Commander Abe Sapien’s dialog early on is pretty rough. His character is entirely ruined by the forced tension with Michael.

I wish there was like a Season 0 where I could learn to care about the characters before the events of Season 1. I feel like it is taking me on a journey the characters havent earned.

You can literally see they have Terminal installed in the screenshot. It may not be default but it is certainly on that computer. But a web search is far more important than a program installed on the computer.

My biggest issue is I just dont like any of the characters and I wouldn’t want to be on that ship. That to me is the biggest flaw of Discovery.

Every other Star Trek I can imagine it being so cool to get to be there. Discovery would be awful. Being around that crew sounds awful and exhausting.

I tried watching it and got to what I was told was a peak episode in S1E7 and it was still awful and seemed like it would be awful. No charm. I compare it to other episodes in sci fi like it and it has nearly 0 fun and the fun it had was dark and creepy.

When one divorced parent gets their toddler prescribed Adderall without the other parent being informed. AAP recommends against it for ages 3 (not 2 but 3) to 5 but it is allowed.

I’m not saying I even have an opinion on this, but I do think if someone said they think 3 is too young to take Adderall I think that doesn’t automatically tell me they are anti medicine or a bad person.

What does minorities have to do with this?

Armenian’s were a majority. The Fur people of Darfur are a majority in their region. Palestinians are a majority.

Genocide is a method often used in converting a majority to a minority.

I agree with your endpoint that those people don’t care, but I think if you told someone like that that they don’t care about minorities I think you would be confirming their thoughts not convincing them away from it.

Because I don’t think a 2 year old should be given Adderall without a parent knowing?

I personally am pretty open minded about these things, I was able to get birth control with my partner when I was 15 without her Catholic parents knowing. That was very important, but I recognize that if we were 10 it maybe becomes a different conversation involving parents.

You might say a parent could be included but you also have cases of divorced parents where one parent is for and another is against and there is a question of if the childs opinions are theirs or their parents. What age should the child be able to make the call? 15? 10? 5?

You’ve got a bunch of nutjobs that will turn that phrasing into a white genocide conversation is the problem.

The second part of that is that genocide is a subjective term due to classification of ethnic groups being subjective.

Honestly this well encapsulates the problem I tend to have aligning on goals with other progressives and some liberals. Every time folks try to simplify something as complex as genocide down to a yes or no question it means they are already invalidating the majority of positions and forcing a conversation of agree with me or call me wrong. That isn’t how it works, that isn’t how discussion and debate work. Forcing people into Yes/No thinking doesn’t lead to progress, asking for people to think critically does.

The reasonable debate is at what age is that allowed. I do not think that has an easy answer other than legal age of majority for the country you are a citizen of. I think that the problem is there are harder answers than that worth seriously considering.

I can’t imagine thinking any medical procedure has a simple answer, especially anything that permanently alters you.

Medical professionals are people, sometimes they make the right choice, sometimes the wrong choice. There are people who shop for the wrong answer, and also people who get the wrong answer and live in suffering. It is important to question things and have a discourse.

If my 16 year old came to me and asked to have their hearing removed as a solution to their mispohonia and that their therapist agrees and they found a surgeon… I don’t think I could just jump on board with that call.

Genocide is a term that is both over and under used. There are currently about six genocides ongoing. I don’t see the point in trying to call someone out on it because no one is actually doing anything for or against it outside of a very small number of people.

If someone asks me if I’m anti genocide I assume they mean something they specifically consider a genocide and they are trying to use this as bait to get me to out myself in some way. They don’t actually expect I’m personally participating or countering it in any way.

Trans rights also is a loaded term now because there are a LOT of individual rights Trans people are needing to fight for all in parallel. It’s better to be specific.

Sure someone who says they are against trans people is awful, but I find folks set the bar in different places and use that to start an argument. The easiest example is, what age should someone be allowed to transition which is an intensely challenging question to answer even on a medical level.

Movie Star Trek is different from TV Star Trek. Except for Insurrection which is just a 2 part episode in a movie trench coat. And probably Section 31 but I don’t plan to watch that and find out.

You think the wait staff setup the machine to do math wrong?

SNW S1E2 - Children of the Comet. This is a tricky one because of potential predestination and the end result being an accidental major break of the prime directive. A warp capable civilization is certain that a comet must destroy a pre warp civilization and refuse to let that change. The issue is that the ship/comet wants the Federation to interfere and does not intend to hit the planet. This is all in Federation space.

Another in Federation space that is also a loose fit is LD S5E7 - Fully Dialated where the crew must recover Data’s head from an alternate reality that has fallen on a pre warp world. The loose fit here is that the only reason they count as external is that it is Purple Data who is not technically a a member of this realities Federation and thus an outsider.

Lastly a decent fit but outside Federation space is Prodigy S1E7 - First Con-Tact. The crew first breaks the prime directive by making first contact with a pre warp civilization but then defends it by stopping a Ferengi from influence the civilization negatively. This is outside Federation space though.

I drink milk, but milk isn’t superior to oat milk.

mammal milk has specific ingredients that are meant to specifically feed infants of that animal. So its often high in fat and has specific things that are meant to be digested by that animal. Breast milk from a human has special ingredients that help digest the high lactose content and those ingredients are not in other milks.

Now Oats have been designed over years to be digested by humans and other animals. They propagate by being consumed and then travel to other areas post consumption. The nutrition in oats and other vegetables is mostly there specifically to drive animals like us to eat them so that we propagate them.

Milk is just watery fatty cow food with some extra steps involved.

I get it, but we should as a community try to be better than that.

AI won’t fail. It already is past the point where failing or being a fad was an option. Even if we wanted to go backwards, the steps that were taken to get us to where we are with AI have burned the bridges. We won’t get 2014 quality search engines back. We can’t unshitify the internet.

That AI is the one you make or at least host. No one is going to host an online AI for you that is 100% ethical because that isnt profitable and it is very expensive.

When you vilianize AI you normalize AI use as being bad. The end result is not people stopping use of AI it is people being more okay with using less ethical AI. You can see this with folks driving SUVs and big trucks. They intentionally pick awful choices because the fatigue of being wrong for driving a car makes them just accept that it doesn’t matter.

It feels dumb, it is dumb, but is what happens.

Nestle bottling water is bad, so my solution will be to never drink any water and make fun of people who do. This is how it always comes off to me.

Specifically for a new viewer who wants 3 shows that would be different and enjoyable:

TNG:

The Inner Light, Cause and Effect, Lower Decks

DS9:

Duet, The Visitor, Trials and Tribbleations

Who in the world eats hard shell tacos?