Star Trek
r/startrek: The Next Generation
Star Trek news and discussion. No slash fic...
Maybe a little slash fic.
New to Star Trek and wondering where to start?
Rules
1 Be constructive
All posts/comments must be thoughtful and balanced.
2 Be welcoming
It is important that everyone from newbies to OG Trekkers feel welcome, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, religion or race.
3 Be truthful
All posts/comments must be factually accurate and verifiable. We are not a place for gossip, rumors, or manipulative or misleading content.
4 Be nice
If a polite way cannot be found to phrase what it is you want to say, don't say anything at all. Insulting or disparaging remarks about any human being are expressly not allowed.
5 Spoilers
Utilize the spoiler system for any and all spoilers relating to the most recently-aired episodes, as well as previews for upcoming episodes. There is no formal spoiler protection for episodes/films after they have been available for approximately one week.
6 Keep on-topic
All submissions must be directly about the Star Trek franchise (the shows, movies, books etc.). Off-topic discussions are welcome at c/quarks.
7 Meta
Questions and concerns about moderator actions should be brought forward via DM.
Upcoming Episodes
Date | Episode | Title |
---|---|---|
11-07 | LD 5x04 | "A Farewell to Farms" |
11-14 | LD 5x05 | "Star Base 80?" |
11-21 | LD 5x06 | "Of Gods and Angels" |
11-28 | LD 5x07 | "Fully Dilated" |
12-05 | LD 5x08 | "Upper Decks" |
In Production
Strange New Worlds (2025)
Section 31 (2025-01-24)
Starfleet Academy (TBA)
In Development
Untitled comedy series
Wondering where to stream a series? Check here.
view the rest of the comments
It's amazing how people just make things up. I genuinely have no idea where you got these definitions unless it was some hole on Reddit or similar.
What manages the means of production if not a government? Saying "the people" is as hollow as the US talking about "Freedom" and "Democracy". "The people" cannot merely project their will into the aether and have it realized, they need some method of organization. They need to be able to administrate complex systems rather than just hang out in "primitive communism but with high technology somehow". Whatever that system is and whatever you call it, that's a government. In a system of democratic government that administers things, the difference between "the people" owning things and the government -- here an organ that exists only so the people can manage the means of production -- owning them is immaterial.
I'm not claiming anything I said is facts, just the way I understand it to be/how it had been explained to me quite a while ago. I could absolutely be wrong, if that's the case I'll gladly retract my comment based on new (to me) information. I'm far from qualified to give an authoritative answer on this topic.
The way I understand it is "the government decides to build a factory because the country needs a factory" vs "the people of a region get together and build a factory because they want one". Well, in either case nobody really owns the factory (compared to capitalism), but rather who's in charge of it, who decides who works on what and how it comes to be.
Unfortunately the only examples of communism we've seen are authoritarian regimes like the Soviet Union, and currently North Korea and China (sort of). I don't think we have a true socialist community that's not some form of capitalist hybrid, let alone post-scarcity communism or socialism without massive corruption tainting it.
I apologize for being coarse, it's a bad habit of mine.
If the government is democratic, there's very little substantive difference here as-described, because "the government decides X" is an entity with the popular mandate doing it, and if that decision loses it the popular mandate, the people can oppose it. Likewise, if "the people" of a locality decided to build a factory in this hypothetical and a minority opposed it, if the minority cannot sway the majority, they are simply ignored.
The problem comes in when you realize that the goods produced by factories mostly aren't for the use of the local community, they are for a much more expansive group of people. There need to be systems to coordinate production at the full scale of society so that people have some idea of who needs what. It's compounded by the fact that the machines in the factory will themselves probably need to be imported from elsewhere.
Depending on your definitions, you left out Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos. In any case, I don't think most people are able to maintain the "real communism has never been tried" stance. Eventually, you either come down on the side that "No, they were real communism and communism is therefore evil" or "I was lied to about at least some of these countries and should give them credit". For an anglophone, societal gravity is very much on the side of the first option, but it's possible to reach the second conclusion if you have a strong enough motivation to dig through information. Cuba is probably the route of least resistance.