Meant to post this in main star trek community, not ten forward, d’oh.
If this is the wrong place for this, I apologize in advance and it’s okay if it gets removed.
First, it was bad enough for Elon Musk references, but now…
The real life Paul Stamets, for which the character is named, hired union busters at his business, Fungi Perfecti.
https://www.thestand.org/2024/05/fungi-perfecti-workers-joining-together-with-liuna-252/
But rather than recognizing and respecting these workers’ right to join together free from management interference, the union reports that Fungi Perfecti has responded by hiring the union-busting firms of Littler Mendelson P.C. and the American Labor Group. These firms represent clients such as Amazon, Apple, Google, and Starbucks, all of which have faced multiple Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges with the National Labor Relations Board for illegally interfering in their employees’ freedom to unionize.
These firms have attempted to slow the momentum of Fungi Perfecti workers’ organizing drive with typical union-busting tactics like “unrequired” meetings that are heavily encouraged.
“ALG has been distributing anti-union propaganda that, in some cases, are outright lies,” said Derek Sewell, a warehouse worker for Fungi Perfecti. “But we will not be discouraged. It’s just unfortunate that they are spending thousands of dollars on union-busting to try to discourage us rather than investing in making Fungi Perfecti and better and more sustainable place to work.”
Anyway, my opinion is firmly that if they’re going to make references, it needs to be about people who are already dead, whose negatives are known, and who can’t come back and fuck your reference up by becoming a horrible person as your life goes on.
Because these living people keep revealing how Un-Star-Trek they are, imho.
I will add my voice to the chorus, real life isn’t a cartoon where good people are morally, ethically and physically in the right. Real people and real situations have layers, and are rooted in fundamentally human wants, needs and limitations.
I get that if you’re a brand, and living only in a symbolic sense, you might want to distance yourself from symbols that don’t align. But us humans, actually having experienced reality, should know that some or even most actions aren’t perfectly informed, selflessly good from every perspective, for all of time.
And frankly, I think wanting and needing that unambiguity is dangerous as you’re dehumanising people and disempowering yourself from reflecting upon behavior and setting proper boundaries. That, and/or a sign of considerable stress (compare with black & white thinking or catastrophic thinking).
People can be flawed and make awesome contributions. The theory of gravity is good, useful, and a significant discovery forming the basis of much of industrial and modern society, even though it was made possible only by colonialism and systematic oppression.
Socrates/Plato made astounding work contributing to the development of every field of knowledge, despite being weirdo homeless hermits before forming a cult.
Be inspired by the greatness in people, not the flaws.
Elon Musk is literally only successful because he started out with tons of money. His vision is putting the letter X in every company he’s involved in. He’s not only personally a piece of shit, he also actively tries to stop transit projects from happening to potentially bolster his sales a tiny bit. I’m thinking of hyperloop which was vaporware from day 1 explicitly designed to halt California HSR.
Not only that but he is the SOLE reason twitter is a Nazi shithole now. He is an actual Nazi sympathizer and frequently boosts their messages on his massive platform.
The real visionaries of this world are the political activists that are pushing for change.
Agreed