You’re not stupid and you’re not rambling. I love this guy. He constantly apologizes for his best material. This is what sets Lorerunner apart from pack. Great episode.
I disagree, he often goes on & on about unimportant stuff. He's spending way too much time on the time travel aspect of this episode & how to make it work better. That's not important or what the episode is focusing on. Sisko, Bashir & Dax getting caught up in this critical event in American & Earth history is what the episode is about.
Dax was born on November 10th 2018, their birthday just went by, it was a thing on tumbr so don't feel bad for missing it we celebrated enough for everyone.
That's really cool. I just looked this up and Memory alpha agrees that Dax was born in 2018, but took its first host in 2168. 150 years seems a long time for the symbiont to sufficiently mature to be joined. I wonder, where does the 2018 date come from? Memory Alpha quotes no canon source for this. Now I'm curious.
I don't think Sisko was saying that everything got better overnight. He just called it a Watershed moment, probably a bit like Rosa Parkes-nobody pretends that all the racial issues in the US are fixed, but there is a definite difference between pre-Parkes & post-Parkes USA.
I remember loving this episode, even though family and friends thought it was pretty boring. I didn't mind the wonky time travel as much as you did, but I can see where you're coming from. Loved your rumination!
Thanks for these ruminations. Been a rough year for me with family illness and passing, and your sci-fi ruminations have been a safe haven for my mind and soul. Thanks so much for the work you put into these. I get to relive my favorite shows with new perspectives and recharge my batteries.
Despite the bad time travel I always considered the moment when the Federation disappeared in the present timeline as a great piece of fringe horror. What actually happened to the human race during and after the 21st century? They can't detect any advanced technology in the Sol system in the 24th century. Are there any humans even left on earth?
Lorerunner, your relationship to the themes of this episode and your super mysterious and intriguing allusions to your past is FAR more interesting than these two episodes
There are so many unemployed people that don’t want to work. The majority of the people I schedule for interview’s don’t show up for them. Of the ones that do most quit without any notice after their first paycheck. My business is in the service industry, but I make sure they make at least $15 per hour which is decent money in the Midwest. I have been homeless too, I had great difficulty finding work in my youth, looking back on things I believe job recruiters at the time were just too inexperienced in evaluating job candidates with asd like me. So as someone who tries hard to give people chances, it hurts so much that they feel it’s ok to just not show up to work without notice. When they do that and I have to call customers apologizing for having to reschedule their appointments, it hurts our reputation online and just harms my business overall. The worst part is after they no call no show, they blow up my office’s phone with calls demanding they get paid early and act like they’re the victim in this whole thing some how. I loved this episode of ds9 as a kid, I think today though the problem goes beyond jobs. The workers I have issues with today mostly have these common traits. They are young with kids, unmarried of course, keep having kids, their parents never demanded anything from them so they don’t feel they need to be responsible to anyone or anything, and if you own a business you must be rich so whatever harm they do to my business is somehow justified.
Sisko paired with Bashir is a nice coupling. They don't get enough screen-time together. It's very master-pupil because Sisko is the Captain and Bashir (pre-genentic enhancement reveal) has the most potential for career advancement. He's the most exceptional officer and can learn some hard-won lessons from Sisko's mentorship. I really buy Sisko as a learned officer and Bashir benefitting from his mentor's wisdom.
I love this episode, even if setting it Fifteen Minutes into the Future was a dumb idea, because we're already past the date it takes place at. I still remember seeing it when it was first broadcast; back then I thought the near-future setting was a brilliant idea, and I also really liked the idea of Dax being an alien visitor to "modern" America. The final moment where Sisko says "I am Bell" was a very, very thrilling reveal to me. And aside from the fact that it's now set in an alternate past, I do think the episode still holds up. I think it's a very relevant social commentary, and the past 20 years haven't made it less resonant.All the time travel going to San Francisco makes sense, given that it's the headquarters of Starfleet. If Destiny is a thing, then SF is a nexus of Destiny.If Sisko read about Gabriel Bell in the history books, then presumably there was a picture in the article of the original Gabriel Bell, or else why the dickens would there be a picture of Sisko as Gabriel Bell after this incident. So the idea that there wasn't a real Gabriel Bell doesn't track at all for me. I think the best way to make sense of the time travel here is to assume that there was a branching timeline - the original universe in which Sisko read about Bell in his youth, and let's say that Bell looked like Tony Todd because Tony Todd is awesome, that timeline still exists, but if Sisko doesn't take over for the now-dead Tony Todd, then he'll be trapped in a new timeline where there was no Bell and Starfleet never existed. Just because your original universe still exists doesn't mean you can get there.
We're not actually at the point yet, the Bell Riots isn't for another 10 months as of my reply. So we still got time baby, they can still make it happen. That being said I think society ran into the opposite problem ST proposed, in that we have too many jobs and not enough workers because for whatever reason people back in the 90s didn't take into account that all the boomers were eventually going to retire and there's no other generation large enough to fill that gap. Businesses just haven't really caught up to that fact yet because for so long they were used to a surplus of workers that they could be super picky as to who they chose to hire, not they can't and they're slow to react to the changing times.
This episode is very memorable for how it twists the visual style, and I probably give it too much credit because of how well everyone does their part, even with the plot holes. I honestly love your economics talk. It’s so refreshing and intriguing.
i do know how hard it is to find a job without an address. it's also hard to find a job without valid ID. and it's hard to get valid ID without money to pay to get your birth certificate. it's hard to get money without a job. and it's hard to get a job without a place to live...
This isn't massively related but I like the idea that they chose 2024 and put the lines about Europe falling apart, because of earlier TNG saying Irish reunification occurred in 2024 (and involved terrorism and other unrest - so maybe the reunification hasn't happened by the time of this episode, and the rich people are only seeing the New Neo IRA's carbombs and stuff.) Your point about an economy needing to be flowing instead of stagnating makes me think of the "austerity" in the UK. Jobs have been cut and local government budgets have been "slimmed", and surprise surprise this hasn't fixed the economy - it's become more stagnant, and what jobs there are became increasingly unstable compared to when this began. The unemployment rate is technically lowered but by people who have no guaranteed hours, who are told hours before their shift to not come in that day, repeatedly for weeks on end. "Sorry, we didn't make enough sales today for you to come in". Functionally they're unemployed, they're living as if they're unemployed, struggling to eat as if they're unemployed - but they don't count as unemployed on the stats anymore. They can't qualify for out-of-work help anymore. And so on. And of course those sales are stagnant when so many of the potential customers are financially squeezed in the exact same way as the person with cut hours. That's a stagnant economy, that's not flowing. Everybody's just saving. It's not going anywhere.
Nice point on Star Trek's "obsession" with San Francisco and time travel... If I'm not mistaken, The Big Goodbye holonovel is situated there as well. And Trek director Nicholas Meyer based his 1979 movie Time after Time in the city by the bay too.
I also hate it when people that live in a rich neighborhood say, HoMeLeSs PeOpLe ArE a ThReAt. Well sharon if you were in that situation would you act well and never be angry? As Benjamin Sisko put it, "it's easier to be a saint in paradise"
In universe, it makes a certain amount of sense for San Fransico to be a nexus for time travel given that it's one of the primary cities on Earth within the Star Trek universe.
Some heavy subject matter for discussion here. Thank you for sharing your insights into homelessness. I'm very thankful that I have never had to experience this.
OH BTW, you might have mentioned this, but this is on the cusp of world war 3, and when (according to Q), they learned to control their soldiers using drugs....:) Star Trek is positive in outlook but it gets a lot worse before it gets better.
Although i do wonder how anyone survived nuclear WW3 to begin with. if i've learned anything from fallout games..it that nukes do NOT leave much left to go off on. meanwhile in Frist contact, yup everything is fine, no radation, no nuclear death zones. Hell not even a nuclear winter
Well, they were in Montana and there may be a pretty good reason for it. It's far away from any large continuous metropolitan area, most of which for sure sustained a vast majority of the hits. I am pretty sure that there arose plenty of nuclear wastelands during the Star Trek's WWIII; however, I never believed that in that conflict enough nuclear warheads had been launched to create a long-lasting global nuclear winter. I am also convinced that the increased radiation levels did reach as far as the First Contact's location in Montana; however, they were survivable and not dissimilar to the ones the planet of Vulcan possesses, for example.
As you've noted, money doesn't solve everything, and that's (almost) all infrastructure. You point out how HARD it is to get a job when you have no address. It's hard to even GET an address when you have no address. The hoops people have to jump through in order to get even low income housing are ginormous. So when people can't afford to pay for mental or physical health or food, how can they even be in the position to spend all that energy on tracking down all the documents they need? (Apparently Trump suggested printing more money, but I think that's to no one's surprise, unfortunately lol.) Your dog is just upset about homelessness and poverty! XD
Does anyone not watch DS9 for the economics? But seriously, great coverage on this episode, and I love hearing your perspective on homelessness and how it becomes a cycle that never ends. Most of all I thank you for not letting those circumstances make you cynical and hateful and that instead you (like most of us) look to Star Trek as a way to better the world and ourselves. Seriously, great episode Lore.
This should be my final comment: regarding job shortages, why do we NEED everyone to work if there are literally a shortage of jobs? Is it just out of a Puritanical sense of morality? Is it to "keep people out of trouble"? It seems that the Federation is the ideal of a world where people DON'T need jobs, as you discussed in the episode where Keiko misses her *career.* People are able to follow their passions. That said, in this world and the world shown in this episode, the employees are totally overwhelmed and overworked. In real life, many people work multiple jobs, which could be filled by others, just in order to survive. Which is why there are a few problems with the business incentive model (unless there are sufficient regulations). A lot of business owners aren't entirely sensible or ethical (to put it mildly lol, though some truly are), so sometimes they will hire MANY people to do jobs of a few people and then pay them all less, meaning that those people wouldn't be able to survive on those salaries. Anyway, that's just one example. Again, thanks for this rumination, and I look forward to part 2 (though it's kind of depressing). I also would love to hear about your process of scheduling your videos and and staying organized sometime!
mostly the problem lies in the stockholders of the various companies fearing they're going to miss out on their new ferrari each quarter (obviously with the number of company stockholders in the world, it's not all ferraris. some want their personal jets, you get the point). more people getting paychecks is more profit out of their pockets. this goes VERY deep, breaking into real estate, manufacturer costs, middlemen, etc to solve.
or keep cutting positions wherever they can afford to: i've worked at multiple stores where they kept consolidating positions so they wouldn't have to pay as many people, but still keep said people without increasing their pay. i've even heard of people getting rid of their current employees, consolidating their jobs into a single role, then rehiring replacements with more tasks at a lower pay
A significant amount of jobs in North America and Europe are essentially bullshit jobs that only exist to keep people busy and provide the illusion of productivity. These days, you could easily move most white-collar work to a 15 hour work week, and society would function about the same. But we keep them around because of the image of productivity, and also management and executives like having people to boss around. It was really eye opening when everything was supposedly shut down for the virus, yet my life was basically completely unchanged. the lights were still on, grocery stores still had food, even taco bell was still open. really made you wonder what all these "non-essential" jobs were actually doing. It's not even just a western thing, in Japan like half the country is employed by the government as construction workers to prop up the unemployment numbers. Construction is literally never ending over there. They'll build massive highways to no where, concrete over river beds, build massive buildings and parking lots that end up becoming glorified bathroom rest stops. Billions and billions of yen all being wasted in an attempt to hide the underlying problem that there's not enough productive work to go around.
The idea of just "creating jobs" for the sake of having jobs reminds me of a little anecdote "At one of our dinners, Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”"
6:37 I like to think that Eddington is left in charge of DS9 in the senior staff's absence. I feel like Sisko would trust him to keep things stable and watch after Starfleet's best interests.
I’ve never liked a Trek time travel mechanic, but this episode is my favourite time travel episode. Not because of the time travel of course, but the situation Sisko, Bashir, and Dax found themselves in, and I enjoyed the supporting cast. Frank Military, and others. I think the Bell riots were supposed to be the spark that lit the fire of change. Sisko was just reciting that fact in hind sight very briefly so Bashir could get some context to the situation. I don’t think it was naïveté on Sisko part.
Since I know that complex problems can be solved with simple answers here's mine: In both this episode, and IRL, the gov't should do a gratuitous new deal esque make work project, step 1 of that program being - fix and upgrade the Sanctuary District.
Not being able to get a job because your homeless is the reason I always thought the housing idea would work. Start a program to get homeless people into homes, apartments, etc. From there get them into the workforce and start them off on a new life. I realize it's not that simple, but it's a decent start. I got into DS9 because I really enjoyed your Ruminations on TNG. I never sat down and watched all of TNG until Netflix. I'd catch whatever episode was on late at night on TV. I enjoyed your Ruminations so much on TNG, that when I got caught up on them, I watched DS9 so I could hear your thoughts on the episodes. I'm all done with DS9 now, rewatching them at the moment.
Of course, building properly funded public housing for the homeless would create a construction boom.....hence more jobs. Likewise, give everyone in society enough money to exist-not merely survive-& demand for goods & services will increase.
All right, this might be a few comments. Great discussion of homelessness, economics, and, basically, dehumanization. Even the "J letter" example is an example of dehumanization, I would say? Though obviously not as horrific as it can be. I also want to make this comment about bias: sometimes "bias" is just knowledge. People who have never experienced something THINK that they are objective, but we know that is never the case. When you have gone through something, you may very well understand the situation better than those who think they are coolly detached from the situation. I might be reading too much into this, but is the hilarious dichotomy between Bashir and Sisko's situation and Dax's a commentary on the chance and dumb luck that plays into everyone's economic situation? People literally do not *choose* to be born into certain economic classes, but we have an idea that your wealth is directly tied to your sense of morality. Dax did brilliantly with what she was handed--as a beautiful, intelligent, ancient alien--but it was still a complete coincidence that she had those qualities AND that she met one of the richest men on the planet.
While I appreciate the fact that you try to avoid discussing controversial subjects on your channel, I'm not sure it can be entirely avoided since DS9 often deals with difficult subject matter. I'm thinking of episodes like "Far Beyond the Stars," where the issue of racism in America is an overt focal point of the episode, and used as a vehicle to tell an incredibly heartwrenching and tragic human story, one which has roots in real life history, and is something we're still struggling with today. And for anyone who's interested, what was being discussed at the beginning of the rumination is called Hostile Design. Extra Credits has an episode discussing it in depth: czcams.com/video/NWZLB8CyPbM/video.html
I rather enjoy this episode because it showed the plight of whites in America. It shows a time when the lofty ideals of multiculturalism were failing, and promises a brighter future (which is Star Trek's thing) ~ but it did not put white people in a negative light. The gimme leader and the ghost leader were both white, and though their tactics differed they realized they were in the same boat and teamed up.
@@russellfrankland7335 Wow! Your racism is showing. Multiculturalism is a strength, not a weakness in American society & you completely missed the point of the episode. The writers of the episode specifically said they made a conscious choice not to play up the racial component in the episode, because they knew people would be able to dismiss of something happening to the other & not themselves. Yet here you are claiming this episode shows a failure of multiculturalism. Did you not notice how the two minority characters get tossed into the district & the attractive white woman is immediately helped. That was intentionally by the writers to touch on racism without being overt. You totally didn't get the episode at all.
Finland did that "give homeless people a home" thing and it worked way better and turned out to be way cheaper than paying cops to harass and punish homeless people.
As Lorerunner said it becomes a lot easier to get a job when you have a home to live in, I can't say I know much about economics (or that I'll ever experience economical strife) but improving social programs which make things like healthcare and education easier to obtain will improve the life of the average individual.
While I like your story telling idea.. I think that your use of time would be a continuity gaffe.. as you state.. Star trek has consistently been about the ability to go back in time and change the future.. infact, in tng they make it canon that hyper time exists where every possible outcome that could happen..does.. and thus we have hundreds of thousands of alternate universes ..arguably each with their own mirror universe.. again.. a concept that there was no gabriel bell and we find out sisko thought him up is intriguing.. I just dont know that we could make it fit with what is generally established for the universe..
Even though I am in a middle class house in a nice neighborhood, it still makes me angry cities will do everything they can to make homeless people's lives a living hell. I'm even considering writing a letter to president Trump about this and that homeless people need to be helped, not pushed away.
The rich people party reminds me of an episode of X-Men: the Animated Series in which Storm time traveled to the 50s. ("Prejudice because of skin tone? How quaint!")
North Korea has a very low unemployment number. Most everyone works. Most everyone is paid by the government. The last time you bought a cellphone how many employees did you talk to between arriving at the store, selecting a phone, signing a contract and paying for it? One, two? How about someone who greets you at the door and checks the central database to find out if you are allowed in that part of town, social credit score etc. Then someone to show you available choices, both of them. Another who présente the contract. Another who takes payment. Wonderful news low unemployment.
I’m watching this in 2022 and there is a job crisis created by the government and it’s not getting better. I watched this episode around 2010 when I got the DS9 dvds and it scared me because I could see America going that route.
well, what can I say. You could argue that the now, is thankfully not quite as hopeless? The only issue is, that people, who actively don't wanna care are in charge. Not Only in the US. But at least, we still have got these grass root movements, that are still fighting to make the people in charge care. So we still remember how to care at least. It gets really mirky, going into details of this dynamic though, so I am just gonna leave it with this.
This episode hits in a really different way now in terms of there being enough jobs. A significant amount of jobs in North America and Europe are essentially bullshit jobs that only exist to keep people busy and provide the illusion of productivity. These days, you could easily move most white-collar work to a 15 hour work week, and society would function about the same. But we keep them around because of the image of productivity, and also management and executives like having people to boss around. It was really eye opening when everything was supposedly shut down for the virus, yet my life was basically completely unchanged. the lights were still on, grocery stores still had food, even taco bell was still open. really made you wonder what all these "non-essential" jobs were actually doing. It's not even just a western thing, in Japan like half the country is employed by the government as construction workers to prop up the unemployment numbers. Construction is literally never ending over there. They'll build massive highways to no where, concrete over river beds, build massive buildings and parking lots that end up becoming glorified bathroom rest stops. Billions and billions of yen all being wasted in an attempt to hide the underlying problem that there's not enough productive work to go around.
i don't entirely agree with the part of not being able to create jobs: more than one of the places i've worked for as consolidated positions so they could operate with less people, but it would often result in the places being understaffed. they'd still be able to function; but the people i see with said positions often seem overworked, and the quality or availability seems to drop significantly. i know you've also said that they'd split someone's paycheck to create another job; but it also looks like the people on the top could afford to take the loss, or even remove existing jobs so they could make more money. A lot of the people i've worked with also seem to work 2 or more jobs; but if they made enough from 1, wouldn't that open up more jobs for other people?
I've never understood the economic fallacy that an economy can be self-sustaining and still have no jobs. It seems to me on a fait accompli level that any economy actually self-sustaining will have more jobs than the labor force can meet. There will always be a frictional level of unemployment; people moving between jobs. But how exactly is the economy flourishing and excluding thousands of potential workers? Seems under-actualized to me. That's a glut of under-utilized resources, and the first person who's clever enough to solve that problem ought to become a billionaire, right?
Thank you for sharing something so personal and painful with your audience. I think I can speak for many in admiration of your humanity... besides your unique and wonderful insights on all things Trek. Have you given any thought to doing something on the 11 episodes of Star Trek Continues?
Maybe San Francisco is some kind of time nexus. Or the dark tower maybe? Also, about that useless job, at least they're not pressing Alt J. Someone will get that one, I'm sure. Sorry, I don't add anything relevant to the discussion, I just make bad jokes. :)
You aren't thinking like a hostage taker. You didn't take hostages and threaten to kill them because you had a straightforward plan to solve homeless/joblessness. You took hostages to send a message. Its a symbol. Do you care about this problem or do I have to hurt these people?
homelessness only intrigues me as far as preparation and freedom to do things are concerned. buying the proper tools and such beforehand, and then suddenly living off the grid, moving into the woods, making a hut, etc, that would be fine. but i could never live with myself being that guy digging through garbage cans for food or refundables, sleeping on a business' benches, stealing and returning stolen products... get me out in the woods with a rifle and tools for traps, gardening, etc, that i could live with, if i could ever get over being addicted to the interwebz :|
Yes, the time travel was friggin stupid in this episode but I think I will save my rant to episode 2 when it really show just how little they thought anything through.
For years it bothered me that I understood that a war crime was happening in this episode but I did not understand why... the word is “internment”. The war crime in this episode is called “internment”.
Once Star Trek expanded the time travel beyond the Guardian of Forever they lost any rational story line. Various Trek shows have time-traveled a bunch of times. If time travel is this easy, then there's a bunch of ships as competent to do this as the Enterprise, not to mention Romulans, Klingons, etc, etc. Earth's history would look like swiss cheese with all these various time incursion changing history repeatedly. (This whole thing is satirized on a Simpson's episode where Homer keep stepping on various bugs, changing the course of history radically so each time he returns home his family is a different species.)
Well O'Brien did mention they arrived where they wanted just not when they wanted. Sounds like they went with back to the future time travel logic on it.
I was thinking, the Chronotron field thing might not be a bad timey-wimy Idea. I think the writers were trying to explain a "Faraday cage" type of thing for the time travel, as for them not being affected by time outside of the defiant is definitly stupid. P.S. I han't watched the episode in ages. just got this Idea spontaniously.
"I know we're basically breaking down people into a resource, but bear with me." Um... no? No I won't. I actively enjoy your commentary overall but I have to say the economic politics you're promoting here are at least as naive as anything put forth in the episode, and arguably much worse. The ENTIRE point of the Federation as a utopia, portrayed in Star Trek, is "We don't make you work to justify being alive." No one we see in the Federation does a job because if they don't, they will starve and go homeless. No one becomes a doctor in the Federation because "it pays more," they do it because they actually want to contribute as a professional healer. You yourself say earlier in the video you haven't yet met someone who doesn't work, given opportunity. And treating debt as if it were a commodity the way ACTUAL commodities are? That's what led to the 2008 crash. So it's not even about Star Trek being unrealistic as fiction because it's not, actually.
Wouldn't the Vulcans go back in time to stop Spock from screwing up time so that vulcan is destroyed. Another words go back in time, for instance they could do a revision of Star Trek 4 and make sure they get more Whales and assist and tell Spock not to reunite the vulcans and romulans and thus get rid of the entire new timeline and restore star trek to what it once was and thus tell CBS to screw themselves.
This was one of my favorite episodes in the entirety of star trek. It takes the bold stance that "in the face of injustice, even terrorism is permissible" by having the founding of the federation contingent on how things went down there. It really makes the core of the federation the utopian social justice ideal
Voyagers "11:59" was terrible, Enterprise did much better with "Carbon Creek" -- especially the teaser Past Tense is an o kay episode, and the Vin character is good, I remember always liking that actor.
I really do not like this episode. Far too preachy and against my own personal philosophy on the matter. I wanted to skip it but pushed through it because of the completionist in me.
It is interesting that classism is at the front of this vision of the future/past. The apparent lack of racism, sexism, etc. also gives a small opening for the federation's ideals to be realized. However, we're not really seeing that at the moment in real life, considering the prevalence of hate crimes and vitriolic misogyny. I don't remember the corporate aspect of the homeless camp as well, but that is very American. Bashir's comment is reminiscent of the famous, "It's easy to be a saint in paradise" line. Not only are politics messy because of the many people with their own agendas running things but because of 1) who is ABLE to run (who has the finances, connections, etc.), and 2) who WANTS to run for office (what kind of people are attracted to controlling others). Comments about the lazy unemployed and impoverished are prevalent and make my blood boil. Then *I* am told that I am too "biased" and immature hehe. But it's the cruelty and callousness of what these people want to do to the poor that enrages me. Again, it's a total dehumanization. I am afraid I AM prejudiced when it comes to enforcing policies that essentially torture people who are already down.
"Reducing people to a resource". Yep, that's capitalism for you. Not to get all commie on you, but it occurs to me that, given that we live in communities with more empty homes than homeless people, perhaps abolishing private land ownership and making housing free would be a significant step in the right direction on this issue. I've noticed a lot recently how staunchly stuck in a capitalistic worldview lots of analysis tends to be, especially from Americans. Particularly given that this is Star Trek we're talking about, I think it might be prudent to spend some time looking further to the left in discussions of economic issues rather than staying entirely on the right.
Dude, unemployment can be solved if the political will is there, check out the WPA. Homelessness too, considering there are more empty homes than homeless.
You’re not stupid and you’re not rambling. I love this guy. He constantly apologizes for his best material. This is what sets Lorerunner apart from pack. Great episode.
I disagree, he often goes on & on about unimportant stuff. He's spending way too much time on the time travel aspect of this episode & how to make it work better. That's not important or what the episode is focusing on. Sisko, Bashir & Dax getting caught up in this critical event in American & Earth history is what the episode is about.
I disagree with your disagreement. Lorerunner is doing an excellent job! Best Star Trek commentary channel on CZcams.
Dax was born on November 10th 2018, their birthday just went by, it was a thing on tumbr so don't feel bad for missing it we celebrated enough for everyone.
That's really cool. I just looked this up and Memory alpha agrees that Dax was born in 2018, but took its first host in 2168. 150 years seems a long time for the symbiont to sufficiently mature to be joined. I wonder, where does the 2018 date come from? Memory Alpha quotes no canon source for this. Now I'm curious.
And this 2 parter is even weirder when you consider the whole Nog mentions Sisko looking like Bell in the Green Little Men episode
'he needs to bring in more liquor to make the dog happy'
so... the dog is a booze hound?
I don't think Sisko was saying that everything got better overnight. He just called it a Watershed moment, probably a bit like Rosa Parkes-nobody pretends that all the racial issues in the US are fixed, but there is a definite difference between pre-Parkes & post-Parkes USA.
I remember loving this episode, even though family and friends thought it was pretty boring. I didn't mind the wonky time travel as much as you did, but I can see where you're coming from. Loved your rumination!
Thanks for these ruminations. Been a rough year for me with family illness and passing, and your sci-fi ruminations have been a safe haven for my mind and soul. Thanks so much for the work you put into these. I get to relive my favorite shows with new perspectives and recharge my batteries.
Now from 2022, only a couple years away, it is astounding how prescient this episode was before it’s time!
Despite the bad time travel I always considered the moment when the Federation disappeared in the present timeline as a great piece of fringe horror. What actually happened to the human race during and after the 21st century? They can't detect any advanced technology in the Sol system in the 24th century. Are there any humans even left on earth?
Lorerunner, your relationship to the themes of this episode and your super mysterious and intriguing allusions to your past is FAR more interesting than these two episodes
There are so many unemployed people that don’t want to work. The majority of the people I schedule for interview’s don’t show up for them. Of the ones that do most quit without any notice after their first paycheck. My business is in the service industry, but I make sure they make at least $15 per hour which is decent money in the Midwest. I have been homeless too, I had great difficulty finding work in my youth, looking back on things I believe job recruiters at the time were just too inexperienced in evaluating job candidates with asd like me. So as someone who tries hard to give people chances, it hurts so much that they feel it’s ok to just not show up to work without notice. When they do that and I have to call customers apologizing for having to reschedule their appointments, it hurts our reputation online and just harms my business overall. The worst part is after they no call no show, they blow up my office’s phone with calls demanding they get paid early and act like they’re the victim in this whole thing some how. I loved this episode of ds9 as a kid, I think today though the problem goes beyond jobs. The workers I have issues with today mostly have these common traits. They are young with kids, unmarried of course, keep having kids, their parents never demanded anything from them so they don’t feel they need to be responsible to anyone or anything, and if you own a business you must be rich so whatever harm they do to my business is somehow justified.
Sisko paired with Bashir is a nice coupling. They don't get enough screen-time together. It's very master-pupil because Sisko is the Captain and Bashir (pre-genentic enhancement reveal) has the most potential for career advancement. He's the most exceptional officer and can learn some hard-won lessons from Sisko's mentorship. I really buy Sisko as a learned officer and Bashir benefitting from his mentor's wisdom.
This was one of the DS9 episodes i still remember
I love this episode, even if setting it Fifteen Minutes into the Future was a dumb idea, because we're already past the date it takes place at. I still remember seeing it when it was first broadcast; back then I thought the near-future setting was a brilliant idea, and I also really liked the idea of Dax being an alien visitor to "modern" America. The final moment where Sisko says "I am Bell" was a very, very thrilling reveal to me. And aside from the fact that it's now set in an alternate past, I do think the episode still holds up. I think it's a very relevant social commentary, and the past 20 years haven't made it less resonant.All the time travel going to San Francisco makes sense, given that it's the headquarters of Starfleet. If Destiny is a thing, then SF is a nexus of Destiny.If Sisko read about Gabriel Bell in the history books, then presumably there was a picture in the article of the original Gabriel Bell, or else why the dickens would there be a picture of Sisko as Gabriel Bell after this incident. So the idea that there wasn't a real Gabriel Bell doesn't track at all for me. I think the best way to make sense of the time travel here is to assume that there was a branching timeline - the original universe in which Sisko read about Bell in his youth, and let's say that Bell looked like Tony Todd because Tony Todd is awesome, that timeline still exists, but if Sisko doesn't take over for the now-dead Tony Todd, then he'll be trapped in a new timeline where there was no Bell and Starfleet never existed. Just because your original universe still exists doesn't mean you can get there.
We're not actually at the point yet, the Bell Riots isn't for another 10 months as of my reply. So we still got time baby, they can still make it happen. That being said I think society ran into the opposite problem ST proposed, in that we have too many jobs and not enough workers because for whatever reason people back in the 90s didn't take into account that all the boomers were eventually going to retire and there's no other generation large enough to fill that gap. Businesses just haven't really caught up to that fact yet because for so long they were used to a surplus of workers that they could be super picky as to who they chose to hire, not they can't and they're slow to react to the changing times.
This episode is very memorable for how it twists the visual style, and I probably give it too much credit because of how well everyone does their part, even with the plot holes.
I honestly love your economics talk. It’s so refreshing and intriguing.
i do know how hard it is to find a job without an address. it's also hard to find a job without valid ID. and it's hard to get valid ID without money to pay to get your birth certificate. it's hard to get money without a job. and it's hard to get a job without a place to live...
This isn't massively related but I like the idea that they chose 2024 and put the lines about Europe falling apart, because of earlier TNG saying Irish reunification occurred in 2024 (and involved terrorism and other unrest - so maybe the reunification hasn't happened by the time of this episode, and the rich people are only seeing the New Neo IRA's carbombs and stuff.)
Your point about an economy needing to be flowing instead of stagnating makes me think of the "austerity" in the UK. Jobs have been cut and local government budgets have been "slimmed", and surprise surprise this hasn't fixed the economy - it's become more stagnant, and what jobs there are became increasingly unstable compared to when this began. The unemployment rate is technically lowered but by people who have no guaranteed hours, who are told hours before their shift to not come in that day, repeatedly for weeks on end. "Sorry, we didn't make enough sales today for you to come in". Functionally they're unemployed, they're living as if they're unemployed, struggling to eat as if they're unemployed - but they don't count as unemployed on the stats anymore. They can't qualify for out-of-work help anymore. And so on. And of course those sales are stagnant when so many of the potential customers are financially squeezed in the exact same way as the person with cut hours. That's a stagnant economy, that's not flowing. Everybody's just saving. It's not going anywhere.
Nice point on Star Trek's "obsession" with San Francisco and time travel... If I'm not mistaken, The Big Goodbye holonovel is situated there as well. And Trek director Nicholas Meyer based his 1979 movie Time after Time in the city by the bay too.
I also hate it when people that live in a rich neighborhood say, HoMeLeSs PeOpLe ArE a ThReAt. Well sharon if you were in that situation would you act well and never be angry? As Benjamin Sisko put it, "it's easier to be a saint in paradise"
In universe, it makes a certain amount of sense for San Fransico to be a nexus for time travel given that it's one of the primary cities on Earth within the Star Trek universe.
Well it's Starfleet Headquarters.
It survived WWIII... so there's that.
Some heavy subject matter for discussion here. Thank you for sharing your insights into homelessness. I'm very thankful that I have never had to experience this.
OH BTW, you might have mentioned this, but this is on the cusp of world war 3, and when (according to Q), they learned to control their soldiers using drugs....:) Star Trek is positive in outlook but it gets a lot worse before it gets better.
Although i do wonder how anyone survived nuclear WW3 to begin with. if i've learned anything from fallout games..it that nukes do NOT leave much left to go off on. meanwhile in Frist contact, yup everything is fine, no radation, no nuclear death zones. Hell not even a nuclear winter
Well, they were in Montana and there may be a pretty good reason for it.
It's far away from any large continuous metropolitan area, most of which for sure sustained a vast majority of the hits.
I am pretty sure that there arose plenty of nuclear wastelands during the Star Trek's WWIII; however, I never believed that in that conflict enough nuclear warheads had been launched to create a long-lasting global nuclear winter.
I am also convinced that the increased radiation levels did reach as far as the First Contact's location in Montana; however, they were survivable and not dissimilar to the ones the planet of Vulcan possesses, for example.
Hello.. I am from the future in 2021.. These episodes are scarily accurate as to what has happened in 2020, and is currently happening..
As you've noted, money doesn't solve everything, and that's (almost) all infrastructure. You point out how HARD it is to get a job when you have no address. It's hard to even GET an address when you have no address. The hoops people have to jump through in order to get even low income housing are ginormous. So when people can't afford to pay for mental or physical health or food, how can they even be in the position to spend all that energy on tracking down all the documents they need?
(Apparently Trump suggested printing more money, but I think that's to no one's surprise, unfortunately lol.)
Your dog is just upset about homelessness and poverty! XD
Does anyone not watch DS9 for the economics? But seriously, great coverage on this episode, and I love hearing your perspective on homelessness and how it becomes a cycle that never ends. Most of all I thank you for not letting those circumstances make you cynical and hateful and that instead you (like most of us) look to Star Trek as a way to better the world and ourselves. Seriously, great episode Lore.
Love your work, enjoy listening to your reviews. Thank you for sharing your story. Hug.
This should be my final comment: regarding job shortages, why do we NEED everyone to work if there are literally a shortage of jobs? Is it just out of a Puritanical sense of morality? Is it to "keep people out of trouble"? It seems that the Federation is the ideal of a world where people DON'T need jobs, as you discussed in the episode where Keiko misses her *career.* People are able to follow their passions.
That said, in this world and the world shown in this episode, the employees are totally overwhelmed and overworked. In real life, many people work multiple jobs, which could be filled by others, just in order to survive.
Which is why there are a few problems with the business incentive model (unless there are sufficient regulations). A lot of business owners aren't entirely sensible or ethical (to put it mildly lol, though some truly are), so sometimes they will hire MANY people to do jobs of a few people and then pay them all less, meaning that those people wouldn't be able to survive on those salaries. Anyway, that's just one example.
Again, thanks for this rumination, and I look forward to part 2 (though it's kind of depressing). I also would love to hear about your process of scheduling your videos and and staying organized sometime!
mostly the problem lies in the stockholders of the various companies fearing they're going to miss out on their new ferrari each quarter (obviously with the number of company stockholders in the world, it's not all ferraris. some want their personal jets, you get the point). more people getting paychecks is more profit out of their pockets. this goes VERY deep, breaking into real estate, manufacturer costs, middlemen, etc to solve.
or keep cutting positions wherever they can afford to: i've worked at multiple stores where they kept consolidating positions so they wouldn't have to pay as many people, but still keep said people without increasing their pay. i've even heard of people getting rid of their current employees, consolidating their jobs into a single role, then rehiring replacements with more tasks at a lower pay
A significant amount of jobs in North America and Europe are essentially bullshit jobs that only exist to keep people busy and provide the illusion of productivity. These days, you could easily move most white-collar work to a 15 hour work week, and society would function about the same. But we keep them around because of the image of productivity, and also management and executives like having people to boss around. It was really eye opening when everything was supposedly shut down for the virus, yet my life was basically completely unchanged. the lights were still on, grocery stores still had food, even taco bell was still open. really made you wonder what all these "non-essential" jobs were actually doing.
It's not even just a western thing, in Japan like half the country is employed by the government as construction workers to prop up the unemployment numbers. Construction is literally never ending over there. They'll build massive highways to no where, concrete over river beds, build massive buildings and parking lots that end up becoming glorified bathroom rest stops. Billions and billions of yen all being wasted in an attempt to hide the underlying problem that there's not enough productive work to go around.
I bet looking back on this episode in 2020 must be fun.
Quark is in charge when the senior staff is away.
The idea of just "creating jobs" for the sake of having jobs reminds me of a little anecdote
"At one of our dinners, Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”"
And now we're in 2024 😮 I came in search of these episodes because we were discussing the topic in a Blerd group I'm in.
6:37 I like to think that Eddington is left in charge of DS9 in the senior staff's absence. I feel like Sisko would trust him to keep things stable and watch after Starfleet's best interests.
Who are the ones we left in charge? Killers, thieves and lawyers.
There's a leak, there's a leak in the boiler room... 🎵🎶
I’ve never liked a Trek time travel mechanic, but this episode is my favourite time travel episode. Not because of the time travel of course, but the situation Sisko, Bashir, and Dax found themselves in, and I enjoyed the supporting cast. Frank Military, and others.
I think the Bell riots were supposed to be the spark that lit the fire of change. Sisko was just reciting that fact in hind sight very briefly so Bashir could get some context to the situation. I don’t think it was naïveté on Sisko part.
Since I know that complex problems can be solved with simple answers here's mine: In both this episode, and IRL, the gov't should do a gratuitous new deal esque make work project, step 1 of that program being - fix and upgrade the Sanctuary District.
Not being able to get a job because your homeless is the reason I always thought the housing idea would work. Start a program to get homeless people into homes, apartments, etc. From there get them into the workforce and start them off on a new life. I realize it's not that simple, but it's a decent start.
I got into DS9 because I really enjoyed your Ruminations on TNG. I never sat down and watched all of TNG until Netflix. I'd catch whatever episode was on late at night on TV. I enjoyed your Ruminations so much on TNG, that when I got caught up on them, I watched DS9 so I could hear your thoughts on the episodes. I'm all done with DS9 now, rewatching them at the moment.
Of course, building properly funded public housing for the homeless would create a construction boom.....hence more jobs.
Likewise, give everyone in society enough money to exist-not merely survive-& demand for goods & services will increase.
All right, this might be a few comments. Great discussion of homelessness, economics, and, basically, dehumanization. Even the "J letter" example is an example of dehumanization, I would say? Though obviously not as horrific as it can be.
I also want to make this comment about bias: sometimes "bias" is just knowledge. People who have never experienced something THINK that they are objective, but we know that is never the case. When you have gone through something, you may very well understand the situation better than those who think they are coolly detached from the situation.
I might be reading too much into this, but is the hilarious dichotomy between Bashir and Sisko's situation and Dax's a commentary on the chance and dumb luck that plays into everyone's economic situation? People literally do not *choose* to be born into certain economic classes, but we have an idea that your wealth is directly tied to your sense of morality. Dax did brilliantly with what she was handed--as a beautiful, intelligent, ancient alien--but it was still a complete coincidence that she had those qualities AND that she met one of the richest men on the planet.
George Jetson job entailed pushing a big red button five hours a day three days a week and complained often and vocally.
funfact: the Dax Symbiont is born the year this video was published in. As of this comment, they are 2-3 years old
While I appreciate the fact that you try to avoid discussing controversial subjects on your channel, I'm not sure it can be entirely avoided since DS9 often deals with difficult subject matter.
I'm thinking of episodes like "Far Beyond the Stars," where the issue of racism in America is an overt focal point of the episode, and used as a vehicle to tell an incredibly heartwrenching and tragic human story, one which has roots in real life history, and is something we're still struggling with today.
And for anyone who's interested, what was being discussed at the beginning of the rumination is called Hostile Design. Extra Credits has an episode discussing it in depth: czcams.com/video/NWZLB8CyPbM/video.html
I rather enjoy this episode because it showed the plight of whites in America. It shows a time when the lofty ideals of multiculturalism were failing, and promises a brighter future (which is Star Trek's thing) ~ but it did not put white people in a negative light. The gimme leader and the ghost leader were both white, and though their tactics differed they realized they were in the same boat and teamed up.
@@russellfrankland7335 Wow! Your racism is showing. Multiculturalism is a strength, not a weakness in American society & you completely missed the point of the episode. The writers of the episode specifically said they made a conscious choice not to play up the racial component in the episode, because they knew people would be able to dismiss of something happening to the other & not themselves. Yet here you are claiming this episode shows a failure of multiculturalism. Did you not notice how the two minority characters get tossed into the district & the attractive white woman is immediately helped. That was intentionally by the writers to touch on racism without being overt. You totally didn't get the episode at all.
I appreciate your rambling, keep up the good work. Also, the time traveling thing doesn't bother me nearly as much as it does you XD
Finland did that "give homeless people a home" thing and it worked way better and turned out to be way cheaper than paying cops to harass and punish homeless people.
As Lorerunner said it becomes a lot easier to get a job when you have a home to live in, I can't say I know much about economics (or that I'll ever experience economical strife) but improving social programs which make things like healthcare and education easier to obtain will improve the life of the average individual.
While I like your story telling idea.. I think that your use of time would be a continuity gaffe.. as you state.. Star trek has consistently been about the ability to go back in time and change the future.. infact, in tng they make it canon that hyper time exists where every possible outcome that could happen..does.. and thus we have hundreds of thousands of alternate universes ..arguably each with their own mirror universe.. again.. a concept that there was no gabriel bell and we find out sisko thought him up is intriguing.. I just dont know that we could make it fit with what is generally established for the universe..
Lieutenant Reese is clearly in charge of the station.
Meanwhile on DS9
"computer iniate party mode!"
bridge turns into a rave
Quark pulled some real nasty shit while they were gone. That's for sure
Even though I am in a middle class house in a nice neighborhood, it still makes me angry cities will do everything they can to make homeless people's lives a living hell. I'm even considering writing a letter to president Trump about this and that homeless people need to be helped, not pushed away.
This episode is quite relevant now
Watching this in 2022. I wonder how bad things will get he says.... Oh the bliss of 2018
Diolch! Thanks for posting this! Been looking for it!
Type 1 time travel is how temporal mechanics works. Now making changes from outside space /time I can't speak to.
On this day Sisko and Bashir should currently be in San Francisco.
The rich people party reminds me of an episode of X-Men: the Animated Series in which Storm time traveled to the 50s. ("Prejudice because of skin tone? How quaint!")
When all the senior staff goes on a trip, they leave Garak in charge. Nothing could ever go wrong with him in charge ;)
A good episode, now the review :)!
And in Picard season 2 we return to this year .
North Korea has a very low unemployment number. Most everyone works. Most everyone is paid by the government.
The last time you bought a cellphone how many employees did you talk to between arriving at the store, selecting a phone, signing a contract and paying for it?
One, two?
How about someone who greets you at the door and checks the central database to find out if you are allowed in that part of town, social credit score etc. Then someone to show you available choices, both of them.
Another who présente the contract. Another who takes payment.
Wonderful news low unemployment.
I’m watching this in 2022 and there is a job crisis created by the government and it’s not getting better. I watched this episode around 2010 when I got the DS9 dvds and it scared me because I could see America going that route.
well, what can I say. You could argue that the now, is thankfully not quite as hopeless? The only issue is, that people, who actively don't wanna care are in charge. Not Only in the US.
But at least, we still have got these grass root movements, that are still fighting to make the people in charge care. So we still remember how to care at least.
It gets really mirky, going into details of this dynamic though, so I am just gonna leave it with this.
This episode hits in a really different way now in terms of there being enough jobs. A significant amount of jobs in North America and Europe are essentially bullshit jobs that only exist to keep people busy and provide the illusion of productivity. These days, you could easily move most white-collar work to a 15 hour work week, and society would function about the same. But we keep them around because of the image of productivity, and also management and executives like having people to boss around. It was really eye opening when everything was supposedly shut down for the virus, yet my life was basically completely unchanged. the lights were still on, grocery stores still had food, even taco bell was still open. really made you wonder what all these "non-essential" jobs were actually doing.
It's not even just a western thing, in Japan like half the country is employed by the government as construction workers to prop up the unemployment numbers. Construction is literally never ending over there. They'll build massive highways to no where, concrete over river beds, build massive buildings and parking lots that end up becoming glorified bathroom rest stops. Billions and billions of yen all being wasted in an attempt to hide the underlying problem that there's not enough productive work to go around.
i don't entirely agree with the part of not being able to create jobs: more than one of the places i've worked for as consolidated positions so they could operate with less people, but it would often result in the places being understaffed. they'd still be able to function; but the people i see with said positions often seem overworked, and the quality or availability seems to drop significantly. i know you've also said that they'd split someone's paycheck to create another job; but it also looks like the people on the top could afford to take the loss, or even remove existing jobs so they could make more money.
A lot of the people i've worked with also seem to work 2 or more jobs; but if they made enough from 1, wouldn't that open up more jobs for other people?
clearly San Francisco is built on a time rift
Wow! Authenticity. You are always refreshing, Lore. If this is ranting, keep doing it.
I've never understood the economic fallacy that an economy can be self-sustaining and still have no jobs. It seems to me on a fait accompli level that any economy actually self-sustaining will have more jobs than the labor force can meet. There will always be a frictional level of unemployment; people moving between jobs. But how exactly is the economy flourishing and excluding thousands of potential workers? Seems under-actualized to me. That's a glut of under-utilized resources, and the first person who's clever enough to solve that problem ought to become a billionaire, right?
Dax was born in 2018.
I just heard that Dick Miller passed away at the age of 90.
Thank you for sharing something so personal and painful with your audience. I think I can speak for many in admiration of your humanity... besides your unique and wonderful insights on all things Trek.
Have you given any thought to doing something on the 11 episodes of Star Trek Continues?
Dax is 700 yo roughly. She had a brief fling with a young Doctor McCoy. So Dax symbiote has been to Earth.
Maybe San Francisco is some kind of time nexus.
Or the dark tower maybe?
Also, about that useless job, at least they're not pressing Alt J.
Someone will get that one, I'm sure.
Sorry, I don't add anything relevant to the discussion, I just make bad jokes. :)
You aren't thinking like a hostage taker. You didn't take hostages and threaten to kill them because you had a straightforward plan to solve homeless/joblessness. You took hostages to send a message. Its a symbol. Do you care about this problem or do I have to hurt these people?
Love to see space themed backgrounds on these
Also of note, Starfleet Academy is in San Francisco. You know...until it isn't >_>.
I got into DS9 for the aliens and the alien cultures... i.e.: worldbuilding
The greatest social program is a job.
Homelessness actually fascinates me...almost to the point of wanting to try it but not QUITE...YET.
homelessness only intrigues me as far as preparation and freedom to do things are concerned. buying the proper tools and such beforehand, and then suddenly living off the grid, moving into the woods, making a hut, etc, that would be fine. but i could never live with myself being that guy digging through garbage cans for food or refundables, sleeping on a business' benches, stealing and returning stolen products...
get me out in the woods with a rifle and tools for traps, gardening, etc, that i could live with, if i could ever get over being addicted to the interwebz :|
Yes, the time travel was friggin stupid in this episode but I think I will save my rant to episode 2 when it really show just how little they thought anything through.
The Dax symbiont was born this year, a month or so back, someone worked out.
Loving the Warhammer 40K reference.
For years it bothered me that I understood that a war crime was happening in this episode but I did not understand why... the word is “internment”. The war crime in this episode is called “internment”.
The prophets. Magic end of explanation. Time travel? Vision?
Hallucinations? What ever don't solve it. It was arranged by the prophets.
oh boy, maybe ira went to future and saw 2024.
Once Star Trek expanded the time travel beyond the Guardian of Forever they lost any rational story line. Various Trek shows have time-traveled a bunch of times. If time travel is this easy, then there's a bunch of ships as competent to do this as the Enterprise, not to mention Romulans, Klingons, etc, etc. Earth's history would look like swiss cheese with all these various time incursion changing history repeatedly. (This whole thing is satirized on a Simpson's episode where Homer keep stepping on various bugs, changing the course of history radically so each time he returns home his family is a different species.)
i always assumed it was san fran cause thats here starfleet HQ was
Well O'Brien did mention they arrived where they wanted just not when they wanted. Sounds like they went with back to the future time travel logic on it.
I was thinking, the Chronotron field thing might not be a bad timey-wimy Idea. I think the writers were trying to explain a "Faraday cage" type of thing for the time travel, as for them not being affected by time outside of the defiant is definitly stupid. P.S. I han't watched the episode in ages. just got this Idea spontaniously.
"I know we're basically breaking down people into a resource, but bear with me." Um... no? No I won't. I actively enjoy your commentary overall but I have to say the economic politics you're promoting here are at least as naive as anything put forth in the episode, and arguably much worse. The ENTIRE point of the Federation as a utopia, portrayed in Star Trek, is "We don't make you work to justify being alive." No one we see in the Federation does a job because if they don't, they will starve and go homeless. No one becomes a doctor in the Federation because "it pays more," they do it because they actually want to contribute as a professional healer.
You yourself say earlier in the video you haven't yet met someone who doesn't work, given opportunity. And treating debt as if it were a commodity the way ACTUAL commodities are? That's what led to the 2008 crash. So it's not even about Star Trek being unrealistic as fiction because it's not, actually.
Showering before bed is a privilege of the bald. My hair is barely manageable with a shower 30 minutes before work.
Wrap your hair in a towel and don't put your head under the shower. I have long, thick hair and I shower twice a day and wash my hair twice a week.
Bernie Sanders is a Vulcan 🖖
I know a guy who won’t get a job because he refuses to do so. He lives with his mom.
The timeline is malleable.
This is not the episode I'm watching right now on BBC AMERICA
Sadly all that social progress Sisko refers to got wiped out by nuclear war, just a few decades later 😉
Wow riots, homelessness, this episode is ominously close to reality...
Ok wrong video I was looking for the episode not a breakdown
Wouldn't the Vulcans go back in time to stop Spock from screwing up time so that vulcan is destroyed. Another words go back in time, for instance they could do a revision of Star Trek 4 and make sure they get more Whales and assist and tell Spock not to reunite the vulcans and romulans and thus get rid of the entire new timeline and restore star trek to what it once was and thus tell CBS to screw themselves.
This was one of my favorite episodes in the entirety of star trek. It takes the bold stance that "in the face of injustice, even terrorism is permissible" by having the founding of the federation contingent on how things went down there. It really makes the core of the federation the utopian social justice ideal
I would not use the term "social justice"... it seemed more simple than that to me. They wanted decent jobs and a shot at the American dream.
Voyagers "11:59" was terrible, Enterprise did much better with "Carbon Creek" -- especially the teaser
Past Tense is an o kay episode, and the Vin character is good, I remember always liking that actor.
I really do not like this episode. Far too preachy and against my own personal philosophy on the matter. I wanted to skip it but pushed through it because of the completionist in me.
It is interesting that classism is at the front of this vision of the future/past. The apparent lack of racism, sexism, etc. also gives a small opening for the federation's ideals to be realized. However, we're not really seeing that at the moment in real life, considering the prevalence of hate crimes and vitriolic misogyny.
I don't remember the corporate aspect of the homeless camp as well, but that is very American. Bashir's comment is reminiscent of the famous, "It's easy to be a saint in paradise" line. Not only are politics messy because of the many people with their own agendas running things but because of 1) who is ABLE to run (who has the finances, connections, etc.), and 2) who WANTS to run for office (what kind of people are attracted to controlling others).
Comments about the lazy unemployed and impoverished are prevalent and make my blood boil. Then *I* am told that I am too "biased" and immature hehe. But it's the cruelty and callousness of what these people want to do to the poor that enrages me. Again, it's a total dehumanization. I am afraid I AM prejudiced when it comes to enforcing policies that essentially torture people who are already down.
wow you've been to PGH
?
"Reducing people to a resource". Yep, that's capitalism for you. Not to get all commie on you, but it occurs to me that, given that we live in communities with more empty homes than homeless people, perhaps abolishing private land ownership and making housing free would be a significant step in the right direction on this issue. I've noticed a lot recently how staunchly stuck in a capitalistic worldview lots of analysis tends to be, especially from Americans. Particularly given that this is Star Trek we're talking about, I think it might be prudent to spend some time looking further to the left in discussions of economic issues rather than staying entirely on the right.
Dude, unemployment can be solved if the political will is there, check out the WPA. Homelessness too, considering there are more empty homes than homeless.