Quote:
Originally posted by BST
I look at BSG and ST, for that matter, as societies which have developed a level of existence that we can aspire to.
I guess I am an eternal optimist, still looking at the glass as being half-full and really getting sick and tired of hearing that it's half-empty.
I hope this doesn't sound harsh as I am enjoying this conversation. I just had to relate a few personal feelings.
BST
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I have to say that I have pretty much the same desires, but speaking as a history major I look at it in a different way. I don't see a futuristic society that has problems necessarily as a glass half-empty. Take our society today for example. One can get depressed thinking about all of the problems that plague us, but bring a person from just a few hundred years ago and he would likely be struck with wonder. We still have disease, but we have gotten rid of smallpox (which was probably the biggest killer in history). We have poverty, but as a percentage of population it is tiny compared to the past. The list goes on.
Yes we have problems, and yes the BSG colonies have problems; however, I think that what is important is what we have done toward solving them. I can see the city scenes, and because I'm given the feeling that this could be a real society I can imange the problems that that society has solved.
Contrast that with a standard Trek society. Trek is big on Utopias. The problem is that a Utopia is so unrealistic to me I am never able to really see it as something that is possible. A perfect society is something great in the abstract, something to strive to. However, if someone tries to realize it on screne it simply falls apart for me. I cannot get beyond the practical problems involved.
I suppose that I can look at the BSG society with all of its problems and see the glass more than half full. I look at a Trek society and I can't even see a glass at all.
