My wife and I are rewatching The Next Generation and just finished Measure of a Man, the episode in season 2 in which Data’s personhood is legally debated and his life hangs in the balance.
I genuinely found this episode infuriating in its stupidity. It’s the first episode we skipped even a little bit. It was like nails on a chalkboard.
There is oodles of legal precedent that Data is a person. He was allowed to apply to Starfleet, graduated, became an officer and rose to the rank of Lt. Commander with all the responsibilities and privileges thereof.
Comparing him to a computer and the judge advocate general just shrugging and going to trial over it is completely idiotic. There are literal years and years of precedent that he’s an officer.
The problem is compounded because Picard can’t make the obvious legal argument and is therefore stuck philosophizing in a court room, which is all well and good, but it kind of comes down to whether or not Data has a soul? That’s not a legal argument.
The whole thing is so unbelievably ludicrous it just made me angrier and angrier. It wasn’t the high minded, humanistic future I’ve come to know and love, it was a kangaroo court where reason and precedent took a backseat to feeling and belief.
I genuinely hated it.
To my surprise, in looking it up, I discovered it’s considered one of the high water marks for the entire show. It feels like I’m taking crazy pills.
Your argument ignores one important aspect.
They were looking for a reason to de-person him, to take him apart, and to build loads more like him to be used as slave labor in mines and other dangerous places.
I fervently disagree. I think you can view it in a very optimistic and utopic way.
When confronted with his friend’s sentience and individuality being questioned, Captain Picard chose to debate on the basis of data being a person and deserving rights. Sure you could’ve just said that data was a person because Starfleet accepted him. But does that specifically extend to all androids or beings in similar circumstances? I think it’s a good character moment for Picard that he chooses to argue on the basis that star fleet is better than stripping away someone’s agency. And he wins too. Ultimately the federation comes to agree with that view point. Thats why it is a utopic society. Because when faced with a moral dilemma they didn’t simply choose “technically legally correct” they chose “morally right”.
You forgot that it was starlet that created the need for this legal argument in the first place.
If the judge was truly moral; this trial would never have happened. If starfleet was moral, the docheberger that wanted to dismantle data would never have been a member.
Also the other best defense would have been to ask docuheberger to prove he’s not just a machine, and crusher explain in intricate detail how they can reassemble Ryker’s brain. And reattach Ryker’s limb after Warf rips it off.
(Okay, so maybe I don’t like Ryker.)
Yeah they encountered something new in the universe and they had to decide on what to do. They decided to do the moral thing for moral reasons. Starfleet isn’t a utopia but it’s utopic because of instances like this where the right thing is done for the right reasons.
The fact they had a trial to determine data’s personhood and that it was agonizingly close, that they were actually considering denying it.
If they were truly moral, the question would have never come up; or Maddox and the general would have been slapped down with a scathing “don’t be evil”.
Also, at that point data was hardly new- he’s been in starfleet for 20+ years in which Data earned his place as a decorated Lt. Commander.
In any case, this isn’t even a question for a starfleet court - this would fall under civil purview, and even hearing the trial is a miscarriage. (Also the IFP courts probably have some sort of test that doesn’t require destructive testing. Details.)
I can barely stand TNG
Seriously though it is slow and pretty boring. No to mention the special effects are just bad.
Give me the original series or something a little newer. TNG is just so bad.
That’s because Star Trek is sometimes a show about introducing basic philosophy and ethics to American nerds who genuinely could not and often still do not grasp the idea of giving at least theoretical personhood to someone that wasn’t biological.
Just ask half of this community what they think about Fallout 4 synths if you don’t believe it.
The dumbest part is when the JAG appoints Riker as the…plantiff/prosecutor? And threatens to summarily vote in the plantiff’s favor if he refuses to serve in that capacity. “If you don’t do anything, you win.”
