Star Trek: Cautionary Tale About The Future?
I have been watching, over dinner and while pedaling the exercise bike, episodes from the original series Star Trek.
It is fun, to see them uncut and without commercials. There are also some memory jolts, and jolts of things which never went into memory, and some new realizations.
One thing which struck me in the first few episodes is the surprisingly anti-superlative tone taken toward human advancement. Surprising, given Rodenberry's generally-optimistic view of humans in the future.
We jump right in (after the first aired episode, "The Man Trap", perhaps better recalled by most people as "The Incredible Salt Vampire") with "Charlie X". Charlie Evans is a social infant in a teenage man's body, eager to be liked. In order to survive alone, he was granted powers to manipulate the reality around him by kindly aliens. But he has not learned to control his whims and the surging feelings of adolescence, and he spreads havoc. Then, if he can't be liked, he seeks at least to be respected and tries to take over the ship. But Kirk confronts him enough to let the aliens come and call him home.
In contrast to the baby-with-a-hand-grenade theme of that one, the very next episode (aired, not filmed) was "Where No Man Has Gone Before". In that one, passing through 'the barrier at the edge of the galaxy' gives an officer similar godlike mental powers. And even though the officer is mature, trained, and a friend of Kirk's, he too immediately sets in trying to take over things using his new powers.
What is interesting is, even allowing for the one-hour arc of the show, there is no examination of the benign or positive possibilities of his new powers. Only delusions (not so delusional, considering he can actually perform miracles!) of grandeur, and a growing threat to other humans he is coming to see as like insects compared to himself. The line "Absolute power, corrupting absolutely!" is even used.
Given Rodenberry's theme of humans continually perfecting themselves in the future, it is surprising indeed to be slapped in the face, right out of the gate, with these firm warnings that human beings would be unable to handle such powers. It may well be a carryover from the warnings about Krell hubris from Forbidden Planet (which film was so influential on the early design of Star Trek). But there still seems to be another focus at work. Was Roddenberry trying to assure viewers that, no matter how grand the technology in the ST universe became, people would still not dare to seek to become godlike? Was he perhaps even warning us about the dangers of becoming godlike?
Now that I think about it further, Kirk challenged "gods" in several other episodes, and proved that wits, determination, and sometimes just a good right cross were enough to keep up the human end. In "Who Mourns for Adonais?" the crew enounters the last of the Gods of Olympus, who tries to recruit them as worshippers until Kirk convinces him that humanity had grown past him. In "The Squire of Gothos" the crew is toyed with by immensely-powered Trelayne; Kirk keeps him busy until his parents show up and tell him it is time to come in now. In "Arena" Kirk fights the Gorn, but it is actually all to impress the watching vastly-powered aliens with humanity's level of progress. And even the "Gamesters of Triskelion", almost-disembodied entities jadedly wagering their kwatloos on the outcomes of contests between the bodied, may be considered godlike in their control over others but are ultimately shown reason by Kirk.
In each instance, it is human good sense, compassion, and, well, humanity which wins out over godlike abilities. A reassurance that, no matter how advanced we may become, humanity will out and still be the pre-eminent consideration for success. (And say - in one of the movies, didn't Kirk even confront "God" and punch him in the nose? The theme continues!)
It is interesting to consider some of the current discussions of possible human futures from this perspective. And it is not inappropriate; Star Trek is such a social force, so familiar to anyone following science or science fiction, that many of the people now discussing human futures had their views influenced, if not actually shaped, by the Star Trek universe.
Later incarnations of Star Trek explored the theme even further, stabilizing around the "Q Continuum" and its quirky representative, Q himself. Q's powers are indeed godlike, but the Q have in their advancement lost some of the things which are normal to humanity and have a grudging recognition of and fascination with that fact. In current discussional terms, the Q have "passed beyond the Singularity", but there are some elements/members of the Q who still have interest in "what they left behind" - the posthumans looking in on what those quaint humans are up to.
The more you examine it, the more you see the spoor of Star Trek in the projections discussed by many pro-Singularitarians. The holodeck, using a combination of technologies never fully elaborated in the series, becomes "fogspace". The transporter technology, able to completely scan the pattern of a living creature and restore it exactly, becomes the basis for body replication. The hinted-at but never fully-explored financial structure of the Star Fleet future is surely enabled by nanotech-powered factories, turning out endless material wealth. Sentient computers are commonplace in Star Trek, (though AIs seem to be a bit retarded).
The combining of human with machine intellect, so central to many transhuman manifestos, is however violently rejected in the Star Trek universe. In the form of the Borg, such a melding is viewed as the greatest conceivable threat to our humanity and survival as a species. It is all very well to have a Data for a friend, but not to become one with him...
We are warned, too, about the velvet trap of too much ease. The holodeck, nice for little vacations, is repeatedly shown to be a place in which you should not dwell too long. (Another indication of the greater level of advancement in the ST future - how many contemporary people do you know who, given the opportunity to hang out in a holodeck, could resist being there 24/7?) Even before that, in the original series episode "I, Mudd" we are warned that having what you think you want is not all it is cracked up to be - Harry Mudd, surrounded by willing android servants built to his specs, is still not happy and is in fact controlled by them. And in numerous episodes Kirk has to disrupt happy and peaceful cultures because they are, in Kirk's view, stagnant and controlled (often by machines).
I'll have to do more thinking on this. But it seems at this time that every element of what the transhumanist/Singularitarian types are talking about, both pro and con, may be found in the Star Trek universe. So was ST ahead of its time, in discussing these elements? Or did it help create these beliefs?
Addendum:
Working further through the episodes has brought up some other interesting points.
In "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Dr. Corby has found the remains of an ancient culture, guarded over by Lurch (an ancient android) and himself becomes transferred into an android body. Then he creates an android assistant and girlfriend. This episode has not one but two cautionary notes. Though the doctor believes he has been transferred completely into the basically-immortal android body, our heroes prove that he in fact left his soul behind. And "Roc" (the Lurch-android) reveals that the androids had been forced to destroy "the Old Ones" who created them because the humans were frustratingly imperfect.
A later episode, "Shore Leave", addresses yet another angle. The Shore Leave planet constructs and makes available anything anyone is thinking about, a la the mighty Krell device from Forbidden Planet. But our human crew is unable to sufficiently control their thinking, and their background thoughts turn deadly. This is essentially the later holodeck made real on a planetwide scale. (I seem to recall that in the James Blish written version of the episode he includes the idea that there is also a "happy gas" in the atmosphere, which kindly explains why the crew seems to be so slow on the uptake that whenever they think about something it turns up, no matter how unlikely.) (I think one crewman got too much happy gas - he is in a garden paradise, a lovely and eager lady by his side, and instead of wooing her he tells her about WWII aircraft. And while Kirk is chasing his old nemesis Finnegan, his subconscious mind pops up his old flame Ruth - hmmm..... And Sulu chases off after Don Juan and is gone for a long time - with what we now know about George Takei, pretty humorous.)
And another addendum:
In "Errand of Mercy" the Organians seem to be placid pastoral stagnant humans, but are actually placid omnipotent posthumans "as far above us evolutionarily as we are above the amoeba". The Organians regretfully but firmly impose peace between humans and Klingons, then return to their realm of pure thought. And our crew is left to ponder what it will be like in a few million years when humanity might become godlike. (Though answer me this - if the Organians were so anti-violence, why did the faux village they cast up for visitors have a sturdy dungeon ready at hand?)(And why is it that, with all the high-tech warp-speed zipping around the universe our crew did, they always seemed to end up imprisoned in medieval dungeons?)
It is fun, to see them uncut and without commercials. There are also some memory jolts, and jolts of things which never went into memory, and some new realizations.
One thing which struck me in the first few episodes is the surprisingly anti-superlative tone taken toward human advancement. Surprising, given Rodenberry's generally-optimistic view of humans in the future.
We jump right in (after the first aired episode, "The Man Trap", perhaps better recalled by most people as "The Incredible Salt Vampire") with "Charlie X". Charlie Evans is a social infant in a teenage man's body, eager to be liked. In order to survive alone, he was granted powers to manipulate the reality around him by kindly aliens. But he has not learned to control his whims and the surging feelings of adolescence, and he spreads havoc. Then, if he can't be liked, he seeks at least to be respected and tries to take over the ship. But Kirk confronts him enough to let the aliens come and call him home.
In contrast to the baby-with-a-hand-grenade theme of that one, the very next episode (aired, not filmed) was "Where No Man Has Gone Before". In that one, passing through 'the barrier at the edge of the galaxy' gives an officer similar godlike mental powers. And even though the officer is mature, trained, and a friend of Kirk's, he too immediately sets in trying to take over things using his new powers.
What is interesting is, even allowing for the one-hour arc of the show, there is no examination of the benign or positive possibilities of his new powers. Only delusions (not so delusional, considering he can actually perform miracles!) of grandeur, and a growing threat to other humans he is coming to see as like insects compared to himself. The line "Absolute power, corrupting absolutely!" is even used.
Given Rodenberry's theme of humans continually perfecting themselves in the future, it is surprising indeed to be slapped in the face, right out of the gate, with these firm warnings that human beings would be unable to handle such powers. It may well be a carryover from the warnings about Krell hubris from Forbidden Planet (which film was so influential on the early design of Star Trek). But there still seems to be another focus at work. Was Roddenberry trying to assure viewers that, no matter how grand the technology in the ST universe became, people would still not dare to seek to become godlike? Was he perhaps even warning us about the dangers of becoming godlike?
Now that I think about it further, Kirk challenged "gods" in several other episodes, and proved that wits, determination, and sometimes just a good right cross were enough to keep up the human end. In "Who Mourns for Adonais?" the crew enounters the last of the Gods of Olympus, who tries to recruit them as worshippers until Kirk convinces him that humanity had grown past him. In "The Squire of Gothos" the crew is toyed with by immensely-powered Trelayne; Kirk keeps him busy until his parents show up and tell him it is time to come in now. In "Arena" Kirk fights the Gorn, but it is actually all to impress the watching vastly-powered aliens with humanity's level of progress. And even the "Gamesters of Triskelion", almost-disembodied entities jadedly wagering their kwatloos on the outcomes of contests between the bodied, may be considered godlike in their control over others but are ultimately shown reason by Kirk.
In each instance, it is human good sense, compassion, and, well, humanity which wins out over godlike abilities. A reassurance that, no matter how advanced we may become, humanity will out and still be the pre-eminent consideration for success. (And say - in one of the movies, didn't Kirk even confront "God" and punch him in the nose? The theme continues!)
It is interesting to consider some of the current discussions of possible human futures from this perspective. And it is not inappropriate; Star Trek is such a social force, so familiar to anyone following science or science fiction, that many of the people now discussing human futures had their views influenced, if not actually shaped, by the Star Trek universe.
Later incarnations of Star Trek explored the theme even further, stabilizing around the "Q Continuum" and its quirky representative, Q himself. Q's powers are indeed godlike, but the Q have in their advancement lost some of the things which are normal to humanity and have a grudging recognition of and fascination with that fact. In current discussional terms, the Q have "passed beyond the Singularity", but there are some elements/members of the Q who still have interest in "what they left behind" - the posthumans looking in on what those quaint humans are up to.
The more you examine it, the more you see the spoor of Star Trek in the projections discussed by many pro-Singularitarians. The holodeck, using a combination of technologies never fully elaborated in the series, becomes "fogspace". The transporter technology, able to completely scan the pattern of a living creature and restore it exactly, becomes the basis for body replication. The hinted-at but never fully-explored financial structure of the Star Fleet future is surely enabled by nanotech-powered factories, turning out endless material wealth. Sentient computers are commonplace in Star Trek, (though AIs seem to be a bit retarded).
The combining of human with machine intellect, so central to many transhuman manifestos, is however violently rejected in the Star Trek universe. In the form of the Borg, such a melding is viewed as the greatest conceivable threat to our humanity and survival as a species. It is all very well to have a Data for a friend, but not to become one with him...
We are warned, too, about the velvet trap of too much ease. The holodeck, nice for little vacations, is repeatedly shown to be a place in which you should not dwell too long. (Another indication of the greater level of advancement in the ST future - how many contemporary people do you know who, given the opportunity to hang out in a holodeck, could resist being there 24/7?) Even before that, in the original series episode "I, Mudd" we are warned that having what you think you want is not all it is cracked up to be - Harry Mudd, surrounded by willing android servants built to his specs, is still not happy and is in fact controlled by them. And in numerous episodes Kirk has to disrupt happy and peaceful cultures because they are, in Kirk's view, stagnant and controlled (often by machines).
I'll have to do more thinking on this. But it seems at this time that every element of what the transhumanist/Singularitarian types are talking about, both pro and con, may be found in the Star Trek universe. So was ST ahead of its time, in discussing these elements? Or did it help create these beliefs?
Addendum:
Working further through the episodes has brought up some other interesting points.
In "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Dr. Corby has found the remains of an ancient culture, guarded over by Lurch (an ancient android) and himself becomes transferred into an android body. Then he creates an android assistant and girlfriend. This episode has not one but two cautionary notes. Though the doctor believes he has been transferred completely into the basically-immortal android body, our heroes prove that he in fact left his soul behind. And "Roc" (the Lurch-android) reveals that the androids had been forced to destroy "the Old Ones" who created them because the humans were frustratingly imperfect.
A later episode, "Shore Leave", addresses yet another angle. The Shore Leave planet constructs and makes available anything anyone is thinking about, a la the mighty Krell device from Forbidden Planet. But our human crew is unable to sufficiently control their thinking, and their background thoughts turn deadly. This is essentially the later holodeck made real on a planetwide scale. (I seem to recall that in the James Blish written version of the episode he includes the idea that there is also a "happy gas" in the atmosphere, which kindly explains why the crew seems to be so slow on the uptake that whenever they think about something it turns up, no matter how unlikely.) (I think one crewman got too much happy gas - he is in a garden paradise, a lovely and eager lady by his side, and instead of wooing her he tells her about WWII aircraft. And while Kirk is chasing his old nemesis Finnegan, his subconscious mind pops up his old flame Ruth - hmmm..... And Sulu chases off after Don Juan and is gone for a long time - with what we now know about George Takei, pretty humorous.)
And another addendum:
In "Errand of Mercy" the Organians seem to be placid pastoral stagnant humans, but are actually placid omnipotent posthumans "as far above us evolutionarily as we are above the amoeba". The Organians regretfully but firmly impose peace between humans and Klingons, then return to their realm of pure thought. And our crew is left to ponder what it will be like in a few million years when humanity might become godlike. (Though answer me this - if the Organians were so anti-violence, why did the faux village they cast up for visitors have a sturdy dungeon ready at hand?)(And why is it that, with all the high-tech warp-speed zipping around the universe our crew did, they always seemed to end up imprisoned in medieval dungeons?)
posted by InsightStraight @ 9:37 PM
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