Star Trek: Discovery

“All Is Possible”

3 stars.

Air date: 12/9/2021
Written by Alan McElroy & Eric J. Robbins
Directed by John Ottman

Review Text

"All Is Possible" is evidence that Discovery is trying. It's trying to build out the universe, develop and empathize with its characters, and adhere to a storytelling philosophy that relies on dialogue rather than overblown action. It's also, as I've said previously, trying to be the Trek show most in touch with its feelings. If you look back at the first season versus this one, that's the most notable shift in priority. In order to be at peace with the universe, our characters must first be at peace with themselves.

That can make the show cloying and treacly at times, and this episode has its moments of that, but at least its heart is in the right place. "All Is Possible" focuses on three main storylines, with two of them being about a central character dilemma, and the third one being the most interesting and series-impacting with its focus on Federation politics.

Let's start with that one. Discovery has been dispatched to observe the meeting between the Federation delegation and Ni'Var, which is on the verge of rejoining the Federation, but with some serious sticking points around Ni'Var wanting an exit clause (a precedent Rillak can't endorse, lest everyone demand one) that threatens an impasse and possible collapse of the talks. Burnham and Saru attend the conference, with orders not to interfere, but those orders are not what they seem to be at face value. In fact, President Rillak wants them there as back-channel negotiators — with Burnham negotiating for Rillak and Saru for Ni'Var's President T'Rina.

This is kind of fascinating, and plays to some of the subtleties of Trekkian diplomacy that I enjoy. Everyone wants to get this done, but it's not as simple as that, because other requirements must be met for both parties, and these requirements come into conflict. The fact that Ni'Var's reasons for wanting an exit clause tie back into the threat of the ominous DMA is another point in favor of the idea that — for now, at least — the DMA is working better as something that impacts political policy rather than providing a ticking time-bomb for the season arc. Yes, the solution to the diplomatic problem makes one slightly roll one's eyes (must all narrative roads inevitably flow through Burnham, and do her connections to the Vulcans really still hold water when they are more than 900 years out of date?), but aside from that detail this is pretty solid, well-articulated material.

The B-story involving Tilly's fateful leadership mission to accompany some Starfleet cadets and assist them with their team-building — only to end up in a Shuttle Crash™ and a desperate survival situation — is a pretty standard affair. Nothing really to write home about here. There's snow and ice and a mountain ascent and a couple giant spider creatures and a bunch of cadets who don't like each other and who come from different backgrounds and we all have to learn how to listen and accept one another and get along before the spiders eat us. Fine and good, although I love how there's time for a big heartfelt discussion where Tilly has everyone get to know one another as a team-building exercise just as the spiders conveniently decide to slow their previously furious attack.

The unexpected headline here is that this experience gets Tilly invited to a permanent teaching position at Starfleet Academy, which she accepts. There's poignancy in the idea that Tilly worked so hard for her promotion to lieutenant only for it to ring hollow because she was doing it to appease a mother who is 900 years in the past and will never witness her achievement. Why did she bother, anyway? She's not sure. Kovich's offer to teach gives her a fresh start to try something else, and why not? Life is short.

The C-story continues Book's grieving arc, which works here because it's part of a legitimate healing process that deals specifically with Book's Kwejian culture (while acknowledging how that culture has been annihilated, which means Book will never be the same and his acceptance of that fact is the first step). Culber, who now doubles as the ship's counselor as well as doctor, helps make a lot of this work, with insights into the grieving process that have an authentic ring to them.

"All Is Possible" does enough right without being riveting such that I can endorse it. It mostly keeps its focus on what's important, seems genuinely interested in what the future of the Federation might look like, and it doesn't make any major missteps. A low-key win.

"A, always. B, be. C, closing. Always be closing":

  • Even though Tilly accepts Kovich's offer and is leaving the ship, Mary Wiseman is not leaving the series. But unless we're going to be spending a lot of time with her at Starfleet Academy, I have to imagine her role will be significantly reduced. This means other cast members (and there are plenty of them to pick from; please do so, show) will need to fill the void.
  • Speaking of Kovich, wasn't he Starfleet Intelligence? Why is he at the Academy now?
  • Did I detect some hints of flirtation between T'Rina and Saru? Heh.
  • Gray has this new lease on life and a new body, but still seems trapped in the role of being an inner-dialogue accessory to Adira. Honestly, what's the point if he's only going to interact with Adira and remain cooped up in their quarters? Shouldn't Gray be using this newfound freedom to interact with other people on the ship? Let's broaden this character, please.
  • Hoping to return a favor of healing, Book asks if Culber has anything personally painful he wants to share. Culber has something, all right, but he's not sharing.

Previous episode: Choose to Live
Next episode: The Examples

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Comment Section

261 comments on this post

    A SHUTTLECRAFT CRASHES. Stop me if you've heard this one before.

    . . .

    Good episode. Really enjoyed the Ni'Var scenes. Paid off on the worldbuilding the show has been doing in an organic and (if you'll forgive me) logical way re: the comprise solution that was arrived at. It was true to all parties, the characters, and their lived experiences. For once, the show didn't ask us to believe something it hadn't earned.

    Even though the solution to the diplomatic crisis is Michael basically standing up and saying "Me. I'LL be the solution." Ha! EARNED it this time, though, Discovery, unlike other times.

    . . .

    The Vulcan President of Ni'Var is totally flirting with Saru, yes? I am unexpectedly interested.

    . . .

    I'm not sure why Culber is all of a sudden the ship's therapist--you can't really specialize in both psychology and surgery--but Wilson Cruz is so good at playing those scenes that I don't care. He continues to be one of Discovery's best assets, I feel.

    . . .

    No bridge scenes and no recurring cast for the second episode in a row. COVID filming? Or slashed budgets? Hmmm.

    . . .

    And a second essentially stand-alone episode. Giving us a chance to dig into the characters, and the show is better for it.

    . . .

    Someone snuck in a Star Wars-style scene cut during the transition between showing the Federation fleet and the scene where Tilly gets offered a teaching position at Starfleet Academy. At least I think that's what it was--to be honest, I'm not much of a Star Wars fan (don't @ me). Definitely an unusual (unprecedented?) transition for Star Trek.

    . . .

    Okay, I guess I have to talk about Tilly.

    Remember how the show tried to make her the XO last year and to convince us not to laugh at that idea? Could this episode have shown any more just how unprepared she was for that role? The utter lack of composure, authority, confidence or command she exuded over a bunch of cadets? No wonder Saru lost his captaincy, thinking she could be XO. Jeez.

    I did not laugh when Tilly made a command decision that SHE should be the one to assume the role of runner in the plan to be rescued. I did not laugh. I did not.

    (I did.)

    So was this her exit episode? Is she leaving? It really felt like it, with the long goodbyes and drawn out montage. Or she might just be in the very next episode but off doing something in B-plots for a while. It's Discovery. You can't read anything into a long loving tribute to a character that would otherwise signal that character's departure as a series regular in any other show.

    I won't miss her if it is her departure from the show as a regular. I'd be hard-pressed to define what she's been adding to the show recently. Her character had a role that made sense in the first season, and the second. They didn't really find it for her after that. And I spoke about it in other episode reviews from this season, but her presence has honestly been somewhat distracting and immersion-breaking recently because of her ever-increasingly large physique. I'm only being honest.

    . . .

    Loved the Ni'Var president waving her hand and having her single chair become two for her and Saru to sit in. It's the little things, Discovery, that really make you feel like you're watching a future world. It's the details like that. You could have just wrote a scene where there were two chairs to begin with and saved a buck on the special effect, but you took the time to stop and think about the scene you were writing and how it might play differently in the future. It's a very little thing and you might not think it matters much, but it really does. The devil is in the details. This makes me happy. More please.

    . . .

    We got our answer on what justice for the Qowat Milat will look like. It was a future-enlightened approach and Michael Burnham accepted it like a future-enlightened human. I am happy.

    I am equally happy that it occurred to Discovery's writers that this would matter to us, and that the audience needed to know, even if working it into a conversation without it feeling completely out of place was a challenge for the writing room. Managed it well, if it was indeed a challenge.

    . . .

    Adira remembered they are a Trill! They said stuff that sounded Trill-like! It's still not spot-on, but a lot closer. We can forgive some discrepancies in the portrayal because the host is human.

    . . .

    Very good episode overall. More like this please.

    Great episode overall. One of the few I have really liked from the series.

    Appreciated that the universe-ending threat was sidelined in favour of three plots that each spoke to positive values: diplomacy, teamwork, and compassion/empathy. Also appreciated that the episode furthered a matter more compelling than an anomaly, the rebuilding of the Federation.

    One minor gripe: the story on the planet required the characters to forget that Starfleet members in the 32nd century possess mobile transporters. Would not have been much of a story if they remembered, however.

    Finally, Dr. Culber just gets better and better (though, as aforementioned, it is a bit difficult to believe that he would be skilled in all areas of medicine). Easily my favourite character on the show. Kudos to Wilson Cruz on the authentic performance.

    More like this, indeed.

    @ AMA

    re: the personal transporters

    The season premiere established that the personal transporters need to be connected to a transporter grid to work. I don't think that's entirely consistent with how they were depicted last year, but maybe this is a change they're making because they're having trouble writing plots that put the characters in danger otherwise. It wouldn't be the first time Star Trek re-defined how a technology works relatively early after it was introduced.

    The range they can connect to a grid from must be pretty far.

    So for the purposes of this episode, we can assume the shuttle's transporter grid was FUBAR and let it slide, I'd say.

    This was kind of fine, I guess. Thoughts:

    - The structure of a better Star Trek show was here but the payoff, in my opinion, was not. Of particular interest was the main storyline, which aptly sets up a political intrigue in which Burnham and Saru need to untangle a diplomatic negotiation which couldn't happen through official channels. Interesting stuff, but did it need to be so clearly telegraphed in every single scene after we the audience had already understood what was going on? The fundamental problem is that even when the writers want to work in a more adult/intellectual framework they don't have the ability to truly understand how political incentives work in the real world. Why would the sticking point in the negotiation be an "exit clause" when all Federation planets already have the right to self-determination and can unilaterally secede? Is it about the extra bureaucracy involved? If so, how would a Federation-wide technocratic commitee fix the issue, instead of making it worse? Neither the source of the conflict nor its resolution make sense. This is how children believe politics work, not how they actually work.

    - While the message of the show is about "sticking together" in the face of adversities that turn us isolationist (this season, it is by telegraphing the ham-fisted anomaly = coronavirus alegory) the writers keep implying the opposite without realizing it. In this episode, all of the true conflict solutions were about individuals taking action. For one, Burnham offers herself as the solution the political intrigue, of course (and it is nonsensical that Ni'Var would accept an alien Starfleet officer in that role, no matter what nationality she holds, once again proving lack of understanding of actual politics). Even more concerningly, peace among the cadets ensues not by accepting each others' differences and material circumstances, but by revealing that the Orion cadet was the "good guy" all along because his father was an Emerald Chain dissident. I assume that, had his father held different values, he would have automatically been evil and teamwork and mutual understanding would not have been warranted. Let me make clear that I am not arguing for moral relativism or against social justice, but if the core of the story is the need to overcome differences with alien cultures, then perhaps the condition for this happening shouldn't be "only applies to those individuals with which we never had any differences to begin with."

    - Nothing wrong per se with the shuttle craft setup, but also nothing right. It's been done to death and we didn't get anything new out of it. So the cadets contribution to the situation was to be able to stand in line by shooting guns at a monster. And in the end they had to be rescued by a starship or they would have died. Huh, ok. Teamwork at work.

    - Acting keeps letting Season 4 down. SMG is unfortunately subpar and, on top of that, too young for the captain role (which is understandable given that the character wasn't designed as such). And Blu del Barrio, while having a likeable presence, simply isn't believable as a trill with multiple past lives inside. Adira finally had some nice character development here, but I simply cannot believe she is anything but a young inexperienced officer. Which, you know, is a very hard role for a teenage actor to pull off. Honestly, the writers should have taken the symbiote out of her last season and then the actor would fit the role much better.

    In short: In theory, the episode is ok. Not a lot to fault with its premise apart from Yet Another Shuttle Crash, and I can even live with that. But on closer examination, all of the plot resolutions are dumb, meaningless or containing a message other than what the writers want to convey. Unfortunately, I don't think they have the ability to do better than this. But at least I didn't hate it.

    Better than the previous 3, but still suffers from Burnham saving the Federation.. again.

    A second, slower-paced character episode in a row. Loved them both.

    I hope Tilly will still appear on the show, as much as I love the idea of her being in her own show.

    The snowglobe at the end that said All Is Possible was heartbreaking.

    After a promising episode last week, we're largely back to Trek by numbers.

    The "A plot" involving Michael and Saru on Ni'Var was way disappointing to me...other than seeing President T'Rina and Saru lowkey canoodle. I had two major issues with this plot. First, the Vulcans seemed to act out of character to me. Yes, I know that Vulcans always just use logic as a mask to cover up their emotions, but here it was presented so as starkly just "we don't trust them because feelings" without even a decent in-script rationalization to back it up. The worse aspect of this to me though was that the interesting parts of the internal conflict on Ni'Var - what the issue with the Federation really was - weren't actually explained. Instead we saw Michael somehow accepted as a neutral party (despite literally working for Starfleet) and (it appears) she mediates the conflict entirely off camera, with the last scene establishing Ni'Var has joined! Exploring what exactly the anti-Federation faction wanted - and how to solve it - was what I would consider "the good part" and it's absence was a huge downgrade for me. Maybe it will be shown in later episodes and I will reappraise this however. I also think the conflict itself comes across as a bit forced, given the Federation allowed member worlds to voluntarily leave in the past (though admittedly that was the old Federation) and the characterization of Michael as a "natural diplomat" cuts against everything we know of her up until this point.

    Turning to the "B plot" with Tilly, Adira and the cadets, this is something we've seen many times before - both the shuttlecraft crash and dealing with a squabbling bunch of newbies - and unfortunately, it's been done way better elsewhere. Since it's not a new/interesting scenario, the key to these plots working is interesting character dynamics, which I felt was lacking. Seeing Tilly forced to be in a command situation with people way less experienced was interesting, though given the conclusion of the arc, I do wish they pushed her weariness/frustration with her Starfleet position a bit more. I did like they remembered Adira was joined here, and referenced it in the dialogue, though I felt they played her a bit too young given those centuries of experience she has under her belt with the symbiont. I would have enjoyed if there was even more conflict between Adira and Tilly over the course of this episode TBH, as it would have allowed for Adira to have a big fail, and then character growth ongoing across the season as a result, but after some squabbling, she mostly accepted being treated like a cadet (and didn't act too differently from the cadets, unfortunately). The biggest flaw though is the cadets themselves were largely boring non-entities. I'm not sure if the issue was the writing or the caliber of actor they got for the role, but they didn't do it for me at all. The human girl (Val Sasha) had no story purpose - she was more or less cute wallpaper, as her initial statement about not having much experience with aliens didn't go anywhere. The Orion boy (Harral) had a bit more substance, but we didn't really get to understand his character until the reveal at the end of the episode - he just acted as a punching bag for the Tellarite (Taahz Gorev) - who was the only one of the three who made any impression whatsoever. Interestingly, he's also the actor with the largest resume on IMDB, which makes me wonder if part of it is he put in the best performance. I say if they are going ahead with the Starfleet Academy series please keep him on, but ditch or recast the other two.

    Turning to what appears to be Tilly's exit from the show - think it's for the best. Tilly was a character created for a very particular role in the beginning of Season 1 (to show how bottom of the totem pole Michael was starting out again after being released from prison) and the successive writing teams have had continual issues trying to find some way to make her relevant to the series. They turned her from an assistant in the spore drive to someone who knew it better than anyone other than Stamets, had her impersonate her bloodthirsty MU alter, get sucked into the mycelial network, end up on the bridge, end up XO only to have it blow up in her face...the list goes on and on. All of this would have IMHO been fine in a series structured like an older Trek show, with 26 episodes per season and at best semi-serialization. But the limited air time available meant that limited screen time which could be used to further the seasonal arc or the plots of the weeks had to be inclusive of Tilly...no matter how weird it ended up. The show will probably be a bit more streamlined with her departure.

    I will say I uncritically loved the scenes with Book and Culber - they were by far the best part of this episode. It's interesting they decided to make Culber canonically at least part Latino (like his actor) despite the Anglo-Scottish last name. But I loved these scenes were about pure character, had no exposition, and just stood on their own.

    I'd say this is a 2.5 star episode. Nothing is actively bad, but very little (other than those Book/Culber scenes) is exceptional either.

    Oh, one more comment...I feel like the AR wall didn't really work on this episode. I'm wondering if anyone else noticed it?

    My issue was mainly with some of the close-up shots of actors while they were speaking. I noticed this particularly with Tilly & co on the planet. They blurred the background to give the camera "focus" on the character, but it resulted in it seeming like there was just a flat screen behind them projecting a snowscape rather than actually being in an environment.

    @ Dreubarik, @ Karl Zimmerman

    Just a friendly reminder that both Adira and Adira's portrayer Blu del Barrio are gender non-binary and the correct pronouns to use are they/their, not she/her. I know it's grammatically irritating but the ship has sailed on a different option becoming widely used and so our language has changed and we must adapt. It's what languages do, after all, and when my brain itches over how agrammatical it sounds, I remind myself that Modern English as we've learned it and speak it has many features that would sound as irritatingly agrammatical to speakers from centuries or a millennia ago (It is, after all, just Old German with its grammar chopped off at the knees, smashed together with Middle French and with a bit of Latin sprinkled on top. That's why it's comparatively a hard language to learn if you're not a native speaker--it often doesn't follow its own "rules!")

    I know, of course, that fans of a franchise built around the principles of the IDIC wouldn't have other reasons for using the wrong pronouns, so let's leave it at that.

    @Karl Zimmerman

    Mary Wiseman on this week's Ready Room says the ice planet footage was location footage (shot at the same Toronto-area quarry they've used for past episodes). Perhaps they filmed additional bits in studio or touched up the footage in post-production, though.

    I liked this episode quite a bit. Reminded me of DS9, particularly some Season 5 episodes (The Ascent, obviously, and Rapture/In the Cards, what with the politics and negotiations for Federation membership). The shuttle crash is an age-old Trek trope, yeah, but Lower Decks did it this season, too. Tilly's plot arc was fitting. She never seemed comfortable with the idea of command, even though she claimed to want it.

    The last two episodes have been 55 and 54 minutes, and it really shows, because they've had a much more relaxed pacing, and all the plot threads have had room to quietly breathe. Loved the world-building going on here.

    Really enjoy the Fed president being such a strong, recurring presence. We've never had that before (past Fed presidents have been pretty hopeless). And I'm totally a Saru/T'Rina sipper. Had no problem with Burnham being the compromise between both parties because I feel like Picard would've (and must've, several times) been in the same role without any criticism, given how many diplomatic missions the Enterprise-D carried out.

    I don't think the DMA is the galaxy-wide 'end all life' threat people were fearing it would be at the start of the season. It's more like a big hurricane, localized, trackable but could change course at any moment. Threatens a small area that just happens to be in Federation 'waters,' as it were. We haven't even seen it for two whole episodes.

    There may not be any shocking reveal about its nature. It just seems to be there as a background MacGuffin/mechanism to spur various worlds into cooperation and renewing alliances. Now that Ni'Var is back, Earth is the next big ex-member world to bring back, especially as humans are still abundant in Starfleet. I'm sure it'll happen at some point in the show. It remains to be seen whether they go after Earth this season or next.

    Yeah, I caught the screwup on Adira's pronouns after posting. I thought about doing a follow up, but three in a row seemed excessive.

    Derivative and unoriginal but watchable which is high praise for Discovery. All 3 plots are recycled in some way which takes away from the quality. I'll give some points for world building and the shuttlecrash scenes were at least entertaining.

    Isn't that interesting, I didn't even miss the bridge crew until a previous poster pointed that out. That's kinda telling, isn't it?

    I actually liked the episode. I caught myself watching for it to disappoint me and honestly, that's just the wrong way to enjoy any TV show. This felt more like proper, classic Trek to me than all of season 4 so far, so you can overlook the little stuff.

    - Tilly choosing herself as the runner to distract two lightning fast predators.
    - Burnham ending up the deus ex machina for the diplomatic crisis (AGAIN!)
    - Gray now has a body but still gets 0 scenes with anyone other than Adira
    - Burnham not choking on the irony of her own words after saying: "You're allowing past mistakes to control your future"... Look who's talking, you 930 year old relic with a rap sheet the size of a runabout.

    Ni'Varians seem to dig Frank Lloyd Wright. I'm down with it. And I guess bricks are universal. My post-lottery-winning home will likely include that conference room in some way.

    Adira's "feet stuck in ice" thing was weak and - I get it - just needed to serve up a Tilly-focused bonding moment which wasn't terrible but still went on just a liiiittle bit too long, which is where Disco keeps getting in it's own way, IMO. When the viewer is in a setting being pummelled with action and seconds ostensibly make every difference, Disco takes these exact moments to hit the brakes and emote.

    BUT, I'm starting to think of this as a storytelling type of its own that *almost* makes sense when you think about people in situations that happen very quickly. Frequently, people at the heart of these events (war action, plane crashes, etc.) recount them in almost slow-motion-like detail where time seems distorted. If that's the intended storytelling structure I guess it works and I don't dislike the idea, but feel like it might be less talky and ...more clear? 🤷‍♂️

    If that isn't the structural intent, then I fear the writer's room is woefully lightweight. However, the Book/Culber story, which could have been interminable, was well served by not-overwrought dialogue, great acting from both men and simple, elegant setting. It's the kind of storywork that gives my Voyager Soul hope for this show.

    So I dunno. I was ready to pronounce Disco a wreck two weeks ago, and I don't want to think I'm justifying poor quality by downgrading my expectations, but I feel like there's a nascent gel in the works, like Q's primordial goo. And to be fair: all other series had many more episodes to work the suck out.

    Elsewhere...

    * Emergency Kit with Promatter(TM) spewer totally makes sense.
    * Tilly loses someone and gets offered a job. I thought for sure, as thoughtful as things always need to be here, that there might be some lamentation of this during the bunkmate reunion bit. Tilly literally lists things that went bad and the dead guy isn't even mentioned. (I actually replayed that scene to be sure I hadn't missed some memorial mention, but no.) Lt. Memoryhole reporting for duty!
    * So, Burnham will maintain a new critical Federation-auditing Committee role involving regular communication with ALL Federation members AND captain an important line ship AND be the Federation's post-Burn dilithium outreach lead AND... 🧐
    * The anomaly will be Borg.
    * Tilly As HQ Mole would be interesting, but probably only work if a whole season wasn't just a dozen episodes.
    * Where are all the other people whose names I still can't remember?

    Second strong entry in a row for DSC, and I am guessing it has to do with the slower pace allowing conflicts to be explored and laid out cogently before getting resolved. Another good sign was neither episode having the annoying 11th-hour shocker and leaving at a cliffhanger. This episode also allows characters to marinate conflicts through dialogues and remains reserved pacing on the action.

    Curious to see where Tilly goes from here for the rest of the season. I certainly doubt she will hardly reappear again. Let's see in what capacity she will show up again. I still would like to see more time for a few of the main bridge crew - hey did not appear in either episode but I think that was not necessarily a good thing - such as Detmer and Rhys. Wilson Cruz and David Ajala scenes were delightful. Both actors and their characters are assets to the show.

    Linus's race was represented in the Ni-Var talks, which was a bit of a surprise for me. If only the final resolution that brought Ni-Var to the Federation was not rushed. Otherwise, strong hour of Trek, 3.5 stars for me.

    Yes, apologies, I missed it and then couldn't edit it, which is annoying. I have to say, this is taking me some work, even watching the show it still takes me a while to realize they aren't talking about multiple people.

    There's a lot I liked here but unfortunately schmalz is part of DSC's DNA and that prevents the episode from being something excellent. Tilly leaving was definitely not predictable, but they certainly sent her out with a bang. Also felt like more decent world/universe building was accomplished, which is much appreciated.

    The 2 main subplots were both good but the resolutions were too cliche/contrived. It's a good Trekian story with the team of cadets eventually coming together, resolving their differences but it all happens too quickly -- but this isn't the 1st Trek episode to do that pat resolution. As for Burnham being the independent 3rd party and Ni'Var and the Federation agreeing, it was always going to work. Burnham is a genius and we're all just living in her universe.

    There were plenty of nice, realistic-feeling touches to these 2 plots in terms of the concerns, the challenges, the character interactions. The theme of uncertainty rang through the 2 subplots quite well -- Tilly is obviously on a cliff's edge as to what she wants to do and Ni'Var / Federation are the same way. DSC has put a fair bit of effort into Tilly's character the past 2 episodes and the end result is good for the development of the character. Also liked the scenes between Saru and T'Rina -- they were well acted and felt genuine.

    Culber playing psychiatrist with Book was typical DSC -- working through feelings, starting from frustration to eventually making some progress. Nothing special.

    The "justice" for J'Vini is ridiculous -- so Burnham's mom will rehab her in a kind of role reversal and in time, J'Vini will make amends for killing a Federation officer. Can't help thinking how this is how the left envisions justice, defunding the police, having social workers reform criminals. But then again, it's not the first time similar "justice" takes place on Trek ("The Conscience of the King" comes to mind with Lenore). BUT WE NEED NI'VAR IN THE FEDERATION!!!

    2.5 stars for "All Is Possible" -- overall some good thinking/imagination went into this one with some significant consequences like Tilly leaving. Felt like key themes from "The Galileo Seven", "Good Shepherd", "The Ascent" were used well. If DSC could just cut the Maudlin by 50% and tone Burnham down a tad, we'd have a real winner of an episode.

    Son of a bitch.

    With as pissed off as I was at Discovery for being its same old unearned drama self, making Michael Burnham the center of the universe, last week...

    Some asshole wrote a Star Trek Episode out of all this. This got to me.

    Are they manipulating me? Have they managed to get to the point where they can predict when I'm gonna get fed up with their same old crap and just launch a photon torpedo of drama at me?

    Very not bad. 3 1/2 stars at least. Holy shit. This is real storytelling. What the hell?

    I was pissed last week. You all saw it. You read it. Jammer didn't agree with me but I decided to shut up about it. ...This isn't a just good Star Trek Episode, this is a story, man/woman/et al. This is good stuff. Diggity dang.

    I mean, I haven't even talked about the plot points of it, and I don't think I want to, because if you hate Star Trek Discovery as much as I've grown to hate it, you might just want to watch this ep.

    True, it makes the same conceits of Michael Burnham being the center of the universe that the series has up to now, but it has the good sense to make it straightforward and to the point in that regard, while focusing the main point of the plot

    E L S E W H E R E . :o

    That's all I want to say, because I think this is worth a watch and I don't want to spoil it for you.

    Yes, at least 3 1/2 stars. This is the best episode of this series to date. They totally Kirk-Drop-Kicked me with this one. I was not expecting to like this. But I do.

    I haven't watched a single episode this season so far and I am "educated" by your comments.
    Not yet impressed so far, well at least to the point of making me want to watch it (and get into trouble to find a way to do it...since Netflix and all).

    Of course my main problem is the ultra annoying lead. Why it had to be Tilly... Tilly come back and replace her. Please? Pretty plz? with sugar on top?

    Star Trek Discovery

    Season 4 Episode 4
    All is Possible


    “Great. Good. Now we all know each other a little better. Go team."

    - Tilly


    3 stars (out of 4)


    Discovery has clearly taken the reboot movies as its template for this season, and all things considered, it is working. Not perfectly, but pretty decently. As with the opening for “Kobayashi Maru” a few weeks ago, this week’s opening is again a homage - this time Michael’s log calls back to Kirk’s log at the start of “Beyond”.

    The episode sticks to the same A/B/C structure as last week, and the result is again an enjoyable hour of TV. Plus, I mean, it doesn’t hurt that they brought onboard a freaking Oscar winner as a director! Bravo John Ottman, and thank you :)

    After a very long time, the characters seem to be real people, acting according to their developed personalities, and responding and reacting to their situations and surroundings as you would expect them to. Dear writers, this is pretty much all we ask for!

    Let’s start with Tilly. This week is at least set up as her swan song. In two episodes, “Far From Home” in season 3, and last week’s “Choose to Live,” we got a sense that Tilly's real USP lay in her soft skills. She wasn’t winning any Klingon martial arts championships anytime soon, that’s for sure! I forget if we already knew her mom was a diplomat, but this week we put her somewhat inherited people-skills to real life use. Tilly is tasked with taking a team of cadets (plus Tal) on a training mission. It’s a nice shout out to Star Trek: Prodigy, which also takes place aboard a training vessel.

    At first the cadets come across as super annoying. These are not cadets in the mold of Lacarno (“The First Duty”) or Kirk (“Star Trek (2009)”), or even Red Squad (DS9). These are Gen-Z cadets who, as David Cronenberg says, “grew up isolated and disconnected,” and “find it hard to function as a team.” Even by the end of the episode they never really grow on you in the way Johnny Picard and his friends did in “Tapestry.” But that’s not really the point. The point is that they give Tilly a foil to practice her people skills. And though she may be fat and bumbling, you have to admit that Tilly does put people at ease.

    The writers also seem to be going for a bit of a TNG “Coming of Age” parallel here for Tal and the cadets. Now, Tal is not annoying in the way they made Wesely out to be, but neither are the cadets here anything like the unforgettable competition Wesley had at that exam. But that’s ok, the point is straightforward enough - wunderkinds often have trouble making friends. It was done far better in TNG’s “Evolution,” but that’s neither here nor there. I do appreciate that Cadet Taahz Gorev basically tells Tal that her babbling about past lives doesn’t help anyone. God if only we had someone on DS9 do that to Ezri!

    Now to the C story, which is an intriguing one with Doc and Book. The set up is so convoluted it almost killed the entire thing for me. Unlike normal guys who grab a drink with their buddy when they are feeling down, see for example, the beautiful scene between Kirk and Bones in Star Trek: Beyond,

    https://youtu.be/CysGBZUHW34

    or the iconic scene between Doc and Pike in the TOS pilot,

    https://youtu.be/2Jo7Fu-3zas

    these two, Culber and Book, have to be set up on a play date (by Michael, obviously) in some version of the ongoing therapy that half the crew seems to be in. But however convoluted the set up, the result is great - two good actors in a room, trying to find some way to work through their shit. And here it is done without alcohol, which is quite a fascinating change of pace. Given that much of the world doesn’t drink (god knows why!?), I appreciate that they took a stab at this in a very different way.

    Which brings us to the main plot, Suru and Michael save the day. See Nevar is a parliamentary democracy, and the Tory president is in coalition with a Leave faction that demands an “exit-clause” if they are going to sign back onto the EU. I kid, but only slightly.

    This isn’t exactly nBSG level politics - heck it isn’t even Babylon 5 level politics - but it is competently done, and I appreciate the effort. God knows it is infinitely superior to Enterprise’s stab at the Xindi Counsel. Not everything, alas, can be “Journey to Babel”.

    What I love about this set up is that the President calls Michael to the meeting precisely because she knows that Michael can’t help herself, and will meddle and interfere even if ordered not to!

    Captain Saru and Captain Burnham’s interactions remind me a bit of Captain Kirk and Captain Spock in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. It doesn’t hurt that the sepia lighting in the negotiations room makes the color of their uniforms match the original series later movies. Of course Michael is no Jim Kirk. But Mr. Saru continues to impress. And I find the growing interest in him displayed by a certain female head of state to be… fascinating.

    That brings me to the major flaw in this episode. It was a flaw so severe that I almost gave this week 2 1/2 stars. Because the flaw is exactly the same as last week - contrived plotting that produces just-so results.

    In the final negotiations between the Federation and Nevar, the contrivance is, surprise surprise, Michael herself. Of course her personal biography makes her the perfect person to sit on a neutral EU high court should there be any issues between the Federation and a member. The exact same solution - personal biography - solves Tilly’s problem too, because wouldn't you know it, Orion Boy’s daddy was an Ally, so he isn’t saddled with Green Guilt.

    They even insert, for no apparent reason, President Laira Rillak’s biography - her Cardassian/Human/Bajoran mixed race - into Michael’s Big Speech.

    And fuck me but Culber’s biography - an admittedly hilarious funeral, which I really would have loved to attend - is of course the key that jump starts Book’s recovery. And here's the thing: in the case of Culber and Book, personal biography would not have been a problem at all, if the writers hadn’t insisted on shoe-horning this perfectly normal human interaction, into some kind of clinical psycho nonsense. Oh well.

    It speaks to the strengths in the quiet moments of this episode, that despite this contrived writing, the episode is on balance pretty darn good. There is Saru pouring the tea sent by the Nevar President. And there is the real standout scene between Tilly and Michael.

    Yes, Tilly and Michael.

    Tilly may have grown way fatter since the first time these two women sat in that room together, but there is a genuine warmth and dare I say it, love here. They are good friends. Tilly doesn’t really belong on the ship any more. But there is always Plan B. Those who can’t do, teach,

    https://youtu.be/QQskB2JJql4

    All in all, Discovery season 4 seems to have benefited so much from the CBS-Viacom merger.

    In 2006, CBS walked off with the Star Trek TV rights, and Viacom kept the Star Trek movie rights. Now that they’re back together again, the shows and the movies are all under one roof, and the result here is that elements from the reboot movies and the later TOS movies are slowly bleeding into the show. So far this is a good thing.

    I can only assume that Strange New Worlds will be the culmination of that remerger. For the first time since Enterprise ended, a Star Trek TV show will be produced from scratch with all the elements of the entire Star Trek universe to pick from - movies, shows, everything. At long last the Trek family will be whole again. I see season 4 of Discovery as a journey to get us there - as @Jammer said in his review last week, “a major course correction.”

    And I, for one, am happy to be along for the ride.

    Someone on Trek BBS riffed off my comments there, and noted the issue with the last two episodes seems to be overplotting. They have good setups, and good character moments, but the decision to have 2.5 plots per episode means the resolutions to the "problems" are trivially easy. All it takes is one idea from Michael in both episode's A plots - something self-evident which no one ever thought of regardless - to fix everything well enough to call it a day.

    If the episodes focused on just one plot, and let the non-plot critical cast members have a handful of "flavor" character interactions peppered across the episode, there would be some time to put real substance into the story.

    ""so our language has changed and we must adapt. "

    P.S. Resistance is Futile"

    The Emissary has spoken.

    "Just a friendly reminder that both Adira and Adira's portrayer Blu del Barrio are gender non-binary and the correct pronouns to use are they/their, not she/her. I know it's grammatically irritating but the ship has sailed on a different option becoming widely used and so our language has changed and we must adapt."

    No, thank you. This is compelled speech, and it is not widely used anywhere outside of social media. There isn't a 'ship', much less one that's 'sailed'.

    And yes, you're right it's grammatically irritating, because it's unnecessary, intrusive contortion of basic grammar in the service of vanity, narcissism and extremely polarised political posturing. (You actually had to coin the neologism 'portrayer' here to carefully avoid using either 'actor' or 'actress', that's how unnatural it is.)

    Just a friendly reminder that not everyone on here uncritically accepts this. Please respect this as well.

    @Dreubarik

    "Yes, apologies, I missed it and then couldn't edit it, which is annoying. I have to say, this is taking me some work, even watching the show it still takes me a while to realize they aren't talking about multiple people."

    Don't apologise.

    It's taking "some work" because it's absurd. The fact that you felt uncomfortable and even compelled to apologise for perfectly natural English language use - *because such natural, reflexive language use was actively policed* by Jeffrey's Tube - is the real problem here.

    People rightly struggle with counter-intuitive, bespoke pronoun use for the simple reason it's ridiculous, cringeworthy nonsense.

    "Just a friendly reminder that both Adira and Adira's portrayer Blu del Barrio are gender non-binary and the correct pronouns to use are they/their, not she/her."

    At the risk of starting a flame war or getting banned for wrong-think, I will point out that the actor actually has a distinct sex whether she wishes to admit that reality or not. Humans are not "non-binary", that is a scientific truth. Pretending won't make it so.

    @Chris Lopes

    Correct.

    People like Jeffrey's Tube who insist on compelling speech are only leading to people like me, who have hitherto held our tongues, to dare to speak out to defend the incontravertible reality and importance of biological sex.

    I don't cleave to gender identity ideology. It is not hateful to say so. Gender identity ideology is erasing lesbians and gays and the rights of women and girls.

    To return specifically to Trek, it is rather telling (and saddening) that Trek's first regular ongoing lesbian couple have been erased on the pretence that one of them is 'non-binary' while the other is meant to be a man. So a homosexual relationship is 'non-binaryed' and 'transed' into a pretended hetero relationship on-screen.

    Progress? Having to hide or deny homosexuality used to be called homophobia. I think it still is.

    @Odan's Razor
    @Chris Lopes

    I greatly appreciate you both speaking up and your comments. Very well and respectfully said.

    I do believe there needs to be more pushback against people who act as speech police with regards to bespoke pronouns / gender neutral -- that kind of thing. It's not far removed from cancel culture. In no way is it constructive.

    Humans don't get to choose their genders. Finding replacement terms for "mother" and "father" is just asinine. I believe there is a toxic desire by such people to want to be victims, to feel that they're treated unfairly when that's just not the case or the intent.

    Solid space diplomacy episode and one of the better “shuttle crash” episodes this show has attempted. Was one of the first Tilly plot lines where she didn’t just feel tacked on and the mission itself served a real plot purpose rather than being mindless action. Teaching at the academy is a great fit for her and makes a lot of sense for her character. Show-runners say she’s not leaving the show but definitely notice that she and Adira fill VERY similar roles…. Anyway, the budget paid off creating the atmosphere in both main plot lines. The C plot with Culber and Book was good and well acted, but starting to feel a little redundant after the supposed time we spent with this last week. Really liking the direction of this season so far. 3.5/4 for me.

    "I believe there is a toxic desire by such people to want to be victims, to feel that they're treated unfairly when that's just not the case or the intent."
    The only people who see themselves as victims so far and write about being treated unfairly are you people.

    Gender is a societal construct. How you walk, dress, talk is highly determined by your gender.

    Sex is a physical reality. Ovaries and penises.

    It is a huge waste of energy to care about how other people want to define themselves. You’ll never change anyone’s mind. You have every right to call people whatever you want, against their wishes, but what exactly do YOU gain from it? Feeling right?

    "Gender is a societal construct. How you walk, dress, talk is highly determined by your gender."

    Gender ROLES are a social construct and can be as fluid as your imagination can handle.

    I will fan the flames and say the pronoun policing online is getting tiresome, but not because I disagree with people choosing their pronouns. I would personally try to respect however someone would like to be addressed. But Adria is a fictional character, not a real person. So it doesn’t really matter other than giving the internet police a nice opportunity to virtue signal against people who aren’t even doing it maliciously most of the time.

    "You have every right to call people whatever you want, against their wishes, but what exactly do YOU gain from it? "

    The truth matters and denying the truth can hurt others. As I write this, men identifying as women are competing against women in sports and (surprise, surprise) winning. The women they are competing against have no chance against them and everyone knows it. No one will speak this truth because we are all supposed to play pretend for the sake of "tolerance".

    Look, if you want to identify as male, female, Klingon, or Emperor of the known universe, that's your business. Just don't ask me or the rest of humanity to go along with your delusions. The universe certainly won't.

    @Chris Lopes
    Gender means anything that defines a man or a woman besides biological aspects. For example, in Afghanistan it is normal for men to hold hands when they take a walk together. Is therefore masculine. In the USA that would be seen as feminine behavior. Gender roles is, as far as I see it, an almost identical concept.

    How do you define gender? and how does it differ from gender roles?

    @Chris Lopes
    "Just don't ask me or the rest of humanity to go along with your delusions"
    Calling trans people delusional is transphobia. Don't bother answering my question.

    @Boomer

    To me, gender is just another word for sex, as in male and female. Gender roles refers to what any particular culture expects of a person of a particular sex. Such roles are, as I have said, quite fluid even inside a particular culture. The biology doesn't change. You are either of 2 sexes and declaring (or identifying) as the alternate sex doesn't make you that sex. Kaitlin Jenner is not really a woman. Naming him Woman of the Year doesn't change that fact.

    "Calling trans people delusional is transphobia. Don't bother answering my question."

    That's kind of the reaction I thought I would get. By all means let's play pretend.

    @chris lopes. Think and say whatever you want, like I said. Says more about you than anyone else anyway.

    @Odan's Razor
    @Chris Lopes

    Personally I don't like such inorganic grammatical changes to the language (and you've got it easy in English, in other languages the amount of change required to incorporate non-binaryism is next level). As mentioned here, sex and gender are different things, and grammatical gender is yet another distinct thing. I would find it much easier if we aligned grammatical gender with sex (obviously, allowing for the sex changes preferred by trans people. Trans women are women and trans men are men) and left gender meanings to be as fluid and non-binary as anyone wishes without a need for grammatical gymnastics.

    But the fact remains: it isn't really my choice because I am not part of the collective affected by this. This specific actor has expressed a preference to be referred to with these specific pronouns (and so has their character) and I will do so regardless of my abstract preferences, because it is quite important in life not to be an douchebag and use said preferences as a weapon against those in a weaker position of power than oneself. It is as simple as that.

    Can't we just create a new pronoun for people like Adira? Since now days there is indeed the need for something else than he and she.
    Cause "they" ends up being damn confusing. Last year when I was still watching the show, trying to realize when they were referring to Adira or to an actual plural number of people was frustrating.

    @Simon

    You are missing the point. What either one of us thinks or says doesn't change reality. Human beings are not "non-binary" and declaring oneself that doesn't make it true. I don't wish to live in a world where I have to lie about reality. Some here believe that makes me a terrible person. So be it.

    So this one I didn't dislike. That's progress. The human struggle felt a lot more real than in previous episodes. Politics in Star Trek was always my favorite. When they combined political with personal struggle, that's when I liked ST the most. Nice job developing the team building story. Didn't even mind the traditional shuttle crash.

    The political plot was overly simplistic though. Federation and Ni'Var negotiate, what, for months? And only five minutes before inking the deal, Ni'Var figures out that they are not entirely happy? That's hard to believe. That problem didn't come up in negotiations even though it seems to be a hard deal breaker. And then forming a committee is what ends up saving the day? And the committee is led by that woman that just arrived from the medieval age yesterday? Nope, not buying this at all. Great story but extremely sloppy plotting.
    They have one year to write 10 episodes, and that's the best they come up with.

    I liked this episode. 3 stars from me. The scenes with Book and Culber were outstanding. Wilson Cruz is a phenomenal actor who the series chronically underutilizes. David Ajala is also really good, so I’m down for any scene with these two in it. Yes, it was about feelings, which Discovery does far too often, but I don’t mind it when it’s done well. Book lost his family and planet; a mind meld isn’t going to fix that. It’s going to take “a long ass time” to work through the pain.

    The political plot with Burnham and Saru also worked well, mostly because of strong acting from the two, plus the presidents. And the solution worked on two levels. A committee as a solution makes sense in the world of politics, and Burnham being the real solution makes sense in the world of Discovery.

    The Tilly / cadets subplot also worked and was entertaining enough, and I liked how it ended up really being about an inflection point in Tilly’s character arc that built on her history (going all the way back to early in S1). Other posters pointed out that they alluded to this in prior episodes which I didn’t pick up on, but it’s nice to see when the writing effort is there.

    I’m not sure who Tilly gets replaced with, as I’m not sure there is anyone else who can fill the comic relief role (except Reno of course, but I believe the actor has other commitments).

    Another nice thing about this episode was very little mention of the anomaly. After how much of a let down the Burn mystery box ended up being and how stupid the seven signals ended up being I just can’t get into these season long story arcs that get stretched out the entire season only to be solved in the last 15 minutes of the finale. Better to tell stand alone stories that get resolved in a reasonable time frame and move along with the right pacing.

    they try to do world building? much appreciated.

    they try to be more trek-ish and throw political conferences and crashing shuttles at us? much appreciated (allthough i really had to laugh when the shuttle crashed. its just silly at this point. trek needs to find a new mechanic to put 5 people into an isolated setting)

    slower pace, less pew pew pew? much appreciated.

    but was it a good episode? errr...for me personally, thats still a no.

    like, yes, please keep all these efforts. youre on a good path. NOW just make these efforts not one hundred percent by the numbers, and you got my attention.

    so 2 stars from me for the effort (for DSC, thats a good rating in my book). i would have given it 2.5 if they would have spared me the eye roll inducing moment of Burnam Ex Machina. why not give it to saru? he would have been the much more logical choice. burnam captains a star ship. what time would she ever have to sit in such a commitee?

    oh, and their decision to dump tilly is maximum rick berman. one of the female leads needs to go. oooh, its gonna be the one whos not in shape? such a surprise.

    i never mind the "wokeness" of DSC as principle. but what i not only dislike but absolutely destest about it that its 1. done in this cringeworthy, lazy "look at how woke i am!" way, and 2. that its...well...

    ...that its fake as F. if i want to watch a scifi show that truly has its heart in this, i watch sense 8, which is both more bold, more truthful while still never generating this hand-waving effect. in DSC, the same thing is just stupid virtue signaling by alex kurtzman.

    but still. theyre trying. its going in the right direction. now dont do it by the numbers but make the effort to present something original in that framework, and i am on board.

    @Chris Lopes said, "To me, gender is just another word for sex.”

    That is not actually true. Sex refers to which set genitals you have, while gender is a characteristic of a noun - like number, quality, and case.

    You need only look these words up to see how we got them back in the 1300’s A.D.

    For sex, the word comes from an old French word for genitals (sexe),

    https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/176989

    and the first example they give is from a Bible in 1382 A.D., carrying an injunction to Noah to bring two of every animal to the ark: one of the male sex, and one of the female sex.

    For gender,

    https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/77468

    words have certain qualities like quantity (singular or plural), and gender (masculine, feminine, neutral), etc. Anyone who has studied Latin (or one of several other classical languages), had to memorize all those annoying word tables,

    https://youtu.be/5TRxFlMjccU

    Now you would think that of all people, actors and actresses would understand the basic need for gender, since, you know, they all secretly dream of winning an Academy Award.

    The relevant categories are Academy Award for Best:

    - Actor in a Leading Role
    - Actor in a Supporting Role
    - Actress in a Leading Role
    - Actress in a Supporting Role

    There is no gender neutral academy award for acting.

    Time to cancel the Oscars! And Emmys! And Tonys! All transphobic!

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/movies/oscars-gendered-categories.html

    @Simon says, "It is a huge waste of energy to care about how other people want to define themselves. You’ll never change anyone’s mind. You have every right to call people whatever you want, against their wishes, but what exactly do YOU gain from it? Feeling right?”

    Great point.

    I recall what Captain Sheridan said when he was being tortured by the Earth Alliance in Babylon 5,

    “You can fight the system. As long as just one person refuses to be broken - Refuses to bow down.”

    "But can you win?”

    "Every time I say no.”

    https://youtu.be/K7uqCZCgRKU?t=12

    So as @Simon says, "Think and say whatever you want… . Says more about you than anyone else.”

    I'm really looking forward to the same people who discriminated homosexuals until 10 years ago and are now using those very homosexuals to discriminate transpeople to use transpeople to discriminate non binaries. "Non binaries are erasing transsexual identities!" It will happen, people. Just wait.

    So transphobes... You are fighting a group that has almost no power, is facing enormous amounts of violence, is far poorer and commits far less crime than the average citizen.

    I'll keep away from the gender vs sex discussion, as, unfortunately, I highly doubt I'd convince anyone of my opinion either way and I'll just get annoyed with the other side who disagree with me and (seemingly) refuse to see my points on it for reasons rooted in personal beliefs, whose reassessment is often resisted because it would require also a reassessment of one's own core identity, something hard for everyone, from every spectrum of life, experience and social/political divides (even if I hold it to be highly important and relevant for working towards being a better human being than we were yesterday; alas, this seems to be the default state of the world today).

    What I would like to point, out, however, is that the English language is ALREADY using a plural pronoun for the purposes of a singular pronoun, and no one seems to even be aware of it, let alone complain about it! 'You' is, historically, a second-person plural pronoun, doubling up as the 'highly polite (hĂśflich in German)' form. 'Thou' is, historically, a second-person singular pronoun. Verb conjunction follows. Shakespeare, writing in Early Modern English where this is still highly established (i.e. this is a very late change to the English language), uses both when addressing people, but there are very clear class/status/relationship delineations between the more personable 'thou/thee/thy' and the polite 'you/your'; understanding this difference brings a whole 'nother level to reading his plays, and thus becomes an extremely important thing to remember for anyone genuinely interested in literature of this English historical variant.

    'Thou' is, of course, now completely archaic and not in colloquial use of most English variants, and thus hearing someone speaking with it would be extremely weird for practically all of us (Watchest thou not Star Trek every week?). 'You' now stands in for both singular and plural second-person pronouns - this is, however, not the case for most other languages, and perhaps because I'm a Slavic-language speaker, where differentiating between the polite and the familiar term of address is very important, to me, this 'you' and 'you' confusion stands out, and especially did in early stages of learning English, when I kept wondering 'but how do I know which one you mean, when your verb form is also the same for singular 'you' and 'plural' you? And how do I show respect if there is no highly polite pronoun in English like there is in my native tongue? And wait, 'yourself' and also 'yourselves'?'

    So, the genuine question then arises from this - why, if we're bothered by 'they/their/themself' vs 'they/their/themselves', are we also not bothered by 'you/your/yourself' vs 'you/your/yourslves' dichotomy? The simple answer is 'because we grew up hearing one as normal, and not the other', that's all. Language is a very fluent, amorphous thing, whose changes are numerous and sometimes very drastic, if you look back in a span of centuries (a lot of people have trouble understanding even Shakespeare, and his English is extremely similar to today's language). From our small, 80-year-long lives, though, this change seems very slow, and thus we are resistant to doing it consciously (because we do do it subconsciously all the time; slang changes drastically within a decade).

    I'd like to put forth the idea that the resistance to that change is a knee-jerk response to having something sound discordant. Nonetheless, enough exposure to it will make it smooth out in the brain. 'The word 'girl' in German is, utterly unintuitively, a neutral gendered word (das Mädchen). I had enormous problems using the correct gendered article for it in the beginning, constantly defaulting back to the female gendered one (die) and twitching when someone used 'das'. But it gradually came with practice, and now I don't think about it anymore, it just is. I also found 'they' as singular pronoun in English to be exceedingly weird when it started cropping up in my reading; I checked that it is gramatically correct (it is; in fact, singular 'they' arose in the 14th century, though not quite in this particular context; moreover, 'themself' is acceptable when 'they' is the singular pronoun standing in for one person we're talking about but whose gender we genuinely don't know), and I read more texts with it in this use, and I got used to it. Perhaps being a non-English-native-speaker, it came easier to me because it's not the language I learned from the cradle and thus I don't feel a similar resistance to such an additional usage function as a native speaker might; I don't know, and I don't think it matters, ultimately.

    What matters to my post, though - please, if we could stop insisting that using unwanted pronouns for people who've made their preference very clear has to do with our respect for the English languge, I think that'd be swell. The other reasons I won't touch, but as far as the language itself goes, this is not only a non-argument, it's in fact directly countermanded by a practically identical situation already existing in the very language we're discussing, and as a great lover of the English language, it comes off as a false argument to hide behind and in the process seems very condescending towards the field of study of the English language.

    And for the last thing, a non-sequitur to my text above - I quit DIS near the end of the first season, but I still come here to read what's usually a very informative and respectful comment forum, so to Jammer, thank you for keeping up with it all and for providing this space to have (often very brainy, intellectual) discourse, and thank all you other posters for engaging in these discussions, whether on the details of the latest ST episode or on social and political debates that arise from them; you've given me food for thought more than once, and that's what I find truly valuable!

    @Booming

    Calling people names (transphobs) isn't an argument. I am pointing out the biological impossibility of the whole "trans" idea. You can not actually change your sex. Whatever sex you were born is the sex you are, that is a fact. You can no more change your sex by "identifying" as another sex than you can change species by identifying as another species. The universe doesn't work that way and doesn't care about how politically correct you are. The truth matters, your virtue signaling doesn't.

    "but still. they're trying. its going in the right direction. now don't do it by the numbers but make the effort to present something original in that framework, and i am on board."

    That's exactly how I felt about this episode. Felt the same way in ENT's last season. "At least they're trying." In these cases you feel that the writers want to come up with genuine stories that try to stimulate brain and emotions, in contrast to the deceiving "we make them whisper, so you know this is an intimate scene".

    @Chris Lopes
    Any more explanations why your intolerance is not a bad thing? Transsexuality is part of Human culture for thousands of years. Bigotry and intolerance sadly are as well. You, like racists and homophobes, can rationalize being part of a hate group however you like. Doesn't change what you are.

    "Sex is a physical reality"

    Is it? Maybe you should leave the motte for a little while and check out happenings on the bailey. Saying what you just said in many quarters will get you labelled a transphobia. It would be considered hate speech full stop.

    @Q-Less

    I feel the same way, it's not perfect but the effort is there which goes a long way for me. This is in direct contrast to S3 (particularly near the end) where the writing seemed so lazy.

    Yes the show has settled into a procedural structure for now, but that's OK because it's resulted in some solid episodes. The only problem with this approach in the long run is it's too safe, you can't achieve greatness without taking risk.

    But still, I would be fine if the rest of the season was 2.5-3 star episodes like the last two. At least it's moving things in the right direction.

    If only there was a Qowat Milat here in this comment section to take up this lost cause....

    @Chris Lopes

    I agree with what you're saying. People just simply can't choose their gender/sex (which are used interchangeably in common parlance). If a person is born as a heterosexual man one day decides he's going to be a lesbian, are we supposed to support that kind of behavior? I think not.

    What is cringeworthy is the virtue signalling and speech police -- the height of hypo-criticality. This extend to other realms as well.

    The other thing I'd say -- I notice you're going back and forth with Boomer. Enough people on this forum recognize Boomer as a far left troll. Many of said "don't feed the troll" -- that is sound advice. I completely ignore him as I've previously found his arguments to be highly spurious, flawed, and pushing communism. I truly believe he's mentally unhinged and is not acting in good faith. But I think you might come to these conclusions on your own.

    So far no one has actually challenged the scientific validity of humans being a binary species or the idea that you can't actually change your sex by wishing it so. All I have gotten is name calling. Again, the universe doesn't care about your (or my) feelings.

    A man identifying as a woman is still a man and shouldn't be able to compete with women in sports. His biological advantages make it almost impossible for the women to win. That is a fact. His identifying as a woman did not erase the physical advantages being born male gave him. Yet, we are supposed to ignore this reality and pretend he's just a girl who wants to have fun. Yeah, I'm the bad guy here.

    "Yes Chris, join your Nazi buddy."

    Nice to see Godwin's Law is still being enforced.

    A man is a person that society defines as a man. You don't wait for a DNA test until you treat somebody like a man or a woman. Appearance is the deciding factor in reality. Chris you also said that transpeople are mentally ill. That is transphobia. Calling you out on that is not an insult.

    "Appearance is the deciding factor in reality. "

    If you limit your experience of reality to passing strangers on the street or ordering a coffee from a shop then you'd be correct.

    "Chris you also said that transpeople are mentally ill."

    I am suggesting that people who live their life in denial of biological reality might be delusional. Explanation to me how they aren't.

    @Jason
    "If you limit your experience of reality to passing strangers on the street or ordering a coffee from a shop then you'd be correct."
    Debatable. The first trans man I met, I didn't notice until he told me. If he hadn't I would have never noticed that he was trans. The beard really sold it. Do you think that transpeople are mentally ill?

    @Chris Lopes
    You didn't say they "might be delusional" . You said that they are delusional and that you and the world should not accept it.
    Here is your quote about transpeople.
    "Just don't ask me or the rest of humanity to go along with your delusions."

    @Booming

    You still haven't answered my question, how is denying biological reality not delusional?

    "Do you think that transpeople are mentally ill?"

    Depends.

    By definition a mental condition that causes intense suffering that can only be alleviated through surgery and or medication would be a disease or illness. This would be almost a dictionary definition. If it was caused by a mental condition then it would be a mental illness.

    Last I recall gender dysphoria was still in the DSM and gender dysphoria is exactly what I described.

    But gender dysphoria is not necessarily the same as trans - although frankly since it is a hallmark of what most people understand trans to refer to, they are clearly closely related phenomena.

    So in answer to your question: not categorically, no. No doubt many trans people live their lives perfectly content and experience no dysphoria or only mild dysphoria.

    But for those who will basically plunge into depression and suicide if they don't undergo pharmacological / surgical treatment? Well yes it is an illness. What else would you call it?

    "The first trans man I met, I didn't notice until he told me. If he hadn't I would have never noticed that he was trans."

    Was it your husband? :)

    @Jason
    Transgenderism or gender dysphoria is no longer defined as a mental disorder. That is why it is no longer called gender identity disorder.

    "Was it your husband? :) "
    No, just a guy I met in a very colorful bar. ;)

    "Transgenderism or gender dysphoria is no longer defined as a mental disorder. That is why it is no longer called gender identity disorder."

    It's still considered a treatable condition no matter how you define it. Any way you slice it, denying biological reality is delusional.

    "Transgenderism or gender dysphoria is no longer defined as a mental disorder. That is why it is no longer called gender identity disorder."

    I thought it was still in the DSM 5.

    But regardless, you are suggesting that a mental condition that causes distress that is so severe that it frequently results in suicide and (often) must be treated surgically and through medication isn't a disorder and/ or illness?

    @Chris Lopes
    I think everybody got your point. You think that transpeople are crazy and that transsexuality does not exist. I will not debate terminology with you. I'm a social scientist and even clearing basic definition would take forever. Let me just say this. If you meet a transwoman and she looks perfect. So in that situation you find her sexually appealing. Does that mean that you are gay?

    "If you meet a transwoman and she looks perfect. So in that situation you find her sexually appealing. Does that mean that you are gay?'"

    Only if I proceed to have sex with him even after I discover he's male. And you still aren't answering my question. My guess is you can't on any scientific basis.

    @Jason
    Three things. Psychologist in numerous countries met and decided it is not a disorder or illness; Some people become suicidal because they have a very big nose. Does that mean that having a big nose is a disorder?; Trangenderism is a spectrum meaning that some have mild cases other have strong cases. For some it is enough to cross dress, for some it is hormones, for some it is surgery. Only because you have gender dysphoria doesn't mean that you need treatment.

    @Chris lopes
    What if you never found out. Wouldn't that mean that in your view a man can have sex with another man and enjoy it but still not be gay.

    "My guess is you can't on any scientific basis."
    I actually did on numerous occasion during this debate. You posed the hypothesis "You cannot change your biological reality". You have to define your variables. I will not answer to the narrative fog you have presented so far.

    Booming if someone is suicidal because they have a big nose then there is certainly a mental illness or disorder present - full stop. It might be major depressive disorder or some kind of body dysmorphia but it's there. And if thousands of big nosed people were effing themselves and claiming rhinoplasty as a necessity to stave off depression and death - then you better believe it would be considered a disorder.

    And it is not me imagining the link between suicide and gender dysphoria - this is a claim made almost daily in thousands of forms.

    I can't speak to the politics of whatever body is responsible for the DSM - but any psychologist who claims that dysphoria serious enough to cause suicide *isn't ever* considered a disorder or mental illness, is a clown.

    @Jason
    I'm no expert but as far as I know it means that gender dysphoria can but does not have to reach a level that can be called a disorder. If it does it can then cured by various therapies like gender reassignment. If it is cured then it stops being a disorder. To give you a different example. If a person during their teenage years suppresses his/her homosexuality then that can reach the level of disorder but that doesn't mean that being homosexual in general is a disorder.

    @Booming so you are conceding that some level of gender dysphoria may be considered a disorder.

    Well if I take the claims of trans activists seriously, there are a lot of people suffering from this condition who will kill themselves without a surgical / pharmacological remedy. Would those individuals qualify as being mentally I'll / disordered?

    "I actually did on numerous occasion during this debate. You posed the hypothesis "You cannot change your biological reality".

    You've done nothing of the sort. I'm asking a very simple question, one even a social scientist will understand. Is someone born a male (with xy chromosomes) or someone born a female (with xx chromosomes) but insists they are actually the other sex not dealing with biological reality? Would that denial of reality not reasonably be called a delusion?

    You can play all the semantic games you want, but that doesn't change the reality. Humans come in 2 distinct sexes and those sexes can't be changed by wishing it so. Those that insist they can are not dealing with reality.

    @ Chris Lopes,

    "You can play all the semantic games you want, but that doesn't change the reality. Humans come in 2 distinct sexes and those sexes can't be changed by wishing it so. Those that insist they can are not dealing with reality."

    I'm not going to wade into the two sides of this issue, but just to clear up the terms you're all using, the claim being made isn't really that one can change their sex by wishing it so, but rather that the gendered pronouns *should* refer to one's own personal experience *rather than* their biological sex. So it's not that people are denying their sex, so much as arguing that language should be altered to refer to gender traits rather than sex. In this sense, "she" would not refer to a person with a female sex, but rather someone who ascribes to themselves *feminine* characteristics. So it's a language issue, more so than a 'reality' issue. I don't think anyone would deny that everyone in history has got some spectrum of traits along the masculin/feminine axis, which includes not only physical traits but also mental ones, socialized ones, etc. What seems up for debate is whether these 'soft traits' (meaning, things that are hard to calculate objectively) should occupy the pronoun spot, and therefore cause pronouns to be a description of the person's various traits rather than their biological sex. That's my take on it, anyhow. That a biological man can be "feminine" in various respects is not really debatable; but what is perhaps debatable is whether society should be rethinking language use in order to avoid stigmatizing people for these sorts of differences. I think that's at least a large chunk of what's on the table.

    " So it's not that people are denying their sex, so much as arguing that language should be altered to refer to gender traits rather than sex"

    Wrong they are most certainly denying the reality of biological sex.

    I wasn't joking or exaggerating when I said Booming would be denounced as a transphobe for making the comment that sex was "physical reality"

    @Peter G

    "the claim being made isn't really that one can change their sex by wishing it so"

    Well...that depends on who you ask! I remember about eight years ago, when a lot of people started to become aware of the transgender conversation, having someone online tell me that a transgender male was both male gender and male sex. And part of the problem today is that issues like this are still largely unresolved in the larger discussion, because it's become verboten to talk about it.

    Anyway...how's that Star Trek Discovery going?

    @Chris Lopes That's nonsense, biology can of course be changed. That's precisely what hormonal therapy does. You can of course argue for defining sex using the XX/XY chromosomes and then you'd be tautologically correct, but there is no scientific basis to stick to this definition versus others (we know now, for example, that many of the characteristics associated with biological sex are found in other chromosomes, which we may well eventually discover they contain the causes of gender dysphoria).

    In addition, you are hitting a strawman here. Trans people are well aware of the sex they were born with, what they wish to do is implement biological changes and/or shift their socially-determined gender. Likewise, non-binary people don't want to adscribe to social norms defining them as male or female. There is nothing science can do to prove or disprove these preferences, they simply are. Another debate is whether linguistic genders need accelerated top-down change to accomodate these gender realities, rather than refer to sex by whichever definition (not necessarily XX/XY chromosomes) or just have no meaning whatsoever. In many languages, for example, objects have linguistic gender, but nobody adscribes any male or female gender role to them. But these are all different debates, and mixing them up to claim "you are just delusional because you deny scientific reality" is an intellectual fallacy.

    @Jason
    If the state "gender dysphoria" inflicts a certain level of discomfort then it can cause disorders. Meaning that the gender dysphoria in itself is not a disorder but can cause disorders to develop like anxiety or depression and so on.

    @Chris Lopes
    So the biological reality of being a man or a woman for you means having different gonosomes? Nothing else.
    I doubt that anybody debates the fact that we cannot change gonosomes at this point in time. But I also doubt that many people share your extremely narrow view of what it means to be male or female. So if you cannot accept that some people don't live according to their gonosomes and think that these people are crazy then that makes you a transphobe. No different from people who think that homosexuals are mentally ill because homosexuals want to have sex with people of the same biological reality, as you would call it.

    @Bole

    "I still come here to read what's usually a very informative and respectful comment forum, so to Jammer, thank you for keeping up with it all and for providing this space to have (often very brainy, intellectual) discourse, and thank all you other posters for engaging in these discussions, whether on the details of the latest ST episode or on social and political debates that arise from them; you've given me food for thought more than once, and that's what I find truly valuable!"

    Very, very well put. This cannot be emphasised enough.

    Even if people disagree sharply here, I am very grateful to Jammer that we have this corner of the internet in which Trek-based food for thought and respect for one another's views - no matter how fervently and acerbicly we disagree - is (mostly) upheld, the odd wobble aside.

    Thank you to everyone for that, even those I disagree with and who disagree with me.

    "If the state "gender dysphoria" inflicts a certain level of discomfort then it can cause disorders. Meaning that the gender dysphoria in itself is not a disorder but can cause disorders to develop like anxiety or depression and so on."

    I see so ebola isn't a disease - just the hemorrhagic fever that sometimes (but not always) occurs when it is present?

    @Jason
    A disease can cause other diseases but that doesn't mean that it the same as a mental state that can cause several disorders. Are you playing devils advocate because I wonder how you do not see the distinction?

    I see the distinction just not the difference :)

    And in the sense that I don't care at all if something is a "disease" or not as such yes I am playing devil's advocate.

    But I do care about people trying to force me to lie or affirm lies which is my primary interest in this debate.

    I have nothing against trans people getting whatever help they believe they need.

    @Jason R.

    "But I do care about people trying to force me to lie or affirm lies which is my primary interest in this debate.

    I have nothing against trans people getting whatever help they believe they need."

    This. Precisely this is what it is all about.

    "If you meet a transwoman and she looks perfect. So in that situation you find her sexually appealing. Does that mean that you are gay?'"

    @Chris Lopes
    >Only if I proceed to have sex with him even after I discover he's male.

    I've got some bad news for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16sdrZbBGPA

    @Jason
    "But I do care about people trying to force me to lie or affirm lies which is my primary interest in this debate."
    What lies do you mean?

    @Booming

    The chromosomes dictate the plumbing, muscularity, probable height, weight, and a whole lot of other stuff. There are only two distinct sexes when dealing with humans and they are not currently changeable. Even surgical and hormone treatments will only give you the cosmetic and some functionality of the other sex. Women transitioning to men still won't be able to compete with men on an athletic level. Men transitioning to women will still have an unfair advantage in such contests.

    Look, I personally don't care what you identify as. In most cases it's a harmless delusion. The coworker named Amber, who looks like a 14 year old boy and wants to be called James (a real world example) is not hurting anyone, and it costs nothing to go along with the gag. There are however, areas where the real physical differences matter. Like in sports, or highschool gym showers, or women's shelters where the presents of a biological male would not be welcome.

    @Jason
    Do people go to prison for saying that "sex is real" in Canada?
    Have your read Dreubarik's post. He summarized it quite nicely.

    "Do people go to prison for saying that "sex is real" in Canada?"

    No not yet. But it would certainly get you fired in many contexts. And it could result in a human rights prosecution which would result in fines, but not jail to my knowledge.

    But context is everything.

    Your earlier comment, in some contexts, would result in you losing your job.

    @Jason
    As I have mentioned in Germany we handle these things differently. We have insult laws.
    § 185 StGB " The insult is punished with imprisonment for up to one year or with a fine and, if the insult is committed publicly, in a meeting or by disseminating content (Section 11 (3)) or by means of assault, with imprisonment for up to two years or with a fine."
    That might sound like a dystopia to some but it works quite well for us.

    "Your earlier comment, in some contexts, would result in you losing your job."
    I remain doubtful. In Germany insult laws only apply if you insult somebody with conditional intent. But hey if you are for limiting the rights of employers, then I'm all for it. :)
    And you should keep in mind that you are somebody who generally respects trans people. So there is no intent to insult. Maybe you don't need intent in Canada? I don't know.

    Booming you seem to misunderstand - you don't need to break any laws to get fired.

    So if I call someone an idiot in Germany I can go to jail for a year?

    @Jason
    Sure, there are many things you can say or do that get you fired. I guess that is what work contracts are for.

    @Nick
    Yes, and they throw away the keys! Then you rot away in speech prison...

    If it can be proven then you will probably have to pay a fine. In Germany we don't think that the douchbag should rule supreme. :)

    You mean, I have to actually act like a decent human being towards others? That sounds like a horrible way to live.

    How does it work on the internet? If you post an insult on someone's Facebook page, can they report you to the police?

    @Nick
    Yes, you cannot just insult people because you feel like it. :)

    "How does it work on the internet? If you post an insult on someone's Facebook page, can they report you to the police?"
    Yes.

    FYI, Insult laws worldwide
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insult_(legal)

    Wow, I had no idea this was a thing and it's in way more countries than I thought. I'll be honest, as an American I find the idea of an insult law insane, but hey to each his own I suppose.

    @Nick
    True, for me it's the same the other way around. I'm often baffled by what Americans are willing to put up with.

    Geez, almost every comment on this thread is arguing about trans people. @Jammer can we delete the transphobic comments and ban the transphobes? Truly appalling stuff here.

    I was all set to despise this episode. So much Tilly. I hate her so much. But then, apparently, Jesus intervened and Tilly's leaving! Thank you, Jesus!

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah
    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    I do wish she had received the Tasha Yar sudden onset summary dismissal, but you can't get everything you want for Christmas.

    @Bole
    I thought about bringing this up myself, since I recently ran across it after searching for why there's no good singular gender-neutral third person pronoun. (Bring back thon, dammit!) However, you did it so I don't have to. I do wonder, however, if the archaic singular second person pronouns were phased out due to the type of agenda driven political pressure being applied today. I would guess not, seeing as nothing like modern telecommunications existed back then. You can't exactly browbeat the world in real time with your printing press. Perhaps things happened more naturally back then. Nowadays we have the Thought Gestapo on both sides of the isle transmitting their remote control musings across the world at the speed of light.

    @Jeffrey's Tube
    Thu, Dec 9, 2021, 3:24am (UTC -6)

    "Someone snuck in a Star Wars-style scene cut during the transition between showing the Federation fleet and the scene where Tilly gets offered a teaching position at Starfleet Academy. At least I think that's what it was--to be honest, I'm not much of a Star Wars fan (don't @ me). Definitely an unusual (unprecedented?) transition for Star Trek."

    That's exactly what that was. I didn't think anyone else would notice it.

    I'm back from my business trip. What'd I miss?

    . . .

    Shoutout to @Bole for a very well written, very well considered, very well explained post about language which elaborates on and contextualizes what I was referring to. I hope everyone has read it (CTRL+F "Bole" if you haven't).

    . . .

    @ Odan's Razor as much as I'd like credit for "coining" the "neologism" of "portrayer," the OED says it has been used in this context since the mid-13th century. If I were going to try to coin a word and sneak it into the English language, it would be "disconcur." (Or perhaps I would try to resurrect "whelmed"--we can presently be "overwhelmed" or "underwhelmed," but where's the word that best describes my default state and most common reaction to a new episode of Discovery?)

    Okay. I'm doing it. I am coining "disconcur." Feel free to spread it far and wide and maybe we can get it into the OED by 2045.

    (And since I coined it, I get to define it: it means "to agree with strongly." What? Don't give me that side-eye.)

    . . .

    I don't know what else needs to be said, except that I treat other people the way I would like to be treated. And that means that when I see other people repeatedly use a term or a word incorrectly, I jump in to let them know (as friendly and as nicely as I can, of course) because *I* would want to know. I want to know every time I get something wrong. If I call replicators "transporters," I want to be fucking corrected. You are not attacking me. You are helping me. I am sorry if that comes off the wrong way. I find most people do not misapprehend and are appreciative, but I've definitely gotten some puzzling and unanticipated reactions. (Didn't get a second date with the girl I discreetly let know the word is pronounced "conk" and not "conch," alas. It was probably for the best . . . but that bikini haunts my dreams.)

    I did not think a Star Trek fan would willfully use an incorrect pronoun because doing so is openly hostile to the philosophy espoused by Star Trek and its humanist view of the future, so if Star Trek interests you, I assumed that does too. Making things more confusing is that Adira was introduced as a girl and referred to with "she" until sometime around the end of last season, and there really haven't been that many instances of referring to them with the singular-plural pronoun yet. So it's easy to forget. I then went off on a tangent about why it's correct from a linguistic standpoint now--the lingual shift is widely distributed and prevalent at top level communication ("top level" means society-spanning communication and is not a comment on the quality of those communications) and thus is fait accompli at this point. That's how languages function. They are a social invention. So it goes. I commiserated that I wished it had gone another way as I personally hate the singular-plural pronouns and will contort a sentence any which way I can to avoid using them, but the ship, as I said, has sailed on whether or not it's correct *to* use them. (And it's pointless to debate if it has. It's like debating the age of the Earth with a creationist. Anyone who knows anything about languages knows that it has.)

    Debating whether Adira is *really* this-or-that is entirely--and I mean ENTIRELY--besides the point. What would Jean-Luc Picard do? Oh that's right: respect the beliefs of other cultures and individual persons as far as he is able. That doesn't extend to murder. Maybe it shouldn't extend to the sorting of categories for competition in certain sporting events. Don't try to tell me it doesn't extend to a form of address.

    So sorry for "policing" you or "virtue-signaling" or "bluepilling" you or "snowflaking" or "donkey-punching" you or whatever-the-fuck.

    . . .

    If it helps, the personal linguistic-shift hill I will die on is that it's "piqued my interest," not "peaked my interest." That fight is lost already, I know. The ship has sailed (and left a tidal wave as its wake). I'm like a Japanese soldier in a foxhole on a remote Pacific island in 1960 at this point. But when future etymologists explore this battlefield to better understand the roots of their society and see if the myths and legends whispered of in the online corridors of university "Emoji & Meme Studies" departments are true, they will find my corpse stacked on top of a pile of corpses clutching a half-raised standard that reads "Well ACK-SHUALLY it's 'piq--'" before ending in a ragged tear. I hope it piques their interest.


    ("Ah," one will solemnly intone upon inspecting my bones. "Death by twitter. Lulz.")

    @Jeffrey's Tube

    "If it helps, the personal linguistic-shift hill I will die on is that it's "piqued my interest," not "peaked my interest." That fight is lost already, I know."

    I hope that fight is not lost already, since 'piqued my interest' is the only term I've personally ever used, and I cannot say I have seen 'peaked my interest' that I recall. (Note I am not saying you are wrong, just that I have not noticed the latter in use - you are undoubtedly probably right if it is so ubiquitous it has irritated you.)

    For me that hill is the grating 'could care less' for recte 'couldn't care less'.

    @John Harmon

    "Geez, almost every comment on this thread is arguing about trans people. @Jammer can we delete the transphobic comments and ban the transphobes? Truly appalling stuff here."

    I submit a new term here - we could call it 'Harmon's Law' - wherein as a discussion on here grows longer (regardless of topic, scope or tone), it inevitably becomes politicised, and the probability of a self-righteous demand to Jammer to delete comments and ban people the poster disagrees with increases.

    @ Quincy

    I was taught the phasing out of the singular second person pronouns was a function of the class system. You would use the plural to indicate respect, such as to anyone higher than you on the social ladder. You would use the singular for people who were on your level or lower. That isn't always intuitive to figure out unless you know well who you're addressing (and especially with the growing merchant and middle classes as the Middle Ages progressed), so eventually, and quite naturally, to avoid inadvertently giving offense it became that the singular was used only with intimates you knew well, and the plural with everyone else by default. So it essentially became "informal" and "formal" rather than "singular" and "plural." And then, because the English are English as fuck, it was just gradually dropped from conversation altogether, because everyone wished to show maximum respect to everyone else at all times. "Sir, I say, shall we [this]?" and "Sir, I say, shall we [that]?," and all. Pip-pip cherrio! You know. The English.

    So the natural pressures of social change driven by increasing economic complexity naturally reduced its role, and then its elimination started with courtly etiquette--bear in mind the lower classes have economic pressure exerted upon them to emulate the upper classes in order to seek financial benefit and hopefully to climb the ladder themselves--its elimination started with courtly etiquette and wanting to show off how refined and gentlemanly you are at all times and oh my god, now that you mention it, this is kind of like OG virtue signaling, isn't it? The mechanism for change by which the informal second person pronoun got filtered out of the language is not dissimilar to how gendered pronouns will likely, eventually after generations, be filtered out of the English language.

    This is going to keep me up tonight.

    . . .

    But you know what, I haven't researched this for myself. I have no idea if it's true or what the present state of scholarship is regarding it. I'm pretty sure this comes from only a second-year Undergrad class so I don't want to speak authoritatively about it. It hasn't occurred to me to examine or challenge it until right now because the basic concept made sense to me given what I know of how languages drift over time and the evolving social dynamics of English society from the Middle Ages through the Early Modern period that would exert certain pressures to drive the shift.

    But it's not lost on me that it didn't happen with every language in every similarly-structured European society. Still. The English are . . . culturally very English, no? And the Spanish, for example, are . . . culturally very much NOT.

    Hrmm.

    @ Odan's Razor

    Ha! My friend once explained it to me as "I COULD care less, but I don't even care enough to bother caring less, that's how little I care."

    I let it go. My friend is a lawyer. Explains a lot about how our society works, I feel.

    (This is not a response to anyone in particular, but a general response to many people's points.)

    As fascinating as etymology and the development of the English language is, it is a highly tendentious cherry-picking of that history to say that because one single linguistic feature existed at a certain point in the past, it is imperative that the entire trappings of a brand new ideological and political discourse in the present (bespoke pronouns) be accepted and integrated – even where this (as has been stated) causes confusion and hesitation among native speakers of English – and that ipso facto anyone who questions this is a history-denying meanie who just needs to go and read an etymological dictionary to be re-educated into changing their issue on a political matter.

    For example, the English language also historically had a highly complicated declension in the past; if you were to suddenly demand that everyone use Old English declension when addressing you or talking about you, because it existed in the past and, well, can you just not be kind because it would ummm mean a lot uwu, I doubt you would get (m)any takers at all. Likewise, the English language also historically had a large amount Germanic vocabulary that was replaced by Romance vocabulary; if you were, say, a far-right ‘blood and soil’ activist who demanded that people use such Germanic vocabulary with you and argued that they had to do so because (gotcha!) it once existed in English, you would be (rightly) ridiculed and reported, not accommodated for ‘be kind’ reasons.
    But all this is a digression. This isn’t about language, it is about compelled performance and compulsory participation in someone else’s intensely personal ideology.

    Pronouns are actually just a superficial and microscopic aspect of this whole polarised debate, but one that people inevitably latch on for emotive reasons – as we have seen in this thread. On one side you have people, like me, who politely contest the premise of what we are being pressured into, and on the other side you have an argument that boils down to ‘be kind and do what I say or you are a bigot’ – with an added ‘don’t be a douchebag’ for those who feel that ‘be kind and do what I say’ isn’t enough and needs to be enforced via emotional blackmail.
    So if pronouns and historical linguistics are just the symptoms, what is the debate really about?

    I have said it before, but I noticed no one bothered to address this, so I will try again: this debate is about the rights of the most marginalised group on this planet – women and girls, that is biological females – who are being pressured into acquiescing to their own category being expanded so that any man or boy who says ‘I am a woman or girl’ is instantly treated as a full and incontrovertible member of such. Very many woman and girls – the most marginalised group on Earth, remember – say that dismantling their few hard-won rights and spaces to accommodate a biological male who has, for example, put on a dress (despite in 80-90 per cent of cases being fully biologically intact in almost all other ways) and who in many cases fetishes regressive gender stereotypes and the right to make women feel uncomfortable, is simply not acceptable to them. Saying so is not hateful, unless you believe that the right of a man to identify as a woman or girl overrides the right of women and girls to say no to biological males. In which case, what we are talking about is not the trendy boo-hiss word ‘transphobia’ but rather the far more pernicious and historically ubiquitous – and far more damaging in absolute and relative terms – concept of misogyny. So are you a misogynist? In such a case, perhaps not try to be a douchebag, as one wag put it.

    This debate is also about the rights of another marginalised group – gays, lesbians and bisexuals. The growth of gender identity ideology, and its rapid spread through trend-obsessed youth culture, driven by social media, is seriously impacting upon young lesbians in particular.

    For reasons of brevity let me point out that gender identity ideology manifests itself in biological females and biological males in two quite distinct ways. Girls – particularly those who would ten or fifteen years ago ultimately have come out as lesbians – are now due to intense pressure from a misogynistic porn-soaked, body-fixated TikTok, Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram online culture increasingly gravitating to a ‘non-binary’ identity as a way of opting out of – fleeing would be a better description – womanhood. Because it is hard to be a woman. It always has been. And now girls who would have developed into butch lesbians are being told, outright, that they must in fact be ‘trans men’ and that they should get double mastectomies, take testosterone, and ‘transition’ to ‘be the by they always were’. This is profoundly homophobic – just years after we all believed lesbians and gays had won their right to be accepted. On top of that, in the topsy turvy world of gender ideology, we are told that we must now accept lesbians can now have penises (!) – since a fully intact biological male can say the magic phrase ‘I am a woman now’ and must be accepted as such to all intents and purposes – and that if biologically female lesbians do not consent to sexual intercourse with a person with a penis, they are being ‘transphobic’. This – what trans activists call ‘the cotton ceiling’ – is profoundly dismissive of lesbians’ boundaries, but it does not matter, because gender identity ideology is fundamentally a men’s right discourse – and a highly sexualised, highly demanding one at that. Lesbian dating apps are flooded with biologically male ‘lesbians’ now – biologically female lesbians are fleeing them. So ‘Be kind, don’t be a douchebag’ – and women and girls suffer for it, because I doubt many of the ‘trans’ allies on here would ever be presented with the cotton ceiling dilemma, or have their own (predominantly male) rights eroded or erased. (Gender identity ideology in males, incidentally, often manifests itself at a much later age, and is often linked to cross-dressing and autogynephilia. It typically contains a highly erotic element for the male in question.)

    So what does this have to do with Star Trek? Adira (whose name, for the meticulous linguists out there, is etymologically a feminine adjective meaning ‘mighty’ despite her purported ‘non-binary’ status – although I concede I do not speak Trill) is a symbol, and is intended as such. And she is, although not in the way the actress portraying her, and the writers writing her intended. Adira is a symbol of the great and unprecedented change occurring in our society, driven by social media, in which girls are fleeing womanhood because they have taken a look at the intolerable future that awaits them and said ‘nope’. In which lesbians are being erased in favour of ‘non binary’ or the homophobic idea that a butch lesbian is ‘really a man’. Again, I repeat, if trans activism is the new gay rights movement – a favourite rhetorical device of Booming in particular on this thread – why are we applauding that we are supposed to pretend that Adira and Grey, two biological females and thus Trek’s only ongoing lesbian characters, are in fact in a hetero relationship? That is rank homophobia and lesbian erasure, and we are meant to think it stunning and brave.

    To sum up for those of you who have made it or skimmed this far, I politely disagree with gender identity ideology for the reasons detailed above. I could go into further detail – most notably about the idea of trans people as the most uniquely marginalised group in human history and the constant falsification of history that entails (when the most marginalised group in history is and always has been women and girls and remains so), regardless of what statistics from trans prostitution in Latin America anyone wants to quote to pretend that North America and Europe are hells for trans people – but I have said my piece for now. I do not expect to change anyone’s mind, but I say all this in the vain hope that people who throw about glib and meaningless accusations of ‘transphobia’ understand that women, girls, gays, lesbians and bisexuals and their allies will not be shutting up or taking this lightly any time soon. We are all born of women, and most of us have sisters, daughters, nieces and cousins. I refuse to pretend otherwise.

    Tl; dr? Gender identity ideology is profoundly misogynistic and homophobic, pronouns are just the tip of the iceberg, and trans activism is in no way the new gay rights movement. Oh, and Adira is the embodiment of this entire debate, for good and ill.

    I have to say, where I find these arguments unconvincing is when people like Bole start to argue we've always used language this way because we can find references to the "ze" pronoun in 1678 or whatever. It reminds me of those Galaxy Brain articles that argued for feminism or gay marriage saying that views towards women or LGBT people aren't fixed and have changed depending on place and historical context (cue in Ancient Greece). Sorry, but no: the fact you have to search for historical anecdotes is proof that sexism and homophobia have been consistently rampant throughout the history of humanity (with some shifting values, sure, but the point remaining that almost every single culture has always discriminated against you if you were LBGT or a woman). Gay marriage should be legal because it should, period.

    Likewise, sure, the royal "we" existed. In my native language, Catalan, we also have a formal pronoun that uses the plural of "you" to address singular people, and was widely used until my grandparents' generation. But let's not kid ourselves, we are talking about a much wider and faster change to the language here, one which often makes the neo-language nearly incomprehensible for many and definitely damn hard to speak or write. When I hear "they" being spoken, I always think of a plurality of people, and so do 99.999% of English speakers. And English is one of the easiest languages to change because it lacks grammatical genders most of the time! Changing grammatical genders across languages in a short period of time is a massive enterprise, and the fact the "thou" form once existed is completely irrelevant to the matter. I'm also unsure that the ship has truly sailed, precisely for the same reason: Sure, this language is out there, just like "ze" can be found in Middle English. Does it mean it will get broadly adopted? Not necessarily. At all.

    If people who suffer from discrimination ask for this to happen, I think we all need to find ways for us to adapt, and using "she" to refer to an actor who has explicitly said they don't like this is offensive. But I find that the pretense that "our language has always worked like this" is nothing but a rhetorical trick, and a way to obscure the massive difficulty that a majority of the world population would have to overcome to embrace such changes. Personally, I'm not a fan of spending political capital this way, but as I say it isn't my call.

    @Jeffrey's tube
    The German language has the formal and informal usage. In a formal context you use the third person plural and in informal situations you use the second person singular. Thanks for illuminating how it (probably) developed in the English language.

    @Odan's Razor
    I sympathize with how grating that grating usage is...I have died on that hill many times, having a brilliant friend who corrects me constantly on all manner of trivial things, but who says "could care less" all the time as if it is correct. For the sake of peace I say nothing.

    The test of the saying is whether it will have a stronger impact if the word "possibly" is inserted after the modal auxiliary (could) and before the semantic verb (care).

    Those who declare that 'I could care less' (option 1, which by the way is a grammatically positive statement) cannot do that quite as successfully as those who declare 'I couldn't care less' (option 2, a grammatically negative statement).

    What interests me about this phenomenon is that persons who use option 1 habitually, are voicing a negative sentiment by using a grammatically positive construction. By emphasizing the word "less" they seem to be concerned with the duration of their scorn, or indifference. It's as if they are saying 'it is extremely likely that I will, on a continuing basis, care less and less about something." This makes little sense when the idea in one's mind is to not care about something. It suggests an inner conflict of some sort....I guess some people love to dwell on that which they are indifferent about.

    Persons who use option 2 habitually, are voicing very direct indifference in 5 or 6 words (not the 20 words of the lawyer acquaintance of @ Jeffrey's Tube) allowing themselves and others to move on.

    @Simon

    "It is a huge waste of energy to care about how other people want to define themselves. You’ll never change anyone’s mind. You have every right to call people whatever you want, against their wishes, but what exactly do YOU gain from it? Feeling right?"

    What I gain from it is very simple: being able to use language in a way that feels natural to me.

    I couldn't care less about how people define themselves. That's their business and theirs alone, which is precisely why it is ridiculous to demand others to twist their language to accommodate your personal preferences.

    The simple truth is that many people (including myself) simply feel awkward using a plural pronoun ("they") to refer to a singular person. If this turns them into transphobes in your eyes, that's your problem.

    You know what the most surreal thing about this is? The fact that these demands are always one sided. Those who make these demands don't give a hoot about how awkward and uncomfortable it is for others to twist their language in this manner. Nor would these people agree to override their own usage of language when it annoys others.

    For example, as a physicist and a science geek, it annoys the heck out of me when people use words like "energy" and "frequency" in their popular (and scientifically wrong) context. If I told you that it bothers me, would you stop using these words in that way? Of-course you wouldn't. And I'll accept that, because I'm not a three-year-old who thinks he is at the center of the universe.

    It's only when it comes to identity-politics, and only when it comes to ONE SIDE of these arguments, where people are suddenly expected to cater to every whim of certain groups (like transgender folks).

    By the way:

    I would certainly be willing to put in the effort to respect a person's grammatical preferences, as long as it is mutual. I'm all for building a rapport of mutual respect in this manner. Trouble is, saying "if you don't twist your language for me than you are bigot" is not a very good way of building rapport. Indeed, I try to stay as far away as possible from such childish people.

    @Odan's razor
    Yes, some heterosexual men always worry about how to protect the womenfolk from those dangerous 0,5% of society minorities. Thank you, daddy! You know who marginalized and discriminated women and girls for thousands of years? Heterosexual men. You know who commits almost all the rapes, violence against women and femicides, heterosexual men. You know who almost never commits any of these crimes, trans people. That you are now using the discrimination of women by heterosexual men as a justification to discriminate another group is really quite something. I have to admit adding a new group that was discriminated for thousands of years by heterosexual men aka homo- and bisexuals to justify discrimination against trans people is an interesting new development. Maybe clean in front of your own door first. I'm sure those butch lesbians are tough enough to defend themselves. Oh and if you need to hear it: Butch lesbians are women! Happy?

    @ Dreubarik

    That's not exactly what Bole or I or the others talking about how languages evolve / have evolved intended in discussing it, but the point you arrived at anyway is a good one: in the third person, there's a need to distinguish between "one" and "many" that simply isn't there for the second person. Syntactically, when that information is missing, it is hard to communicate. The dissonance from the shifts in second person pronouns from single-plural to informal-formal, and then the elimination of the distinction altogether, is surely markedly less pronounced and thus not comparable to the dissonance from the inability to distinguish between singular and plural when using the third person. The barrier against this shift is therefore greater.

    But.

    If society decides there's a need to eliminate gendered third-person pronouns (it won't be our lifetimes, but soon it will be considered rude to refer to ANYONE as "she" or "he," because how dare you assume), and the gender-neutral plural pronoun "they" gets plugged into the singular slot (as has irreversibly started--The Ship Has Sailed on a different word to "they" getting the nod), there is still a pressing need for a distinction between "one and many" for effective communication that's only the case with the third person, and so, naturally, people will begin reaching for another word to allow them to make that distinction, slotting that word into the plural third-person pronoun slot as the new plural third-person pronoun. Completely organically, as languages do.

    God help us, that word will probably be "theys/thems."

    I've absolutely no idea what languages more gendered than English will do. But rest assured, it will sort itself out. Just because the ship isn't over the horizon yet doesn't mean it hasn't sailed.

    "You know who marginalized and discriminated women and girls for thousands of years? Heterosexual men. You know who commits almost all the rapes, violence against women and femicides, heterosexual men"

    It must be hard to be a member of a species where nearly 50% of its members are irredeemably evil. I don't know how you live with the shame.

    @Jason
    Yes, all heterosexual men are irredeemably evil. You understood my point perfectly.

    Rape victims and butch lesbians probably don't want heterosexual men white knighting in to save them from the evil trans activist. Ever thought about that?

    @ Booming,

    "You know who marginalized and discriminated women and girls for thousands of years? Heterosexual men."

    I guess I'm borderline trolling by asking this question, but...how do you know they were heterosexual men? Just to keep the conversation on an apples to apples comparison, since we're comparing different groups at present and in the past, I assume you wouldn't want to forget about the trans community in history, as invisible as they no doubt were to the public eye. So would you know a given perpetrator was really a man in the inward sense?

    I don't know if DSC has been renewed for a 5th season but Tilly's departure, I think, can be a strong signal/hint that S4 may be its last. Tilly is clearly one of the show's most important characters and I wonder if we will get a few more high-profile departures as the season winds down. Maybe Saru goes back to Kaminar for good. Maybe Adira/Gray/Stamets fill in Tilly's role somehow etc.

    The other thought I had (which I don't think is the case with these writers) is that they figured Tilly doesn't really belong on a starship in a military operation. The crew of the Discovery just doesn't come across as a well-oiled machine -- they're more like a band of highly emotional misfits (at least the ones who get the most screen time).

    Personally I hope this is DSC's last season and the writers can concentrate on other Treks where they use DSC as a learning experience somehow.

    @Peter
    2021 will be the deadliest year in the USA for transpeople ever. Violence is up sharply in many western countries. People are dying out there.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/944726/murders-transgender-gender-diverse-people-us/

    "@Jason
    Yes, all heterosexual men are irredeemably evil. You understood my point perfectly."

    Not the point you intended perhaps but a pretty reasonable inference from your statement implying that "heterosexual men" were on a "thousands of years" rape / murder spree.

    It's most of recorded history but *not* inherent to the breed?

    @ Booming,

    You were citing heterosexual (cis) males as being specifically at fault for historic violence/wrongs, and I want to know how you would be able to separate out the trans community from the majority in such a statement about historic wrongs.

    @Jason
    I'm sure if transpeople were not discriminated and murdered for hundreds if not thousands of years they would be as murderous and rapy as heterosexual men.

    @Peter
    same answer.

    @Jeffrey's Tube Yes, that's a fair point when it comes to a generic person. As a journalist, I have actually started writing "they" for those cases, though so far it has always been edited out due to the house style of the paper. But I personally do find it effective, simple and carrying no information loss. I would also point out that it is a case in which the current language is particularly inadequate, because if we are for example talking about a generic investor and write "when he buys a stock" every reader immediately thinks of a man. "He" in English is not a generic. In other languages, however, you can get rid of the pronoun and still use a masculine form, which has for centuries been understood to be a generic including all genders. Yet there has been a push to genderize these generics that started with fourth wave feminism a few years ago but is now proven to have done a real disservice to gender-inclusive language.

    The only thing I'm saying is: Tightening the link between grammatical gender and actual gender is in most cases a huge rabbit hole that involves a kind of rapid societal shift that is IMO going to be very hard for most people, and without any clear reward on the other side (as language itself will not create inclusion). Pretending otherwise is wishful thinking, even among people who (like myself) will do my best to accomodate the desires of the people who express them.

    There is definitely something murderous and rapy about a huge contingent of heterosexual males. Plus, if you asked most of them why they do the things that they do, the few that would even answer, would say that 'they could care less. '

    Perhaps a few of the better educated ones who chose to answer questions about their systematic attack on those they won't tolerate, might say 'they couldn't possibly care less.'

    I just hope that the people who feel uneasy hearing that heterosexual men have committed most of the crimes in Human history, remember that feeling the next time somebody makes the argument that "one transwoman has committed a crime and that this means that we now have to discriminate all of them."

    It is also quite fascinating how much some men now care about womens sports that is not beach volleyball. I guess there is an argument to be made about excluding trans women in some sports if they did not transition before puberty. But that is really something medical professionals should figure out.

    @Do it

    I think I've only commented once (to wish Jammer a happy anniversary), but as someone who has had loved ones commit suicide/attempt suicide I beg of you not to tell someone to commit suicide even if you are being sarcastic/hyperbolic. We don't have any idea of the emotional state of the person behind the screen.

    Guys, let's not blow this out of proportion. He (?) at least said please.

    @ Booming

    I think you will find the correct pronoun to use when referring to an anonymous internet commenter is "they," not "he." @ Do It is, after all, an individual who has no sex whatsoever.

    Correction:

    "Guys, let's not blow this out of proportion. They(!) at least said please."

    Phew, crisis averted! Thanks Jeffrey's Tube.

    That thing whatever that thing was, or is, or might be, just came out of nowhere.

    If you haven't already, go subscribe to Nitpicking Nerd and Major Grin on youtube:

    https://youtu.be/T0FJa8C2yQ0

    This is a perfect review of the episode and I agree with just about all of his points. Tilly definitely isn't leaving the show. This is just one of those fake-out plot lines to elicit emotions so when she comes back there's more emotions lol. Classic Discovery.

    Random thoughts about this episode and season 4:

    -I really don't like that Burnham is Captain. Putting aside her smugness, Mary Sue-ness, and savior of all things in the universe-ness, her character just does not have the experience, nor the wisdom and intellectual acuity, that other past Captains have demonstrated. In fact, she pales in comparison to all the other Captains imo. It should still be Saru.

    -wayyy too much cheese in this show. "We're strafleet now!" "AYYYYYEEE!" 🤢🤮🤮; Random snowglobe with the NX and "All is possible" 🤮🤮 Burnham likes Tilly's snoring? Wtf 🤣🤢🤮🤮

    -why is the interior of Discovery so godawful dark and cold? They need to brighten it up, make it more warm. Member TNG and the Enterprise-D? I do. Even DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise didn't look as cold. Make no wonder everyone is so sad, depressed, and emotional all the time. Geez.

    -some shots looks so fake it takes me right out of the show. You can clearly tell when they use the new 3D cgi background thingy. Mandalorian did it wayyyy better.

    -I honestly thought Tilly's plot was all a big test for the new cadets. Some of scenes were just so weird and out of place and Tilly's behavior was so off at some points (having a deep discussion outside in the cold with crazy alien monsters nearby was so silly lol) that I thought for sure at the end they would turn off the hologram, Tilly would impress that glasses guy with her ability to get this team working together, and it was all just a training exercise. That would have been great! But no, Tilly had to run away from a JJ-like monster 🙄🙄

    -really liked the scenes between Saru and Ni'Var's President. And the political drama was decent, probably the best yet, which isn't really saying much. Lol

    -yet again, Burnham is the key to solving a major issue. Ugh

    -it bothers me that they hardly ever refer to the fact that the Discovery and it's crew are from over 900 years in the past. This should be a continuous problem causing some conflict, tension, apprehension, which would be interesting. But no, Discovery and it's crew are like the best thing since sliced bread.

    "-it bothers me that they hardly ever refer to the fact that the Discovery and it's crew are from over 900 years in the past. This should be a continuous problem causing some conflict, tension, apprehension, which would be interesting. But no, Discovery and it's crew are like the best thing since sliced bread."

    I have only been following the show through the reviews so correct me if I am wrong, but I get the impression that travelling to the 31st century was a plot device whose sole purpose was to expunge the entire existing setting and basically reboot the universe so the writers could do anything they wanted and no one could say boo. I get the impression that 31st century, 23rd century, 24th century, it is pretty much all the same as far as this show cares.

    @Booming
    "It is also quite fascinating how much some men now care about womens sports that is not beach volleyball."

    People care about fairness in sport.

    I'm not a weightlifting fan (either men's or women's) but I *do* care about allowing people who are biologically men to participate in women's events. I care about it, because it mocks the concept of fairness in sports.

    What's next? Shall we allow a 250-lb wrestler to compete in a lower weight bracket because "he feels thin"? Shall we allow adults to play in little league? I'm sorry, but there is such a thing as common sense.

    "Yes, some heterosexual men always worry about how to protect the womenfolk from those dangerous 0,5% of society minorities. Thank you, daddy! You know who marginalized and discriminated women and girls for thousands of years? Heterosexual men."

    I've heard some bigoted statements on this thread from both sides, but this surely takes the cake.

    "That you are now using the discrimination of women by heterosexual men as a justification to discriminate another group is really quite something."

    Odan did nothing of the sort.

    I challenge you to give one example of Odan advocating the "discrimination" of any group.

    "I just hope that the people who feel uneasy hearing that heterosexual men have committed most of the crimes in Human history, remember that feeling the next time somebody makes the argument that "one transwoman has committed a crime and that this means that we now have to discriminate all of them."

    Both statements are equally repugnant.

    The only difference between them is that the first one was uttered here (by you, no less) and the second one was not.

    As a wise guy once said: "maybe clean in front of your own door first".

    @Jason R.

    Yup. This show has little interest in story telling that has some sort of internal logic or any kind of sensible world building. The lack of imagination and poor writing is actually unintentionally comical at times. Changing the setting to the 31st century literally opened up an infinite amount of storyline options, yet this is the drivel we get. So disappointing. It doesn't feel like they've traveled that far in the future; 900 plus years is no joke, yet not much has changed really lol

    @Omicron
    "People care about fairness in sport."
    Sure, that is why all the sports teams get the exact same amount of money. Besides that, I already wrote that in some sports transwomen could have an unfair advantage. Medical professionals should figure that out.

    "I've heard some bigoted statements on this thread from both sides, but this surely takes the cake."
    I'm not surprised that you see it that way. I guess, you think that heterosexual men didn't do all these things. So who is responsible for the thousands of years of discrimination of women?

    "I challenge you to give one example of Odan advocating the "discrimination" of any group."
    Let's say somebody argues that Jews are controlling global finance and are morally corrupting every country they live in. Did this person advocate discrimination? If you say no, then I guess you think that advocating discrimination only happens if somebody states specific goals to discriminate. If that is in fact your view then Odan did not advocate discrimination. If you on the other hand think that advocating discrimination often includes arguments like the age old justification for the discrimination of minorities "Group x is a threat to women" then Odan is very much advocating discrimination. Why do you think President Trump said that immigrants are rapists?

    "The only difference between them is that the first one was uttered here (by you, no less) and the second one was not."
    I will not search other debates to find you an example but I clearly remember that somebody brought up that an imprisoned trans women had raped another inmate and arguing that this proves what a danger trans women are to women.

    It is interesting that guys like you not even acknowledge the fact that murders of and violence against transpeople are sharply up and have reached levels never seen before. Why do you think a men walks up to a transperson and beats her or him up even though this man has never seen that transperson before. Why do you think that might be happening?

    @ Booming,

    "I'm not surprised that you see it that way. I guess, you think that heterosexual men didn't do all these things. So who is responsible for the thousands of years of discrimination of women?"

    I know your jaw may drop when you hear this, but I'm not even sure where this claim came from that women has been "discriminated against" for thousands of years. The term "discriminate" means to treat differently, and of course women were treated differently, literally every human being on the planet including women accepted that men and women are different. It's an extremely new concept that both sexes should, in terms legal and often social, be treated interchangeably. That may be a forward movement in progress in some respects, but it does not mean that prior to this social invention women were being discriminated against as the term is used today. That's just a misuse of language. Couching it in woke terms, if you're looking for signs of historic oppression, I think it would fair to summarize and say that the vast majority of humanity has been an underclass for the vast majority of history. The difference between men and women was probably trivial in comparison to the difference between rich and poor, upper class and lower class, and probably ethnic divides were more significant too in comparison. Do you think women in particular were being oppressed when Ghengis Khan would raze entire cities to the ground for disobeying him? History is a crazy time.

    Not trying to trivialize *current* bad behavior by people, when we have new standards and know better, but the trip you're on now...most people won't be willing to take that trip, nor should you expect (or want) them to.

    @Odan's Razor brings several important ideas to the table.

    The identity of a minority group already under threat is being endangered by the activities of another group separately under threat. A movement seems to have arisen to redesign language itself to adjust categories to make all kinds of new realities occur. It may have been initiated to make a happier world, or in order to expand inclusivity, or to make a beneficial political point.

    The question is whether it is working? If the methodology of 'pronominal smoothing' i.e., dispensing with gendered speech (he and she) in favor of they, is dividing groups which have a shared enemy, should it be continued?

    I'd add to what Peter G. said that this "battle of the sexes" stuff just comes across as bonkers to me.

    I am not denying the fact that men have and continue to commit violent or bad acts towards women, and moral outrage towards those bad actors and the systems, governments, ideologies etc. that encourage these acts is fair game.

    But this moral indignation and blame-mongering against men as a group for crimes committed throughout *human history*? Aren't we all in the same species here?

    @Booming

    "It is interesting that guys like you not even acknowledge the fact that murders of and violence against transpeople are sharply up and have reached levels never seen before."

    This may well be true. However, there are two problems with using this data to conclude that transgender people are seeing more oppression now than ever.

    (1) The number of people who identify as transgender has gone up dramatically in the last ten years. Estimates are that the population has doubled in that time period. If a crime rate remains stable, a larger population will lead to a larger number of crimes against that population. It's prior probabilities. (This is, incidentally, one reason why I don't like your distinction of the majority of historical crimes committed by 'heterosexual' males, since the vast majority of the population is and has been heterosexual)

    (2) Violence and murder over the last two years has increased dramatically across the board, for all groups. Therefore, and increase in violence against transgender people may not indicate any change that isn't the same for everyone else.

    @Peter
    here the Cambridge dictionary definition of discrimination:
    "treating a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their skin colour, sex, sexuality, etc."

    So the fact that for example in ancient greece infanticide of girls was far more common, women were not allowed to own or inherit property or write a will, couldn't vote, were not allowed to leave the house without male supervision, could be married off against their will and be legally raped by their husbands to name a few things is not a sign of sex based discrimination?

    Aristotle thought that women were so feeble minded that they could not be allowed to make important decisions for themselves.

    @Jason
    Heterosexual men are also the biggest threat to heterosexual men. Again, my point was that the conflict about safe houses and bathrooms is a conflict between a subset of cis women and transwomen. It does not concern you.

    Furthermore, heterosexual men are also by far the most transphobic group. More transphobic than homosexual men, women and heterosexual women . So if a group has such a problematic relationship with hetero- and homosexual women and transpeople should they really have a say? Sometimes it seems like heterosexual are not only participating but dominating the conversation.

    Here, the gender difference in Briton. I can certainly find numbers for the USA

    https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/inlineimage/2020-07-16/Transgender%20recognition%20toplines-01.png

    @Henson
    1)There are not more transgender, they are more visible. So the fact that murders of transpeople have tripled over the last ten years in the USA is not concerning because more transpeople are visible which means more transpeople get murdered. Is that your point?

    2Could you provide the statistical basis for that argument?

    "@Jason
    Heterosexual men are also the biggest threat to heterosexual men. Again, my point was that the conflict about safe houses and bathrooms is a conflict between a subset of cis women and transwomen. It does not concern you."

    Well let me say first that I don't especially care about bathrooms as such - you may be confusing me with another poster. That is not really my issue. Children being given puberty blockers without parental consent based on credulous and ideological motivated "affirmation" policies is more my thing.

    But I am going to take issue with the suggestion that I don't have a stake in any of these issues because I am not in the group most directly affected by them. Even if I didn't have a wife and daughter who could conceivably be affected, going to my point about us all being part of the same human race, yes I have a stake in any issue that impacts society as a whole including women because women are fundamental building blocks of well *everything*.

    And just to outline my beef with your comment - I mean not to put too fine a point on it, but heterosexual men are produced by women lol. You gals literally manufacture us haha.

    Not trying to be facetious here but my point is that all human cultures have to be formed by women. Now maybe aspects of those cultures suppress women in this way or that, but it's delusional to believe that you can have a culture of men by men where women have no influence. No culture in history doesn't depend on women and get shaped by women.

    So again it is fine and good to ascribe blame to a political ideology or a cultural practice or a political group but for women to blame *men*, let alone men going back across most cultures in recorded history (as you come close to doing) is like my left hand getting into a fist fight with my right hand. It's just nuts.

    @Peter G. said, "I'm not even sure where this claim came from that women has been "discriminated against" for thousands of years. The term "discriminate" means to treat differently, and of course women were treated differently, literally every human being on the planet including women accepted that men and women are different. It's an extremely new concept that both sexes should, in terms legal and often social, be treated interchangeably. That may be a forward movement in progress in some respects, but it does not mean that prior to this social invention women were being discriminated against as the term is used today. That's just a misuse of language. Couching it in woke terms, if you're looking for signs of historic oppression, I think it would fair to summarize and say that the vast majority of humanity has been an underclass for the vast majority of history. The difference between men and women was probably trivial in comparison to the difference between rich and poor, upper class and lower class."

    Reminds me of Titanic.

    I'm always amazed that 74% of women on the Titanic survived.

    80% of the men died.

    Almost all men traveling in 2nd class died (92%). Almost all women traveling in 2nd class survived (86%).

    Discrimination in favor of women was so strong it beat class-based discrimination.

    A woman traveling in 3rd class had a 41% higher chance of surviving than a man in 1st class!

    Which of course carries over to this episode of Discovery.

    On Tilly's mission, 100% of the deaths were men. All the women survived.

    @Booming

    "1)There are not more transgender, they are more visible. So the fact that murders of transpeople have tripled over the last ten years in the USA is not concerning because more transpeople are visible which means more transpeople get murdered. Is that your point?"

    So let me get this straight: you disagree with my interpretation of transgender population estimates, and then make assumptions about what I meant based upon your interpretation rather than mine?

    I can't tell if you're being disingenuous or not, but just in case: prior probabilities need to be taken into account because they can affect how the data are interpreted. If a city has 70% of all car accidents caused by green cars, a person might conclude that green cars are less safe...until they discover that 70% of all cars in the city are green. And likewise, if the percentage of green cars rises to 90%, we shouldn't be surprised or alarmed if the percentage of car accidents caused by green cars also rises.

    Likewise, if the population that identifies as transgender doubles, we shouldn't be surprised or alarmed if the number of crimes against that population also doubles. It just indicates that the crime rate has likely remained constant.

    "On Tilly's mission, 100% of the deaths were men. All the women survived."

    I remember thinking when Tilly got her team of cadets together that there was 1 white human male among them (presumably heterosexual). He might as well been wearing a TOS-style red shirt. If there was 1 person to get killed, who else on woke DSC would it be?? It wasn't going to be the human female. Probably not the aliens. Definitely not Adira or Tilly. The dude's name was Callum.

    Just another example of DSC's toxic interpretation of diversity/inclusion. No group other than straight white human males get disproportionately portrayed in such a negative light. Woke is very much anti-Trek.

    Sure, nobody is advocating for "discrimination" against trans people, they're just repeatedly striking against the core of trans people's identities by telling them that they are not who they say they are because "sex is real" (as if anyone said it wasn't) and they are all mentally ill. But heaven forbid anyone label that as transphobia.

    The sports question is tricky, I'll give you that. I don't have an easy answer.

    The claim that "violence against trans people is up, but there are more trans people now so it equals out" is weak. Once they stopped beating schoolchildren for "lying" about being left-handed in school, the number of left-handed kids went way up. The same thing is happening now that trans people are being de-stigmatized. And no, there are not hordes of doctors waiting to "trans" kids at the first report of gender dysphoria, this is a transphobic trope straight out of the Daily Mail. Puberty blockers are reversible, the number of trans people who express regret for taking them is tiny, and it's a good thing that teens are able to see medical professionals who can help them take things slow and sort out if transitioning is something they want or if it's just a phase for a confused teen. Or we could go back to kids being disowned, ostracized , thrown out onto the street and/or killing themselves if that's preferable.

    I can easily find statistics showing that this has been the deadliest year for trans people on record, and that historically trans people are disporportionately subject to beatings, murder, and abandonment from their families. That is real violence, real victimization, very different from the victimization you may feel when someone corrects you for pronoun usage. Can anyone find statistics for how this year's violence against trans people is proportionate to a rise in violence against other groups? Or women?

    I feel like I shouldn't even be posting this and contributing to another trans-debate derailing, but... Jeez. All it takes is an inclusion of a non-binary actor in Trek and a gentle reminder of their pronouns and all the tropes come out.

    @Sen-Sors

    "The claim that "violence against trans people is up, but there are more trans people now so it equals out" is weak. Once they stopped beating schoolchildren for "lying" about being left-handed in school, the number of left-handed kids went way up. The same thing is happening now that trans people are being de-stigmatized."

    You'll notice I didn't make any claims as to WHY the number of people identifying as transgender had gone up. I don't know whether or not it's largely due to historical suppression in the way you describe...but if it is, then the de-stigmatization is entirely consistent with an increase in the number of people who identify as transgender. Your supposition supports my argument.

    Ok, but trans people have always been subject to vastly increased levels of violence, murder and abandonment, which is bad, and those numbers aren't going down. To say that trans people are crying wolf over the amount of hostility and violence directed at them in countries like the UK, where openly transphobic articles appear in mainstream press on a regular basis, is not supported by data.

    @Henson
    I have a degree in sociology. So there is no need for a sociology 101 lesson.

    "you disagree with my interpretation of transgender population estimates, and then make assumptions about what I meant based upon your interpretation rather than mine?"
    I just thought I would point out that trans people are not dropping from the sky. They were always there. About my assumption. That is why I asked.

    "Likewise, if the population that identifies as transgender doubles, we shouldn't be surprised or alarmed if the number of crimes against that population also doubles."
    What you are saying is, I presume, that for example if twice as many of persecuted group x are visible then the number of crimes committed against that group should double. Don't you see the logical fallacy in this case? We are not talking about Transpeople being victims of pick pockets or any other crime that could happen to anybody. We are talking about transphobic hate crimes. Did the number of potentially violent transphobes triple as well or does the old number of potentially violent transphobes commit thrice as many hate crimes? According to the numbers the amount of transphobes in western societies is going down fairly quickly, still there are more and more transphobic hate crimes.

    @Sen-Sors

    Are you sure they see vastly increased levels? Just as a quick back-of-the-envelope check, there were roughly 45 transgender murders in the USA last year, and about 21,000 total murders, which makes for a rate of .002, or .2%. The estimates I've seen for the transgender population in the USA is about .6%, so that would make the murder rate actually less than the population would indicate. (although, with such low numbers, we should be cautious in the robustness of percentages, since even a small shift in totals can alter percentages by a significant amount)

    Ultimately, though, the point I was making was that an increase in numbers doesn't necessarily mean an increase in rates. It's very easy for news sites to run headlines "transgender murders at highest totals ever", but there are multiple factors to take into account which could change what those numbers indicate.

    Here is a recent study showing that transgender people are four times as likely to be exposed to violent crime, as well as increased rates of poverty: https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/

    Here is a 2019 CNN article that takes into account some of the "other factors" that can distort data; crimes against transgender people not being reported, and/or people being misgendered by authorities or family members: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/11/18/us/transgender-killings-hrc-report-trnd/index.html

    This last one is a bit old (2010) but illustrates how LGBTQ youths experience poverty and homelessness at outsized rates compared to other groups, often stemming from conflicts with family members: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/gay-and-transgender-youth-homelessness-by-the-numbers/

    @Booming

    "We are not talking about Transpeople being victims of pick pockets or any other crime that could happen to anybody."

    Murder can't happen to anybody?

    @Mal

    Here, here, Mal. Couldn't have been said better.


    @Jason R.
    Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 9:52am (UTC -6)

    "But this moral indignation and blame-mongering against men as a group for crimes committed throughout *human history*? Aren't we all in the same species here?"


    Yes...

    but...

    You have the wrong plumbing for a compassionate and favorable assessment of your value to those with more righteous plumbing. The sooner your Y chromosome disintegrates the better for all concerned, so open up and take your misandrist pink pill quietly. And no you can't have any water to help you swallow. Take it like a man.

    lol Booming, every time I check in on you, everyone is arguing with you, and totally missing your point.

    People, Booming knows only a very small percentage of men commit most crimes against women. He was trolling "all men" to make a point about how "all transgender people" are stigmatized (often by people overly sensitive of criticisms against "some men").

    Mal said: "Reminds me of Titanic. I'm always amazed that 74% of women on the Titanic survived."

    Ironically, the Titanic disaster was itself used by men to then deny the suffragette movement, and to dismiss the demands for the female vote. Women were portrayed as weak and in need of men's protection, and the Titanic (and the surviving women) were brought up in Parliament to "prove" that gender roles are immutable and that women should be kept out of the political sphere.

    But Titanic was always an anomaly. It happened during an age of British chivalry, and even then, in aggregate, women and children fared statistically worse in maritime disasters (sailors tend to save themselves first).

    Mal said: "On Tilly's mission, 100% of the deaths were men. All the women survived. "

    lol, did this really happen? What was the rationalization for it? I've stopped watching this show. To me it plays like a racist Vulcan's propaganda piece about overly emotional humans.


    Peter said: "But it does not mean that prior to this social invention women were being discriminated against as the term is used today... [...] I think it would fair to summarize and say that the vast majority of humanity has been an underclass for the vast majority of history. "

    I would say the scholarship shows the opposite. Indeed, it was in response to social scientists pointing historical discrimination out (hey, look how women were treated throughout history!), that the rhetorical counter you're using, evolved: "Yes, but EVERYONE was oppressed by Nature!" or "Yes, but EVERYONE was oppressed!". (the implication often being: "So quit talking about sexism!")

    But women got hit with specific discrimination (on top of the other kinds). In many cultures women were erased linguistically (female subjectivity erased from grammar itself), or were not even deemed human (Aboriginal tribes would place women below animals etc), or barred from education, or targeted by specific laws, or barred from owning land (which leads to all kinds of generational knock-on effects), or working, or denied legal protections, or religious rights. Then you have the religious texts of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, all blaming women for causing humanity to be driven out of paradise, or outright teaching the inferiority of women, or the fact that in most "advanced" nations, you could legally rape your wife until very recently etc etc etc.

    Whether others had it worse, or the aforementioned mises certain benefits conferred on women, surely doesn't negate the existence of very specific discrimination against women.


    Odam's Razar said: "No, thank you. This is compelled speech"

    This is Jordan Peterson-styled propaganda, man. Nobody's compelling your speech.

    Courts decide on an individual, case by case basis whether "free speech" tilts over into "hate speech". The threshold for what constitutes hate speech is incredibly high (because the burden of proof is very high, "hate speech" is rarely proven in court). Courts and judges are also incredibly protective of free speech rights, and such cases rarely make it to court anyway, as purported victims have to pay high fees to take their cases to court.

    If an evil trans person tries to force and compel you to use their pronouns, and takes you to court for your refusal, you will get off scott free (and profit, because you can sue them for damages!). Why? Because a court only deems misgendering a person to be bad if it was done with, quote, "the intent to promote hatred or knowledge of the substantial certainty of such" whereby "the meaning of the word 'hatred' is restricted to the most severe opprobrium”, "whereby such opprobrium is severe, persistent and beyond workplace pervasiveness" and constitutes a "breech of peace".

    “Breach of the peace” itself has a specific legal meaning in most first world countries, and has been determined by decades of juridical precedent. For example, in Frey v. Fedoruk et al., a 1950 Supreme Court case, the presiding judge defined a “breach of the peace” with reference to the 10th edition of Clerk and Lindsell on Torts: 'a breech of peace takes place when actual physical assault is committed on an individual, or wider public harm is caused. Mere annoyance or personal insult to an individual stopping short of actual physical violence is not a breech of peace.'

    This is, of course, an extraordinarily high burden for any accuser to bear. And it puts the "compelling our speech!" crowd in a bind: in order to prove that the kind of "censorship" and "compelling" they imagine exists, really exists, they have to prove that the refusal to use particular personal pronouns carries a probable risk of physical violence against trans people; then, in order to defend their position, they need to demonstrate that this violence is preferable to the curtailing of free pronoun-use.

    In reality, the only "compelling" going on is the same longstanding "laws" previously applied to white workers, women, homosexuals, minorities etc, most of which only apply to the workplace and to government workers. Just as you're "barred" from using the N word, or "k*ke" or "f*g" or using countless other racist/sexist/etc slurs in certain places "at a level which the law considers hate speech", so too can't you rant against trans people. Your right to misgender someone is the same as your right to drop N bombs and crack Jew jokes. If you need more than this, then something strange is up with you.

    The notion that "trans folk are erasing lesbians" is a similar hysteria.

    America was founded with the hysteria that Native Indians were raping women and children. They then fretted over slaves "escaping and raping women and children". They then fretted over freed black man raping women and children. They then fretted over the gays converting children to homosexuality. They then fretted over atheists converting kids to sky demons.

    Now we're seeing a hysteria over "trans women" raping women in toilets (the stats show the precise opposite: trans women are overwhelmingly abused by straight men in straight toilets, and there are no recorded cases in the US of trans folk harming other folk in a toilet), or trans folk brainwashing kids, or "causing lesbians to go extinct" (again the truth is the opposite; more ppl identify as lesbian as stigmas fade).

    @Henson
    You are confusing plain murders which, yes, happen to anybody and transphobic hate crimes, in this case murders, which only specifically happen to transpeople. This is not a statistical artifact. The question is, did potentially violent transphobes become more radicalized, more numerous or another variable we don't see yet. I highly doubt that the numbers can be explained by more visibility.

    What arguments against transpeople have we heard so far in this very thread and lets keep in mind that 20 years ago people weren't saying most of these things about transpeople.

    - Transpeople are a threat to free speech
    - Transpeople are a threat to women
    - Transpeople are a threat to children
    - Transpeople are a threat to homosexuals
    - Transpeople are all mentally ill

    If these believes become dominant in parts of society then violence will happen. I think it is a cause for concern.

    @TheRealTrent

    "People, Booming knows only a very small percentage of men commit most crimes against women."
    Obviously.

    @Booming
    "What arguments against transpeople have we heard so far in this very thread..."

    None what-so-ever. See below.

    "- Transpeople are a threat to free speech
    - Transpeople are a threat to women
    - Transpeople are a threat to children
    - Transpeople are a threat to homosexuals
    - Transpeople are all mentally ill"

    no.

    Nobody here stated that transpeople themselves are threat.

    What people here *have* stated, is that the current social madness around gender identity is all of the above. And they are 100% right.

    "and lets keep in mind that 20 years ago people weren't saying most of these things."

    Gee, I wonder why...

    Might it have something to do with this mad PC-cult that evolved in the past few years? It's aggressiveness and toxicity? The way twitter mobs are ready to ruin a person's life as punishment for "wrongspeak"?

    What's worse:

    The very same people who claim to be fighting for transgender rights, are connecting this criminal behavior with "transgender people". You guys attack any person who rejects this madness as a "transphobe", thus enforcing this connection.

    So inadvertently, some people get confused. Nobody on this site, I reckon, but the average person on the street will get confused. Your PC cult has created far more bigots then it had cured.

    We are all too quick to judge the motives of others; losing friendships never to be born.

    a little hesitation before judging would be a good thing. . . .

    at tributam quisquam dubitauerit


    Cloud Minders Droxine eventually has it right ref. 'Are we so certain of what we do?'

    It is somewhat fascinating how a certain set of arguments is repurposed again and again like the one that posits that the people who are fighting a certain intolerance are causing that intolerance and are therefore responsible for violence towards the discriminated group.

    Interesting is also the shift.
    - Attacking Jews: bad; Attacking globalists: good
    - Attacking blacks: bad; Attacking BLM: good
    - Attacking transsexuals: bad; Attacking trans activists: good

    I don't really care whether the anti liberal policies of Marxists cause or don't cause blowback against trans people. I'll be content with just defeating the Marxists and their totalitarian ways. As long as trans people don't support totalitarian speech and thought control I have no quarrel with them.

    @Booming
    Methods of fighting intolerance need to be researched more carefully before launch. Mistakes have been made.

    " As long as trans people don't support totalitarian speech and thought control I have no quarrel with them."
    I guess that is the best transsexuals could hope for from you.

    To all the other men who are fighting against trans rights but who profess to have no problem with transsexuals. Here a visual representation that might be understandable for you. In this clip there is one group that fights for a repressive social system and another who fights for a more progressive society. Just keep in mind that at first you might win all the time, then you lose more and more and in the end you just lose.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG54vzIrjAY&ab_channel=filmsequences


    I'm looking forward to having the exact same debate in six month again.

    @Sigh2000
    Sure, mistakes are made constantly in this realm. For example sending death threats to people like JK Rowlings is just wrong on every level.

    Fighting intolerance is a tricky subject and I really don't want to get into that. Through my work I know quite a bit about it but I'm a little tired of this debate.
    If you want to know more then maybe start here
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism

    To give you a very, very simple description of an experiment I have witnessed myself. If you take a group of people and separate that group randomly into two groups and then tell those groups that you separated them for a reason then the people in the two groups will exhibit more positive attitudes towards the people inside their group and more negative attitudes towards the people from the other group.

    The principle behind this is that if somebody considers a person as part of their group then they tend to interpret in-group behavior positively and out-group behavior negatively. So essentially one could end intolerance by making everybody believe that we as Humans are just one group. Well, maybe when the aliens land. :)

    @Booming

    "You are confusing plain murders which, yes, happen to anybody and transphobic hate crimes"

    When a person who is transgender gets murdered, how do you determine whether or not it was a transphobic hate crime?

    "For example sending death threats to people like JK Rowlings is just wrong on every level."

    Why?

    She asserted that "women" are defined by their sex, not by their gender. She implied that sex is real and more important than gender self identity. She basically said that trans women aren't real women.

    This is an act of violence against trans people.

    So her critics are "punching up" and in doing so, defending "trans rights" which you just finished saying men should do.

    So please explain why you would defend her.

    You people are garbage. Just absolute irredeemable garbage.

    @Henson
    Knock yourself out.
    https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes

    @Jason
    I think that Rowling's is a bigot of the highest order. After her fallout with the trans community she wrote a book which prominently features a man who wears female clothing and make-up to trick women into a false sense of security to murder them.

    Still sending death threats is a crime, it is morally and ethically wrong and even when you ignore all that then it is also strategically unwise.

    She is the most successful author on the planet, super rich and has more than a 14 million followers on twitter alone. She is also a baby boomer which is the last majority transphobic generation.

    Here tweet from the 12.12. was
    "War is Peace.
    Freedom is Slavery.
    Ignorance is Strength.
    The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman."

    What more is there to say.

    @ Booming

    On the Experiment you mention:

    "The principle behind this is that if somebody considers a person as part of their group then they tend to interpret in-group behavior positively and out-group behavior negatively. So essentially one could end intolerance by making everybody believe that we as Humans are just one group. "

    Wish it could be that way. But don't necessarily want the "aliens" to be thrown under the wheel to make it happen. :) Plenty of sci-fi has dealt with that one however.

    "Still sending death threats is a crime"

    Since her tweet was actual violence against the trans community which puts their safety at risk, I am still unclear on why you would defend her at all.

    These last two episodes haven't been bad. Not great, not even that good...but not bad! They feel like Star Trek to me, which is admittedly something somewhat subjective.

    The lack of check-ins of the bridge crew is probably for the best. We're now almost halfway through the *fourth* season of this show, and there still haven't been any Bryce or Rhys-centric episodes, while Owo and Detmer have gotten bits of episodes, as did Airiam (RIP) and the other bridge crew members I simply forget.

    I suppose it's just a reality of having such a large cast and so few episodes to utilize them that it was inevitable, even with the potential departure of Tilly, that these folks simply weren't ever going to get the same exposure as the secondary bridge crew of the other series, which had a lot more episodes to work with.

    Now that we have Book, Adira, Grey, and now T'Rina and Rillak getting steady screen time, continuing to try to develop the forgotten bridge crew in the piecemeal way they've been doing simply isn't going to work, so maybe it's best to keep them in the background.

    @Sigh2000
    Maybe it will be like this. ;)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4xm7x052XQ&ab_channel=TheseAreTheVoyages

    @Jason
    " I am still unclear on why you would defend her at all."
    https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/52283fa7-1f14-411f-9419-05308d16f783

    @Booming

    Very Good! Now, we can see that, according to the source you provided, "hate crime = crime + motivation for committing the crime based on bias". In other words, the thing that makes a murder into a hate crime is the motivation. And I'd say that's a reasonable standard.

    But the thing is, you haven't established motivation. You've indicated an increase in raw numbers of murders, but not the motivation behind them. How many are motivated by bias against transgender people? All? None?

    Why would you say that I'm confusing hate crimes with murders when you haven't established the motivation necessary to make that distinction?

    @Booming

    "Maybe it will be like this. ;)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4xm7x052XQ&ab_channel=TheseAreTheVoyages"

    Hope so. :)

    @Henson
    I'm just assuming. Looking at the 2020 numbers it would mean that trans people comprise 0.0013 of the murder victims, considering that around 0.5% identify as transgender, even if we assume that only a small minority of transgender is visible, then that seems like a very low number and would effectively mean that transgender are killed far less often than the average citizen which I find highly unlikely. You really have to look at the sources to find an answer.

    A lot of insecure males on this board (except a couple of people, I reckon, didn't go through all the posts not related to the episode)..

    As for the episode, Tilly leaves Discovery, which I find risky because she is the most developed characters since DSC began, along with Saru and Michael. I understand she hasn't left for good, it makes sense *because* she is so developed.

    I also understand that Jett's coming back this week, that is definitely good news. The show could use her deadpan humor (nice touch by Admiral on rare humor, Jammer already mentioned it in a previous review, "they pay me by the letter").

    I'm into this season so far, let's see how long it lasts. It didn't last last season after a good start, though I still finished it. Long-time lurker, rare poster, I like DSC and Lower Decks, and Picard. Don't care for Prodigy. My kids may if they see it, who knows. Not holding my breath for the Pike and Spock show. They were good in Discovery but the episodic format they promise for that show plus the prequel timeline are no longer exciting for me and my partner. Recently did a rewatch of Deep Space Nine's last two seasons with my partner, and we loved it. It's been so long, we had forgotten so many details. That show had the perfect mix.

    Long live...

    @John Harmon: Right?! 🙄
    @Clem: Thanks for getting back to things.

    @Amish
    "You people are garbage. Just absolute irredeemable garbage."

    On no! A random guy on the internet whom we've never seen before, thinks we are irredeemable garbage! How will we cope?

    @Booming
    "It is somewhat fascinating how a certain set of arguments is repurposed again and again like the one that posits that the people who are fighting a certain intolerance are causing that intolerance and are therefore responsible for violence towards the discriminated group."

    No. That was not the argument that was presented.

    The argument was about the dangerous connection that people like you are making between "fighting for transgender rights" and morally bankrupt social movements.

    "Attacking blacks: bad; Attacking BLM: good"

    That's exactly right.

    Because most people here are smart enough to tell the difference between being a bigot and fighting a violent racist organization.

    The fact that your cult insists on equating these two things, is precisely the problem I've been alluding to.

    "Still sending death threats is a crime"

    I'm relieved to know that you have some limits.

    "Here a visual representation that might be understandable for you. In this clip there is one group that fights for a repressive social system and another who fights for a more progressive society. Just keep in mind that at first you might win all the time, then you lose more and more and in the end you just lose."

    Thanks for the confidence boost!

    I have no doubt what-so-ever, that those who fight for a world free of prejudice and bigotry will eventually win.

    If you are truly fighting for that team (as opposed to using "we fight against intolerance" as an excuse to do and support unspeakable evils) then we are on the same side.

    To end on a positive note:

    "So essentially one could end intolerance by making everybody believe that we as Humans are just one group."

    Precisely.

    @OmicronThetaDeltaPhi, I found the video,

    https://youtu.be/s3wNuru4U0I

    Is there something about Star Trek in here? This site is basically indistinguishable from the rest of the Internet when new episodes come out.

    @Top Hat

    There is! This post is a lot more tangential than I've seen/contributed to, but there's still quite a bit about the latest episode here.

    I quite liked it. I even liked the Tilly plot.

    Wiseman have somteims presented us with som really fun and good acting, othertimes not. The later not just on her own merit. As if the scriptwriters did not really knew what to do with her.

    I agree with those who wants to see more involvement from the rest of the bridge crew.

    I am not a great fan of the Adira character. Her participating would be enhanced if her Trill Symbiant could be used a little bit more. I was in this episode.

    @Top Hat

    I've complained about it many times, but unfortunately there's a few trolls and haters that love to derail Discovery threads with as much sociopolitical propaganda and other politically correct bull$# as humanly possible. They see it as a badge of honor. Nothing you can do.

    I should get better at training myself to click the Comments Stream and filtering out anything on new episodes. It's just not productive discourse about 90% of the time.

    Amen, @Top Hat!
    I wish that the people who have hijacked this channel with their sociological pearls would not be so quick to attack people who DO want to talk about something outside their circle jerk of trust. These people call others out - by name - whenever these other people aren’t sufficiently on board with the latest two-minute-hate train.

    Can comments be sorted by the ratio of name-calling to words? That’d be a good way of allowing those few of us who want to converse and not lecture, a fighting shot. I shall now await the shouting by the people who suck that oxygen out of the chat room - you know, the ones who are so sensitive, so tolerant, so… so BETTER than everyone else. What do you call it when the trolls are the occupiers, not the outliers?

    Political discussions on a forum of this kind are as inevitable as a case of the cold. And like a cold, the more you neurotically obsess over why it happened, how it happened and bitch about it happening, while desperately demanding that it never happen again, the more miserable you become.

    Quincy, Rolodanx, and Top Hat,
    Great comments, although you'll get push back (appears you already have, see above, lol) by the so-called regulars who'd rather force you to board the derailment train.

    I can't help but notice you keep derailing the thread in order to protest thread derailment.

    I’m not sure you can further derail a craft that’s currently lying in the ditch.

    Interesting that the thread about an episode named All is Possible has become about what is All That No Longer Possible

    Not all derailments are bad!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR3FPplcJGg&ab_channel=Movieclips

    @Quincy

    These guys most certainly don't limit their sh*t to Discovery threads. You might want to check out the comment streams of some of the more iconic "message" episodes of TNG and DS9... You'll see then that their motives have absolutely nothing to do with Discovery.

    As Top Hat said, this kind of thing happens all over the internet. These guys are the door-to-door missionaries of our times, and they do their preaching *everywhere*.

    I agree it's annoying. But what can you do? Ignoring these guys is not an option, because they are doing a huge amount of damage. Moreover, there is no other place on the internet where such people can be engaged openly and without some moderator unfairly skewing the discussion in their favor.

    So expecting these discussions to stop entirely is not realistic. I do accept your point, though, that there's such a thing as overdoing it. Personally, I'll try to be more considerate in the future.

    Sorry for being carried away.

    @OmicronThetaDeltaPhi
    No need to apologize. I wasn't even talking about you. One third of the page was already being devoted to this particular derailment by the time you made your first post. We know who the derailers are. They're repeat offenders. They look at themselves as some sort of heroes. They're not, but they're the only ones who don't seem to know that.

    They're like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG1crFI87ro
    Only they're not a tenth as entertaining, or impressive, and their feats of derailing threads and pissing people off aren't as interesting as they tell themselves. And when they get inevitable blowback they stand there and pretend to be shocked as if someone "missed the point" or mischaracterized their arguments.

    No. No one missed the point. Everyone knows the trolls. They get called trolls almost every episode that they troll. How would anyone fail to notice they carry that moniker. No. No one mischaracterized their arguments. They literally say egregious things about pre-approved target groups, trolling or not, that if they said them about anybody else in the wrong arena it would get their careers canceled.

    They're not fooling anybody but themselves with the fake outrage and virtue circle jerk.

    @Dreubarik (long, long ago)

    "...And Blu del Barrio, while having a likeable presence, simply isn't believable as a trill with multiple past lives inside. Adira finally had some nice character development here, but I simply cannot believe she is anything but a young inexperienced officer. Which, you know, is a very hard role for a teenage actor to pull off. Honestly, the writers should have taken the symbiote out of her last season and then the actor would fit the role much better."

    I know that part of it is being written around as them not being Trill, of course, but this bothers me too. People had various issues with the portrayal of Jadzia Dax back in DS9, but I actually bought that this was someone who had been around a few lifetimes. Adira has factual memories, but no apparent behavioural/personality traits resulting from hundreds of years of lived experience.

    I'm a bit fuzzy on this: is Adira now entirely missing the Gray memories/experiences?

    It seems like Gray should be off Discovery PDQ, off to Trill to take up caretaking. He's not starfleet, has no position on the ship... I can imagine the writers want to keep him around of course, but I'm hoping they can avoid piling on additional contrivances and just let something go naturally, for now.

    Thinking of Gray, and last episodes's "Now you'll be seen, really seen" (something like that), I noticed that this episode had Tilly's epiphany that she "just wanted to be seen". Which definitely didn't sound organic from that character at all, to me. But it sure fit with the "75% more feels" approach of Discovery.

    @Jammer asked, "Speaking of Kovich, wasn't he Starfleet Intelligence? Why is he at the Academy now?"

    It isn't uncommon for ex Directors of the CIA to work at universities after leaving the Agency.

    I'm thinking of everyone from John Deutch (MIT) to Bob Gates (William & Mary) to John McLaughlin (SAIS) and of course the legendary Stansfield Turner (U. of Md.).

    I suppose the same is true for the Academy.

    Kovich is an interesting character played very well by Cronenberg. Excellent idea to use him.

    While SMG is not a great at acting a lot is probably down to how they wanted the character. She is either dull or extremely emotional which in a way makes sense for a Human being brought up as Vulcan but SMG cannot fill the role with enough nuance for most of the audience to connect with. Humans are rarely completely unemotional or extremely emotional. Spock could have fallen in the same trap but they had Kirk and Bones as foils which made it all work. So what this show desperately needs is someone who is more in the emotional mid range. That's why Burnham was a lot more likeable when Pike was around. Saru as a character is probably a little to empathetic and emotional to be a foil for Burnham.

    One the other hand we had a emotional (Archer), unemotional(T'Pol) pairing in Enterprise and that did not work at all.

    Some folks are such malcontents that the only thing they get a kick out of is pushing other human beings' buttons. You can bet that they come back here and read the angry responses to their trolling just for the lulz.

    Some of us actually have lives, however, and don't find inciting other people's rage entertaining. I find it quite pathetic, if I'm being honest. However, the Iron Law of Trolls goes thusly;

    "Don't feed trolls."

    If someone is being that obviously petty and ridiculous, there's only one reason: they're doing it to get attention. So, just ignore them. Make no response. Don't try to argue with them, don't try to convince them trolling is bad, don't try to get into their mud-slinging contest with them, do nothing. Treat them as irrelevant (spoilers: they are). Starve their craving for attention until they see nothing but a dry well, and they'll move on. Don't feed the trolls, and they go away. Simple as that.

    @Mal
    "I'm thinking of everyone from John Deutch (MIT) to Bob Gates (William & Mary) to John McLaughlin (SAIS) and of course the legendary Stansfield Turner (U. of Md.)."
    Good point.

    And in connection with Turner, his time at the Naval War College (Newport RI) really gets close to the notion of such a person at Starfleet Academy at one point and in intelligence at some other time.... So closely connected are these roles within the strategic studies universe.

    Kovich: the shadowy figure smithing out new Starfleet officers. Makes perfect sense.

    @MidshipmanNorris
    "If someone is being that obviously petty and ridiculous, there's only one reason: they're doing it to get attention."
    Well, yes but when some people write stuff like "all transgender are mentally ill" then they are doing that to spread hate and fear. Can you imagine how it would be for our fellow transsexual Trek fans here if nobody opposed these kinds of statements? I doubt that ignoring that will solve the problem, especially considering that we have no moderation here. Don't feed the troll really only works in moderated settings.
    Apart from this little epilogue it seems that people have calmed down again. Let's hope the truce holds a while but I fear the next time Blu del Barrio features prominently we will have to go through this again...

    Be that as it may, I'm off. ;)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jvYr472clQ&ab_channel=StianMelchior2

    Glad folks like Quincy, Top Hat and others are speaking up about this episode's comment stream getting derailed -- it really has been worse than usual. But I really think it comes down to 1 troll -- the others that consistently feed it aren't really trolls -- they're known as "Boomlets". This is a fairly typical pattern with this board.

    To bring it back to Star Trek (in a way), just an observation that given that I understand this season of DSC is not as widely available (particularly in Europe I believe) means there are more people commenting on this season that likely aren't actually watching the episodes. That surely contributes to the derailment.

    Everybody knows what you think Rahul. Your hate boner for me is a legendary as Stansfield Turner was as CIA chief. Legendary awful.

    @Rahul
    "it really has been worse than usual."

    Nah...

    What happened here in the last few days is actually pretty tame when compared with "the usual". Mind you, it was still a total train-wreck. But it wasn't even *close* to the kind of cr*p we had here last year on a regular basis.

    "they're known as 'Boomlets'. "

    No, Lt. Malloy, nobody at Union Point called them 'Boomlets' except you. ;-)

    "Political discussions on a forum of this kind are as inevitable as a case of the cold."

    If this was true there wouldn't be hundreds of threads on this site with none of it. For over a decade, people talked about TOS, TNG, DS9 and so on without it descending into a massive political row. Instead, we got people commenting on the actual episode, the characters, the wider Trek universe and so on. The quality was often exceptionally high and the tone very respectful. I have gone back and watched episodes purely to read the Jammer thread, and so often enjoyed the thread more than the episode. The quality was that high.

    Now, not so much. A huge % of posts since 2020 or so are just political sounding off, to the point that no one reading them would be able to tell they are about a Star Trek episode. Thoughtful Star Trek comment is at best hard to find amidsts endless debate on 2020s politics. More likely people with something original to say on Star Trek aren't even going to wade in in the first place. And if you do happen to make some really thought-provoking point, don't necessarily expect any replies if it's followed by 30 posts on transsexual rights within the next couple of hours.

    I think we have lost something very special.

    "If this was true there wouldn't be hundreds of threads on this site with none of it."

    I said it was like a cold. Most of the year you are not sneezing and coughing.

    And you are delusional if you think there aren't lots of political threads before 2020.

    Anyone else think it's especially dumb writing that Tilly, a junior officer from a THOUSAND YEARS IN THE PAST is now going to be a teacher ? Anyone here wants their kids taught by someone from the Middle Ages? Maybe we should train our soldiers with the great strategies of the hoard, the knight in armour and castle design.

    I honestly do not understand what anyone finds sensible or entertaining about this show. I personally find it challenging to stay convinced by the universe without being taken out at least three times per episode. To those who do like it... Kudos to you and I do envy you. Maybe I'm too old?

    @Jason R
    "And you are delusional if you think there aren't lots of political threads before 2020."

    Yeah, but very few of those threads (if any) where as batsh*t crazy as the stuff that happens now.

    So Tomalak is quite correct that the situation here has deteriorated. The problem is not "political" threads par-se, but the fact that 2020s politics is downright crazy.

    Thank you for the nice review, Jammer. I am intrigued by the Federation politics on display this season, it's a notch better than how they handled the Federation rebuilding process in season three. There is more world-building and exploration of how to improve and expand the Federation while remaining faithful to Trekkian ethos. President and Admiral Vance are key to this process, and both are played by able actors. I can say the same for Trina who is absolutely flirting with Saru, lol.

    “ trying to be the Trek show most in touch with its feelings”

    https://youtu.be/zZSbdGOuk6k

    It seems this show has grown its beard, or at least a few whiskers.

    Jammer's reviews this season have been much more positive (after the Kurtzman co-written opening episode, which he disliked), and commenters here have been much kinder to the show.

    I've seen no episodes this season, but in season 3 I could feel the show improving when new showrunner Michelle Paradise came aboard. The show felt slightly less hacky. My gut tells me all the bad stuff that lingers is due to choices made by Kurtzman, Fuller and company, and due to aesthetic decisions which are beyond Paradise's control. I also wouldn't be surprised if Kurtzman continues to mandate that dopey action scenes be shoe-horned into certain episodes, much to the chagrin of Paradise.

    Jammer says the show is now "more emotional" which causes it to be "cloying and treacly at times". He also says its "heart is in the right place".

    I read a lot of science fiction novels, and over the years many lesbian writers have entered the genre (Paradise is gay). They're generally very touchy-feely novels, fantasies about inclusion and so forth, with lots of "sharing, supporting and caring" (cf authors like Becky Chambers and Nicola Griffith). That's not a criticism, that's just how they are; it's a recent SF subgenre, in much the same way female writers drifted to violent crime thrillers in the early 2000s.

    Jammer's reviews of this season remind me of those "gay" SF novels. Trek has traditionally been somewhat "macho" - very prim and proper, often emotionally repressed - so this is a bit of a new thing, but the subgenre can be touching when done right.

    Technically good, story wise average. The politics made no sense, they need random outside people doing their negotiation, bull.

    The Tilly story reminded me of early TNG. It does not age that well.

    Btw: Nobody is forced to engage in political talk, so it makes no sense to ask Jammer to censor it afterwords, when you happily engaged to begin with.

    "I honestly do not understand what anyone finds sensible or entertaining about this show"


    People who watch new Trek do it because

    A) They like the show's politics and, as everyone knows, if something confirms what you already believe it's good.

    B) They are losers who hate-watch stuff just so they can fill their days bitching about stuff online. I almost fit into this category, but I've found it's a real time saver to skip watching this garbage so i can fully devote myself to bitching.

    C) They are just dumb and don't know any better.

    Great post, Ghn. I love watching people thoughtfully critique this rubbish too but I don't watch the show. I think for (c) the interesting thing is those people who would rather watch garbage set in the Star Trek universe than obviously superior sci fi like The Orville or The Expanse.

    "Nobody is forced to engage in political talk, so it makes no sense to ask Jammer to censor it"

    Sorry, what?! No one is forced to engage in NFL chat either. Does that mean it would be nonsensical for someone to ask that dozens of irrelevant posts about NFL be deleted, if they started appearing in every thread?

    No one is arguing that these political discussions happen because people are typing with a gun to their heads. We are arguing that it is crowding out any discussion of Star Trek.

    Snitch had said in full: "Btw: Nobody is forced to engage in political talk, so it makes no sense to ask Jammer to censor it afterwords, when you happily engaged to begin with."

    Uh oh...a meta category. Not talking about the episode oneself while instead talking about how others weren't talking the episode.

    I think that Data may have accused one of the exocomps of doing that.

    Seeing more holier-than-thou shit -- this time from @Ghn in his/her really dumb comments. Someone who wants to fully devote themselves to bitching? Sounds pathetic to me.

    Why do people try to categorize Trek fans? Do they think they're somehow superior? Do people actually enjoy reading about people bitching about DSC without even watching it? I guess I won't ever understand certain people.

    For me I find DSC highly problematic with its woke ethos and other issues but I like seeing stories set in the Trekverse. Despite DSC's flaws, as I've said before, it is capable of coming up with a very good episode from time to time. DSC is Trek, it is just nu-Trek. If people don't like DSC, that's fine but it seems some folks want to hate on those who have anything positive to say about it and that's quite pathetic to me.

    Speaking of pathetic - of course the forum's troll had to chime in. To be expected.

    https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1472152698443091970?s=20

    I'm reminded of this little cartoon about trolling, not taking responsibility for their actions/words and then claiming to be oppressed, being the victim. Can only feel pity for these types.

    To add to my prior comment, for sure DSC will be a lightning rod for people with various agendas, but for me I really try to take a dispassionate view of it. I heard the term "Star Trek completist" and I guess I am one of those. I just couldn't carry through on it when it came to Lower Decks -- was just unwatchable.

    @Tomalak
    "Great post, Ghn. I love watching people thoughtfully critique this rubbish too but I don't watch the show."

    You consider Ghn's comment a thoughtful critique?

    It's basically the same cr*p that some NuTrek fans say about those who dislike Discovery, only in reverse.

    And I say this as a person who has absolutely nothing positive to say about this show. I'm downright angry at what Kurtzman did to Star Trek.

    @Rahul

    Funny that you mention Lower Decks in this context.

    It's the only NuTrek series I don't actively hate. It's not exactly *good*, but it works reasonably well for what it tries to achieve.

    @OmicronThetaDeltaPhi

    My issue with Lower Decks isn't in what it tries to achieve, which I see as being parody/comedy. It's all about the execution. There's a smart way to do parody and Trek has shown it can do comedy quite well in a number of episodes. But the characters are so unrealistically behaved, and when it seems to me that "zany" might be what describes the show best, it becomes unwatchable for me.

    By the way, I think Prodigy is vastly superior to Lower Decks. You can't really hate Prodigy -- even if it is meant for a much younger audience?

    I forgot about Prodigy. To be honest, I'm not following these things closely anymore. So to answer your question: no, I do not "hate" Prodigy. I know virtually nothing about it, and - to be frank - I am not really motivated to learn more.

    As for Lower Decks:

    The zaniness is part of the point. I don't like that style any more than you do, but it is what it is. My point is: I have no difficulty understanding why some Classic-Trek fans enjoy Lower Decks, which is more than I can say about either Discovery or Picard.

    I thought about the whole Chromosome argument by people like Chris Lopes or Rahul. Their argument is that trans people are mentally ill because they cannot be this or that gender and that the rest is just humoring them because Chromosomes decides your gender (Sex and gender being essentially the same).

    Still, I doubt these two, or anyone who makes that argument, would call Data an it. No. Data is a He/man, Lal was a She/woman. The doctor on Voyager is a He/man. None of those three and others have any Chromosomes. If we would follow the definition of Lopes and Rahul it would mean that artificial life forms cannot have genders which is absurd and shows the illogical quality of that argument. Or is Data mentally ill? Or an it?
    Even Maddox at the end called Data a he.

    Sadly I could not find a clip where eye patch Patrick Stewart says:"I need to see MADDOX!" (Promise to self: Watch the eye patch Picard scene more often.)

    @ Booming,

    "Still, I doubt these two, or anyone who makes that argument, would call Data an it. No. Data is a He/man, Lal was a She/woman. The doctor on Voyager is a He/man. None of those three and others have any Chromosomes."

    Your examples here are probably proving that gender isn't a real thing, rather than that it's real but not tied to sexuality. The Doc in Voyager is no more a 'male' than a bullhead is, but because he's rendered to look like a man it's obviously convenient to call him "he". But he does not "have" a gender in the sense trans activists mean it. There is no inherent characteristic, or personal trait, that makes him male. And the same goes for Data, who even despite having male anatomical features is at least potentially just a dressed up toaster (depending on how some of our debates about robotics go). You can put a mustache on a rock but it doesn't make the rock male. I would say that either these examples are inapplicable, or else if they are applicable they seem to me to undermine the notion that gender is even a real thing, as opposed to being a mere verbal expression of how someone is dressed. That's definitely not how the trans community uses gender terms.

    @Peter
    "Your examples here are probably proving that gender isn't a real thing"
    My point was that gender is constructed by society. Data is an interesting case, though. Are you arguing that Data has no sex? In "the offspring" Data says when asked why Lal does not look human:" I have decided to allow my child to choose it's own sex and appearance." So the show seems to argue that having the physical form of a women means that your sex is female, not just the gender.

    "You can put a mustache on a rock but it doesn't make the rock male"
    A rock is an inanimate object not a lifeform.
    +
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHtgKIFoQfE&ab_channel=Movieclips :)

    "That's definitely not how the trans community uses gender terms."
    I doubt that there is a consensus in the trans community on what the term gender means.

    "I would say that either these examples are inapplicable, or else if they are applicable they seem to me to undermine the notion that gender is even a real thing, as opposed to being a mere verbal expression of how someone is dressed. That's definitely not how the trans community uses gender terms."

    I don't think the examples undermine the existence of gender, but they do illustrate that there is a subjective component that goes beyond chromosomes and anatomy. In short, gender is what people think it is. A person isn't a "woman" because of some mathematic formula or strictly speaking because of chromosomes.

    But that is not to say that objective realities such as chromosomes are therefore irrelevant to the discussion.

    Obviously trans activists believe that a person's subjective sense of identity is the supreme arbiter of gender, to the point that it overrides even the anatomical and chromosomal markers that have traditionally (but not always) defined gender in most societies.

    There is no "right" answer to the question insofar as nobody can scientifically prove that anatomy or chromosomes define "womanhood" but the converse is also true: nobody can prove that self identity defines it either.

    Despite the fact that both sides couch the debate in science, it's true essence is ideological.

    "I doubt that there is a consensus in the trans community on what the term gender means"

    Among the trans community at large, sure.

    Among the trans "activist" community I'd say the conformity of viewpoint is about as close to universal as you can get - certainly as far as the mainstream goes.

    @ Jason R,

    "I don't think the examples undermine the existence of gender, but they do illustrate that there is a subjective component that goes beyond chromosomes and anatomy. In short, gender is what people think it is. A person isn't a "woman" because of some mathematic formula or strictly speaking because of chromosomes."

    The main claim made is the it's subjective insofar as a person's own experience is the arbiter of it rather than someone else's opinion, but objective insofar as when that person discloses their gender they are not merely expressing a whim but a factual statement about their identity, which is (for lack of a better term) immutable. So it's an objective fact about someone's subjective experience, i.e. it does say something concrete about them beyond "I feel like using this pronoun because I say so". What I was saying just above is that Data and the Doc don't have this type of subjective experience of being a gender; Doc because he literally can't (he's just a computer simulation) and Data presumably because he isn't programmed for it, or put a different way, doesn't have the sort of mind that could 'feel' like one gender or the other. The robotics argument is about whether Data has a mind at all or just a computer program that happens to be housed in a fancy exterior. So these two cannot have gender people they are not people (assuming for the moment Data is not a person). To the extent we call them both "he" only demonstrates not that gender is a socially constructed way of talking about self, but more specifically that it's a socially constructed way of naming things arbitrarily since they are not males. But trans people would not agree that they 'choose' they gender, or that the terms are arbitrary; they say that they are true expressions of who they are. So if the terms are arbitrary it repudiates the trans community's claims. That's the point I was making. Referring to Data and Doc as "he" and using that as a relevant signpost point us more toward the idea that gender is not just a socially constructed way of talking about real personal truths but actually just made up out of whole cloth.

    sorry for the typo: "So these two cannot have gender *because* they are not people."

    I think we have to separate two things here. The societal perception of what constitutes gender which undergoes changes and the personal component "gender" of an individual. Trans in the sense of gender means that the brain very early in life decides, without the input of the conscious mind, I'm in this or that body. Behave like this group (male or female). This perception of the brain does not align with the physical reality aka sex.

    Let's not forget, we are for the most a 1.5kg meatball. For some humans that meatball decides I'm in a male body but the meatball actually swims around in a female body and vice versa. That person is trans.

    Concerning Data in the societal sense Data has the gender man. He also has the sex man because he has the physical form of a man. But if he has the personal component male gender is another question. It seems so, considering that he defines himself as male. But I used him more as an example to refute the Chromosome argument.

    @Booming
    "Trans in the sense of gender means that the brain very early in life decides, without the input of the conscious mind, I'm in this or that body. Behave like this group (male or female). This perception of the brain does not align with the physical reality aka sex."

    Ah. Nothing says "diversity" more then the "you were born to behave like group X" mentality. How progressive.

    It's amazing how much this modern cult has in common with the chauvinist primitive mindset it claims to fight against. Both are obsessed with suffocating the human spirit by stuffing us all into tiny labeled boxes. The only difference is that the modern PC version sometimes (not always) allow you to switch boxes.

    It's even more amazing when decade-long Trekkies fall into this trap. After everything that Trek has shown us about individuality and bettering ourselves... it's just odd to see people who insist on limiting themselves in this way.

    Reminds me of what Sigh2000 said a while back:
    "Interesting that the thread about an episode named All is Possible has become about what is All That No Longer Possible"

    @Omicron
    "Ah. Nothing says "diversity" more then the "you were born to behave like group X" mentality. How progressive."
    Apart from gender non conforming/ non binary everybody behaves either like females or males. Both groups represent a spectrum of behavior with some overlap. For example a 5 year old can already accurately describe what is typical for men and women like colors, hairstyles, clothing, jobs and so on. So a five year old already understands what gender roles are, what her/his gender is and which behavior is appropriate.

    "Both are obsessed with suffocating the human spirit by stuffing us all into tiny labeled boxes."
    What? I just gave you an explanation how one could define what transsexuality is. How would you define it? Are you saying transsexuality is a choice? Because my definition boils down to transsexuality is not a choice.

    "it's just odd to see people who insist on limiting themselves in this way."
    Hey, do what you want but I'm fairly certain that we would not find make up, a skirt or a wig in your house/flat/other. Have you ever painted your nails or plucked your eyebrows? If not then why? :)

    Funny that you ask that.

    I actually do pluck my eyebrows regularly. I also despise 99% of the macho things that most men do.

    Thankfully, I was never approached by any PC wackos in my youth, so I didn't "know" that these facts "should" send me into some kind of gender identity crisis. I was perfectly content with simply be *me*.

    And so should you. Stop worrying about "stereotypes that every 5-year-old can understand" and seek your own individual path in life. Let go of society's prejudices and learn to simply be yourself.

    You'll be surprised how liberating that mindset is.

    Ok, You misunderstood my post. I'm not saying how it should be, I'm telling you how it is. Humans in general behave inside a spectrum of behavior patterns which are defined by the group(s) they are part of. Most women behave like their society defines womanhood. If people deviate from those patterns too much then society punishes them more and more. That's not me making a value judgement, that is just how Humans function, at least so far. Will that change in the future? Maybe.

    The example about children having internalized gender roles (among other things) at a very early age is highlighting how strong the influence of societies on Humans is. But I also think that homosexuality is not a choice as is transsexuality. Both have always been present in Human societies, no matter how these people were treated. Even though we do not know the exact mechanism behind it, we do know that you cannot change both of these aspects.

    In a society where men and women could exhibit the same behaviors without societal repercussions a transperson would have an easier existence when it comes to gender but still would often need sex reassignment surgery. The unfitting physical reality is often causing more severe discomfort than the unfitting gender roles.

    It's kinda funny to say "that's just the way things are" when your entire movement is supposed to be about changing the way things are.

    If you are a man who likes to wear dresses and society frowns about that, then the solution is to fight this prejudice. Saying "society doesn't accept it so I should undergo a sex-change operation" is f***-ing insane. Besides the obvious madness of suggesting such an extreme solution to a mundane problem, it also cements the prejudice you're trying to fight. When you say "if you wear a dress and paint your fingernails then you must be woman", you are basically agreeing with "the way things are".

    I will also add that there's a considerable portion of humanity (me included) who have already made the leap that you claim to be impossible. We don't care what you wear or whether you act "feminine" or "masculine". This kind of prejudice is not a matter of immutable human nature. It's a matter of social norms, and these norms change over time.

    Now, if you have a person who deeply and genuinely feels that they'll be happier in a different body, that's a different situation. I get that some people become genuinely happier after doing so, and that's great. But even here, the way the PC crowd treats a serious body modification as something routine is dangerous. It is not a decision to be taken lightly. Nor is it an option that should be casually thrown around every time you hear a teen who feels "wrong" in their own body. It is an extreme solution which should only be advocated in extreme cases (not because it is a "sex change" but simply because it is a serious irreversible modification of the only body you have).

    @Omicron
    Ok, I must not have made my points clear enough but I don't want to repeat them a third time.

    " I get that some people become genuinely happier after doing so, and that's great."
    Almost a 100% do so actually. Gender reassignment surgery is one of the most successful treatments in existence.

    About your last paragraph it sounds like you have picked up a lot of so called TERF arguments. Maybe watch this vid from min 16:06-17:26.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDKbT_l2us&ab_channel=ContraPoints

    "Gender reassignment surgery is one of the most successful treatments in existence."

    Define "successful".

    Actually on second thought, please don't. I don't want in on this discussion. Please carry on :)

    @Jason
    Too late! :D
    successful means the reason for the treatment has been resolved in a way that is satisfying for all involved. One could also say all parties involved see it as a lasting improvement.

    @Booming

    I've understood your point perfectly. At this point we're just going on in endless circles, so I'm bowing out.

    It seems to me that they're getting awfully lazy in the life-saving department. In earlier Trek, if someone stopped breathing there would be emergency beam outs to sick bay, or they'd attempt some technical procedures on the spot. Failing that, they could at least try CPR. But now apparently even though it's 900 years in the future, an unresponsive casualty is a lost cause.

    Anyway, this episode felt the most like Classic Trek in a long time. The Burnham diplomacy stuff still resembled someone's sophomoric self-insert fanfiction, but it's not as bad as the episodes that were pure brain-dead action sequence.

    In my head canon, Tilly's real reason for departing to Starfleet Academy is that she could no longer depend on her poor physical fitness. Her body was giving her all the signs but she would need a wake-up call before she listened. Culbert helped precipitate this by having her join a tactical mission in which she would need to don a plus-sized suit of body armor and wield a katana in pursuit of space ninjas against which he knew she stood no chance. As predicted, Tilly was completely hopeless as Samurai Grimace and was lucky to escape with her life after more than one brush with death. Unexpectedly however, Tilly had a great time and remained oblivious to her physical limitations.

    It wasn't until she crash-landed onto a hostile planet that Tilly would come to face facts. But not before deciding that she was somehow the appropriate choice to act as a decoy for the roving monsters to keep them away from her young charges. Try as she might, she could not outrun the beasts any more effectively than a penguin could outrun a polar bear, which is why penguins have the good sense to live on the opposite pole. Not only did she barely escape death once again, but her poor judgment endangered the lives of the cadets who were forced to open fire upon the beasts in order to protect her, which blew their cover and lured the monsters all the more earnestly to the cadets. In the end, only one cadet perished thanks not to anything Tilly did but due to the haste in which the rescue ship happened to arrive. Tilly would receive commendations for not managing to kill everyone involved -- that's how low Starfleet has had to lower the bar for heroism since Kurtzman took the helm -- but she knew deep down that it was time for a change. For those who cannot fight or run join Starfleet Medical.

    Or Teach.

    That’s a lot of words for what boils down to “hahaha fat.”

    @Next

    It's less "hahaha fat" and more "hahaha DISC has irony that the writers somehow overlooked and here's how it would've looked if they didn't". Context is key and obesity isn't inherently funny.

    A shuttlecraft crash episode with a parallel diplomacy plot. How original! Not. I give it 2 1/2 stars.

    I like the characters on this show and the cadets here are a nice mix of interstellar races. I just wish Discovery could help us get to know the characters in settings other than trauma bonding. It feels like the refuge of a series that is still struggling in season four to find a consistent focus and chemistry, ala Enterprise.

    I’m sure the diplomacy subplot pleases people like Jammer who miss the West Wing political intrigue of TNG. I don’t. Unlike DS9’s masterful machinations, this is boring and pointless stuff here, since we all know Ni’Var/Vulcan will return. These stakes are low and routine.

    I will say I enjoyed the crash on the frozen planet: This may be a cliche place for Trek to go, but this part of the episode felt a bit more like Galileo Seven and Shuttlepod One than most of the dull Voyager crash episode. That part of this episode worked for me.

    I haven’t liked Tilly since season 1 and I’m fine with her disappearing from the main cast ala Wesley Crusher. She’s like Chekov, Wesley, Barclay, Neelix, and Rom all rolled up into one really dumb character who lacks even their interest level. Discovery just doesn’t seem to know what to do with Mary Wiseman; the more it tries to show her growing, the more hollow it feels. And when they try to maintain her goofiness, it’s grating: here we see an entire shuttle under her command crash while she’s trying to start an icebreaker game. Sheesh.

    #fireTilly

    My thumb is numb from the endless scrolling over unrelated comments about gender. I come here to read about Star Trek :(

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