themoken

Absolutely no argument from me on that, but there is no getting away with it - once we start shooting back we've opened Pandora's box. The government is dying for an excuse to get even worse.

Even if you did, 90% chance they'd charge you a few hundred bucks just to tell you to put Vaseline on it. 10% chance it turns black and they get to charge you big money to save you the trouble of cleavering it.

... Fuck insurance.

People just want to make snarky comments about the second amendment because we're not shooting ICE agents in the face. They don't want to hear about the things our communities are actually doing.

My own community hasn't been hit as hard as MN but we've got rapid response hotlines tracking ICE, getting people with cameras and signs on them at the blink of an eye, and resource support groups for the undocumented.

Apparently that counts as nothing to a bunch of people that probably haven't lifted a finger against their own government despite the fact that fascism is almost certainly rising there too.

That story made no sense. That guy is a glorified forklift, why would you simulate a body/that much intelligence when the computer could just do its job without being capable of resentment?

Oh, that makes more sense, but then "unsigned" void?

Okay, U8, sure, but a boolean is U0? Surely U1 if you absolutely must...

Note that I said independent of devices that are simulating your life for you, not just independent of devices.

Julian and Miles feels the most real to me.

Kirk and Spock are a close second, but only because we saw that they love each other in their ways, but they didn't spend a ton of time chilling out together on screen (camping Yosemite was great though)

Harry and Tom third, they really had a good influence on each other and they spent a lot of holodeck time together in Sandrine's/Hawaii/Captain Proton/Fairhaven.

Julian and Garak was a lot of fun, but I think it's overshadowed by Miles. Lunches and holodecking is all well and good, but Julian would turn to Miles for real stuff (although when he turned 30 that was Garak...)

Sisko/Dax is good but it relies on Curzon a lot. The on screen time with Jadzia is focused more on how she's not Curzon, but they obviously still have a lot of love.

Geordi and Data is a little too mentor-y. Like they're friends, but Data is more relying on Geordi for a humanity check, and Geordi gets advice from elsewhere on women (for obvious reasons) and that undercuts the bromance level I think.

Nog/Jake are great, and I would put them higher except they're kids for most of the show and I feel like a bromance should probably be reserved for adults (kid friendships are different level). Although they do keep it up until adulthood if The Visitor is still accurate.

I guess Malcolm/Trip then, but honestly they thought they were going to die in a shuttle once but that's kinda it. Been awhile since I watched ENT. If anything Trip/Archer.

Odo and Quark have mutual respect, but there's too much antagonism to be a bromance.

And Neelix / Tuvok is non-existent. Tuvok can barely stand Neelix and only comes to grudgingly tolerate his antics after half of his personality is suppressed IIRC. The fact that Tuvok throws Neelix a bone and dances when he leaves is evidence he softened, but not that they were bros.

It's less that digital things can't be alive and more that to be alive you need to exist independent of technology that's simulating your life for you. All biological organisms pass this test. Data passes this test. The Doctor and every other hologram does not.

If you want to call the human body and perception an equivalent, I'll point out that when you cut yourself something has actually occurred to your physical body, it isn't just your brain seeing a knife and deciding it hurt you.

But hey, you are welcome to disagree at which point holodecks become extremely unethical. This is, after all, just philosophy.

Don't even get me started on how transporters don't make sense, haha.

Yes, Voyager's writers take this position, but I think it's nonsense.

Holograms are programs that run on a computer. They have no physical form, they are force fields and light being projected from a piece of hardware bolted to the wall to convince you they have form, but their true "self" is just data in a computer like any other program. Their experiences are database entries. They can be deleted, copied, transmitted, paused and restarted like any other program. They are incapable of doing anything that the computer they're running on can't do.

Like the EMH miners that pass along Photons Be Free - total bullshit. Why simulate that much intelligence when you've already installed devices all over that are capable of scanning and mining ore without physical form or the capacity for misery? Just let the computer do the work.

Or the Hirogen holograms. They're simulating pain, and it's fucked up the Hirogen want it that way, but does that make it unethical to hunt them? After all, when you hurt them, you're just updating a data structure in a computer that calculated the trajectory of your phaser fire, determined it was a hit and decided to relay that information back to you as simulated damage and pain. It could just as easily make the holograms impervious to all damage.

The Doctor can be special to the crew and they can want to keep him intact and running without pretending he's more than a simulation - he's designed to create rapport and they've bonded with him. But holograms in general? You might as well be concerned about being nice to a replicator or a navigation array, or an NPC in a videogame.

My God... Is the fact that boomers think '60s weed was mind altering proof of time incursions from the dank future???