{"id":1920002,"date":"2023-04-27T09:26:54","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T13:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/start-trek-picard-enters-the-matrix-with-embrace-of-transhumanism\/"},"modified":"2023-04-27T09:29:22","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T13:29:22","slug":"start-trek-picard-enters-the-matrix-with-embrace-of-transhumanism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/start-trek-picard-enters-the-matrix-with-embrace-of-transhumanism\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Start Trek: Picard\u2019 Enters The Matrix With Embrace Of Transhumanism"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fstart-trek-picard-enters-the-matrix-with-embrace-of-transhumanism%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1920002&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Star Trek: Picard and the Sinister Side of Transhumanism<\/h2>\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p><em>Spoilers abound.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cStar Trek\u201d has always sailed the cosmos on the unearthly wind of left-wing pieties, but a message more inhuman than mere collectivism and leftism emerges in \u201cStar Trek: Picard.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-296772243\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-379a267a2af1235fa061897bd97e21d6 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-379a267a2af1235fa061897bd97e21d6\"><\/div>\n<p>The original 1960s series hewed to the Prime Directive, an anti-colonialist maxim that, while never expressly stated, charged the voyagers of Starfleet to interfere as little as possible with whatever civilizations they might encounter. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The show, with its multi-species cast, gestured toward nuclear disarmament and featured what was probably broadcast television\u2019s first interracial kiss.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So, too, with the first batch of \u201cStar Trek\u201d movies. Those of us old enough to have seen \u201cStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan\u201d in theaters will remember the thrill of Spock\u2019s sacrifice, which allowed\u00a0the Starship Enterprise\u2019s crew to escape the doom of their enemies, who are consumed in an explosion moments later. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I wonder how many wept at a line he shares with Kirk: \u201cThe needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.\u201d That is a\u00a0noble sentiment, especially in the context of a desperate battle. As a general principle, though, it leaves something to be desired.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-a26b27606d75bec05759cf09367df70d fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-a26b27606d75bec05759cf09367df70d\"><\/div>\n<p>It is refreshing at first glance, then, that the most recent Trek series,<em> \u201c<\/em>Star Trek: Picard,\u201d which recently concluded on Paramount Plus, had anti-collectivist themes. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The show portrays\u00a0a good bit of science-fiction cloak-and-dagger adventures, involving shape-shifting spies and sentient androids and so forth, before revealing the\u00a0true villain: a\u00a0shriveled, lonely Borg Queen, bereft of her Collective of shared minds and hungry for a particular mind \u2014 someone close to the\u00a0hero, Admiral Jean-Luc Picard. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Picard finds himself called from his idyllic French vineyards back to the depths of space, where he reunites one by one with his old crew members from \u201cStar Trek: The Next Generation.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They zip around the stars, shooting lasers at bad guys. They run around on distant planets, doing the same. They apologize for past mistakes and gaze wistfully at computer consoles on the wall. Nostalgia oozes from\u00a0every conversation and glance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-494bd51be160fca630aff71603fb131e fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-494bd51be160fca630aff71603fb131e\"><\/div>\n<p>Yet behind the nostalgia, there is something far more sinister\u00a0at the show\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n<h3>The Sinister Side of Transhumanism<\/h3>\n<p>At the end of the first season, Picard dies while battling the shape-shifting enemies. But then he does not stay dead because his very person \u2014 his entire human consciousness \u2014 is uploaded into a simulacrum of himself. Let\u2019s call it an android. The show then carries on as though this thing \u2014 this mechanism carrying Picard\u2019s mind \u2014 were Picard himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The term for this conceit, in which a human being can be reduced to binary code as if\u00a0the flesh were a meat vehicle for some pure Cartesian mind, is transhumanism. And \u201cStar Trek: Picard\u201d boldly explores\u00a0transhumanist territory further\u00a0than any other \u201cStar Trek\u201d before it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Next Generation\u201d played with transhumanist ideas, with the question of robot Commander Data\u2019s personhood coming up now and then. He is sentient but lacks feeling and empathy. So however likable he may be, is he anything more than a machine? \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In \u201cPicard,\u201d Data somehow leaps\u00a0into true, empathetic personhood. The show does not quite spell out how it happens, and he finds it a little confusing, too. But, in his robot mind, he fights a wicked version of himself and wins, and voila! This, too, is pernicious nonsense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spoilers abound.\u00a0 \u201cStar Trek\u201d has always sailed the cosmos on the unearthly wind of left-wing pieties, but a message more inhuman than mere collectivism and leftism emerges in \u201cStar Trek: Picard.\u201d\u00a0 The original 1960s series hewed to the Prime Directive, an anti-colonialist maxim that, while never expressly stated, charged the voyagers of Starfleet to interfere<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1677,"featured_media":1920004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[11020,12416,25273,25274,3732,25275,12291],"class_list":["post-1920002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-embrace","tag-enters","tag-matrix","tag-picard","tag-start","tag-transhumanism","tag-trek"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1920002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1920004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1920002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1920002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1920002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}