuff like 40K) take place in the middle.

And that's fine. Humans can't aspire to perfection, but we can be inspired by the struggle to be better than we are.

Of course it has to be entertaining, we wouldnt watch it if it wasn't.

> Gene Roddenberry may have wanted to portray a post-human utopia of luxury space communism

He went a bit further than wanting. If the goal was communist propaganda he couldn't have done a better job.

From a reddit post:

> There are a lot of mentions throughout multiple series about how the Federation civilization is post scarcity and doesn't internally use currency. It is stated that they work for personal fulfillment, almost as volunteers in a fashion.

> The series also has a number of time travel related episodes that venture back to near the end of the capitalism system and describes in detail an America that's suffering from massive income inequality and collapsing. Generally that period isn't painted in a favourable light by any of the characters often being referred to as a period of unchecked greed and ignorance

And then there were the ferengi? Lmao

Gene Roddenberry's proclivities aside, Star Trek is still a capitalist enterprise (pun intended, come at me petaQs) written and produced by capitalists to entertain a capitalist society. To that end, I would see most of the series' criticisms are from the perspective of liberal progressive, even neoliberal, but not necessarily communist (in the sense of anti-capitalist), ideology. More often than not, Trek's "communism" is undermined and turned into window dressing, because of course it has to play to the God fearing Commie hating mainstream.

Earth didn't reach post scarcity by seizing the means of production through class warfare, but scientific and technological advancement and culture shock from first contact with the Vulcans. The Bell Riots you're talking about in the time travel episodes are probably the strongest explicitly socialist part of recent canon, but within that canon they still didn't result in an anti-capitalist revolution since the themes the writers wanted to touch on were homelessness and sociopolitics from the 1960s and 1970s (Attica, Kent State, etc.) The Federation doesn't require its member worlds to be communist nor does it foment revolution in potential member worlds. As portrayed, most Federation worlds appear capitalist in some form.

People have jobs with clear non-collectivist hierarchies (see Sisko's restaurant.) We're just supposed to accept that this is entirely voluntarist, but the whole issue of how labor in this post-scarcity society actually works is swept under the rug because no one writing the show actually cares. The pacifist Federation flagship whose only purpose is exploration and diplomacy carries enough firepower to glass a planet, and it uses that firepower often. "God" is an alien and a jackass but also somehow working in humanity's benefit, and as often as Trek espouses atheism, it does a wink and a nod to theism. Even the relatively low bar of gender and sexual equality was often undermined by producer Rick Berman's homophobia.

The Ferengi (ignoring the first few appearances) are explicit parodies of American capitalism, but they are also portrayed sympathetically and heroically, and often used to criticize the Federation's own ideals and human nature (see Quark and Garak's famous "root beer" scene in DS9[0].) This is obviously a criticism of American cultural propaganda but is also slyly pro-American imperialism, since of course the (deeply America-coded) Federation will sweep in, guns blazing, kill the (asexual and trans-coded) evildoers and save everyone.

So I have to disagree. If the goal was communist propaganda, they could have done a lot better.

[0]https://youtu.be/3bskhLaJYd8

I think it makes a fair amount of sense - the Ferengi have elevated capitalism to a functional religion, and although the only thing that's scarce is latinum (which is useless and unexceptional except for the fact that it can't be replicated) their religion still works when that's the only target of acquisition.

Kind of a neat example of a religion outgrowing the pressures that created it but still being a source of meaning to the believers.

While I find communists the most annoying ideologues I've ever met, I'm fine with communist propaganda if it assumes postscarcity as a necessary precursor for communism. It's people's tendency to handwave the getting to postscarcity that makes my eyelid twitch.

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