[B5] Interesante comentario sobre la serie Babylon 5 original

[Jesus Cea]

<https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/21/10/03/017252/new-babylon-5-reboot-being-developed-by-original-creator-j-michael-straczynski>

El comentario en cuestión es 
<https://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=19924985&cid=61857223>

El texto para los archivos de la lista de correo:

"""
First of all, it was made in the Clinton era. Just FYI. And it was far 
better than Star Trek, because not only did it not have "no scarcity" 
nonsense as a pre-requisite for the setting, but it didn't even have 
humans as a meaningful race at the start. We were the losers of a war of 
extermination by the aliens. And the only reason the Babylon 5 station 
exists is because just as those aliens were to finish totally 
exterminating humanity, they suddenly just stopped, pulled back and made 
peace, where humanity was allowed to not just survive, but trade with 
others. Even if it was from a position of weakness. And then offered an 
opportunity to put a space station into what was essentially alien 
sponsored realm to function as a politically neutral beacon in a 
universe of extreme political divisions and extreme scarcity for most 
species, where total genocide over scarce resources is more of a norm 
than peaceful existence. Just like it is on this planet throughout its 
history. And we don't even find why humanity was allowed to continue to 
exist at all until a few seasons in.

It's why it wasn't as popular as Star Trek. It didn't offer a Disney 
Musical in Space-experience, where a child got a nice, cushioned and 
very safely PG-13 talk about utopian situation of near total lack of 
scarcity in finite universe, so everyone who wanted could become 
whatever they wanted if they put the work in. Instead you got an adult 
version of space drama, where everyone is at everyone else's throat all 
the time because everything that matters is scarce, and it asked 
questions that were very much impactful at the time. Such as for 
example, "do you allow the race formerly enslaved by another race to 
enslave, exterminate and nearly totally genocide their former slavers?"

And the way they played that one was exceptionally well executed. You 
genuinely saw both as victimized people, and the enslavers and 
murderers. It was a message of racial reconciliation that was popular in 
the 90s, before the Critical Theory got entrenched into the Anglo 
cultures and fired up the racial tensions again. It was a message of a 
90s US Democrat.

Which is why modern far leftists hate it as "republican".

The entire point of the show that was that rather than a dominant "we 
want for nothing, so let's wax philosophy from that utopian perspective" 
space supremacism of watching the inferiour races and not interfering 
with their plight because of the Prime Directive, Babylon 5 offered an 
actual insight into what the underdog race that barely climbed out of 
the home star system into a hungry universe that almost devours it right 
at the start has to do to survive. That's why a lot of Trekkies despise 
B5 as you do. It shows the horror show "Prime Directive'd race" would 
have to face, not in pretty idealistic speeches and universe that had 
artificial lack of scarcity, but in reality where resources are indeed 
scarce. It simply destroys the fundamental presupposition that makes one 
of the philosophical underpinnings of Star Trek.

It was "republican" in that it was indeed realistic. World isn't nice 
nor utopian, and scarcity is the prime motivator for everything. Because 
in space, matter is scarce and useful matter is far more scarce. There's 
no button to push to make almost anything. If you can't contribute 
meaningful expertise on a space station, where every bit of water and 
food is rationed because shipping it in costs a fortune, and you can't 
pay for a ticket off the station which is far away from everything 
specifically so it can be politically neutral for everyone, you're not 
going to have a nice life on that station. Not because humans and aliens 
are awful to the poor, even though they are. It's because there aren't 
resources to go around, and the station is literally made out of hopes 
and dreams of species that barely survived a near total genocide by 
their current alien sponsors and is desperately trying to climb out of 
that hole while making sure that maybe, just maybe should their alien 
sponsors change their mind, they be able to actually do something about 
it rather than get utterly crushed as they did on their first encounter.

I really loved that episode that just spit in the face of that blind 
trekkie idealism, where a race that viewed humans on the station as so 
racially inferiour, that when humans sought relations, they wouldn't 
even talk to them. Instead they'd have their servants talk to humans 
while they telepathically communicated with said servants on what to 
say. Until they visited the slums of the station. And then, they 
actually found that humans are a species worthy of respect and talked to 
them directly.

You should watch that one. It was genuinely an excellent explanation on 
WHY poverty is a universal thing among human societies, even Communist ones.
"""

-- 
Jesús Cea Avión                         _/_/      _/_/_/        _/_/_/
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Twitter: @jcea                        _/_/    _/_/          _/_/_/_/_/
jabber / xmpp:jcea at jabber.org  _/_/  _/_/    _/_/          _/_/  _/_/
"Things are not so easy"      _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/
"My name is Dump, Core Dump"   _/_/_/        _/_/_/      _/_/  _/_/
"El amor es poner tu felicidad en la felicidad de otro" - Leibniz
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