Star Trek Remains a Blueprint of Sorts for the Future of Technology

The question as to how good a prediction mechanism science fiction, and specifically in this case Star Trek, is for our actual future has been around for a good while. Of course a convenient flare up of this line of questioning can be counted on with the periodic release of Gene Roddenberry inspired media creations like the new Star Trek movie and the Star Trek D.A.C video game, but regardless of the johhny-come-lately nature of these, there is a lot to the question. Again, just limiting the examples to Star Trek–there are MANY others from earlier sci-fi works–there is the ever-growing impact and usage of computers in all areas, the now common nature of handheld communication devices which we call cell phones, portable computer memory discs, tablet computers, R&D into phaser creation and oh yeah, video games. Yeah, video games.

What brought this last point to mind was a post on Kotaku this morning that referenced a Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) episode from '91 that relates to a dangerously addictive virtual reality video game that nearly ensnares the Enterprise. There is a video promo clip of it below. The Kotaku post says a lot of things related to this, the one I'm keying on though is that the episode implies that video games may be seen as bad for you in the future. Personally I don't see that. Could be I suppose, but if that is true then they are just as bad today. Thinking back to my days of lounging on the couch watching TNG reruns–there has been plenty of that over the years–I remember the episode in question quite well. The crew has just had shore leave, Wesley has a girlfriend, Data is the only one not affected by the game and the game was pre-programed by an alien race whose intent was to capture the Enterprise.

So, the implications seen through the Star Trek filter from my perspective are that:

1. Despite the new-found modern hipness of gaming, in the future geeks will still be caught between the lure of technology and pretty girls. Huzzah!
2. There will always be people trying and use our sometimes over reliance and fascination with technology to maliciously sneak things by/on to us.
3. We will need even smarter parental controls and other automated protection measures.

The cool thing about this episode was that although Wesley is doubtless the most tech-savvy of crew members, he was the least interested in the game and in the end programmed Data to deal with the threat it posed when he realized the full extent of the problem. Basically, he read the manual and took advantage of the built in functionality of the "parental controls and other auto protection measures," that is Data. Well done Mr. Crusher. Like I said, the clip is below, so check it out. Somehow I doubt that the movie will be near as insightful as this episode when it comes to technology, but we may get to see the now dreamy Tiberius cheat death in the Kobayashi Maru by reprogramming the computer simulation. That's something I guess and hopefully there is a lot more to it than that, but when looked at from the perspective of the big picture, why remake the wheel cadet? Just read the manual.

–Hobson's Choice