Mobilisation capacity of the Federation?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Slow to answer ain't I...

I realize this comes off sounding rather snarky, I'm not trying to insult you Uranium or any ST fans.

This road leads to "lol they're all retarded/hallucinating/high/psychotic". It has a certain simplistic appeal, but every answer is just going to be "dumb feddies lol", and if that's seriously to be the state of discourse on the subject then why not close PST and leave a sticky-thread saying "we're done discussing Star Trek, please report to Other Sci-Fi for yet another scintillating discussion on a bunch of fanfiction written about overpriced plastic models"?

I'm not seeing how this makes it somehow invalid. What other explanation is there? These people ARE idiots, not just militarily but in other, many other, ways and they do shit that would make even the most lax canon "laws" fall apart. Some of them don't even understand very basic concepts about their OWN TECHNOLOGY and seem stunned when it goes haywire...it brings into question weather or not they even understand what the shit it is. I'll get to that in a second.

But even if that WERE true, what relevence does it have. You can't discuss something if there is nothing really to discuss. What OTHER logical reason is there other than them being functionally retarded? So far everyone is just unwilling to accept this rather obvious answer, because like I said it makes the whole series kind of a laughingstock, but frankly pretending it's somehow not a valid explanation because it takes Star Trek's thunder is simply BS. Even if it did, it would explain things better than some nebulous "SPACE ONLY!!!" code of honor that has never been mentioned once in the series and is directly contradicted by all the times that people invade planets. Clearly the people in Star Trek's universe think a few thousand guys in jumpsuits are a functional army...why? I have no idea, but my best guess is they're idiots, why else would they do that?

Besides, "they're just dumb" is itself a silly rationalization - they're able to build starships,

Which just barely work, and only then half the time. Ships that can be disabled by relatively slight kinetic impacts and have safety issues that would make OSHA go gray, and bizarre engineering choices that simply defy any kind of rationalization. Like massive banks of explosive fuel lines ("plasma conduits") running through the main consoles, so any damage causes huge, violent explosions and even shrapnel if some pics can be believed. They build starships, yeah, but the ships are for shit and anything from a bonk on the engines to a computer virus makes them go down in flames. And that's not a generalization...that's like half the episodes of Star Trek. I remember one thread we were discussing the exploding console thing, and all fanon aside, Darth Wong just popped in and put it about as clearly as I've ever seen it: they have to run the conduits through the consoles because, and I'm paraphrasing, they lack the technology (somehow) to build remote valves. So they have to control it manually, directly, and the explosive plasma fuel lines are the end result. I could find it probably given time, but yeah that makes sense to me.

And that's not including the innumerable transporter "incidents", and the multiple times people have been either trapped in a holodeck or worse, something gets out. In fact sometimes the holodeck becomes sentient or something and tries to kill them. Which brings me to...

program computers,

Which get pwnt by bacteria from cheese, computer viruses on several occasions, and more than once tried to kill them. That goes all the way back to the Original Series, with computers going bonkers and trying to off the crew, or becoming sentient somehow and trying to off the crew. Sometimes holodeck programs go berserk and try to off the crew...you get the idea. I mean I could dig up more examples if you really must have them, but the damn things go crazy or fuck up more times than I care to mention.

And more so, their most advanced computer is Data, which cannot be reproduced. So either the android's brain is too sophisticated for them to understand, which is what they hammer home everytime they talk about it...or it's so exotic they have no idea how to reproduce it (also a possibility, since we have no idea what a "positronic brain" is). Whatever the case, apparently one man, alone, built a computer more sophisticated and advanced than one designed to go on the flagship of the Federation's navy. Put that in perspective...imagine a guy in New Jersey designed a power source more efficient than anything any scientists have ever built, and no one on Earth knew how to make another even though they have umpteebillion files and schematics on it. Is Data really THAT impressive? Or do they just suck ass at computer sciences?

navigate the galaxy,

Where everyone else seems just as stupid frankly. So far not a single actual military can be found in all the lands, and the Klingons are considered a genuine threat because they use knives. Also any would-be armies, like those of the Dominion, employ what amounts to WWI era tactics and even then use small numbers. Because of the over-emphasis on space combat, almost no one seems to actually threaten them in this one, crucial way. More so, almost everyone they meet save a few tend to be fairly peaceful people, in direct contrast to the really notable ones like the Klingons, Borg, Romulans et al. So navigating the galaxy isn't really that hard, it's not like WH40K where everyone and even some whole planets are trying to literally eat you alive. The fact they survived this long with literally NO army and such retarded "warships" actually makes this feat far less impressive in fact.

and somehow keep a Federation of dozens of worlds together in relative harmony.

That's, again, not too hard. Most of the time they're at peace, and anyway they seem to control only a small number of worlds within their territories so it's simply not as impressive as it seems. More so, it's not that harmonious at all, as more than one mutiny has come down the pike, and at least one attempted coup. Then there are the Marqi (sp?) who have all but abandoned the Feds...and subsequently were left to be massacred by the Cardassians wholesale, because the Feds couldn't be bothered to give a fuck.

Do they just have 'brilliant moments' that allow them to possess 24th-century magic technology? Is this all a grand larf held together by the sheer will of Q? It's bullshit!

Frankly there is evidence for what you just descrived IN UNIVERSE. Remember those...guys, I forget their name, the fat guys who looked like giant autistic babies. Pekleds or something. They managed to beg, barrow and steal enough tech to build a functional spacefaring society (one must presume more than one ship of their's exists, as we've seen the Baby Huey People in other places, like DS9). So yeah it's possible they just have some moments of relative lucidity. Or more likely, they took the tech from someone else. Like the Vulcans...in fact that could explain why they went from a world devastated by WWIII to fielding starships, and why the Vulcans are so pissy about it. More so it would explain why their shit barely works, as they probably only know how to work it by rote. They think they're hot shit, but really they're just repeating actions they've already seen.

And this would also explain why certain one-shot technology never shows up again: they have no idea how to reproduce it, or even how it works really. Combined with the seemingly ass-backward grasp of science they have ("cracks" in an event horizon? wut?) you get an idea that the Feds may be closer to, say, the AdMech or maybe BattleTech than the slick high-tech space people they seem to think they are.

What we typically ignore goes beyond rationalizations - we usually forsake the idea that at some point, it's absurd to keep trying to rationalize everything together, that what we call the Star Trek continuity is so broken and contradictory (with itself and with what we know about how things work) that suspension of disbelief cannot be reasonably maintained.

But once you bring that up, you're basically implying the question "what do we exclude from our consideration of what constitutes the Star Trek universe?", and nobody (at least, nobody here) wants to get mired in that because it will inevitably involve a lot of personal tastes and conflicting agendas.

I'm not saying exclude anything. I'm saying take what we see at face value. They have no armies because they don't seem to realize you need one, no one in the ST Galaxy seems to in fact. They just don't get it.

If someone presented some reason that made even the little bit of sense, and had some actual in-universe evidence to back it up, I'd be glad to hear it. But frankly so far everyone is just grasping at straws. The truth is there is no rational explanation other than they just don't seem to understand how actual armies work.

[Uraniun235]

So far everyone is just unwilling to accept this rather obvious answer, because like I said it makes the whole series kind of a laughingstock, but frankly pretending it's somehow not a valid explanation because it takes Star Trek's thunder is simply BS.

I really cannot accept a galaxy where absolutely everyone is retarded or hallucinating with brief moments of lucidity that coincidentally allow them to function as starfaring nations. That is seriously beyond my ability to suspend disbelief.

[Big Phil]

So far everyone is just unwilling to accept this rather obvious answer, because like I said it makes the whole series kind of a laughingstock, but frankly pretending it's somehow not a valid explanation because it takes Star Trek's thunder is simply BS.

I really cannot accept a galaxy where absolutely everyone is retarded or hallucinating with brief moments of lucidity that coincidentally allow them to function as starfaring nations. That is seriously beyond my ability to suspend disbelief.

North Korea demonstrates that national idiocy and statewide brainwashing IS possible. It may be extremely unlikely, but it is possible that in the Star Trek universe the helmet and headgear kids have taken over

[Samuel]

North Korea demonstrates that national idiocy and statewide brainwashing IS possible. It may be extremely unlikely, but it is possible that in the Star Trek universe the helmet and headgear kids have taken over

Lets see... the Vulcans are nuts due to their fears of chaos and emotion, the Romulans are totalitarian, the Ferengi are insane capitalists, the Cardassians are a police state, the Klingons seemed to have suffered a melt down in a quest for glory, the Dominion is run by insane xenophobes, the Borg are simply nuts (you could ask)...

Maybe the Thoalians had the right idea- the universe is full of crazies and the best bet is to bunker down.

[Themightytom]

Maybe the Thoalians had the right idea- the universe is full of crazies and the best bet is to bunker down.

oh great, the survivalists are the sane ones??

[Uraniun235]

North Korea demonstrates that national idiocy and statewide brainwashing IS possible. It may be extremely unlikely, but it is possible that in the Star Trek universe the helmet and headgear kids have taken over

North Korea is not a viable state. If other nations did not prop them up, they probably would have collapsed by now.

Also, I don't think "everyone is retarded" is the same thing as "anyone who deviates from official party doctrine will be sent to... whatever the North Koreans call a gulag"

[Big Phil]

North Korea demonstrates that national idiocy and statewide brainwashing IS possible. It may be extremely unlikely, but it is possible that in the Star Trek universe the helmet and headgear kids have taken over

North Korea is not a viable state. If other nations did not prop them up, they probably would have collapsed by now.

Also, I don't think "everyone is retarded" is the same thing as "anyone who deviates from official party doctrine will be sent to... whatever the North Koreans call a gulag"

It's not viable with its currently insane level of militarization without external support, but North Korea could be self-sustaining if it backed its military down to levels it could actually afford. The Soviet Union would have been viable as well if it hadn't spent itself into self-destruction; as it is, it survived for 70+ years, while North Korea has been around for nearly 60.

In any case, I personally am not arguing that the IQ of people in the Federation averages George W. Bush level; I'm simply pointing out that states are sustainable and can survive despite consistently making policy decisions that are contrary to their own survival and best interest. For a very recent example, look at healthcare here in the United States - for a variety of reasons our government refuses to implement a system that would lower costs and benefit the entire population, instead favoring a hodge podge system that continues to fuck over the poorest in favor of enriching the wealthiest. It's not unreasonable to think that the civilizations in Star Trek are run by equally short sighted, foolish, and selfish leaders - resulting in militaries led by politically favored but incompetent admirals, ship designs that are unsafe (this was a fact of the matter in the USSR), and tactics that accomplish nothing but to maintain the status quo.

[Simon_Jester]

OK, that makes sense. But it's also very different from the way Eighteen put it. The way he made it sound, the average IQ of a denizen of the Alpha quadrant is around 80 or 90, with few or no exceptional cases on the high end.* Everyone's just randoming around, no one knows how to design anything, and no one understands their own technology.

Like Uraniun, I find that beyond my ability to suspend disbelief. I can easily accept that the Alpha Quadrant species make all kinds of absurd bad decisions (many of which reinforce each other), that there are all sorts of things messed up about their policies and culture. That's not unprecedented. But the idea that a civilization of complete morons could function at all using modern or post-modern technology really does not make sense.

I think the bad decisions in Star Trek have more to do with screwed up incentives and priorities that lead intelligent people to do dumb things than they do with "everyone being stupid."

*Yes, I know IQ isn't that good a measurement, but I need some way to quantify intelligence relative to the modern human norm.

[Big Phil]

I don't think that Star Trek is the Sci-Fi version of Idiocracy either. But some of the things we see in the series are just inexplible unless we assume stupidity or dogma. Since an advanced society run by morons is not even remotely feasible, I'm assuming some other reason has to exist - thus my dogma proposal. Perhaps the peaceniks took over the Federation's government and purposely hobbled its growth and development.

[Darth Wong]

So far everyone is just unwilling to accept this rather obvious answer, because like I said it makes the whole series kind of a laughingstock, but frankly pretending it's somehow not a valid explanation because it takes Star Trek's thunder is simply BS.

I really cannot accept a galaxy where absolutely everyone is retarded or hallucinating with brief moments of lucidity that coincidentally allow them to function as starfaring nations. That is seriously beyond my ability to suspend disbelief.

So your solution is to assume that things which are completely nonsensical are actually intelligent? How the fuck is that logical?

You live in a country at present which is gripped in a national delusion of stupidity where half the country thinks the Earth was created by a man in the sky and 80% of the population believes there are invisible angels flying around them, for fuck's sake. And you choose leaders based on whether they share this delusion. How can you be so dismissive of the idea that a futuristic nation-state might be gripped by some collective stupidity?

[open_sketchbook]

Yes, but fundamentalists aren't necessarily stupid, they're often just deluded, brainwashed from birth, or undergoing some serious denial. Within the ranks of Christians, even creationalists, we find competent engineers, military leaders, economists, and even scientists. There is a difference, I think, between a "social" stupidity (I believe and God and dislike you because you don't!) and "practical" stupidity (Durr button make ship go, wish I knew why), and that difference is the sort that would make or break a highly technological society like the Federation.

[Uraniun235]

So your solution is to assume that things which are completely nonsensical are actually intelligent? How the fuck is that logical?

No, I just selectively exclude certain events - like pretending that Siege of AR-558 didn't happen, or didn't happen that way. That way I can at least pretend the show isn't about hapless retards mashing buttons at random.

I guess I don't really maintain full suspension of disbelief either way.

You live in a country at present which is gripped in a national delusion of stupidity where half the country thinks the Earth was created by a man in the sky and 80% of the population believes there are invisible angels flying around them, for fuck's sake. And you choose leaders based on whether they share this delusion. How can you be so dismissive of the idea that a futuristic nation-state might be gripped by some collective stupidity?

I guess I didn't really think about it that hard. I'm also not terribly in-touch with the society around me.

There's also a sizable minority of people who are helplessly retarded by fanatical mysticism, but I was sort of knee-jerking to the idea that 18BID was proposing a society where literally every single person was retarded.

[Samuel]

In any case, I personally am not arguing that the IQ of people in the Federation averages George W. Bush level;

Bush has an IQ that is above average.

Maybe the Thoalians had the right idea- the universe is full of crazies and the best bet is to bunker down.

oh great, the survivalists are the sane ones??

Only the mad can prosper.
Only those who prosper decide what is truly sane.

whatever the North Koreans call a gulag"

한국어 according to babelfish.

Yes, but fundamentalists aren't necessarily stupid, they're often just deluded, brainwashed from birth, or undergoing some serious denial. Within the ranks of Christians, even creationalists, we find competent engineers, military leaders, economists, and even scientists. There is a difference, I think, between a "social" stupidity (I believe and God and dislike you because you don't!) and "practical" stupidity (Durr button make ship go, wish I knew why), and that difference is the sort that would make or break a highly technological society like the Federation.

Except they have a major problem questioning assumptions and the Federation seems to have major problems... with people not questioning assumptions. The know why things work and how to fix them, but they don't seem to have comprehensive plans to make things better. It's like the Prime Directive- it is in the book and so we follow it. They know why it exists and how to fix it when it is violated, but they don't consider trying to develop a better method.

[Simon_Jester]

So your solution is to assume that things which are completely nonsensical are actually intelligent? How the fuck is that logical?

You live in a country at present which is gripped in a national delusion of stupidity where half the country thinks the Earth was created by a man in the sky and 80% of the population believes there are invisible angels flying around them, for fuck's sake. And you choose leaders based on whether they share this delusion. How can you be so dismissive of the idea that a futuristic nation-state might be gripped by some collective stupidity?

I think it's viable for some definitions of "stupid," but not others.

A religious fundamentalist with a nasty case of holy-book literalism is "stupid" in a philosophical sense. And that philosophical stupidity can easily get expanded into other areas, such as politics. But that doesn't mean they won't be able to do very clever things in other areas of life. It's a fairly specialized form of stupidity, and in and of itself doesn't mean you're looking at a person with broad spectrum general stupidity.

For the entire Federation to be "stupid" in the sense of "has an IQ of about 80" is not credible. They really couldn't achieve even the limited success we see against inept opponents if they were all stupid, if none of them understood the operating principles of high technology, and so forth.

For the entire Federation to be "stupid" in the sense of "blinkered by ideology to the point of madness" is far more credible. And it explains a lot of stuff that could otherwise only be explained by "IQ=80" stupidity: look at how diseases like Lysenkoism spread in the ideologized USSR.

[Darth Wong]

I wasn't talking about IQ, as my choice of example should have made rather obvious. Americans are not genetically stupid; they are gripped with a collective delusion which often makes them act stupid. The end result is, however, the same.

[Simon_Jester]

I wasn't talking about IQ, as my choice of example should have made rather obvious. Americans are not genetically stupid; they are gripped with a collective delusion which often makes them act stupid. The end result is, however, the same.

Yes, but 18-Till-I-Die seemed to be talking about the other kind, as if every member of the Federation was so lacking in brainpower as to be unable to use technology. The word "retarded" came up.

In your sense of the word "stupid," the Federation being stupid makes sense. In his, it does not, any more than the state of American politics can be adequately explained by "the average American has an IQ of 80."

[Big Phil]

Stop arguing with 18 by proxy. He's the only one who seems to have proposed a retarded Federation argument, and he hasn't bothered to defend it (i.e., he's conceded by default).

[Darth Wong]

I wasn't talking about IQ, as my choice of example should have made rather obvious. Americans are not genetically stupid; they are gripped with a collective delusion which often makes them act stupid. The end result is, however, the same.

Yes, but 18-Till-I-Die seemed to be talking about the other kind, as if every member of the Federation was so lacking in brainpower as to be unable to use technology. The word "retarded" came up.

In your sense of the word "stupid," the Federation being stupid makes sense. In his, it does not, any more than the state of American politics can be adequately explained by "the average American has an IQ of 80."

What the fuck kind of response is that? You were explicitly responding to one of my posts, not one of 18's posts. Don't defend your misinterpretation of my statement by referring to something that someone else said.

[Simon_Jester]

Stop arguing with 18 by proxy. He's the only one who seems to have proposed a retarded Federation argument, and he hasn't bothered to defend it (i.e., he's conceded by default).

I do not intend to present any new arguments against 18, or to disagree with anyone else on the grounds that I disagree with him. The only reason I am about to expressing disagreement with him is to explain what I said in earlier posts, since I have been specifically asked what I meant by someone who deserves an answer.

======

What the fuck kind of response is that? You were explicitly responding to one of my posts, not one of 18's posts. Don't defend your misinterpretation of my statement by referring to something that someone else said.

18 started the discussion by suggesting that the Federation is populated by truly stupid people, in the sense of "nonfunctional brains," not "blinkered by ideology." Uraniun replied to this, saying that it did not seem reasonable to imagine an entire country of people with nonfunctional brains.

You replied to Uraniun as follows:
_________

I really cannot accept a galaxy where absolutely everyone is retarded or hallucinating with brief moments of lucidity that coincidentally allow them to function as starfaring nations. That is seriously beyond my ability to suspend disbelief.

So your solution is to assume that things which are completely nonsensical are actually intelligent? How the fuck is that logical? ...

... and gave an example of a nation blinkered by ideology, but not made entirely of people with nonfunctional brains.

I replied by pointing out that while a Federation "stupid" in the sense of "blinkered by ideology" works, a Federation "stupid" in the sense of "nonfunctional brains" does not. You in turn replied by saying that this should have been obvious. In essence, you pointed out that you were talking about your idea, not 18's idea.

At which point I made the tactical blunder of mentioning 18's idea again, and restating that your idea worked where his did not. So, since you ask what kind of response that was:
________

My response to your post was to compare it to someone else's, pointing out that your explanation works better than the one Uraniun (and I) had originally objected to. I do not disagree with your explanation. However, I was under the impression that the 18's idea was still relevant, or at least relevant enough to be mentioned in the process of saying that a more satisfactory explanation had now been found. It would seem that I was mistaken.

[Batman]

I don't see where 18 ever claimed the Feds were BIOLOGICALLY retarded. He said they were FUNCTIONALLY retarded, and they are. Wether or not they have the THEORETICAL intellectual capacity to do better than they did, wether or not they ARE blinkered by indoctrination, they DO act like complete and utter morons. Fits my definition of functionally retarded.