Star Trek or EVE: As long as I get my green women.

Hahaha...Orion Slave Girls!

This topic is inspired by a post over at Dense Veldspar. I'm not trying to steal his thunder, but I want to expand on my thoughts fully.

So here we have two distinct views of the future. Star Trek is a utopia where most of humanity's ills have been solved and we collectively strive to better ourselves. EVE is a dystopia where many of humanity's vices are still intact.

I believe that our future lies somewhere in the middle.

Now, I'll say that I'm a firm believer in Roddenberry's dream. I say dream because it's an ultimate goal to aspire to. It does glaze over a few things, but so does EVE.

How does ST glaze over things? Eugenics and transhumanism for one. A growing movement today, it'll be a key component to any space-faring civilization, but ST dismisses eugenics as a path to war (obviously a remnant of the shows WWII roots) and transhumanism as an easy way to lose ones humanity.

How does EVE glaze over things? It's called the Drake Equation. Part of this equation is a sort of half-life for a civilization. Either it reaches the stars or destroys itself when it reaches a critical point (also called a singularity) where its technological advancement has made it possible to do one or the other. There is a small chance colonization can be achieved without certain key resolutions, but the chances decrease geometrically as the race matures. The only reason the races of EVE exist is because they are actually 4 civilizations, each of which is (mostly) unified.

Where do I think we'll go? I think we'll manage to shake most (not all) of our cultural vices, but a sense of unified achievement, identity and purpose will be the key to survival. A unified humanity would in essence relieve us of ills compounded by a lack of international cooperation. War, famine, disease, etc...

The idea that concepts commonly known as the deadly sins will be somehow erased from humanity is ridiculous. There will always be war, especially on smaller scales. There will always be greed. There will always be gluttony and pride and wrath. It's part of our nature. The trial is to overcome these vices as best we can for the common good of our civilization.

The key thing to remember is that it's not about reaching an impossible utopia. The dreamers of our race must always push the whole of humanity to strive for as close to that utopia as possible. We will stumble and make horrible mistakes, but we must continue to evolve and improve until the last of us are gone from this universe. We must never give up, because if we do, we are doomed.

Hope some of that makes sense. I could go on and on but I'm having a hard time writing today.

o7