JasSmith
@JasSmith@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on Anon is a youtuber 4 days ago:
Today anon learned that men like to look at attractive women. What wonders will he learn tomorrow? Tune in next time… for… Dragon… Ball… Z!
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 6 days ago:
Yes, in response to this comment.
Agreed. People should dislike modern Star Trek for it’s bad writing, not because it’s progressive.
I didn’t raise the topic. I replied to it. I presume you can see that comment? Are you using an application which truncates the discussion?
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 6 days ago:
I clearly explained the distinction despite not using the term “forced inclusion,” which I didn’t raise. You did. I can’t reply qualitatively unless you explain which part confuses you.
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 6 days ago:
“Nuh uh” isn’t an argument. If you won’t read the comment then I won’t be able to give you a meaningful reply.
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 6 days ago:
If these themes are ancillary and not the one dimensional focus, no problem. In Ko’Zeine, the entire episode arc hinges on Darem being gay. It is the plot. To make it worse, there was never any ambiguity. The writers telegraphed the “correct” outcome from the beginning and never let the viewer stew in any kind of reflection or moral dilemma. We knew exactly what the outcome would be and the only reason we watched was to see how we would reach the only “right” conclusion. That’s not good storytelling. It’s a poor choice of plot. So would be a “murder is bad” plot. The issue isn’t a gay character existing. We have plenty of examples of gay characters existing in media in which “the right” takes no issue. See Six Feet Under, Will & Grace, Willow in Buffy, Remy in House, and a thousand other examples.
The issue is the poor writing. I levy similar criticisms of any writing like this. If these episodes revolved around “I’m short,” or “I’m ugly,” or “I’m fat,” they would also be uninteresting. There needs to be more complexity and moral ambiguity to provoke thought. I don’t watch Star Trek for the flashy lights. I watch it for the interesting dilemmas. Academy is the very lowest brow Netflix slop I could imagine.
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 6 days ago:
I think it did. If you disagree please tell me how. I provided two examples.
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 6 days ago:
But this is exactly my point. “Gay people are ok and normal” shouldn’t be a plot. It’s like a “murder is bad” plot. Yes, murder is bad. We know. That’s just not an interesting theme to explore. Maybe if it were presented as a trolly problem, where a crew member were forced to kill someone in order to defend their own life, or the life of a friend, that could be an interesting plot. Forcing the viewer to explore the tension of morality between killing or being killed, or taking an innocent life to save another innocent life. That could be interesting television.
We could apply this to a “gay” plot as well. What if the crew met a civilization that were on the brink of extinction for some reason, and they had outlawed homosexuality for reasons of survival. The crew could explore the tension between individual liberty and existentialism. Someone might argue, “our civilization doesn’t deserve to survive if we strip people of such basic human rights.” Another might argue, “if our civilization is to survive we must make hard decisions as we have always done during war and other crises.” They might argue it’s only “temporary,” and someone else might argue, “it’s been 30 years!”
The issue is driven by one-dimensional plot.
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 6 days ago:
Which part of my explanation did you not understand or disagree with?
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 1 week ago:
I thought I did a reasonable job of explaining the narrative distinction in my comment. Maybe you could be specific about which part you don’t understand, or which part with which you might disagree?
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 1 week ago:
In Ko’Zeine the conflict is not between self and tradition, but more about the internal conflict of Darem. The enemy here is his own crippling self-expectation, not society. I think this conflict resonate a lot with modern morality topics such as LGBTQ+ acceptance.
Either way, I feel the narrative is pre-approved, telegraphed at every opportunity, and leaves no room for ambiguity. I’m sure this theme does resonate with some people, but it’s not good storytelling. It doesn’t resonate beyond that small group.
Re Vox: I agree with your description of the storyline, and I am not disputing that is how the story was told. My point of contention is that the correct outcome was pre-approved. We all knew the “right” choice from the moment the choice was presented. There was never any doubt that the Klingons were wrong. Never any sympathetic exploration of the reasons for their cultural beliefs. Never a moment of critical self-reflection for the viewer. We were told up front “the Klingons are wrong, and we are going to take you on a journey to show you WHY the Klingons are wrong, and how we solve this problem of them being wrong.” It is more akin to an action movie than a Star Trek episode. We all know who the good and bad guys are, and we’re just excited to see shooty lasers on our journey to the foregone conclusion.
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 1 week ago:
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 1 week ago:
That’s fair, and to be clear, I do not think the point is that old Trek was always perfectly nuanced and new Trek never is. Of course old Trek had plenty of episodes where the writers clearly had a preferred moral conclusion. The difference, for me, is in how often it still let the opposing view feel internally coherent, emotionally serious, and worth wrestling with before the resolution arrived.
Take The Outcast. Yes, the episode clearly wants you to sympathise with Soren, but the J’naii are not just framed as sneering idiots for 45 minutes. Their position is tied to a broader social order, Riker cannot simply speechify it away, and the ending is bleak rather than triumphant. Same with Ethics. Crusher is obviously the more humane voice, but Worf’s position is not treated as random barbarism. It comes from honour, fear, identity, and a real cultural framework, which is why the conflict works at all. You can disagree with how those episodes land while still admitting they spend more time inside the conflict.
That is really my criticism of newer Trek. It is not that it has politics, or even that it has a preferred answer, because Trek always has. It is that newer Trek too often signals the answer immediately, flattens the dissenting side into an obstacle, and then resolves the issue in a way that feels morally pre-approved. Old Trek could be didactic too, but it was more willing to leave the audience sitting in the mess for a while. That is the distinction I am getting at.
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 1 week ago:
A specific example would be “Vox in Excelso.” Jay-Den learns the Klingons have become an endangered people after the Burn, General Obel Wochak rejects the Federation’s offer of asylum on Faan Alpha because accepting it as charity would dishonour them, and the episode resolves that by staging a fake battle so the Klingons can claim the planet “by conquest”. To me, that lands too neatly. The episode tells you very quickly that the Federation position is the sensible one and the Klingon objection is mostly pride that needs to be worked around, rather than really sitting with the possibility that their view of dignity, sovereignty, and survival might have more weight than the script gives it.
Another example is “Ko’Zeine.” Darem is pulled back to Khionia for an arranged royal marriage to Kaira, and the episode is clearly building toward the conclusion that suppressing your real self for duty and tradition is tragic and wrong. That is a fair theme, but the show signals the moral endpoint so early that there is not much room left for genuine ambiguity. Kaira ends up being understanding, Jay-Den is framed as the voice urging honesty, and the traditional path mainly exists to be rejected. Compare that with something like older Trek, where you were more often left to wrestle with whether duty, culture, and individual freedom could all make a legitimate claim on the character at the same time.
So when I say the show lacks nuance, I do not mean it should avoid these themes. I mean it too often starts from the answer and then builds the episode backwards, instead of letting the conflict stay uncomfortable long enough for the audience to think. And when the story concludes, they make it VERY clear which way the audience is expected to land. They do not allow for any ambiguity or moral disagreement. They present the “right and true” path, and make it clear that any deviation is wrong and immoral.
- Comment on It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about. 1 week ago:
I mostly agree, but with shows like Starfleet Academy, the writing is bad in part because of the forced inclusive themes. You’re broadly correct: these could be handled with tact for a better show. I still think these themes are handled best when they give the audience room to consider nuanced and complex ideas. Don’t shoot me, but instead of a classic New Generation episode I’m going cite an episode of The Orville - “About a Girl”. Bortus and Klyden have a baby, who is born female. They try to argue that she should be allowed to remain female, but ultimately the court rules that she undergo the Moclan gender reassignment procedure.
This touches on contemporary issues but also doesn’t present the situation as “this side is 100% right, and this side is literally Hitler.” The audience is actually left wondering, where does this sit in the contemporary debate? If a child is born one sex, should they be given the right to remain as that sex? Or should a court be allowed to step in and reassign sex? The episode also brilliantly explores the difficult dynamic between Bortus and Klyden, and doesn’t portray one as a cartoon villain and the other as a male Mary Sue.
This is where New Trek fails horrible. Zero nuance. Everything is presented in the first 10 seconds as “this is good, this is bad. Accept the message we are feeding you are you are a bad person.” That’s not Star Trek. Most importantly, that’s not interesting. It’s not good storytelling. It might appeal to people who really like circlejerking about that particular issue, but that’s a minority of people.
- Comment on Anon wants to live on Super Earth 1 week ago:
Yes this is why democracy is messy. Everyone has a different preference for the pros and cons of policies.
- Comment on Anon wants to live on Super Earth 1 week ago:
A lot of Westerners look at dictatorships and authoritarian states and cannot comprehend why the citizens would accept such a fate. The answer is: food, safety, housing, and cultural and religious homogeneity. People don’t really care that much what the people in charge are doing as long as their life is good.
- Comment on Anon notices some fan service 1 week ago:
Hot take in 2026.
- Comment on Anon has a hobby 1 week ago:
This really shouldn’t turn me on but here we are. What the fuck am I supposed to do with this boner, anon?
- Comment on Anon is terminally lonely 1 week ago:
We lost the cultural appreciation for selflessness and duty. Caring for loved ones is hard work at times. Stressful. Maybe even thankless at times. But it’s incredibly fulfilling. That meaning is often worth more than the fleeting feeling of happiness we primarily seek out in the modern world. Giving to others is important for our psyche. Not in the abstract, like donating to a far-away charity, but in helping someone in your life. Children are a timeless way to find meaning in life. Yes it’s hard work, but damn do they put everything into perspective. If you don’t want kids, volunteer. Meet your neighbours and see if you can help them somehow. Pick up trash in your community. Run for local office.
Anon seeks meaning in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.
- Comment on Anon argues on reddit 2 weeks ago:
Yeah I never got death threats on Reddit but I’ve had several on Lemmy. The last time I admitted this someone asked, “well what did you say?” As though death threats are okay if you hold the wrong political opinion.
- Comment on Karim Diané on playing Star Trek’s first gay Klingon 2 weeks ago:
Well then John Cena is overweight. In fact, he’s obese, with a BMI of 33.9. So BMI isn’t objective reality. And I think it’s useful only as a very rough guideline.
BMI is a population level tool. There are individuals who are extremely muscular who can be in the obese range. I’m not seeking a perfect description - nor will ever such a description exist. If that is your standard then you are taking a postmodernist approach which is “everything is made up and the words don’t matter.” If up means down and the person in the discussion genuinely doesn’t care, there’s no real way to have a discussion after that.
We started with the question “Is Tilly fat?” And now suddenly you’re talking about medicine and health.
Because you raised the concept of soulism and utility. If we were to consider soulism and utility, I think using objective metrics make sense. I agree that there are many other frameworks we could use.
Humans view the world through their lenses of experience. Tolkien wisely remarked on creating fictional worlds that we should endeavour to change as little as possible compared to our world in order to suspend disbelief. When we do make changes, they should be meaningful, important for the story and world, and consistent. Unless Tilly’s weight is explicitly described as healthy and normal, and it is part of some new universe law and storyline, I don’t think we should be making any such assumptions. I think most people would balk at such a storyline and in-universe change. It would feel performative.
- Comment on Karim Diané on playing Star Trek’s first gay Klingon 2 weeks ago:
I like how that focuses on the desired outcomes. Research shows that health risks increase (on average) after a BMI of 25 (slightly more for women). So I would propose a soulism approach in which anyone over a BMI of 25 be considered overweight. That’s generally how medical guidelines categorise weight now.
- Comment on Karim Diané on playing Star Trek’s first gay Klingon 2 weeks ago:
Yes, you bashed out the tired old trope that if gay people are to exist in fiction then there must be a narrative reason.
No, that’s not what I wrote. If you’re going to try to strawman my position the least you could do is put some effort it.
- Comment on Karim Diané on playing Star Trek’s first gay Klingon 2 weeks ago:
It’s true that general obesity can make it hard to identify overweight people today. I’m lucky to live in Europe, and it’s not as bad here yet. Wiseman is somewhere around 35-40%, which is where the official diagnosis of “obesity” begins.
- Comment on Karim Diané on playing Star Trek’s first gay Klingon 2 weeks ago:
dude, gay people exist
Of all the thought terminating cliches to ever exist, this one exists the most. No one claimed gay people don’t exist. Re-read what I wrote please.
- Comment on Karim Diané on playing Star Trek’s first gay Klingon 2 weeks ago:
Cultural inoculation is like a right wing conspiracy theory, but here you are stating it as fact. Maybe you’re right, and the writers really do view Star Trek as tool for cultural power and reeducation, instead of entertainment and art. I hope you’re wrong.
- Comment on Karim Diané on playing Star Trek’s first gay Klingon 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Karim Diané on playing Star Trek’s first gay Klingon 2 weeks ago:
Because they’re humanoids. We see ourselves in them.
I don’t. I think one of the more powerful aspects of Star Trek has been accepting completely alien lifeforms as inherently valuable without anthropomorphising them. We can accept the value in life without making them just like us. That’s a cheap writing technique to shortcut any kind of important world and character building, or moral uncertainty. This is one of the reasons “new” Trek has been so controversial. Writing is as subtle and nuanced and interesting as a YA novel.
To be clear, I’m not claiming Star Trek has never anthropomorphised aliens. Nor am I claiming it should never do it. I’m arguing it should be done sparingly and only when it serves a more interesting narrative. To make a topical American culture war issue the defining characteristic of a Klingon is easily one of the laziest writing mechanics I’ve seen in Star Trek, ever. It’s beating the audience over the head with a message. Star Trek has always presented moral uncertainty to viewers and allowed them to make up their own minds. This is far more powerful and interesting storytelling. Ironically, this is why The Orville has been such a hit. Despite the comedy aspects, it feels like Star Trek because it’s comfortable with moral ambiguity and treats the audience like adults.
- Comment on Anon enjoys the little things 5 weeks ago:
Each person is different but the medication is cheap and you can try it for a couple weeks and see if it helps.
- Comment on Anon acts like a jerk 5 weeks ago:
Most men go through this. We start life sweet and innocent. We hold doors open for girls. We listen. We try to be great friends. We don’t touch them unless they ask us to. And we become permanently friendzoned.
Most of us start observing what the successful guys do. Almost the exactly opposite. They ignore women. They touch them without consent when going in for a kiss or hug or affection. They tease them and call them names. It works.
Then we get into a long term relationship and realise that the skills which worked to attract women don’t work so well in a relationship. Now we need new skills. Communication. Resilience. Diplomacy. Compromise. Grit. Understanding. Often this is where relationships end, but many of us learn and adapt and grow again.
I have come to understand that most of what shaped me is the needs and demands of the women I have been seeing. I didn’t make these changes because I wanted to make them. I did them out of necessity. I wanted a relationship and a family, so I did what I needed to do. I’m not sure what it’s like from the women’s side. It seems easier.
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