Communication, Women and Science Fiction

 I was younger than most when I entered university. Through friends of my parents I ended up in an apartment with a flatmate named Mina. Mina was a few years older, studious like myself. Smart and quiet. She was like a big sister. Kind, encouraging, gentle yet assertive. She had (she still does) a bubbly reverse laughter that made me laugh even when the joke wasn't funny.

We were young idealists; we were going to save the world, people and the environment. Mina had gotten into a competitive program so we rarely saw eachother. Both of us spent time in the library, and we were very considerate of eachothers space. Every weekend she went home to be with her boyfriend, a physician in training.

Startrek was in syndication and was my dinner study break every evening. Mina didn't think much of scifi and couldn't understand why I watched it. One evening our disciplined lifestyles overlapped and she joined me on the couch while we were munching our salads.

 I explained that each species was not a representation of "race", but an extrapolated and stereotypical extreme of human personality and behavior; the Ferengi greedy businessmen, whose intentions could not even be read by an empath, the Klingons; the proud warrior race, the Vulcans who were logical and suppressed emotions, the Borg a totalitarian hivemind and so on. The show explored many ethical and moral themes including Data's struggle to be recognized as a person. Mina was passionate about women's and human rights. 

When i told her that the first Startrek was a product of the 60s, where Kirk "engaged" with animal, mineral or vegetable with some papermache aliens thrown in, and that TNG had changed the famous slogan: "To boldly go where no man has gone before" to "To boldly go where no one has gone before" as early as 1987, in order to be more inclusive, Mina became interested. Mina wasn't hooked per se, but she joined me frequently afterwards to watch and discuss.

Ionescu's play The bald soprano about the failure of communication did not resonate as much as TNGs episode Darmok. (The episode is free on youtube). An alien species whose brains have evolved to only speak in metaphors. AIs LLM feels that way. Our own communication is more anti-social. Even on these blogs I've witnessed adults imitate juvenile behavior and resort to bullying. The othering of anyone who is perceived as other.

Maybe Startrek should be mandatory viewing at an early age.

To this day when I encounter situations that are crazy because people aren't listening and talking at eachother rather than to eachother followed by the insincere "I hear you", there is hopefully a geek nearby who understands my "at Tenagra".

There's been recent talk about aliens again. I don't need a Drake equation to convince me that there's sentient life in the universe other than ourselves. However it has likely evolved so differently. that I doubt we'd have anything in common. We might not be able to perceive eachothers form of communication. (Take that egocentric Fermi paradox). There is probably nothing that we could trade. "We're a Foufna based lifeform and ecosystem, wth are we going to do with your coal, oil, plants or water???" 

Gary Larson

Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra. 

Sokath, his eyes open.