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179 points joelkesler | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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analogpixel ◴[] No.46257701[source]
Why didn't Star Trek ever tackle the big issues, like them constantly updating the LCARS interface every few episodes to make it better, or having Geordi La Forge re-writing the warp core controllers in Rust?
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thaumaturgy ◴[] No.46257956[source]
Because, something that a lot of tech-obsessed Trek fans never seem to really come to terms with, is that Trek didn't fetishize technology.

In the Trek universe, LCARS wasn't getting continuous UI updates because they would have advanced, culturally, to a point where they recognized that continuous UI updates are frustrating for users. They would have invested the time and research effort required to better understand the right kind of interface for the given devices, and then... just built that. And, sure, it probably would get updates from time to time, but nothing like the way we do things now.

Because the way we do things now is immature. It's driven often by individual developers' needs to leave their fingerprints on something, to be able to say, "this project is now MY project", to be able to use it as a portfolio item that helps them get a bigger paycheck in the future.

Likewise, Geordi was regularly shown to be making constant improvements to the ship's systems. If I remember right, some of his designs were picked up by Starfleet and integrated into other ships. He took risks, too, like experimental propulsion upgrades. But, each time, it was an upgrade in service of better meeting some present or future mission objective. Geordi might have rewritten some software modules in whatever counted as a "language" in that universe at some point, but if he had done so, he would have done extensive testing and tried very hard to do it in a way that wouldn't've disrupted ship operations, and he would only do so if it gained some kind of improvement that directly impacted the success or safety of the whole ship.

Really cool technology is a key component of the Trek universe, but Trek isn't about technology. It's about people. Technology is just a thing that's in the background, and, sometimes, becomes a part of the story -- when it impacts some people in the story.

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amelius ◴[] No.46258019[source]
I still wonder why not everybody was lingering in the holodeck all the time.

(equivalent of people being glued to their smartphones today)

(Related) This is one explanation for the Fermi paradox: Alien species may isolate themselves in virtual worlds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

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RedNifre ◴[] No.46258863[source]
The lack of capitalism meant that the holodeck program authors had no need to optimize their programs for user retention to show them more ads. So much fewer people suffer from holodeck addiction in Star Trek than are glued to their screens in our world.
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1. XorNot ◴[] No.46260148[source]
Although the funniest thing about the holodeck these days is LLMs have answered a question: can you have realistic non-sentient avatars? Evidently yes, and holodeck authorship is likely a bunch of prompt engineering, with really advanced stuff happening when someone trains a new model or something.

Similarly in Stat Wars with droids: Obi-Wan is right, droids can't think and deserve no real moral consideration because they're just advanced language models in bodies (C3PO insisting on proper protocol because he's a protocol droid is the engineering attempt to keep the LLM on track).