It’s something that has bothered me since I realised

Or if they don’t have onboard sensors designed to do that then why not do that

Because someone who is unconscious or unable to move isn’t going to be able to call for help

    • inappropriatecontent@startrek.websiteEnglish
      81·
      2 years ago

      That’s pretty much exactly how it seems to me. I guess I understand how American fans who were born after 9/11 and Facebook might have a different perspective, because privacy means something different now–but it’s cognitive empathy, which means I understand their feelings, not the sympathetic empathy of someone who shares it.

      Ironically, I learned these cognitive empathy skills from Captain Picard, and still consider TNG possibly the best way to expose young people to the skill. :-)

    • Julian@lemm.eeEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      But like, they can still track you. And removing the badge that lets them track you is basically a crime. Also section 31 exists basically just to track and monitor people.

      • inappropriatecontent@startrek.websiteEnglish
        61·
        2 years ago

        Section 31 were created as the bad guys! Genocidal maniacs who Sisko and crew fought against every step of the way.

        And I don’t use the phrase “genocidal maniacs” lightly, but they were literally xenocidal and Sloane was, as a spy, less of an Ian Fleming James Bond type and more of a John le Carré type—an actual maniac in the piece of human wreckage who’s been turned violent and crazy by the stress of war.

        (I really wish his end had come at Sisko’s hands, and involved contrasting Sisko’s actions in Pale Moonlight with Sloan and 31’s degeneration in to xenophobic crimes of extermination, and how both shared the same origin but ended up in very different places.

          • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
            5·
            2 years ago

            Nah. ‘Oh you can be nice, but those people over there aren’t nice, so we need to be even less nice to protect you!’

            Race to the friggin bottom

              • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
                2·
                2 years ago

                well, Sisko was pretty clear “We don’t do that shit”

                Which might sound hypocritical with some of the actions he took, but actions of an individual that would face consequences vs actions of an institution that are beyond oversight are very different beasts

  • badcommandorfilename@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    2 years ago

    I think the canon reason given for this and other “why didn’t the ship’s computer just stop them?” situations that it’s a privacy violation to just go around scanning people without their permission.

    Although they do seem to do a lot of “scanning for life-signs” so who knows?

    • FaceDeer@kbin.social
      2·
      2 years ago

      First thing I’d do when boarding a Federation ship is tell the computer it’s authorized to keep an eye on my vitals.

    • inappropriatecontent@startrek.websiteEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      scanning for life-signs

      Yeah, and I’ve never figured out the security feature that makes scanning for life-signs more effective when you sign a little song to the computer. But sometimes I guess it’s just more urgent to know, little life signs, where are you?

      • badcommandorfilename@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        It’s based on the same technology that makes you turn faster in Mario Kart if you tilt your head and turn the controller like a steering wheel.

  • MuchPineapples@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    The computers in star trek have no real intelligence, everything needs user input. I mean, their weapons don’t even auto aim.

    • x4740N@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Except for that time the enterprise became intelligent in emergence and birthed a new lifeform

      And someone just needs to program that function in

      Edit: to clarify I’m talking about programming a function in for medical emergency detection and not computer intelligence

  • Odinkirk@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    3·
    2 years ago

    A lot of my head canon around this and the notable lack of automation prevalent in Starfleet: it’s a futuristic, post-scarcity jobs program. Yes, it’s about exploration and rendering assistance and all that. But it gives people something to do, a way to serve the whole. Picard said as much to Geordi when Scotty was aboard. I’ve of the many things Starfleet does is give people a sense of usefulness.

    • zabadoh@ani.socialEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      Almost, but quite to point of human “jobs” in The Culture books, where benevolent AIs actually run everything. Humans are considered by the AIs as pets.