With the phrase “arbeit macht frei” just above the gates!
The historical parallels are so parallel that they’re the same picture. Yet some people still can’t see it.
BASHIR: What is this place?
SISKO: A Sanctuary District.
BASHIR: Twenty-first century history is not one of my strong points. Too depressing.
SISKO: It’s been a hobby of mine. They made some ugly mistakes, but they also paved the way for a lot of the things we take now for granted.
BASHIR: I assume this is one of those mistakes.
SISKO: A bad one. By the early twenty twenties there was a place like this in every major city in the United States.
BASHIR: Why are these people in here? Are they criminals?
SISKO: No. People with criminal records weren’t allowed in the Sanctuary Districts.
BASHIR: Then what did they do to deserve this?
SISKO: Nothing. They’re just people without jobs or places to live.
BASHIR: So they get put in here?
SISKO: Welcome to the twenty-first century, Doctor.
Bell Riots comment; I came here for this. 10/10.
That whole story is so unrealistic.
I mean of course the part where Sisko said it led to better things.
Our species will not have the stars. We are not going to have a post-scarcity future. We are too primitive and we don’t have the mental tools to even understand when we’re being manipulated, much less all work together to create a socialist utopia without wealth-hoarding and exploitation.
we don’t have the mental tools
One of the exceptional traits of humans is their ability to build and create tools. Language, reading and mathematics are some of the most powerful tools humans have and they’re all mental tools. Unfortunately that tool making skill is a double edged sword as it’s capable of both creating tools of information/education/etc. and tools of manipulation/misinformation/etc.
It wouldn’t be as much of an issue if there weren’t decades of cultivating mental tools of disinformation and manipulation, marketing/propaganda/public speaking/etc. and if humans can create those tools they can create tools that do the opposite.
Unfortunately, the “evil” tools are currently winning and will take quite a bit of effort to dismantle and healthy/productive tools built in their stead. Hoarding and rampant exploitation are not inherent laws and could be reversed. Seems rather unlikely at the moment, but teetering on the brink of extinction tends to cause pretty radical shifts.
I unfortunately agree.
GUINAN: Some may argue that a diamond is still a diamond, even if it is one amongst millions. It still shines as brightly.
SAMUEL CLEMENS: Someone might say that, dear lady, if someone thought that the human race was akin to a precious jewel. But this…increasingly hypothetical someone…would not be me.
it was the episode 2024, i think.
Yes, September 2024.
If we get Bell riots because of this it will be worth it.
Except in the realistic version of the story, the Bell Riots lead to more riots, which lead to a militarized police state, which lead to an economic boom for authoritarian-protected oligarchy, which lead to financial collapse and the eradication of the middle-class, which lead to more tentd-cities and shanties, forced migration, rampant disease and starvation… etc, etc.
I think that is exactly what happened. As others mentioned, the Bell Riots led to widespread clamouring for rights in general. Between the 2024 Bell Riots and the 2063 first contact between humanity and the Vulcans, we have, in Christopher Pike’s own words, “… the Second Civil War, then the Eugenics War, and finally, just… World War III. This was our last day. The day the Earth we knew ceased to exist. What began as an eruption in one nation ended in the eradication of 600,000 species of animal and plants, and 30% of Earth’s population. Global suicide.” And what Captain Pike glossed over? Oh gee, you could write whole books on it. Look up Colonel Green. After World War III, he went on an Exterminatus campaign. Everyone who was not 100% genetically pure, such as Augments and mutants from the war, was exterminated by his faction. 37 million deaths were attributed to him, and he was seen as such evil that an alien silicoid race known as the Excalbians made a simulation of him to understand humanity’s concepts of good and evil.
So, yeah. The story we get is the realistic story you mentioned. If we are on the Trek timeline, we’ve got some horrible shit ahead of us. We still have the Bell Riots ahead of us (we’re actually past the point in time, but it sure looks like those writers were presentient when they wrote Past Tense Parts 1 and 2 back in 1995!), and we sure seem on course for World War III. The world sure doesn’t need Khan Noonian Singh, though. Between Xi, Putin, Kim, and Trump, we have the megalomaniac asshole niche QUITE filled!!!
Interesting, but whatever happens in our version, nobody is coming, there are no greater powers watching, no groups in charge, there isn’t even a powerful secret cabal running things. We’re all lost children beating each other with increasingly powerful and deadly sticks until there’s nobody left standing and it all starts over.
Pretty sure there was a nuclear holocaust in there somewhere too
600mil dead, before they were contacted by the vulcans, and after the borg try to anhilate them in the past. its all contigent on the fact that it took aliens to bring humans out of thier own destruction.
The Borg might not be a bad choice at this point…
They’d be saving us from ourselves.
Then human extinction, because the only people who understood complex systems died of formerly preventable diseases, resource scarcity and state violence.
Full extinction is unlikely. After all, we survived without understanding complex systems for hundreds of thousands of years. Every part of the planet would have to be completely inhospitable to human life for us to go extinct.
We spent hundreds of thousands of years living and adapting slowly to everthing else in the ecosystem. As an analogy, setting up a game of Jenga, building the tower.
We spent 10,000 years (agriculture) learning how to play jenga, slowly plucking a block or two.
We spent 250 years industrializing learning how fast and efficiently we can take out bricks.
We spent the last 30 years learning how to automate it.
We’ve crossed 7 Planetary Boundaries and stressed 9.
Most of earth’s animal biomass is humans, human’s food or our food’s food. There is very little nature left and what’s left is in the middle of the 6th great extinction..
Now the world is on a massive militarization campaign in preparation for the inevitable conflict climate change brings at the peak of our population.
How many more jenga bricks you think we can pull out before this tower falls?
Every part of the planet would have to be completely inhospitable to human life for us to go extinct.
No. We just need sufficient areas to become temporarily inhospitable. You can survive for a while in a heat wave inside your air conditioned house. Can your crops? Can pollinators? Can what little wildlife we have left? Can your AC repair man? More jenga blocks knocked out.
Conflict over what’s left can do the rest. Remember we’re automating our destruction. What started in Ukraine with drones ends with weaponized AI.
You ever wonder why the galaxy seems void of life? I think I know why.
If only.
In other words, a concentration camp.
Hop skip and a jump to a death camp.
We took away your home, off to the forced labour camp.
Forced Labor is just a euphemism for enslavement.
Robots
The term “robot” originates from the Czech word “robota,” which means “forced labor.”
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free, so I can enslave them, as they are the easiest, most vulnerable parts of society and nobody will defend them.”
-Donaldo Trumpus
When people say, “we should just house the homeless” this is not what they meant!
Sadly, it kind of is what some of them meant…
The MAGAt plans are becoming clearer by the day.
They’ve been clear since before 2020…
You mispelled 1939.
This will be fun. When should I report to my labor camp? **🌈🫠
But they get food, shelter, and most importantly a purpose! - Future MAGAts
Just like house elves, prisons, and slaves?
Greetings from the UK, our dear US friends:
Jade Helm - We building the concentration camps.
