Category Archives: Popular Culture

Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Space, Technology and Society

Star Trek

43 Comments

…is far from libertarian:

The Federation isn’t just socialist in the hyperbolic sense in which some conservatives like to denounce anyone to the left of them as socialist. It’s socialist in the literal sense that the government has near-total control over the economy and the means of production. Especially by the period portrayed in The Next Generation, the government seems to control all major economic enterprises, and there do not seem to be any significant private businesses controlled by humans in Federation territory. Star Fleet characters, such as Captain Picard, boast that the Federation has no currency and that humans are no longer motivated by material gain and do not engage in capitalist economic transactions.

The supposed evils of free markets are exemplified by the Ferengi, an alien race who exemplify all the stereotypes socialists typically associate with “evil capitalists.” The Ferengi are unrelentingly greedy and exploitative. Their love of profit seems to be exceeded only by their sexism—they do not let females work outside the household, even when it would increase their profits to do so.

The problem here is not just that Star Trek embraces socialism: it’s that it does so without giving any serious consideration to the issue. For example, real-world socialist states have almost always resulted in poverty and massive political oppression, piling up body counts in the tens of millions.

But Star Trek gives no hint that this might be a danger, or any explanation of how the Federation avoided it. Unlike on many other issues, where the producers of the series recognize that there are multiple legitimate perspectives on a political issue, they seem almost totally oblivious to the downsides of socialism.

You don’t say. That episode TNG did on cryonics was extremely off putting to me.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

#NeverTrump

56 Comments

What it means, and what it doesn’t.

Yes, that’s all it means. I am not going to support Donald Trump. The notion that non-support of Trump is support of Hillary is nonsense.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Will Trump win in a blowout? It could happen. I’ve never said he can’t win the election, just that he’ll be a terrible president. Hillary will be worse.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Hillary’s people “freaked out” by the polls. They’ve been and continue to be in denial about what a truly awful candidate she is. They don’t care about lies and corruption, but Americans do.

[Update a while later]

“‘Crooked’ means crippled for Hillary Clinton“:

Democrats…have been operating on the assumption that most Americans shared Clinton’s belief that talk of her misconduct was just more slander from the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Her inability to get ahead of Trump by a comfortable margin even though he spent the weeks after clinching his nomination going off on racist tangents is remarkable. The problem for her isn’t so much that he has risen—he is still stuck at the same low number that he’s had in national polls for months—as it is that she has declined or failed to gain ground.

Looking ahead, it’s hard to predict how a race between two deeply unpopular candidates will turn out. Trump’s undisciplined character and his alienation of elements of the Republican coalition and inability to appeal to non-white and young voters may ultimately cancel out Clinton’s weaknesses. But the one thing we know for sure is that the Democrats will nominate a crippled candidate. No amount of spending or spin can sell Hillary Clinton to the American people as either honest or competent.

Yup.

[Update a while later]

“Hillary managed her emails like [other] criminals I’ve known.”

Meanwhile, here’s a deep dive into her email mess from Ars Technica. One thing not mentioned; how did the classified info get from the SCIF to her server?

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Technology and Society

A Modest Proposal

32 Comments

I’ve long said that air conditioning was the beginning of the downfall of the Republic, because it made DC habitable, and attractive to all manner of power-hungry grifters.

Well, Glenn Reynolds agrees, and has some suggestions to allow our betters in the federal government to set a good example for the rest of the benighted:

…it’s hard to expect Americans to accept changes to their own lifestyles when the very people who are telling them that it’s a crisis aren’t acting like it’s a crisis. So I have a few suggestions to help bring home the importance of reduced carbon footprints at home and abroad:

  1. Extend Smith’s bill to cover the entire federal government. We have Skype now, and Facetime. There’s no reason to fly to meetings. I’d let the President keep Air Force One for official travel, but subject to a requirement that absolutely no campaign activity or fundraisers take place on any trips in which the president travels officially.
  2. Obama makes a great point about setting the thermostat at 72 degrees. We should ban air conditioning in federal buildings. We won two world wars without air conditioning our federal employees. Nothing in their performance over the last 50 or 60 years suggests that A/C has improved things. Besides, The Washington Post informs us that A/C is sexist, and that Europeans think it’s stupid.
  3. In fact, we should probably ban air conditioning in the entire District of Columbia, to ensure that members of Congress, etc. won’t congregate in lobbyists’ air-conditioned offices.
  4. Speaking of which, members of Congress shouldn’t be allowed to fly home on the weekends. Not only does this produce halfhearted attention to their jobs — the so-called “Tuesday to Thursday Club” — but, again, it produces too much of a carbon footprint. Even if they pay for the travel out of campaign funds, instead of their own budgets, they need to set an example for the rest of us — and for those skeptical foreigners that Obama mentioned.

Exactly.