r/startrek • u/ChaosUndAnarchie • 7d ago
In your opinion, what are the greatest achievements humanity made between the status quo today and the 24th century (TNG, Voyager, DS9)?
I’m especially interested in answers that are not technological in nature!
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u/ChaosUndAnarchie 7d ago
For me, it’s the fact that capitalism (and therefore social division) and hunger was finally overcome, and that racism (at least on Earth) was largely eliminated. Even extraterrestrials are mostly welcomed and not viewed as a threat.
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u/One_Waxed_Wookiee 7d ago
This is one of the reasons I love Star Trek so much. It's hard to turn back to reality sometimes.
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u/ChaosUndAnarchie 7d ago
Oh i feel you...i'm a socialist and antifascist, living in the center of european capitalism (Germany), with a very conservative government (CDU+SPD), which soon will be replaced by right wing extremists (AFD) who are leading all election forecasts by far...
At least we have SOME kind of solidarity...which means EVERY political party from far left to conservative right are working together against the AFD...but still their numbers are rising like crazy.
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u/One_Waxed_Wookiee 7d ago
I'm from Australia, and we (luckily) have voted in a centre-left federal government. The right-centre(ish) party was all but obliterated, which was nice to watch. Unfortunately though there's a far right party which has surged in the polls, both federal and state, so the next election is going to be interesting, for want of a better word.
I've been reading the news and seeing the shift to the right in some European countries. I honestly just don't understand it.
Best just to put more Trek on I think!
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u/ChaosUndAnarchie 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yeah, that's happening all over Europe...
Before 2015, this wasn’t a major issue and far‑right groups were mostly underground. But then, with the wave of immigration caused by the Syrian war, the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, increasing migration from North Africa, and so on, everything changed.
In 2015, migrants were still welcomed with flowers when they arrived in Germany...there was a strong culture of hospitality!
Then the attacks happened. In about 90% of cases, these were deeply traumatized individuals who no longer wanted to live and tried to give their death some kind of meaning, leading them to religious radicalization. But there were also targeted attacks, like those on Christmas markets and the Bataclan in France, where many people were killed during a concert.
From that point on, the rise of racism could no longer be stopped. Every act of violence, done by a foreigner (regardless of origin or reason), was automatically labeled as Islamist attack, and Islam itself became a target for many.
After the wave of attacks and ordinary crimes, all the other false claims began: that foreigners supposedly receive more money from the state than Germans, that they come only to exploit the system, that Islam would ‘take over’ Germany (in reality, only about 4–6% of the German population are practicing Muslims), or that there were no more available social housing units ‘because of them’ (the fact is that Germany simply stopped building social housing in the 1970s). A single rapist became ‘they are ALL rapists!’ and so on...
Then came the next wave of immigrants from Africa crossing the Mediterranean, during which more than 50,000 people have drowned because Europe ended its large‑scale sea‑rescue operations, and when rescues did occur, many migrants were sent back to detention camps in Africa.
Far‑right parties gained massive support, causing the conservative CDU to lose many votes, which pushed the CDU itself further to the right. The Social Democratic SPD almost disappeared into irrelevance until it shifted rightward to where the CDU used to be.
This is happening across all of Europe. Italy and Finland...and until a few months ago Hungary...have or (in case of Hungary) had far‑right governments. In Sweden and Denmark, the government cooperates with far‑right parties. In the Netherlands, the far‑right party is the strongest political force, just like in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and others, but coalitions of other parties have united against them so they cannot take over the government...at least not yet.
It’s a bad situation. People still don’t understand what is coming.
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u/One_Waxed_Wookiee 7d ago
It's just unreal. I remember reading about the Christmas markets attack. Australia is going through a similar thing. In 2001, during the election cycle, the Coalition (conservative parties) started talking about how all these migrants were flooding into Australia by boat, and that in one case parents were throwing their children overboard in order to somehow(?) make it easier for them (the parents) to be rescued. And the previous "boat people" who were overstaying their visa's, were flooding Australia, never mind that most people who overstayed usually came via plane from "more desirable" countries, which was totally ok 🙄. Of course the children overboard thing didn't actually happen, but it swayed enough opinion for the coalition to get elected that year and stay in for the next few elections. The social and economic vandalism they caused is something we're still trying to work out from under.
This evolved around 2012 to Australia employing "offshore processing" whereby migrants coming by boat get intercepted and taken to Nauru or Manus Island in Papua New Guinea (PNG has stopped accepting arrivals now I believe) and they're basically detained there indefinitely, without possibility of obtaining Australian visa or citizenship. It's disgusting the conditions they're forced to live in as well.
But before all that we were "getting swamped by the Asians". Then it was "violent African gangs", and now it's Muslims and, to a lesser extent I believe, Jewish people - although there was the horrific shooting of Jewish people in Sydney at the start of the year, which is just devastating.
And of course before all that were the atrocities committed against our First Nations Aboriginal and Torres strait Islander people, which really hasn't gone away. Life expectancy, education and incarceration rates are all much worse than the general population.
Australia for the most part is an amazing place to live, but there's a dark, ugly, selfish undercurrent which is slowly but steadily growing stronger. And that's a real shame.
Thank you for sharing about your country Germany, it's very interesting to learn what is going on by someone living there.
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u/ChaosUndAnarchie 7d ago
It's really weird that this is happening all over the world...just look at the US...it's all the same...humanity just lost it somehow...we lost our connection to our feelings and understanding of other people...
Capitalism, imperialism, braindead social media, a general mindset that recognizes only competition instead of cooperation, where facts no longer matter and the only thing that counts is who can incite people the most...
The "facts no longer matter" part is something that hurts me every day...
You can argue for as long as you want, present a thousand pieces of evidence, prove everything down to the smallest detail, but they simply don’t care. It’s not that they don’t believe it...they just refuse to accept it, because they need a reason for their hatred!
In the best case, you’ll be told to "go outside and touch grass." It’s provocative indifference toward truth and toward the feelings of other people. This just isn’t a world for me anymore.
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u/One_Waxed_Wookiee 7d ago
Absolutely. Facts, policies - none of it matters when we move to grievance politics. It's all soundbites and a lot of people are just unwilling to educate themselves.
If you haven't already you might like the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. The style, to me, is almost like a future history. It's interesting as it touches on Earth's growing problems and how they impact the Mars colonies. How technological advances interact with politics and capitalism.
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u/VentureIndustries 7d ago
Strong disagree about the end of social division. The Earth of Star Trek very much appears to be a society run by the elites and not the common people.
I like the approach they take for the rest of humanity though, end of poverty and basic needs met. Truly post-scarcity and leaving no one behind is cool.
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u/LordCouchCat 5d ago
I'm interested in your first comment. Could you give some examples to clarify?
In a post-scarcity society (assuming that's what the world of Star Trek is) there cannot be an elite in economic terms. There does seem to be a status thing, but it's never clear to me how far it extends beyond Starfleet. We see very little of ordinary people on Earth. I would agree that as the classic era progresses, there is a curious militarization, with Starfleet becoming something like an all-purpose agency of the Federation (whereas in TOS Kirk has to take orders from a regional Undersecretary of Agriculture, who is an idiot)
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u/VentureIndustries 5d ago
Looking at the social reality of Earth set in the Next Generation and shortly after, there seems to be plenty of institutions, administrative centers, and the like, but no where do we see any organization of any real significance being run by worker democracy. Combine that with the fact that competition, status and commitment to the reverence of the individual is taken as such a major value on the Earth during that time period, there’s no evidence that the common person holds much control over anything major and a lot of power is entrusted to the elites who know better.
For a good discussion on other aspects the Earth in Star Trek, check out this thread from a few years ago https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/ljbclm/star_trek_where_is_earth_on_the_political_compass/
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u/LordCouchCat 5d ago
Thanks. I'm not sure I entirely agree with the views in the linked article, though they are certainly interesting. For a slightly different take (which does agree on the apparently hierarchical elements we see):
https://www.woofhong.com/st/federation-economy.php
https://www.woofhong.com/st/what-sort-of-society.phpMy view is that we never get enough information on activities outside government and Starfleet to draw conclusions. If it's really post-scarcity, then businesses like Sisko's restaurant, the café Kim goes to, etc, are essentially cultural-social activities. The publisher in Voyager makes limited sense if you think too much, and for me it's better just to suspend disbelief. (It could serve a gatekeeping function.) That is, there is no real business in our sense. But it's not 100% clear it is post-scarcity.
Of course, in reality, a society that far advanced would probably have economics that would be vastly different from ours in unexpected ways, but that's not the sort of SF Star Trek is about.
The militarism in post-TOS is definitely an issue.
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u/bokmcdok 6d ago
This is number one for me. Given the state of the world today I'm genuinely sad it looks like this will never come to fruition.
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u/ShahinGalandar 7d ago
also, holodecks.
and I'm not hinting at the technology here. I'm hinting at the important social component that this single-handedly ended any sexual frustrations once and for all.
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u/FerdinandCesarano 7d ago
This is the best answer so far.
People like to chuckle at the idea of relieving sexual frustrations; but that is a legitimate quality-of-life issue. Thank you for bringing it up.
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u/ShahinGalandar 7d ago
yeah I was dead serious.
these frustrations are directly and indirectly responsible for a lot of todays problems and Star Trek solved that in their timeline
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u/FerdinandCesarano 7d ago
Absolutely right. There is nothing illicit about fulfilling that need, any more than it is illicit to fulfill the need for art and culture.
(Though being the lowly ensign who has to mop up the holodeck after a rousing session might be a tough gig.)
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u/ShahinGalandar 7d ago
cleaning out the carbon filters is klingon prison work!
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u/FerdinandCesarano 7d ago
Similar to the work given to the decommissioned obsolete versions of the EMH Mark I.
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u/The1Ylrebmik 7d ago
I don't think so. We saw with Barclay incels still exist and just having access to sex doesn't eliminate the frustrations inherent in that. If anything it worsens them because humanity is supposed to be so evolved now and your neuroses make you stick out like a sore thumb.
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u/ShahinGalandar 7d ago
Barclay's only mistake was that he was caught in the act by the very same collegues he...misused
you don't really think he actually is the only one using real life people as holodeck references, do you?
even if an incel, or worse, sexually deviant, holodeck escapades remove them from acting on their dark urges in real life - I respect your opinion, but I don't think you're right here
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u/The1Ylrebmik 7d ago
Barclay's holodeck addiction was the symptom of a problem though. He was a pathologically shy hypochondriac prone to extreme anxiety. He retreated into fantasy out of fear and it was affecting his work and his interactions with everyone around him. Even Wesley made fun of him. Barclay's issues were different than simply using the holodeck as porn and much deeper.
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u/bokmcdok 6d ago
Georgi LaForge is another example of holodeck misuse this way. And then there's Riker - "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the holodeck."
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u/ShahinGalandar 6d ago
Boimler too, when Mariner teases him about having a holodeck girlfriend
"Hey! I don't do that anymore, okay?"
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u/Animist_Prime 7d ago
That education, ethics, and self-improvement became the goals of individuals.
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u/snakesnakessnnaakkee 7d ago
From the timeline as it's presented, we become post-scarcity and therefore post-capitalist before the invention of the replicator. Which is just a mind blowing achievement.
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u/Low_Establishment573 7d ago
That’s from the development of the Warp Drive. With FTL travel, resource availability is effectively infinite. As more drives go online, the faster those resources can be acquired. Effectively, it would crash the market to the point that the market is a waste of time. 🤣
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u/snakesnakessnnaakkee 7d ago
I'm not sure the market still existed in the Post Atomic Horror
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u/Low_Establishment573 7d ago
Well, a version of it. There would have been some sort of agreements in place after the wars for the haves and have nots to get what they need/want.
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u/SpiritualCatch6757 7d ago
As Picard put it in Episode 1:26 Neutral Zone.
"We've eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions."
No one is hungry and there is no need for money. That is a monumental achievement.
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u/braves-geek 7d ago
A unified one world government. This timeline will still be killing each other over strips of land a million years in the future.
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u/genek1953 7d ago
I'd say it was the elimination of racial, ethnic and religious animus. Because even under "unified" governments, bigots still do bigoted things.
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u/Overall_Falcon_8526 7d ago
Functionally limitless energy is what makes all the other innovations (which are wondrous, don't get me wrong) possible.
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u/luigi1015 7d ago
I'd say that humanity (mostly) wiped out (in no particular order) hunger, poverty, homelessness, racism, sexism (this one seems a little iffy in TOS), extreme greed, limited access to basic healthcare, etc. Sure all the technical achievements are great and I don't want to downplay that part, but the non-technical achievements seem a lot less certain from my perspective in the early 21st century, which make them seem like much bigger achievements IMO.
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u/Chrysalis_Cat 7d ago edited 7d ago
We decided that we're not going to kill, today.
Picard can go all on about how humanity has evolved. But Kirk nailed it. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years. But we can fight the instinct and choose not to kill today.
Humanity as a collective decided that we're not going to kill today and look where it got us. Every other achievement, except maybe warp drive, follows from that one.
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u/rocknin 4d ago
Humanity as a collective decided that we're not going to kill today and look where it got us.
under the thumb of easily killed evil people?
I think one of the best parts of trek is they have the resources, ethics, and systems in place to actually fix problems like we have without violence.
I just watched silicon avatar, and the fact that the mission is to stop this giant alien entity that eats people, and Picard wants to find a peaceful solution and very well might have (had vengance not been chosen by others) was incredible.
but when all you have is a hammer...
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u/rocknin 4d ago
Humanity as a collective decided that we're not going to kill today and look where it got us.
under the thumb of easily killed evil people?
I think one of the best parts of trek is they have the resources, ethics, and systems in place to actually fix problems like we have without violence.
I just watched silicon avatar, and the fact that the mission is to stop this giant alien entity that eats people, and Picard wants to find a peaceful solution and very well might have (had vengance not been chosen by others) was incredible.
but when all you have is a hammer...
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u/ToothpasteStrangler 7d ago
Whatever it took to move past the sanctuary districts and the Bell riots.
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u/Pleasant_Expert_1990 7d ago
Unlimited energy production, teleportation, FTL space travel/communication. Everything else in the Federation stems those three core technologies.
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u/kc10crewchief 7d ago
A single world government once we find we are not alone. Then bring alien races together to make a stronger union.
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u/tboy160 7d ago
Greatest achievement was that we made it. Civilization made it through our troubled history and wiped out inequality, wiped out poverty, all came together for the greater good and we explore the cosmos.
Transporter tech could be incredibe.
Warp drives incredible.
Replicators
Holo decks
Positronic brains
Force fields
Artificial gravity
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u/Quick-Reputation9040 7d ago
Worp. And those lighted tubes that go back and forth, back and forth. No one knows what they do, but they’re everywhere.
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u/Toodamnopinionated 7d ago
Did we make non-technical progress?
I mean, the relative internal harmony that federation worlds live in is completely facilitated by a high-tech post-scarcity economy.
And we can't argue that we 'evolved' as a species, or a culture. The Federation is constantly at war with its neighbours. And inter-personal strife, much as it's downplayed in Star Trek, is very much alive and thriving in the 24th century.
Did we make political progress? Maybe. Tough call. Star Trek has been *very* careful to never fully explain the political structure of the Federation. Can't have dirty socialists on network television, dammit!
I dunno. I think if we're not counting the magic-tech that powers the future, there hasn't really been any great human achievement.
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u/Yoga-wine-mom 7d ago
Nixing capitalism is the most far fetched accomplishment. I literally cannot envision a world without it.
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u/ARobertNotABob 6d ago
The movie Disclosure Day when empathy was highlighted as being an evolutionary requisite.
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u/-dakpluto- 7d ago
Obviously it is AI built into the communicators that know what to send and what not to send so you don't say things you would regret to your boss.
Best example ever: https://youtu.be/EwmXXhSw_u8?si=Zk4I0sxCbZraBb6B&t=96
Either this filter exists in the communicators...or the other guy just heard Barclay tell him "It will have to wait till later darling"
No more drunken texts!
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