The utopianism of classic Star Trek is often overstated. The series do take place at a time when the human race has overcome scarcity and greed, yet numerous episodes showed our baser instincts remaining very much intact and capable of seizing control of even the most rational, compassionate mind in a moment of weakness. Classic Trek is undoubtedly optimistic, showing a human race dedicated to self-improvement and blessed with an enlightened philosophical clarity, but does not pretend that humanity is perfect. Unlike the lesser shows which followed, it did not confuse mirroring current events for insight, but told universal stories about the human condition and the challenges of bettering oneself.
In our present day, social media has become a tool which allows the worst of human nature to run rampant, undermining the principles and institutional pillars on which the free societies of the Western world reside. Although responsibility for each user's behaviour lies with nobody but themselves, the ways in which the nature of the technology irrationalises human thinking are evoked in two poignant episodes, each belonging to a different Trek series, which deserve revisiting.
Those familiar with classic Trek - by which I mean everything prior to J.J. Abrams' 2009 soft-reboot movie - will recognise the article title and photo in the header. Unsurprisingly, I will indeed by talking about 'The Drumhead', an episode from The Next Generation's fourth season, but where 'Drumhead' demonstrates the outcome of social media's capacity for creating paranoia and vindictiveness, I'd first like to detour through a less celebrated episode which demonstrates the manner in which that state of mind is created.
'The Voyager Conspiracy', a sixth season episode of Star Trek: Voyager (and, incidentally, the only Voyager episode with the word 'Voyager' in its title), sees Seven of Nine, a character who is part-cybernetic, begin to download new entries in the ship's database directly into her mind so that she is able to carry out her duties more efficiently. At first, her expanded pool of knowledge is beneficial to her and the crew. However, the more information she accrues, the more her mind begins to create patterns between the various points of data, over time developing into ship-wide conspiracies which fracture trust not only between her and her crewmates, but the crew themselves.
Although the show does not name it directly, what is developing in Seven's mind are known as heuristics, or mental shortcuts enabling quick decision-making. This process is vital to human functioning as, ironically in Seven's case, it cancels out the need to overthink each decision. When an action has a beneficial or negative consequence, we learn to either perform or not perform that action when the situation arises again in future.
By themselves, these heuristics are neither good or bad, but can lead us in the wrong direction when the context for a decision changes. For instance, a commonly reference heuristic is group mimicry: behaving a similar way to other members of a group makes us more likeable to that group. However, it also means that when the group makes an incorrect or unethical decision, the mimicry heuristic means we are inclined to follow the group anyway, overlooking or rationalising away any concerns in order to not risk our acceptance.
In seeking to maximise the efficiency of her decision-making, Seven's mind processes the data and creates logical patterns between each individual point to guide her future actions (also known as probabilistic learning). Unfortunately, her cybernetic implants enable her to hold far more data than her mind is able to rationally sift through for coherent connections, leading her into the realm of conspiracy.
Seven's rationality is an integral part of her identity and this acts as a further barrier when her theories grow out of control, as to admit fallibility would be to destroy a part of her self-perception she relies on as an individual. The episode is an instrumental step in the character's realisation that depending on her technological enhancements will ultimately only obstruct her path to self-actualisation as an individual.
The way in which self-identity obstructs rational thinking forms an even greater part of The Next Generation episode, 'The Drumhead'. This episode concerns itself less with how the patterns of conspiratorial thinking are formed and more with the ease with which they can grip us and spread if left unchecked, and the speed with which they can destroy the very values we imagine ourselves to be protecting.
The episode sees the highly respected Admiral Satie sent to investigate an explosion on the starship Enterprise. Although she discovers minor, unrelated crimes - a visiting alien smuggling information off the ship; an ensign who lied about his inter-species background - Satie refuses to halt the investigation even when the explosion is proven an accident. She begins tying unrelated threads together to form a conspiracy which even envelops the ship's captain and show protagonist, Jean-Luc Picard.
Satie's identity, as a respected Admiral in her own right in addition to being the daughter of one of Starfleet's most renowned judges, is key to how her actions are legitimised. Her reputation and high rank mean she is implicitly trusted by the crew of the Enterprise, including the stalwart and loyal Mr. Worf, whom Satie recruits as a deputy. When she makes an accusation, there is an assumption that it must have merit because of the reputation of the person making it: as assumption based on a heuristic. Because of this, Starfleet condones her actions every step of the way.
As with Seven of Nine, Satie's self-perception makes the same assumption. Her fervent belief in the Federation and its values, and the importance of protecting them and continuing her father's legacy, are such an instrumental part of how she self-identifies that she rationalises every action she takes as being part of that mission, even while in reality she is perverting the values she believes herself to be upholding. One of the episode's many insightful nuances is that she believes herself to be acting in the greater good: as always, there is nobody more dangerous in life than someone who considers themselves a good person. Tellingly, her downfall comes when the unimpeachably moral Captain Picard quotes her father's words back at her and she explodes with anger, revealing how she is being unconsciously driven by vindictiveness and the thrill of destroying people.
Satie's actions mirror those of moral puritans on social media to a fault. She routinely ignores evidence which does not support the mission she identifies with and forms tenuous connections between minor, often unrelated transgressions in order to justify her belief in a wider conspiracy. When someone from her in-group steps out of line, as Mr. Worf does when he objects to her questioning Captain Picard's loyalty, she seeks to humiliate and destroy him. Because of the way she presents as a moral actor on a noble mission, it is easier for Starfleet to surrender to a heuristic (noble message = noble actions) than to scrutinise her behaviour and underlying motivations as they should.
These two episodes speak to the ways in which the internet and social media have factionalised and irrationalised the way we approach politics and the ethics supposedly guiding it. Internet technology has simultaneously flooded us with information while allowing us to outsource our memories to our phones and the Cloud. This process has reduced reality to nothing more than decontextualised data sets. Like Seven of Nine in 'The Voyager Conspiracy', we are being taught to see and recall reality as nothing more than patterns connecting individual points, absent the human experience which gives them context and meaning as part of the messy entirety of life.
'The Drumhead' may be a story about humans rather than technology, but it is a story which warns of the destructive outcomes of the obsessive, dogmatic mindsets we allow social media in particular to inculcate in us through our misguided belief in technological rationalism. Fortunately, this being classic Star Trek, it offers solutions as well. In 'The Voyager Conspiracy', Seven's conspiracy theories are defeated by the crew simply getting together and talking to each other. In 'The Drumhead', Picard reveals the truth behind Satie's crusade through his ability to clearly and sincerely explain the importance of fundamental values and why they must never be cast aside, even when one believes oneself morally righteous. As he explains at the end of the episode: "Villains who twirl their moustaches are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well camouflaged. [...] Vigilance, Mr. Worf. That is the price we have to continually pay."
