A lot of my head canon around this and the notable lack of automation prevalent in Starfleet: it's a futuristic, post-scarcity jobs program. Yes, it's about exploration and rendering assistance and all that. But it gives people something to do, a way to serve the whole. Picard said as much to Geordi when Scotty was aboard. I've of the many things Starfleet does is give people a sense of usefulness.
Were we watching the same speech? The one where she condemns them, but states that she doesn't have the freedom to kill someone that another might live (in this scenario, killing an alien for the sake of a crewman) and ultimately decides to turn them loose with a promise of reprisal if encountered again?
Janeway's own log started that Tuvix was better than the sun of the parts; a better cook and tactical officer. The point of a team is that no one person is a point of failure. Factoring in a hypothetical future scenario is spurious.
An extrajudicial execution (to be charitable) for no crime is beyond most ethical frameworks.
And not one person has even tried to reconcile the speech to the Vidiians.
I understand but disagree with that perspective. To me they were not alive at the time. However, you still haven't accounted for the rest. Reconcile the Majalis problem and Janeway's own speech to the Vidiians.
The two crew members that were lost at the same time Tuvix appeared? The dead (not alive) ones? And again, square this with the speech she gave the Vidiians.
If you're going to refute, then address the whole thing.
This is not a trolley problem in that there is sequence involved:
1: Tuvok and Neelix alive before transport
2: Tuvok and Neelix dead and a new rational being in their place. This being had a moral blank slate and are thus blameless for the circumstances of creation.
3: Janeway decides that the speech she gave to the Vidiians was just hot air and that she will kill Tuvix to get the original two back. (Non lethal ways were explored, but quickly abandoned)
4: The blameless being makes an articulate case for their life, and even addresses the "needs of the many" argument by stating the truth: the other two are gone and the new being is there. (Raw, unalloyed utilitarianism is problematic at best, just ask the people of OmelasMajalis)
5: The doctor straight up says that the procedure is unethical and refuses to do it.
6: Janeway does it anyway.
Calling it a trolley problem is reductive and inaccurate.
"Meanwhile, Black Mirror presumably got back to the work of its horror-based arms race, as the show continues to try to find a doomsday prophecy that tech giants might still view as a warning and not a corporate benchmark for [next fiscal quarter]." -- AVClub
Huh, and here I was expecting Meteion the Endsinger (scroll down to The Source of the Sound). That'd be a good crossover. Giving her a Starfleet Captain speech 😂
Unlike Jellico, Shaw actually paid attention to those under his command and showed character growth. Granted, Jellico only had a limited time, but he was given a lot of assholery and extremely few humanizing traits/moments.
With Shaw, it's spelled out why he is the way he is and that even with those burdens/wounds, he's still trying. You don't get any of that from Jellico. The closest you get is him dropping ranks to insult his first officer and then subsequently asking him to do an extremely difficult/dangerous assignment.
Steve Shives defends him, and I do see his point, but my counter-argument to that is worse for efficiency to change up ways of working immediately before a critical event, even if you think your way is better, and to ignore what the modern day calls the "human element".
Odinkirk @ Odinkirk @lemmygrad.ml Posts 0Comments 61Joined 5 yr. ago
A lot of my head canon around this and the notable lack of automation prevalent in Starfleet: it's a futuristic, post-scarcity jobs program. Yes, it's about exploration and rendering assistance and all that. But it gives people something to do, a way to serve the whole. Picard said as much to Geordi when Scotty was aboard. I've of the many things Starfleet does is give people a sense of usefulness.