Star Trek, Human Nature, and Why Evolution Won't Save Us From Ourselves
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Star Trek, Human Nature, and Why Evolution Won't Save Us From Ourselves
A deep conversation unfolds about Star Trek's hidden lessons on human nature, the impossibility of utopian post-scarcity societies, and why Gene Roddenberry accidentally proved that commerce and hierarchy are essential to civilization. The discussion moves from Jean-Luc Picard's stoic leadership to evolutionary pressures, examining whether conservatives are winning the demographic war while losing the cultural one, and whether modern technology is controlling humanity rather than liberating it.
July 4, 2021
The Borg Was the Nightmare, Not the Dream
Nobody who grew up watching Star Trek wanted to be the Borg. Resistance is futile? That was the nightmare scenario, not some aspirational future. Yet there's a fascinating contradiction at the heart of Gene Roddenberry's vision that reveals more about human nature than he probably intended.
Jean-Luc Picard represents the ultimate stoic leader—all about duty, responsibility, and the broader mission. He never told a lie and his most repeated command, "make it so," echoes Marcus Aurelius more than any egalitarian philosophy. But Roddenberry created something interesting when he tried to build his post-commercial utopia.
The Post-Scarcity Paradox
Roddenberry envisioned a future where Earth had eliminated private property and commerce. The Federation supposedly operated without currency, where you could have what you wanted when you wanted it—food appearing on command, endless entertainment in the holodeck. This was meant to be the ideal post-scarcity society inspired by thinkers like Rousseau, who believed humans do bad things because of societal wants and needs.
But here's where Roddenberry accidentally made the best argument against his own philosophy: even with all material needs eliminated, Star Trek still had endless drama. People still lied, cheated, stole, and pursued romantic relationships. There was still tension between human beings and other species. If removing all needs, wants, and material interests was supposed to create utopia, why does the conflict persist?
The reality is more nuanced than pure post-scarcity communism. Deep Space Nine featured latinum as heavily traded currency. Federation credits existed for exchange with other civilizations. Picard owned a winery. As an archaeologist, he valued rare artifacts that couldn't be replicated—in one episode he's gifted an ancient artifact and expresses genuine amazement because "you can't get these, you can't make them."
Hierarchy and Scarcity Remain
The Enterprise itself ran on dilithium crystals—a scarce resource necessary for warp drive. Without energy, even Earth's supposed post-scarcity paradise wouldn't function. And the social structure? Massively hierarchical. There's a clear military command structure, admirals, captains, and Picard himself has his own ready room on the bridge—a luxury others don't enjoy.
As one observer noted, every equal society divides into two parts: those who are equal and those making everyone else equal. Star Trek is not communism—it's idealized post-scarcity classical liberalism with massive hierarchy and individual choice. People can make decisions about where to go and what to do. Things of value still exist.
The Lesson of the Mechanical Heart
One particularly telling episode features Q, an omnipotent entity, giving Picard the chance to go back and prevent the bar fight that cost him his heart (he lives with a mechanical replacement). Picard changes history, avoiding the risk, and returns to find himself a lowly science officer. When he asks Riker if he has what it takes for leadership, Riker tells him no—he's always been too scared to take necessary risks.
The message is clear: you have to earn something. You need to work hard and do what must be done. If you don't, you're told you aren't good enough and won't make it. This is fundamentally at odds with the supposedly egalitarian utopia Roddenberry claimed to be building.
Are Some People Better Than Others?
Michael Malice poses a defining question: Do you think some people are better than others? This simple query reveals the fundamental divide between right and left. Leftists hesitate or say no. Those on the right say yes, of course—with important caveats.
One human being at birth doesn't have inherent value over another in absolute terms. But are some people better at basketball? Better at math? Objectively more beautiful in their creations? The answer is obviously yes. Some people are better than others at specific things, and simultaneously worse at others. The real question is: do you believe in hierarchy of existence?
Conservatives generally accept that some things are objectively more beautiful, more desirable, better for society. The left tends toward subjective relativism—who's to say that's better than that?
Evolution, Technology, and the Future of Humanity
Historicist philosophers like Darwin and Hegel believed human evolution is ever-progressing, that we'll eventually reach some ultimate level of superiority. This narrative appears throughout science fiction, including the Star Trek universe where synthetic beings with superior capabilities threaten biological existence.
But evolution doesn't work that way. Evolution isn't linear—it responds to pressure. A tree without wind falls over and dies. You need resistance to grow. What evolutionary pressure currently exists to make humans smarter and stronger? Arguably, the pressures work in reverse.
Those who procreate the most are rewarded by nature. If you want to understand evolution, ask who's having the most children and why. Conservatives have more children than liberals—Pew research from the early 2000s showed liberals averaging 1.7 kids versus conservatives at 2.02 kids. This gap appears to be widening, with figures like AOC saying they're scared to have children because of climate change.
Winning the Breeding War, Losing the Culture War
Gen Z is slightly more conservative than Millennials, but only marginally and only in some areas. Some interpret this as winning the culture war, but it's more accurate to say conservatives are winning the breeding war. If current trends continue, the future will absolutely be religious and conservative—though perhaps Muslim rather than Christian.
The complication? Conservative children can still be indoctrinated through technology and public schools. Winning the battle against Critical Race Theory doesn't change the fact that schools are still run by people who thought CRT was wonderful. A child of conservatives can go online and have their worldview completely shifted.
Still, the pull factor remains: even conservative children who turn left are statistically less likely to have kids afterward. The long-term demographic trend favors conservatives, though technology and institutional control complicate the equation.
The Great Horse Manure Crisis and Technological Optimism
Before the automobile, experts feared New York City streets would be buried in horse manure as the city expanded and required more horses for transportation. They had no solution. They never needed one—the automobile was invented and horses were phased out.
This illustrates a critical divide: the left, despite claims otherwise, operates as luddites. Their worldview assumes we'll never improve technology and must either preserve existence as it is or revert to some lesser state "attuned with nature." The "you will own nothing and be happy" mentality frames climate change as requiring we abandon technological progress.
The optimistic view holds that technology has always found ways to help humanity adapt. We haven't reached the apex of technological capability. Consider that the famous patent officer in 1899 declared "everything that can be invented has been invented"—then someone discovered the charged electromagnetic spectrum. The period between the invention of flight and landing on the moon was mere decades.
Technology Controlling Us
There's a counterpoint to technological optimism worth considering. The left isn't monolithic—the type of leftist who rejects technology isn't the one in charge. Those currently in power embrace technological innovation while concentrating power among a smaller group of experts.
The luddites had more nuance than commonly understood—their livelihoods were being destroyed and they had legitimate concerns about innovation. Today, similar concerns emerge about smartphones and social media. Picture a Caribbean sunset, families on both sides staring at screens instead of experiencing the moment. There's something deeply unhealthy happening.
The danger of modern technology isn't just what it does—it's that we don't quite understand what it does to human beings. We're mindlessly building powerful new entities, teaching AI to see and think through systems like reCAPTCHA, without fully grasping the consequences. Technology may be controlling us rather than us controlling it.
The Question of Superior Beings
In Star Trek: Picard, someone extracts positronic neurons to create new synthetic beings—superior humanoids that eat, drink, and live while calculating like Data. They're super strong, super fast, capable of all calculations, and can self-replicate. A group of Romulans views this new life form as a threat to biological existence.
The Borg represents something different—biological beings incorporating mechanical parts, eventually connecting their brains in what amounts to an advanced form of Twitter where all thoughts form a unifying collective mind.
Are we heading toward something similar? Probably not through linear evolution, but possibly through technology that leaps ahead of natural selection. The real question isn't whether we're evolving into something superior, but whether we're building something that will supersede us while we scroll through our phones, oblivious to the sunset.
