• Adlach
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      2 years ago

      This seems like an opportune time to note that Gene Roddenberry was a Marxist who strongly supported China. He almost certainly thought well of Mao.

      • @KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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        -32 years ago

        There were many people who supported Mao in the 60s and 70s, mainly because the terrors of the Cultural Revolution and the failure of the Great Leap Forward were not really known in the West.

        China was a closed society. Academics didn’t even travel there. That’s what they mean when they say Nixon “opened up” China in 1972. Prior to that, people only knew what the Chinese government told them about the country.

        • Adlach
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          2 years ago

          Roddenberry died in 1991, which is well after 1972.

        • @Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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          52 years ago

          Huey Newton visited China in 1971, he knew what it was like before 1972. Many other revolutionaries from many other countries also visited China before 1972.

    • @bigboig@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 years ago

      Lol really ticked off the tankies. Don’t tell them starfleet hq is… in America!

      edit: sorry, I have been informed tankies’ localization actually has star fleet headquartered in… San Fransokyo from Disney’s Big Hero Six?

      • @StalinistTransition@lemm.ee
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        32 years ago

        woah crazy totally not because THERE IS NO STATE YOU MORON

        ITS A UNITED WORLD GOVERNMENT

        god you libs are the most ignorant animals on the planet

      • @ThePyroPython@lemmy.world
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        -42 years ago

        Well I don’t think the federation government would be idiotic enough to try and make every farmer into an industrialist by forcing them to meltdown their own tools in the hopes of creating mechanised farming equipment only to end up with piles of unusable pig-iron slag, and thus contributing to another famine.

          • @ThePyroPython@lemmy.world
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            -72 years ago

            Says the Stalinist who’d be the first lined up at the wall and shot by the very ideology they support.

            And for the record, fuck the Nazis, fuck the Tories, and fuck every single fascist rightwing or leftwing.

            Democracy isn’t perfect, but it gives people a voice and if they work hard to maintain proper democratic institutions, it offers the better outcomes for the majority.

            • @Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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              32 years ago

              Yea, democracy is nice. That’s why China has workers councils embedded into its constitution, to ensure democracy in the workplace.

    • AGIMUS
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      32 years ago

      This picture is heavily photoshopped. Maybe an AI modified it.

  • @HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    52 years ago

    …And yet, the Enterprise is armed. If power does not come from the ability to effectively use violence, but from some other means, then why would the Federation arm it’s flagship?

    • @LoamImprovement@beehaw.org
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      62 years ago

      Devil’s advocate, but parts of the Trek universe have shown that there are non- or quasi-sentient creatures capable of endangering starships like the Enterprise, in addition to the usual spacefaring hazards like asteroid belts and debris fields, and the potential to encounter, for lack of a better term, space pirates. It makes sense to arm the ship for a number of reasons not necessarily related to the power of coercion via the threat of violence. The Enterprise’s weapons are also frequently outclassed by other ships of similar size designed for combat. It feels more akin to packing bear spray or a noisemaker to scare off wildlife, and the bear spray gets used to drive off a robber.

      That said, the threat of violence against a better-armed foe in order to prevent combat is a trope the shows rely on frequently, so you have a point.

      • @HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        22 years ago

        Aside from an episode of Strange New Worlds (and possible in Wrath of Khan, depending on your perspective), space pirates aren’t brought up as a risk to the Federation starships, presumably because they usually aren’t. Shields alone should be sufficient for debris and asteroids, since shields appear to stop physical objects as well as certain forms of energy (obvs. not certain bands of light though, or whatever bands their sensors use). Non- and quasi-sentient species shouldn’t pose any risk to a starship at all (aside from possibly omniscient comets, thank you Stanislaw Lem). The weapons on a starship are appropriate to direct against planetary settlements, bases, and other starships.

        Fundamentally, I believe Mao was correct on this; the ability to use violence effectively is the lowest common denominator for all power. Everything else is a veneer of civility intended to disguise the violence that is inherent to all forms of coercive rule.