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Dracula's Biggest Mistake

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Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#111

Post by vladms »

Ekaros wrote: post #101
aquova wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a fourth, which in my opinion is even more world shattering than the others -- the replicator. It often was shown as a novelty device to make food or warm beverages, but the ability to convert energy into any needed material would instantly transform the world into a post-scarcity, post-economic future. What would you even use as currency when everyone has personal money making machines? I've seen som…

What fails me with TNG is that why would anyone do any of the jobs that require hard boring labour anymore? Like mining dilithium, or other stuff that isn't easy to replicate. Are they all some starfleet officers toiling for decades on off-chance that one day they might get job on a vessel? The ages of people on show don't present that... The whole post-scarity kinda really breaks down when you start to look at edges…

I see scarcity more related to primary resources (ex: energy, raw materials, machines) and for normal life purposes. They obviously have some way to decide who does what (not everybody is captain), but the impact of not being captain on what you eat, what you dress, what furniture you have is much less than today.

Now, if you want an Enterprise like personal spaceship, you probably are much better of being part of the Q continuum than the human race, scarcity wise.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#112

Post by thinkingemote »

jimbokun wrote: post #76
RheingoldRiver wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really interesting to me how precisely you can date modern tv shows. - Do computers exist? Does everyone have a computer? Is the idea of searching the web a novel thing? - Do they have cell phones? Are they smartphones? - And now the new one, are they mentioning LLMs in some way? Like one thing that really dates The Expanse imo is the complete lack of AI technology in the books/movies. It was probably an artisti…

There is an episode of Columbia where he asks a receptionist for information about an employee. Instead of making a phone call to get the information, she kicks off a computer query on one of those teletype systems. The gag is it takes seemingly forever for it to print all the data about the employee to paper, while Columbia fidgets and waits awkwardly to finish, repeatedly asking if there’s a faster way to get the i…

Columbo (the tv detective show) in "An Exercise in Fatality" the scene lasted 7 minutes and it hilarious!

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#113

Post by SenHeng »

hef19898 wrote: post #108
SenHeng wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replicator technology often comes up in episodes involving trading with a less advanced civilisation, and often mentions how the Federation/Star Fleet is not willing to share that technology because it’s too game breaking. And that unlimited energy has led them to a post scarcity, post money utopia, though that scenario seems to have been withdrawn a little in Picard.

The one thing, despite all other things I critique regarding Star Trek I still like it, that drives me crazy is how the Federation treats first contacts, from their prime directive to diplomacy in general. The whole concept is so fucked up. And every other power should be so quick in capitalizing on this: Those people won't share their miracle tech with you, we will. For a price. Kind of like what China is doing in A…

Totally agree. For a warrior race, the Klingons sure don’t seem to do that much conquering when it would make so much in-world sense for them to be Romans-in-space.

They really seemed to make every race encountered to be a relatively peaceful semi-utopian culture.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#114

Post by hef19898 »

SenHeng wrote: post #113
hef19898 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing, despite all other things I critique regarding Star Trek I still like it, that drives me crazy is how the Federation treats first contacts, from their prime directive to diplomacy in general. The whole concept is so fucked up. And every other power should be so quick in capitalizing on this: Those people won't share their miracle tech with you, we will. For a price. Kind of like what China is doing in A…

Totally agree. For a warrior race, the Klingons sure don’t seem to do that much conquering when it would make so much in-world sense for them to be Romans-in-space. They really seemed to make every race encountered to be a relatively peaceful semi-utopian culture.

If you extrapolate Klingon martial culture and capabilities from their traditional weapon, the Bath'let, this in-universe behaviour makes perfect sense!

Edit: For some reason, every non-FTL civization Star Trek just seems to be ignored by everyone. Heck, even the Dominion ignored them in their empire building...

That's authors so: In the Star Wars Legends EU there are the Ssi'ruuk. A species from the edge of the universe harvesting other lifeforms, litterally, for power generation. Throughout the books about them, the fact they could go on a spree of exterminating each and every primitive species they encounter is never mentioned or even hinted at. Nor is the fact, that with a bare 6 systems under their control, and inferior ships and tech, they should be one punitive expedition away from extinction themselves.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#115

Post by 082349872349872 »

gwern wrote: post #37

OP is echoing, with a Catholic-centric viewpoint, a point that's been made in much greater depth by others: I suggest https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2014-robbins.pdf and then more briefly, https://www.thefitzwilliam.com/p/turning-back-the-economic-c... https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/02/br... I read _Dracula_ afterwards, and I think this perspective is 100% correct, and perhaps the single larg…

From an MR comment:

> Bram Stoker died in April 1912: wonder what he might have made of the spectacle of Progress known as World War One, the applications of all that beloved industry, the rational pursuit of rational ends with well-engineered (hence, rational) means, the wholesale destruction of quaint rural culture and peoples, the royal connections by blood among the crowned heads of so many of the contending parties, to say little or nothing of the Easter Rebellion of 1916.

This reminds me of Heinrich Böll's At the Bridge (An der Brücke), published 1949. Its protagonist makes his own attempt to efface the legibility to technological modernity of his beloved, but as Böll had briefly worked as a statistician before turning to writing, the author was surely aware of the futility, or at least the limits, of his character's effort!

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#116

Post by omnibrain »

jfengel wrote: post #28
kevinmhickey wrote: post #5

On a related note, when I re-watch shows from the 1990's or even early 2000's it's amazing how many problems would be solved with a simple cell phone call or text message. Buffy the Vampire Slayer would be a much shorter show if the gang could just text instead of wondering where the others were or if they knew some key fact.

Star Trek was well aware of that problem. They often encountered "ion storms", or landing parties got conked on the head and their communicators taken, or other ways of disabling communications. That also disabled the transporter, which is a convenient way to get into stories, but also makes it easy to get out of stories. Somebody somewhere must have done a PhD thesis on the way that cell phones have changed storytel…

> Somebody somewhere must have done a PhD thesis on the way that cell phones have changed storytelling in TV and movies. I'd actually kinda like to read that.

Prime example would be the X-Files. IIRC in the first season they had no cell phones yet.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#117

Post by actionfromafar »

SenHeng wrote: post #113
hef19898 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing, despite all other things I critique regarding Star Trek I still like it, that drives me crazy is how the Federation treats first contacts, from their prime directive to diplomacy in general. The whole concept is so fucked up. And every other power should be so quick in capitalizing on this: Those people won't share their miracle tech with you, we will. For a price. Kind of like what China is doing in A…

Totally agree. For a warrior race, the Klingons sure don’t seem to do that much conquering when it would make so much in-world sense for them to be Romans-in-space. They really seemed to make every race encountered to be a relatively peaceful semi-utopian culture.

The Klingons are extremely big on honor, though. I think that taken at face value, can be just as self-limiting as a prime directory. Subjugating an inferior planet just for resources doesn't seem honorable at all and in my mind I can play a scene of klingons ridiculing someone suggesting it.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#118

Post by thaumasiotes »

aspenmayer wrote: post #92
thaumasiotes wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, if it wasn’t obvious I apologize. Many main characters have plot armor in a way that makes for lazy writing, bad characterization, lowers stakes in the plot in favor of protagonists, and breaks immersion, which is what I was alluding to in response to this part of your comment, and the thread broadly: >> But compare e.g. her meeting with Glory in season 5, where the two of them get into a fistfight, and after…

The supernatural powers are the plot armor which prevent OP characters from suffering the consequences.

[flagged]

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#119

Post by ralfd »

hef19898 wrote: post #108
SenHeng wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replicator technology often comes up in episodes involving trading with a less advanced civilisation, and often mentions how the Federation/Star Fleet is not willing to share that technology because it’s too game breaking. And that unlimited energy has led them to a post scarcity, post money utopia, though that scenario seems to have been withdrawn a little in Picard.

The one thing, despite all other things I critique regarding Star Trek I still like it, that drives me crazy is how the Federation treats first contacts, from their prime directive to diplomacy in general. The whole concept is so fucked up. And every other power should be so quick in capitalizing on this: Those people won't share their miracle tech with you, we will. For a price. Kind of like what China is doing in A…

In the original series there is an episode where Klingons provide flintlock guns to a tribe on a stone age planet. Kirk wants to provide the other tribes with guns too and argues with McCoy about keeping the balance of power:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1J0K1OxdSI

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#120

Post by maximus-decimus »

atombender wrote: post #39
echtroipolemos wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Bram Stoker novel, Dracula is eventually killed, but at what cost? Harker must eventually drive a stake through his beloved Lucy. Dracula is a virus, not a man.

Are you mixing things up? Harker's fiancée is Mina, not Lucy. And the novel is quite clear that since Dracula is dead, she's no longer going to become a vampire.

Imagine if viruses actually worked like that and you just had to kill patient 0 to cure everybody of covid. There would be so much witch hunting.
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