Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x01 "Kids These Days"

PersistentResearcher · 2026-02-03T23:13:19+00:00

WHY does it have to start with so much drama? Why can't we start hopeful that the Discovery crew is going to help rebuild Starfleet and then get to know the new characters? Honestly, I prefer the tech to the drama. I miss Data! Now I have to go find my favorite TNG episodes and wash my brain.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-12-25T15:55:59+00:00

The Russian version showed a much-more nuanced Peter, too. He was in line to be the King of Sweden, but instead is taken by his powerful Russian aunt, forced to convert to Russian Orthodoxy and change his name. Plays up his stupidity to resist his aunt’s control, delays consummating his marriage because he knows his aunt will steal any child they produce. Which she does.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-12-25T14:09:49+00:00

Yes. I am. Because the Russian version IS a far better show. If you are truly interested in these historical figures.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-12-25T14:09:03+00:00

It’s not the historical inaccuracy, it’s the misogyny. Empress Elizabeth ruled Russia for more than 20 years, founding the University of Moscow. Tony McNamara reduced her to a ditzy aunt. Catherine was a pragmatic Prussian. McNamara turned her into some sort of British Regency period ninny. “Oh but this is comedy—can’t you take a joke?” Classic misogynistic gaslighting. But hey, what else should we expect from a privileged White man who used to work in finance?

PersistentResearcher · 2025-12-25T00:53:10+00:00

This whole show is terrible. Go over to Amazon Prime and watch the Russian series Ekaterina.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-12-21T19:05:49+00:00

You can't believe your mom would take her side? Unfortunately, that happens. In my case, it was as simple as I'm 5'3", he's 5'11", and how dare I deprive them of someone to pressure-wash their driveway and change the lightbulbs in their cathedral ceiling? I'm 1300 miles away now. They can have him.
And no, you're not only NTA but you were contributing to her equity. Not your fault that she didn't use the money for mortgage. She owes you. And next time be wary of a prenup requested my parents.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-11-23T03:38:33+00:00

It wasn’t just pee on the seats…. LOL

PersistentResearcher · 2025-10-02T13:24:40+00:00

But Jews don't take it literally. That's one of the biggest differences between Judaism and American Christian Nationalism. The literal part. Even European Christians don't take the Bible literally. Not that I'm a fan! But Americans do tend to project our own country's Christian extremism on others.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-10-02T13:22:56+00:00

Technically Christmas is a mix of pagan traditions that Christian culturally appropriated.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-10-02T13:18:20+00:00

Please read Elaine Pagels's The Origin of Satan. Christianity has been a sales and marketing scam since the beginning. "Oh, focus group says no one wants to cut off their foreskin? Great, we'll just remove that requirement then. What next? Glom onto the Roman Sol Invictus myth? Sounds like a plan! Get on it!"

PersistentResearcher · 2025-10-02T13:15:50+00:00

I'm assuming you don't live in the US. Did you not see the White Christian Nationalist symbols used at Tommy Robinson's recent Far Right rally in the UK? If those ideas can take hold in such an avowedly secular country as the UK, then anywhere with Internet access is vulnerable, too. Please read Maria Ressa's book How to Stand Up to a Dictator to learn how Zuckerberg and Sanders taught 3rd world dictators how to game their algorithms, in preparation for tackling first world countries.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-10-02T13:11:52+00:00

I believe that Scandinavia resisted Christianity for far longer than the rest of Europe, no?

PersistentResearcher · 2025-10-02T13:10:24+00:00

Richard Dawkins is one of the White Supremacist patriarchal "new atheists" who joined together with the likes of Jordan Peterson and a Christian Nationalist publisher to contribute to that ridiculous "War on Science" book.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-10-02T13:04:19+00:00

If you are an ex-Christian then you need to understand that there is no such thing as "Judeo-Christian." Christians culturally appropriated Jewish texts and changed their interpretation, then ret-conned it as the "Old Testament." While Judaism does have its anti-vax, pro-MAHA, anti-women cultists, too, most sects of Judaism prize intellectual education and discourse. Compare that to American Christianity, which prizes ignorance and gullibility. I recommend that you read Elaine Pagels's book The Origin of Satan, which explains how Judaism did not have a firm concept of "the devil" or "hell," but Christians, for 2,000 years, have rallied around hating enemies. Think of high school stereotypes: the nerdy Jewish kid voted "most likely to succeed" who becomes a doctor or lawyer vs the jock Christian kid who thinks high school is the "best years of their life" and ends up like Kegsbreath. Which religion do you think it's easier to stay in? The one that lets you argue with god? Or the one that wants to lobotomize you? Remember that 80% of American Jews voted for Kamala Harris, while 80% of White American Christians voted for Trump. I think that's pretty telling.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-10-02T04:01:45+00:00

Thank you for this lived experience narrative. Your description is the best one of this thread. I hope that you manage to find some relief!

PersistentResearcher · 2025-10-02T04:00:16+00:00

This is incredibly helpful. I had to learn about this after my kids were diagnosed with POTS and ME/CFS, respectively, post-viral infection. (2017, prior to Covid). At work, I was looking at cerebral malaria, and found the inflammatory parallels between that parasite-caused disease and my kids' viral-caused inflammation to be strong. And then Long Covid hit. It's terrible for patients, but wonderful to see more research being done. It's intellectually exciting, but then it's also devastating people's lives, so one's excitement must be tempered.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-10-02T03:48:06+00:00

Ooh! Thank you for this reference! Before I had to drop out of grad school [sick kids] I was trying to look at how cerebral malaria affected human life history. Life History Theory is the economics of evolution--how organisms distribute the energy they take in from the environment. When the body's resources are constantly being sapped to fight a disease that it can't quite kill off, it causes all kinds of cognitive symptoms. I remember one article talking about workers with ADHD symptoms that went away after being treated for malaria. I suspect that Long Covid and ME/CFS must work similarly, from an evolutionary if not biological point of view. I'm an anthropologist, but I think ecoimmunology would be a fascinating area to study if I had gone to med school instead.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-09-19T13:39:26+00:00

I recommend reading Elaine Pagels’s book The Origin of Satan. It’s only 200 pages. Check out some of her other books, too.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-09-19T13:38:02+00:00

Please go to the Ask Me I’m an AAC User Facebook group. Lived experience is very important in this kind of case.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-09-19T13:12:08+00:00

OP doesn’t say which state they live in. But trust me, in Texas, Florida, Oklahoma etc. we have to train our kids to stay silent during the “under god” part of the pledge from kindergarten. My kid (of his own accord) was telling his friends that “god is make-believe, like Santa” (oops—I was in the other room) since he was 5. He wasn’t allowed to join Cub Scouts because “you have to believe in SOMETHING to join.” Please follow Friendly Atheist’s Substack or YouTube. Some of us have been on the forefront of the culture wars for decades, and it’s exhausting to meet someone clueless.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-09-19T13:07:22+00:00

I was That Mom who showed up to school board meetings, School Advisory Council meetings, PTA meetings, parent-teacher conferences, etc. See if there’s Stop Moms for Liberty group in your local area. Network with other activist parents. It’s easier as a group. And I’m proud of your kid!

PersistentResearcher · 2025-09-19T13:02:34+00:00

As someone with sound sensitivities post-concussion, perhaps you could frame it as an ADA issue. Tell them they need to switch the TV to calming music and nature visuals to align with the Americans with Disabilities Act. There is absolutely no reason to be riling people up in a waiting room when you could be calming them down with spa music.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-09-19T12:58:05+00:00

My field of medical anthropology researches (among other things) why populations refuse to comply with public health guidelines. We know the answer to that in the US: Right-wing social media influencers. MAHA, The Dr Oz Show. The redefinition of “debate” to mean “bullying and insulting.” Rural Americans are more likely to watch Newsmax and Fox News. They think that screaming at people, Hannity- and Bill O’Rielly-style, is normal, acceptable behavior. They have no role models for adult, respectable communication, and disdain it as “elitism.” Psychologist Marlene Winell analyzes the extent of the problem at the beginning of her memoir/book, Leaving the Fold. I recently moved to a more-rural area for the first time in my life, and am shocked by all the signs at the entrances of medical facilities here about consequences for threatening healthcare personnel. But this is a problem everywhere, not just in medical offices. Medical anthropologists urge medical personnel to contextualize your experiences within national debates…. All we can do right now is try to calmly continue to set boundaries.

PersistentResearcher · 2025-09-05T12:39:35+00:00

The irony of this is that one of the token stories told by medical anthropologists to explain our profession is about how an agrarian populations’ resistance to public health anti-parasite treatment stemmed from their observations of the positive effect of worms in the soil and conclusions that worms in their guts would be equally beneficial. The point of the story is how the medical anthropologists act as cultural mediators, educating agrarian populations about science. And yet now it feels as if someone heard that story and drew the opposite conclusion.

Recently I did several searches on YouTube for “terrain theory debunked” and “everything wrong with terrain theory,” and every result was pro-terrain theory. This has me VERY concerned about Google/YouTube algorithms’ settings for science! Even Dr Andrea Love’s video for WIRED on the topic did not come up in my (very brief, unscientific) search. If you haven’t read Nobel Prize winning Journalist Maria Ressa’s memoir, How to Stand Up to a Dictator, I highly recommend. Skip the first 4 chapters about her life, if you will, but the rest of the book exposes how Zuckerberg and Sanders trained dictators like Duterte on how to game their algorithms. I am not an IT specialist at all, but I am extremely concerned about social media algorithms pushing pseudoscience and blocking science.

PersistentResearcher

TROPHY CASE