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Snoota's fortune cookie read:
Moogle makes a good point. All the bible really says is not to give it to a chick up the ass.
Or not give it to a man in the vagina.
wow...
just, wow.
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Caela came out of the closet to say:
PS - Drys, lurve the new edit text
*falls over*
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OtakuPenguin impressed everyone with:
B5 is a better future than Star Trek
I'd rather fight the borg then the shadows.
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Karnaj had this to say about Reading Rainbow:They still can't make money off it, which, like everything else about the Federation, points to a stifling communist state. Intellectual Property does not exist in the Federation.
[...]
Rrrright, and everyone's just happy as a pig in shit to work hard for no pay? Like I said, laziness is an inherent human trait. We don't do something unless we want to, or unless we have to. It's far more likely that everyone's simply forced to work than millions of years of genetic hardcoding is somehow abbrograted in the next 400 years.
There are many, many, many products which can't be replicated. Antimatter, for example. Certain parts which are either exceedingly complex or exotic. Starships. Food can only be converted from raw food stock into meals, so you still need to grow the food. Manufacturing is still very much needed.
Moreover, when Nog and Jake Sisko are talking about the Federation, Jake spouts off "We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity" like a zombie! When pressed, he can't even tell Nog what that statement means! He just mutters something about it meaning that he doesn't need money.
[...]OK, you've provided one counter-example. You've only got...well, how many different types of jobs exist? Hmmm.
Point on the culture thing. They haven't stamped that out, yet.
[...]
Right, so, your point is that a Technate and a communist state share just about every one of Marx's stated goals of communism, and the Federation exhibits most, but not all of these traits? And the one trait I mentioned(there are actually more) where the two diverge, it comes up communist. Come on. The Federation is communist.
But it's important to note that it wasn't always communist! The TOS-era Federation was a free market (Kirk talked about pay to Spock in one episode, and in ST6 Scotty bought a boat), but it seems at some time between the two, the communist revolution occured.
A Technate and a communist State are actually very different, except some characteristics are vaguely similar. For example, the Technate has given up the price system completely. (The "price system" as they define it is any system; be it socialist, be it capitalist, be it communist, be it feudalism, whatever; that operates on a system of exchange based on debt.) To replace the price system, is a system of distribution based on physical quanification. Its "currency", an energy credit; which isn't the right word, is non-transferable, is actually nothing more than a measure of energy. The "cost" of an item is how much energy it took to produce it, and to get to the user's possession. Scarce items, which can't be mass produced, such as the high quality wine of Picard's father's vineyard, are bartered for. Unlike communism, the idea of a Technate is to produce a "workless society," one in which few people, except for the scientists, engineers and technicians employed in the sequences of the Technate actually do any work at all, aside from more or less whatever they actually want to do. To do this every last bit of efficiency must be squeezed out of every operation, and everything that can be automated is automated. The TNG era Federation seem to really love their cybernetics, and absolutely nowhere is it implied in Star Trek that it is illegal for citizens of the Federation not to work. Aside from owners of culturally fulfilling vinyards and restauraunts, how many Federation press-gangs have we seen in Star Trek? If it was illegal for them to not work, and illegal for them to own anything, I'd be surprised as to why Picard and Troi go on about their personal freedoms so much with such sincerity. Jake Sisko may seem brainwashed, but they don't. In the Technate, people work in the sequences because it gets you social benefits, similar as to working in the military would for us. As for religion, as opposed to personal 'spirituality,' it seems unpleasantly alien to the people of the Federation in the times when that has been explored. A strange phenomena of direct attempts to stifle religion in our own history however, is that it tends to thrive under those conditions. It just seems not an issue. As for abolition of the family, Marx was pretty big on this one, and the Federation has not made any attempts on this! None. Not a proverbial sausage. Picard even seems to have a bit of a social stigma for not starting a family. As for cultural identity, Marx said "get rid of it!" and the Federation said "no!" It just lacks too many of the characteristics that Marx thought was important in communism for it to be communism. Even if not Scott's idea of a Technate, it definatly has a technocratic approach towards its high-energy society.
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Nobody really understood why Trillee wrote:
Mort would probably masturbate to that.
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Pvednes had this to say about Optimus Prime:
A Technate and a communist State are actually very different, except some characteristics are vaguely similar. For example, the Technate has given up the price system completely. (The "price system" as they define it is any system; be it socialist, be it capitalist, be it communist, be it feudalism, whatever; that operates on a system of exchange based on debt.) To replace the price system, is a system of distribution based on physical quanification. Its "currency", an energy credit; which isn't the right word, is non-transferable, is actually nothing more than a measure of energy. The "cost" of an item is how much energy it took to produce it, and to get to the user's possession. Scarce items, which can't be mass produced, such as the high quality wine of Picard's father's vineyard, are bartered for.Unlike communism, the idea of a Technate is to produce a "workless society," one in which few people, except for the scientists, engineers and technicians employed in the sequences of the Technate actually do any work at all, aside from more or less whatever they actually want to do. To do this every last bit of efficiency must be squeezed out of every operation, and everything that can be automated is automated. The TNG era Federation seem to really love their cybernetics, and absolutely nowhere is it implied in Star Trek that it is illegal for citizens of the Federation not to work. Aside from owners of culturally fulfilling vinyards and restauraunts, how many Federation press-gangs have we seen in Star Trek? If it was illegal for them to not work, and illegal for them to own anything, I'd be surprised as to why Picard and Troi go on about their personal freedoms so much with such sincerity. Jake Sisko may seem brainwashed, but they don't. In the Technate, people work in the sequences because it gets you social benefits, similar as to working in the military would for us.
As for religion, as opposed to personal 'spirituality,' it seems unpleasantly alien to the people of the Federation in the times when that has been explored. A strange phenomena of direct attempts to stifle religion in our own history however, is that it tends to thrive under those conditions. It just seems not an issue. As for abolition of the family, Marx was pretty big on this one, and the Federation has not made any attempts on this! None. Not a proverbial sausage. Picard even seems to have a bit of a social stigma for not starting a family. As for cultural identity, Marx said "get rid of it!" and the Federation said "no!"
It just lacks too many of the characteristics that Marx thought was important in communism for it to be communism. Even if not Scott's idea of a Technate, it definatly has a technocratic approach towards its high-energy society.
More on the "Energy credit" thing..
I seem to remember an episode of DS9 where they were trying to flush out those shape shifters by giving everybody blood tests.. and sisko's dad (Jake's grandfather) wouldn't take the test.
Anyway, he was talking about when Sisko was in starfleet acadamy. He missed home terribly, but wouldn't say so. He'd just use one of his transporter "credits" and show up for dinner every night. Nobody'd say anything, they'd just eat dinner like usual, and he'd go back to the dorm. He said something like "He used all his transporter credits for an entire year that month."
Which supports the "It only costs as much as it takes to produce it" technate thing.
Or something.
I hate politics. Especially theoretical politics.
Then you'll have to be taken out and shot like old yeller.
Oh and Moogle: More EC Star Trek, please.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Delphi Aegis obviously shouldn't have said:
More on the "Energy credit" thing..I seem to remember an episode of DS9 where they were trying to flush out those shape shifters by giving everybody blood tests.. and sisko's dad (Jake's grandfather) wouldn't take the test.
Anyway, he was talking about when Sisko was in starfleet acadamy. He missed home terribly, but wouldn't say so. He'd just use one of his transporter "credits" and show up for dinner every night. Nobody'd say anything, they'd just eat dinner like usual, and he'd go back to the dorm. He said something like "He used all his transporter credits for an entire year that month."
Which supports the "It only costs as much as it takes to produce it" technate thing.
Or something.
I hate politics. Especially theoretical politics.
Transporter credit is just the amount of transporter use academy cadets are assigned for a time period imo.
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Check out the big brain on OtakuPenguin!
B5 is a better future than Star Trek
Tell that to the lurkers. 
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Mod had this to say about Pirotess:
Tell that to the lurkers.
yeah b5 is such a better universe to live in, a universe where our own government is corupt and out to get us.
and we have the enourmous resources to build not on B5 station but 5 of them yet some how lack the ability to keep them from being stolen, blown up or otherwise disapear.
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This insanity brought to you by Somthor:
yeah b5 is such a better universe to live in, a universe where our own government is corupt and out to get us.and we have the enourmous resources to build not one B5 station but 5 of them yet some how lack the ability to keep them from being stolen, blown up or otherwise disapear.
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ACES! Another post by Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael:
Any second now you guys are going to go too far down the path of sci-fi geekdom and start a fight over Star Wars vs Star Trek, thus breaking the Nerd Set of Godwin's laws.Then you'll have to be taken out and shot like old yeller.
Oh and Moogle: More EC Star Trek, please.
Two things: As I mentioned, the original Godwin's Law was broken on page 5 when Ares said she attends a "nazi art school".
And Deth: yaes. But keep in mind, there was an entire summer between the parts of that two-part Borg episode where Picard gets Borg'd. so maybe I'll get to it tonight, and maybe my computer will explode in an incident forensics teams will later determine was caused by a pyromaniacal gerbil and some omelets made from plastic easter eggs. We shall have to see.
Disclaimer: I'm just kidding, I love all living things.
The fastest draw in the Crest.
"The Internet is MY critical thinking course." -Maradon
"Gambling for the husband, an abortion for the wife and fireworks for the kids they chose to keep? Fuck you, Disneyland. The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is the happiest place on Earth." -JooJooFlop
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Led had this to say about Robocop:
Mort would probably masturbate to that.
I thought Mort was British, not Scots
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Gunslinger Moogle had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
Two things: As I mentioned, the original Godwin's Law was broken on page 5 when Ares said she attends a "nazi art school".And Deth: yaes. But keep in mind, there was an entire summer between the parts of that two-part Borg episode where Picard gets Borg'd. so maybe I'll get to it tonight, and maybe my computer will explode in an incident forensics teams will later determine was caused by a pyromaniacal gerbil and some omelets made from plastic easter eggs. We shall have to see.
Merely mentioning Nazis does not invoke Godwin's law. Nazis have to be used as a form of argument before Godwin's law is valid.
oops... now we've started a discussion about Godwin's law... which in itself invokes Godwin's law
OK, go back to Star Trek Kermitov fucked around with this message on 04-05-2004 at 02:35 PM.
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Broadzilla had this to say about Duck Tales:
I beleive that prostitution should be legal because it's a job that women and their costumers enjoy. Yes, it will spread STDs, but we're all going to die anyways.
Haven't you been paying attention?
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Mr. Parcelan had this to say about dark elf butts:
Haven't you been paying attention?
No.
