TNG - Half a Life

[Freeverse]

In fact, I find it laughable that it's supposed to be open to interpretation, so that the viewer can make up their own mind, when it is so very clearly, demonstrably, wrong on all counts. It's like having a society where every second child is ritually sacrificed to appease a spider-god, but we're not going to tell you if that's wrong or right because sure it's baby murder, but we made the mommy sad that her child won't get to meet Lloth in the afterlife.

The way I read it is we are supposed to think that the society goes too far, so we think that Lwaxana's outrage is justified. If it were too justifiable a practice (like if the guy had a painful chronic disease that was debilitating and getting worse) then too many people would react "Nurse Chappel let Major Winchester die in peace! Stop with your sermonizing!"

The issue is that because of the simplistic extremism of the practice, is the turn around convincing? Where the scientist decides defying tradition is not worth the personal cost to him and his loved ones etc. and Lwaxana decides to go to the ceremony to say goodbye. As I recall the scientist is still saying the practice is unjustified, but he is unwilling for himself and his family to pay the personal cost of defying the tradition.

So I don't think it really hits the sweet spot of "the practice is unjustifiable but I get why they went along with it", but I don't think there is one sweet spot for all people everyone would have a different spot anyway. I accept that TV writing tends to work in crude broad strokes, so as a TV dilemma I find it entertaining and engaging, even if as a real life dilemma I would find it deeply stupid. As I remarked earlier in this thread this kind of take an argument too its extreme and build a narrative around it is not exactly new to Star Trek (I've mentioned "Taste of Armageddon" as one example "Mark of Gideon" I brought up elsewhere is another), so I find it par for the course.

Maybe if the focus had been more on the social cost to Timicin, rather than throwing the survival of an entire species into question, I wouldn't have been quite so distracted by how repugnant I find the practice. Or if the disease they were trying to avoid living with had been a real threat instead of a background justification, there could have been an actual argument made about quality of life.

I don't accept this as a quirk of TV writing, because I think we've seen similar dilemmas not just on other TV shows, but on Star Trek itself. Rejoined springs to mind. A Taste of Armageddon lacks the romance, but has a similar tension between tradition and progress.

[JL_Stinger]

Too bad if you reach 80 in good health eh? My grandpa was still walking a few miles every day until a few months before he died at 91. He was over 80 the last time he went white water rafting. Read maths books right up until the day he died.

Survivorship bias. Most people are not so fortunate as do die suddenly while in seemingly good physical and mental health. Usually there is a slow, agonizing decline: cancer, Alzheimers, dementia, Parkinson's, heath problems, broken hips, macular degeneration, etc.

[Thebestoftherest]

Too bad if you reach 80 in good health eh? My grandpa was still walking a few miles every day until a few months before he died at 91. He was over 80 the last time he went white water rafting. Read maths books right up until the day he died.

Survivorship bias. Most people are not so fortunate as do die suddenly while in seemingly good physical and mental health. Usually there is a slow, agonizing decline: cancer, Alzheimers, dementia, Parkinson's, heath problems, broken hips, macular degeneration, etc.

We get it, Robots have it better than us.

[clearspira]

Too bad if you reach 80 in good health eh? My grandpa was still walking a few miles every day until a few months before he died at 91. He was over 80 the last time he went white water rafting. Read maths books right up until the day he died.

Survivorship bias. Most people are not so fortunate as do die suddenly while in seemingly good physical and mental health. Usually there is a slow, agonizing decline: cancer, Alzheimers, dementia, Parkinson's, heath problems, broken hips, macular degeneration, etc.

I think more people would give a fig about obesity and exercise if the effort got them another 30 years of prime life rather than another 30 years of having someone wipe your ass for you because you have forgotten how to.

[Beastro]

Too bad if you reach 80 in good health eh? My grandpa was still walking a few miles every day until a few months before he died at 91. He was over 80 the last time he went white water rafting. Read maths books right up until the day he died.

Survivorship bias. Most people are not so fortunate as do die suddenly while in seemingly good physical and mental health. Usually there is a slow, agonizing decline: cancer, Alzheimers, dementia, Parkinson's, heath problems, broken hips, macular degeneration, etc.

I think more people would give a fig about obesity and exercise if the effort got them another 30 years of prime life rather than another 30 years of having someone wipe your ass for you because you have forgotten how to.

You're assumption is that many have such applied foresight.

I know someone in my life in their early twenties with a parent slowly dying of kidney failure in their late 50s. They're on their last gasps, bedridden with dialysis working less and less each day. The thing is, this person inherited the same kidney trouble.

Now, you'd think they'd be freaking out making sure to take nice good care of their kidneys to make it themselves over 60 at least, but no, it's me who is the one bugging to get more water into them and such. You know what the reply to that is? "Uguuuh! But if I do that then I'll have to pee all the time and I don't wanna bother with that!!".

We all have our own faults when it comes to long term troubles. I mean with my own family's history of heart trouble I bet I'm not doing exactly everything I can do forestall it.

[Nevix]

I just want to note that Euthanasia based on old age was a big subject during the 90s (around about the early to mid 90s), and it has popped up again more recently.

Not engaging in the discussion. I just wanted to note that it really was a subject at the time for Chuck.

[drewder]

The ironic part is in this episode we're supposed to agree that the society is wrong and the system should be abolished but the system is what has worked for this society and no attempt is made to understand why the society is the way it is. It's that sort of short sighted, knee jerk reaction that the prime directive is supposed to protect against. You might say that Lwaxana isn't in star fleet but she is listed as a federation ambassador so she should be held to the standards of the federation even more than a pseudo-military officer. This is exactly what the prime directive is supposed to govern even if the show seems to believe that it's mostly about moralizing while letting primitive people die.

[Riedquat]

Too bad if you reach 80 in good health eh? My grandpa was still walking a few miles every day until a few months before he died at 91. He was over 80 the last time he went white water rafting. Read maths books right up until the day he died.

Survivorship bias. Most people are not so fortunate as do die suddenly while in seemingly good physical and mental health. Usually there is a slow, agonizing decline: cancer, Alzheimers, dementia, Parkinson's, heath problems, broken hips, macular degeneration, etc.

No, not surviorship bias to recognise that some people can still have a decent life at old age. What you're saying might be a decent argument that euthanasia should be permitted, it's not one for arbitrary murder.

[clearspira]

The ironic part is in this episode we're supposed to agree that the society is wrong and the system should be abolished but the system is what has worked for this society and no attempt is made to understand why the society is the way it is. It's that sort of short sighted, knee jerk reaction that the prime directive is supposed to protect against. You might say that Lwaxana isn't in star fleet but she is listed as a federation ambassador so she should be held to the standards of the federation even more than a pseudo-military officer. This is exactly what the prime directive is supposed to govern even if the show seems to believe that it's mostly about moralizing while letting primitive people die.

Rewatching this review again, that really is a central problem with the episode. I would liked to have seen more of this society. Perhaps once upon a time there was an incurable disease that mostly hits old people and kills you in such agony that society decided that it was better to die young as one example.

[drewder]

I don't think the episode is about e*thanasia. It's about a writer who heard about Eskimos being put on ice flows when they got older, didn't do any additional research on the subject and decided to write an episode about it