AI: Time Travel
By Recently, I got my boyfriend watching Star Trek. Yeah, he had never seen any of it–shocking, right? Anyway, I started him on Voyager. This decision has been controversial among my friends and acquaintances. But you know what? I love Janeway and Seven of Nine, and it’s my favorite of the series, so I started with that.
Well, he’s been loving it. And I’ve really been enjoying going back through the series considering I haven’t seen most of the episodes since they originally aired. One of the things I love about Star Trek is that it gets me thinking about what it means to be human. It also gets me thinking about time. The amount of time travel in Voyager is a little obnoxious, but even on episodes where Janeway is on the holodeck in the program with Leonardo DiVinci get me thinking about time.
I would love to be able to time travel. I often wonder what will become of our species in the future–100 years, 500 years, 1000 years…will we even still be around? I think about what someone like Mozart would think about someone like Lady Gaga. I want to go back and see the everyday lives of everyday people, like peasants in medieval serfdoms or residents in cities before they were huge cities.
If you could live in any other time and place, what would it be and why?
The Afternoon Inqueery (or AI) is a question posed to you, the Queereka community. Look for it to appear Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays at 3pm ET.
I’d go to ancient Greece. Round the time of Aristotle, give them the printing press. Maybe a steam engine.
Also, TNG is the best Star Trek. This is simply an objective fact.
I was going to say “invent the computer” but then I realized I don’t actually know how computers work. Like, I know how the code works to make programs and such but as far as how the computer knows what the code means I’m still not convinced it’s not magic.
Dr Who tells us that we’ll be around when the universe is winding down, but we’ll have ‘danced’ with other species a bit 🙂
Personally, i think i’d love to live in an era where space exploration is possible but still in it’s romantic stage. More of calculated risks of venturing into the uncertain than cramming oneself behind a lunch tray on the 3:10 to Betelgeuse.
it might be nice if i could preserve the library of Alexandria or just go way back and give ancient minds the scientific method. aside from that I’d like to live in some future where transition is a simple outpatient procedure and its effects were better.
For me, forward is the only way to go. To see the progress of mankind as it advances through the ages, hopefully towards a time of unprecedented tolerance and an abolishment of superstitious woo. Also think of the awesome technologies 🙂 holograms, other planets, perhaps even discovery of other forms of life. Oh and hovercars, been promised those for years 😛 Although with my luck humanity will probably end up destroying the world and I’ll get eaten by morlocks 😛
Also, I have to agree with Alt3, TNG is indisputably the best of the series.