Squid Ink

[  Mood: Amused ]
[  Currently: Listening to My Chemical Romance – This is How I Dissapear ]
I was reading Fark the other day, and they had a link to yet another "why I hate Star Trek" list. And as we all know, everything is better in a simple bullet-point format.

Anyway, it was the usual slams that have been tossed at the show since Next Gen was at its height. In other words, nothing special, but it ignited the usual geek flame war.

But one of the points was the "no seat belts" trope. And, that actually got me to thinking. I know why we have yet to have flying cars, and aren’t zipping around the universe in our hyperspace craft. It has to do with seat belts, because they reminded me of a flaw in another galaxy far, far away: no handrails.

The Federation, or any of the other races in that milieu, does not have seat belts. In Star Wars, they have no handrails and their doors slam down at toe-removing speeds. It was thinking about this, and the correlation between these two points, that set off the light bulb in my head.

See in our "real" world, we’re too worried about little things like personal safety and negligence lawsuits, so instead of coming up with warp drives and Death Star’s, we’re making airbags and safety regulations. And really, what’s a few measly deaths compared to the coolness of the lightsaber? I mean, come on, you don’t think those babies are OSHA approved, do you?

If we spent less time worried about a few accidental plummetings to the bottom of 1,000 foot shafts, we’d be moisture farming on Mars by now. Instead, we’re developing Handrail technology.

And that’s why we’re stuck here, and aren’t out battling Stormtroopers while firing photon torpedoes.