From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Sun May 07 2000 - 17:28:22 MDT
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> Death to 7 of 9, the Borg, Data, and Spock, proud upholders of the
> frickin' *stupid* tradition that intelligent people are supposed to be
> unable to understand emotions. Hail Gene Roddenbury, who managed to do
> more damage to American rationality than, well, just about anyone.
Oh, faaar too harsh on Roddenberry, Eliezer, waaay too negative. Certainly
GR's work had its shortcomings, but recall he was writing for the
television
proletariat. Furthermore, take a look at TV sci-fi of the late 60s.
Terrible!
Desolate wasteland! Sci-fi was only a slight one-off from traditional
horror
flicks [Danger, Will Robinson!].
Roddenberry suggested a future in which humanity was working
out problems, fixing things, overcoming. Humans were not perfect
by any means, and yes, one did wish Spock had strangled Kirk that
time Spock got horny and challenged him to a dual. And one wished
that when Kirk was doing it with some green chick she would
transmogrify into Q. That'd fix him. {8^D
But all in all, for 1967 it was one helllll of a cool series. Homo Sapiens
grew into a really butt-kicking species, a meme that was amplified further
in the Next Generation. Roddenberry can be forgiven for a few kooky
memes, such as smart people are unemotional, the theory of parallel
evolution, playing fast and loose with the physics of spacetime, etc.
It was *too* cool for its time, thus the early cancellation. spike
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