Star Trek writers batting 1000 so far, please please please let them be wrong about the nuclear horror.
Can't you feel it? The threads of global tension snapping with a deafening blast? The ravenous chantings of Mars cutting through the ambient noise?
Mars, where you go to die of cancer while under the rule of a racist narcissistic libertarian billionaire with a savior complex, and his Nazi buddies.
Sounds fun, pass.
NGL I'd rather die on Earth than Mars
This is the cradle of humanity
This is our first home
This too will be our grave if we do not change our ways
I'm pretty glad it turned out the way it did tbh.
GFA pretty much ended terrorism, NI citizens gained rights to be whatever nationality they prefer to be, and an agreement was made that NI can trigger a referendum to join Ireland when the support for it is high (right now it isn't, though, staying in the UK wins by 7-30%, depending on the poll, with most being in the 14-23 range)
That's certainly a lot better than TNG's predicted course of history - a ramping up of terrorist attacks to get what a minority political opinion (at least in our universe, but maybe it's more popular in the ST universe) wants, and turning NI into a warzone.
The GFA is one of the best examples of Picard's entire argument in that episode - that terrorism can be avoided if we engage in good-faith diplomacy and political powers are willing to compromise.
Pretty ironic that NI was used as an example against Picard's logic in the episode, but actually ended up being an argument for it.
Death from global famine seems to be the harsher alternative to nuclear exchange, and what we expect to be the primary driver of the climate-based population correction.
As catastrophic existential risks go, I'm still rooting for AI takeover and robot rebellion, which has coolness factor. It also means our electromechanical brethren might continue the quest of exploration and expansion.
Every day we get a step closer to the Bell Riots.
A friend and I have tickets booked to be in San Francisco the first week of September. We don't know what we will do there but we will be there to support Gabriel Bell.
We are absolutely worse off in the real 2024 than what "Past Tense" depicted.
- Vin asks Sisko for a "UHC card" when trying to identify him. A universal healthcare card. In the real 2024? Still no universal healthcare in the US.
- The famous billionaire's role in the story of "Past Tense" was to get residents of the districts access to "the nets" to tell their story. In the real 2024, Elon Musk would just take to Xitter and advocate for crackdowns.
- Once on the nets, the resident's stories actually swayed public opinion. Can you honestly imagine the stories they told making a dent in the zeitgeist, even if they trended on YouTube and TikTok?
- Sanctuary districts exist too, they're just on the border and privatized.
Ira Steven Behr set out to depict a horribly dystopic 2024, succeeded, and undershot.
That's a bit dramatic isn't it?
Sanctuaries, for example, on the show hold (or rather, imprison) unemployed people, as there are no jobs. AFAIk, the US is nowhere near a segregation state that ostracizes people once they lose their job.
Do you have a passport that states that you are not homeless and allows you entry to the main US?
you're forgetting: the people in the Sanctuary were literally not allowed to leave. what parallels are there with modern unhoused people not having IDs? there's struggles yes but not literal incarceration.
damn, you all with these damn hyperboles.... I know we could improve society in a number of ways but come on, i keep reading comments on Lemmy that talk as if there were no possible way for society to get any worse.
Perhaps not as an outwardly stated and official government policy, but there is ostracizing of the unemployed.
We only know that it's the first week of September. You don't know the exact date. But any count is better than no count.