Areas where you'd respectfully disagree with Chuck

[Sir Will]

People like Barcley are just the 24th century version of hikikomori.

Also, I don't take it so much as Chuck thinking everyone has to want to live a high-tech world so much as a reaction against the rather naive depiction of "rural simplicity." I've lived the rural life, and I'm right there with him when it comes to what he talked about in the Insurrection intro. I don't know, if anything I'm a bit amused by what city folk apparently think of rural life. Kind of like the hippie version of Natives, as seen in such great examples as Chakotay, or the Na'vi in Avatar.

Insurrection was the example I was thinking of when I was thinking of scenarios that look like they were set up as strawmen to attack, because of how ridiculous it is. But the very concept of a desiring a simpler and more hands-on life gets criticised as much as the hopeless examples on screen. IMO wanting that doesn't necessarily mean rejecting every new idea (I wouldn't be posting on the internet otherwise). I've no desire to slave in the wind and rain from dawn till dusk every day, but neither do I want the easy life of the humans in Walll-E, and I actually much prefer having a certain level of day to day chores (where there's enough technology to take the unpleasant edge off - thank you vacuum cleaner instead of a broom and dustpan, but I have no desire for a robot vacuum cleaner).

Yeah, 'look like'. They look set up by how ridiculous they are. But that really is somebody's idea of rural simplicity and such.

[Sir Will]

He was far too kind to Doctor Who's "The End of Time". I consider it to be a bloated, poorly plotted, over acted, dumpster fire made all the worse for being the final for what remains the most popular of the modern Doctors.

I compare the death of 10 to the death of 9 and it suffers CONSIDERABLY. 10 dies whining that it has to end, 9 dies happy for having been.

While I agree that the story is a mess, I actually love the last half hour. I like seeing him say goodbye to everybody, cause Moffat never went back to any of the characters so it really was goodbye (though I suppose we did get that as well in the series 4 finale, which I also love). And I have no problem with his 'I don't want to go'. Because he is dying, with somebody new taking his place. 10 was very human and very attached to things.

[TrueMetis]

Another one, Learning Curve. Chuck condescends about Tuvok having a problem with Dalby fixing a part of the ship without going through proper channels. In the episode his replacing a gel pack without letting anyone know screwed with the ships energy grid. So when Chuck says "the whole ship could blow up if he does that again" all I can think is yeah, yeah it could. You don't screw with critical system without letting people know. Especially when the parts needed are in short supply and those in charge might decide to save the parts for more critical systems. While it can be taken too far making sure work orders are filled properly and everyone knows when a system is being repaired is critical for crew safety.

Also if Dalby wants not to be treated like a teenage cadet maybe he shouldn't miss shifts and stop trying to hack the replicator system.

Though I do agree that Tuvok handles the issue terribly and it always amuses me that Starfleet is less able to deal with cultural diversity than the modern CAF.

[animalia]

Elephants have a 2 year gestation, are weaned in 3 months, reach sexual maturity in 9 years for female and 15 for males, and live 60-70 years.

So Naomi's growth never seemed that odd to me.

Agreed. Lots of mammalian species actually do have longer gestations balanced against shorter infancies-whales, for instance. Though it's probably worth pointing out that humans take a relatively long time to reach maturity compared to other mammals I'm not a biologist but the need to develop language and social skills probably requires more development.

The only issue is the soap-opera aging issue: When the character is 3 years old, she's played by a 10 year old actress, and doesn't look any younger than 8. So she aged up that point very quickly, and then they locked in the same actress to play her for the next 3 years and she nearly stops aging, even though you would assume that rapid aging would continue until sexual maturity.

OK, Who else thinks Chuck needs to read this bit about Elephants? That being said you are right that the reason humans take so long to reach maturity is because we need that long time to developed a lot of skills related to our advanced brain. That's also why we are born before we are fully developed. If waited any longer to be born our heads couldn't hit through the birth canal.

[CareerKnight]

And as for the latter its the opposite as I feel the episode is very overrated and does a great deserves to Terry's character as he goes from a every man who choose to be Batman to he was genetically destined to be Batman

A lot of people who don't like epilogue (probably all of them actually) really don't like the whole Terry is Bruce's son thing and if that was what the episode was about I would probably be in full agreement but the thing is the episode raises that point and then dismisses it. What the episode is about is free will. Terry can be Batman or he can give it up, he can be a Batman like Bruce or he can go his own way.

His claim that Dragon Age Origins is the successor to Kotor more so than Mass Effect doesn't work for me. It's definitely the successor to Baldur's Gate. While there are some lore/story similarities like the Tevinter/Rakata, the gameplay similarities have more to do with Kotor's gameplay being similar to BG, and you can't get around the fact that Mass Effect 1 is about a member of a galactic peacekeeping organisation hunting the relics of a dead race in order to stop a traitorous cyborg.

His main reason for saying that is the party members. He goes through each one and points out how similar they are to a party member in Kotor.

[FaxModem1]

As was said about Neelix, I think needs to be said about Torres as well. Season 1 Torres had problems, but as the show goes on, we see more of the depths inside her, and how most of it is a front from dealing with her past. Torres, like Trip in Enterprise, grew into a fully fleshed out person, and became my favorite character on the show. While Season 7 of Voyager sucked a lot, I enjoyed who she had become by then. She is not just an angry person who can't identify shit with a tricorder. It's why I'm very interested to see how he interprets Day of Honor, Extreme Risk, and Lineage. Those are the episodes that really delve into who Torres is. It's why I found his dismissal of her growing up in Barge of the Dead a disservice, as she was finally starting to let go of all the expectations she had everyone and herself weigh in her for most of her life.

As for the whole discussion on life being too easy if unable to have chores to do, I much prefer more conveniences because life is hard enough as it is, that having the laundry done automatically or the dishes washed while not having to worry if I'll have enough rent for the next month is stressful. That said, I do enjoy making tea and cooking, but that is a luxury, not something I HAVE to do to get by. The Federation works the same way, in that people don't worry about being homeless, or unable to work, or such things like that, while also having food at the push of a button or can visit Tokyo for a week if one wanted to, without worrying about breaking the bank and getting other things done. It's probably why Starfleet and the Federation seems to have so many overachievers, necessities are mostly taken care of.

On the topic of video games I'm someone who might just pop in the intro to Bioshock infinite dlc Burial at Sea 2's Paris scene, because a nice place to relax and feel a nice beautiful atmosphere is welcoming when needed. Life is awful enough that I want a nice place.

[Riedquat]

As for the whole discussion on life being too easy if unable to have chores to do, I much prefer more conveniences because life is hard enough as it is, that having the laundry done automatically or the dishes washed while not having to worry if I'll have enough rent for the next month is stressful. That said, I do enjoy making tea and cooking, but that is a luxury, not something I HAVE to do to get by. The Federation works the same way, in that people don't worry about being homeless, or unable to work, or such things like that, while also having food at the push of a button or can visit Tokyo for a week if one wanted to, without worrying about breaking the bank and getting other things done. It's probably why Starfleet and the Federation seems to have so many overachievers, necessities are mostly taken care of.

IMO that's more likely to turn out a society of people inacapable of achieving anything because they never have to do anything and hence end up with a limited ability to appreciate anything. There won't be much visiting Tokyo when it's nothing special. They'll visit other worlds instead, and probably not get any more out of that than we do now from going to another country. Life is not hard - physically - in the slightest, at least in the Western world, to the point where the amount of chore avoidance that's brought up as great just starts to look lazy. Not having to work about breaking the bank, not having to worry about pay - that's good, but only indirectly related. And the levels of stress and depression people seem to experience these days are not good. End up with a system (and we've already gone quite far down this path) where a lot of people have little or no opportunity to contribute anything to society, to be at all useful? Sure, it appeals more than going to other extreme and living in a cave, but is not a vision of the future that holds any appeal. And is the one we're marching towards, and it depresses me. Which is why I can never agree with defending modern life (which is not the same as rejecting a lot of it).

Rant over (pet hate subject alas), I'm off to wash the dishes now.

[FaxModem1]

As for the whole discussion on life being too easy if unable to have chores to do, I much prefer more conveniences because life is hard enough as it is, that having the laundry done automatically or the dishes washed while not having to worry if I'll have enough rent for the next month is stressful. That said, I do enjoy making tea and cooking, but that is a luxury, not something I HAVE to do to get by. The Federation works the same way, in that people don't worry about being homeless, or unable to work, or such things like that, while also having food at the push of a button or can visit Tokyo for a week if one wanted to, without worrying about breaking the bank and getting other things done. It's probably why Starfleet and the Federation seems to have so many overachievers, necessities are mostly taken care of.

IMO that's more likely to turn out a society of people inacapable of achieving anything because they never have to do anything and hence end up with a limited ability to appreciate anything. There won't be much visiting Tokyo when it's nothing special. They'll visit other worlds instead, and probably not get any more out of that than we do now from going to another country. Life is not hard - physically - in the slightest, at least in the Western world, to the point where the amount of chore avoidance that's brought up as great just starts to look lazy. Not having to work about breaking the bank, not having to worry about pay - that's good, but only indirectly related. And the levels of stress and depression people seem to experience these days are not good. End up with a system (and we've already gone quite far down this path) where a lot of people have little or no opportunity to contribute anything to society, to be at all useful? Sure, it appeals more than going to other extreme and living in a cave, but is not a vision of the future that holds any appeal. And is the one we're marching towards, and it depresses me. Which is why I can never agree with defending modern life (which is not the same as rejecting a lot of it).

Rant over (pet hate subject alas), I'm off to wash the dishes now.

I would have to disagree with your statement. We see what happens to the losers in the Federation, they try different tasks over and over until, hopefully, they find their niche, like with Bashir's father. That is the most unsatisfied a person can really be in the UFP. As opposed to failing and worrying that you've made your family homeless and have no recourse, or can't even try something different because you have three or four mouths to feed.

That's what the convenience of the technology grants them. For those who need the extra work, they either become colonists, and work to take a world, putting all their energy into that, or they join Starfleet, and make a difference somehow.

Our society, at least here in the US, is not that things are too easy. Who complains that polio is gone, after all? It's that we struggle too much to eke out a life because of high costs(via effort and money) compared to low wages.

[Riedquat]

How something's portrayed isn't necessarily how it'll turn out to be, so from that point of view I don't find Trek's view very convincing. As I said earlier Wall-E's strikes me as more accurate. Mentioning things like polio is a distraction too - after all, no-one would claim that there are still some things everyone would like to see the back of - some gone, like polio, others not yet but let's hope that they will be one day.

Maybe this high tech world is the best for you but I firmly believe that once you've eliminated most of the real day to day nasties, so you're not forced to deal with being a medieval peasant, Victorian factory worker, high chance of dying in your earlier years (and taking your mother out with you), and so on (and all of them are still real issues in parts of the world) the genuine hardships are done, and the benefits of further change become much more a matter of opinion and what suits the individual best (even then you can still find exceptions). That's fine, just as long as people don't take an automatic "this is better, you're wrong if you say otherwise" view (trying to avoid getting sidetracked into arguing "I like this because" here! Although the whole thing has gone off-topic). I will say though that what I regard as the most positive changes in my lifetime have been social, not technological - the increasing lack of acceptance of racism, homophobia etc.

[animalia]

possibly relevant