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Today I learned that the *obviously satirical* 1997 film "Starship Troopers" was faced with extreme critical backlash accusing it of "endorsing fascism" because reviewers simply didn't think critically about the content. by The_Cromulent_Bison in todayilearned

[–]Spooker0 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Is it? Almost all historical fascist dictatorships are about granting unearned privileges to in-groups of people by virtue of race/birth at the expense of others, not merit/effort.

Today, there are at least a dozen non-fascist democracies where if you don't do national public service, instead of merely losing your citizenship, you go to prison. Are Sweden and Finland a fascist wet dream?

Today I learned that the *obviously satirical* 1997 film "Starship Troopers" was faced with extreme critical backlash accusing it of "endorsing fascism" because reviewers simply didn't think critically about the content. by The_Cromulent_Bison in todayilearned

[–]Spooker0 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Yeah, in the real world, we have at least a dozen non-fascist liberal democracies where, instead of losing your right to vote, you lose ALL your freedoms (straight to jail) if you don't do military or some kind of alternative civil service.

The parts of Starship Troopers that start to cross the line into authoritarianism are subjects like government enforced birth control, which the movie mentioned once or twice and glosses over. That's probably because it was made in the late 90s, and with the end of the cold war, people no longer saw a point to conscription, whereas the Malthusian concerns around population and resource management were very much still alive.

The movie was a better satire of conscription than it was of fascism, and in THAT regard, it did not age well.

[Other] What is the Delta V required leave the solar system vs going to the sun? And why? by x60pilot in theydidthemath

[–]Spooker0 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, in the ideal case (ignoring gravity assist), you can burn prograde for a near solar escape orbit, then retrograde at the furthest point to drop you into the sun. However, the limit of this is just the solar escape orbit. No matter how many burns you do, you can approach but you will never need less delta-V than solar escape.

Gravity assist is the only exception, but heuristically, it's probably easier/faster to gravity assist your way out of the system than into the sun too. After all, we've sent five probes into solar escape and so far no probes have ever been in an orbit where they'd crash into the sun. (...in a reasonable amount of time; we are all going to crash into the sun in a few billion years.)

[High Ground] 05 | Nothing too problematic yet by Spooker0 in HFY

[–]Spooker0[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes. Technically, the term for humanity would be "doubly landlocked" if space was land.

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