Mastodawn

April 5th, 2063 is the in-universe day in Star Trek where a human build vessel first traveled faster than light via the fictional warp drive. I used to reference the date as a reminder of the techno-utopia that I wanted to see in Star Trek TNG/DS9/Voyager era.

Nowadays I see the techno-totalitarian militaristic undertones of Star Trek much more ambivalent.

And yet ... Patrick Stewards portrayal of Jean-Luc Picard and his speeches about how humanity outgrow capitalism keep inspiring me.

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Malte Engeler 14h ago

In a way Jean-Luc Picard is the antithesis to the inventor of the warp drive (Zefram Cochrane): Picard is a restrained, polite communist, Cochrane a drunken, rude capitalist who accidentally made aliens aware of warp-capable humans (just like capitalism only accidentally producing social value).

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Malte Engeler

The story about first contact, that follows Cochrane first warp flight , has also lost a lot of charme to me. I believe that humans can work together without some magical outside trigger (e.g. vulcans). We also don`t need to wait for some "brilliant, eccentric genius male inventor" whose fancy new space tech will usher in a better world. We can build it today with the people and the tech we have.