Hacker News Reader

Comment by Verdex | Hacker News Reader

There was this brief moment where star trek broke my suspension of disbelief. How is there not social media and the Internet in the star trek future? Sure they didn't have it when the show was written, but there still felt to be a disconnect.

Now I think, "how can there be a star trek future while we have social media and the Internet?"

Honestly, it's probably what started the eugenics war.

View on HN

It's a slippery slope from Yelp reviews to genetically engineered super soldiers.

It's not where I would have thought things would be going myself. But then there was that whole Myanmar thing with Facebook.

Funniest thing I read all day, thanks

Social media explains the Fermi Paradox. Once it arises technical civilizations regress.

See also

“Dangerous Memes; or, What the Pandorans let loose” In “Cosmos and Culture: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context” Ed. Steven Dick and Mark Lupisella, NASA 297-318, 2010

https://www.susanblackmore.uk/chapters/dangerous-memes-or-wh...

Do you know how the Enterprise is this huge ship that carries a huge population, but yet very few people are seen working in each department? Yeah, the rest of them just stay in their bunks doomscrolling, subsisting on Doritos and soda from the replicator ("Diet Coke, cold"). A significant part of government provided basic housing is on starships, because it gives their working crews a sense of importance. When a ship is in range of other ships, space stations, or planets, transporter technology is used to seamlessly reallocate the population. The residents would notice if they bothered to look out their windows, but they mostly don't. It's also why the rest of the ship is so austere - the working crew knows that indulging base material desires is the fast track to becoming a bunk dweller.

In Star Trek they don’t have television. I remember there was an episode where it is mentioned as a dead medium from the 20th century.

I’m guessing they don’t have films either.

They do have written books though.

Now the Star Trek TNG film Star Trek First Contact takes place in the 21st century and features rock and roll and characters talking in “modern” parlance.

I’m guessing that in between the 21st century and the 24th century mankind advanced and stopped watching tv and movies and went back to reading books.

Perhaps they advanced and abandoned social media as well. The Star Trek’s version of forums and the internet could be an idealized version of Hacker News where everyone actually follows the rules and Dang the AI moderator can just chill and not do much. It’s very possible.

Kind of sad that the content ruined the reputation of the medium.

Back to books, but also all the way forward to holodecks. With nothing in between, apparently.

How can they not have social media in a universe where FTL communications and travel exist? Unthinkable!

It wasn’t the FTL and travel..

But as a pass time, I’m fair certain Holodecks buried pretty much everything else for good. Movies, songs, books, and as hard as it may be for tech people to believe..

Even social media.

Why browse somebody's Facebook when you can simulate then with 98% accuracy on the holodeck.

And if you don't like somebody, punch them or worse... no flame wars in forums when you can use flamethrower

Ah, the metaverse.

I posted it on my subspace story.

Maybe they had it and wisely decided to get rid of it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com