Michael Wong Star Wars Fan Wank

[Prak]

Do you seriously believe anyone involved with Jabba is particularly intelligent?

[Lago PARANOIA]

All the Rebel Alliance/New Republic/Old Republic/crumbling Empire/Random Bandits fighters had shields, it was only the "we have an infinite supply of soldiers, and we are Capital E Evil" empire built fighters that didn't have shields.

You know, while science fiction has done quite a bit to rank various series' engines / weapons / even life support systems across the board I've never seen a serious attempt to do so with shielding. Regardless of the series, it's pretty much 'you have an arbitrary deflector shield that does various bullshit as the plot requires'. Which is why you have idiocy like Voyager being able to fly the ship into the core of a supernova with the shields in one episode yet in another some primitive Kazon ships are able to force Voyager to go to backup.

[Whipstitch]

Gun smuggling is stupid and risky but as long as we're not talking real chicken shit like untaxed blaster pistols it doesn't hit me as all that implausible a thing for a lunkhead like Solo to be doing--he was known to take on jobs from Rebel factions from time to time and being a reluctant sympathizer is pretty much his entire arc.

[Vebyast]

The goal of Atomic Rockets is to explain how much reality sucks compared to science fiction. I find it hilarious that you guys are even more pessimistic than they are. Maybe you're just working off old news and assuming that military tech advances glacially slowly. I'll accept that today's lasers mostly melt things, blind people, and throw off giant showers of sparks, but physics says that big lasers blow stuff up and DARPA says that big lasers are not too far off.

Lasers aren't "the best we have" that would be missiles.

I guess I should have said that they're the best direct-fire weapon we could build without major improvements in materials science (railguns and coilguns) or quantum physics (particle beams). As Hadanelith said and Kaelik isn't quite getting, whether lasers beat missiles is a function of how good your lasers are compared to your missiles. If you have no lasers, equipping Challenger with converted ICBMs is a great idea. If your missiles are low-relativistic antimatter torchships loaded with MIRVed KKVs and and casaba-howitzer, missiles start looking even better. On the other hand, if your lasers are star-destroyer-size x-ray FELs that can unload a gigawatt per square centimeter at a light-minute and boil water at a light-hour, you're probably better off using lasers.

There's no way you're going to be able to move that thing fast and precisely enough to do that kind of thing without a gigantic and complicated drive train, inertia won't let you.

Here's a video of a 10m telescope traversing. In gravity, no less; space makes precision a hell of a lot easier. Besides, at 4000km, it doesn't matter how fast they're going because you barely need to move your lens at all to keep up. Precision and speed are not the problem with lasers. We solved those a long time ago.

Useful energy where versus heat where?

Laser versus heat on your ship. Everything produces heat when you run it. Lasers happen to be one of the more efficient ways to shoot people. For example, railguns are marginally more efficient overall, but most of their waste heat is produced as a giant electrical arc that eats your rails. Coilguns have weird inductive behavior and it's hard to make them out of superconductors, so they produce even more heat than railguns.

Even if you could start producing "clouds of vaporized, boiling metal expand at the speed of sound." those clouds will by definition be spurting out into the path of the laser beam, dispersing it and absorbing the heat, turning the vaporized metal into slightly hotter vaporized metal.

Leaving aside the question of laser power, which is just engineering, the cloud of metal is spurting out of that hole at roughly the RMS speed of 4000 K gaseous iron. The gas will spend maybe a few dozen microseconds in the path of your laser. Also, have a look at how really big industrial laser cutters handle thick material. The long cuts aren't relevant because they're using pressurized nitrogen to blow the kerf out of the way, but look at the very beginning of each cut, when they're just drilling holes. The basic idea is that they use a long chain of very short pulses of varying duration to alternately melt bits of metal and then blast it out of the hole. You can't see the individual pulses in these videos because the entire process is over in a matter of milliseconds. Note that these lasers have beam densities around 100MW/cm^2, comparable to the 10m 20MW laser that you've been looking at. Kind of explosion-ish, yeah? This video demonstrates the same thing with a much smaller laser and a much better camera, both of which make viewing easier.

The other side has all of their trash, in a box, on a gimbal that orients it to always face the enemy.

Ok, you go sit behind your garbage. I'll happily take the opportunity to run out my radiators and keep shooting until your entire ship melts.

Not to mention trying to get a material that can handle 20MW on such a small area.

Total external reflection and diffraction optics are your friends. Gnarly optics, and highly nontrivial, but having to handle 20MW isn't a problem.

---

and impacts with the force of several nuclear bombs

Unfortunately, it also takes the energy of several nuclear bombs to get the cloud up to speed.

[Aharon]

Wow, I didn't expect this much vitriol. I read his stuff (quite some time ago, I admit) and found most of it reasonable. His analysis of the Federation as communist isn't Fox news style, he is a liberal canadian, AFAIK. Saying that a fictional government is communist isn't the same as saying that the ideology is bad in reality.


@Frank:
In short, you're building a giant strawman and attack it very successfully. Just taking a few examples:

Abolition of property rights.
While it is true that later on, communists allowed private property, the first thing the communist party in russia did in 1918 was nationalize all private property (from Wikipedia, their source Gregory, Paul R. (2004). The Political Economy of Stalinism: Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives. Cambridge University Press. pp. 218–20. ISBN 0-521-53367-8.).
What he didn't include in his essay was that communist states later abandoned that idea.
Also, he isn't arguing that the Rebellion is capitalist, he argues that the Empire is.

State seizure of transportation services.
You're attacking a strawman here. He is not talking about public transit systems, but the criminilization of emigration.

Emigration is criminalized, and the state seizes control of all means of transport (note that this state monopoly should not be confused with modern public transit systems, which must compete with private companies and personal vehicles).

This certainly was a small problem in Germany. You know, I come from a family that was divided for quite some time because of this policy.

Let's just leave it at those two examples for now. Your argument on freedom of information is better, but the above two show that you just skimmed his essay, to the point of just reading the headlines and attacking those.

@Libertad

I don't recall seeing private corporations mentioned in the original Star Wars trilogy. Oh, and in Episode I, the Trade Federation were bad guys that the Republic eventually attacked for joining the Separatists. The Old Republic is a Marxist State.

He doesn't argue that. The site is called stardestroyer.net because the Empire is defended.

Wong's a big Star Wars nerd, so he can pull up obscure and rare tech in the smorgasboard of Expanded Universe material out there.

He uses the official canon rules laid out by the respective copyright owners. In Star Wars, this includes books etc., in Star Trek, only the shows. However, at the time of his analysis, this was about fair, since Star Trek, as a series, has quite a lot of episodes to draw from, while limiting Star Wars to the six films gives less material.

@Leress

Star Trek gives no fucks about lasers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4JUxQe4P4g

Quotes like this are why he made his site in the first place. Do you really want to argue that a 20.000 year old civilization can't create more powerful weapons than one that isn't even capable of FTL travel, if I remember correctly? Using physics in this kind of discussions may have merit.

[Username17]

@Frank:
In short, you're building a giant strawman and attack it very successfully.

NO U!

Seriously: you're just fucking wrong here. Wong has an incoherent diatribe about how the Federation is Communist because Starfleet's ships aren't privately owned red sports cars, Star Trek fans are just like creationists, and Communists have an incoherent ideology because it's impossible for the state to own the air waves without crushing dissenting speech. Seriously, it's gobbledegook. Wong's argument is completely wrong. Every part of it is a vitriol spewage that makes no sense even on its own terms.

Wow, I didn't expect this much vitriol. I read his stuff (quite some time ago, I admit) and found most of it reasonable. His analysis of the Federation as communist isn't Fox news style, he is a liberal canadian, AFAIK. Saying that a fictional government is communist isn't the same as saying that the ideology is bad in reality.

I don't give a fuck whether in real life he's a liberal Cannuck. Because his actual argument is this. I mean, here's his opening to his discussion of what "Communism" really means:

In any case, although millions of people have strong opinions on "The Communist Manifesto", very few of them have ever had the misfortune of actually reading this irrational gibberish. I am one of the unfortunate few who has read it (click here for the gory details), and it is definitely the blueprint (albeit with some modifications) for the Federation's socio-economic structure. If we disregard some of Karl Marx's dated agricultural ideas, the abridged version of the basic tenets of marxism are as follows:

And you're trying to get me to accept that he isn't saying that the "ideology is bad in reality" when he refers to it as "irrational gibberish" just before he gives you the "abridged version" of it? He isn't even trying to present a balanced or rational description of the ideology, he poisons the well by disdainfully calling it irrational gibberish and then he strawmans it.

And of course, it gets better. His link to a more complete discussion of the Communist Manifesto begins like this:

When it comes to belief systems, there are many ideas which, if challenged, tend to provoke violent defensive reactions on the part of their believers. Star Trek fans, a disproportionate number of whom are pseudoscience afictionados, tend to become irritable when reminded of the vast gulf between Trek pseudoscience and real science. Creationists tend to become emotional and defensive when reminded that their precious ideas may make for good religious dogma, but they bear no resemblance whatsoever to science. And in spite of the utter failure of communism in the twentieth century, its defenders attack any criticism as "capitalist dogma".

That seems reasonable to you?

It gets worse of course. He claims that recessions are a good thing, he thinks that a "crisis of overproduction" means that there is "more consumer choice", and that workers will get more than the barest minimum needed to keep them alive without intervention from governments, unions, or other "communist" institutions.

In short, whether or not he's a liberal Canadian in real life, his essays are a Randian tirade that goes on at great length to make three things abundantly clear:

• Wong really hates Star Trek and its fans.
• Wong has no fucking clue what Marx said even on things that he is literally quoting word for word from Marx!
• Wong has Milton Friedman's cock lodged so deeply in his throat that he needs a tracheotomy.

-Username17

[Aharon]

Wong doesn't hate Star Trek, he's just some kind of Science Fiction grognard: "Star Trek: TOS is better than TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT"; "The OT is better than the PT"

Marxism: His points make more sense when looking at actual nations trying to implement it (see the Russia and GDR examples), and he should have constructed his argument based on that.
I conceed that he's wrong trying to shoehorn Marx' Manifesto into having intended this implementation. In this case, I unfortunately haven't read the primary literature myself, and my exposure to the secondary literature has been more than 10 years ago, so I'll just shut up for now.

Milton Friedman's cock:
Yay for interracial gay porn, and thanks for the mental image of Wong at work below the visible part of this picture

[Lago PARANOIA]

Marxism: His points make more sense when looking at actual nations trying to implement it (see the Russia and GDR examples), and he should have constructed his argument based on that.

Prohibition was distinctly an American Conservative Christian plan by people who called themselves devout Christians. On the other hand, the Bible fucking loves some wine. Even -- yes, especially -- a swarthy criminal jew named Jesus. If you're going strictly by what happens in the bible, Jesus's personal opinion is that people should have more wine for none reason.

So if someone says that they're reformulating alcohol policy and laws according to Christian principles, you have to realize that they could simultaneously be talking about increasing access to alcohol or reducing it. And neither of them would be lying. The only way you know what is really going on is by looking at the particulars.

The analogies with 'implementing Marxism' and 'Marxism has been repudiated utterly' or 'all nations have implemented Marxism to some degree' should be clear now. I hope your ignorance is fought.

[Username17]

Marxism: His points make more sense when looking at actual nations trying to implement it (see the Russia and GDR examples), and he should have constructed his argument based on that.

He doesn't have an argument, because he doesn't have the slightest fucking clue about what he's talking about. I don't know whether he's actually read the Communist Manifesto or just skimmed around looking for exciting sounding quotes to mine, but he displays absolutely no indication that he has actually understood the damn thing.

This is the third time he describes a strength of capitalism as a weakness. Chronic over-production is not a bad thing! It's actually a good thing, for two reasons:

1. Availability of necessities. When the supply of a product is controlled so that it matches demand, there is always the risk that the government bureaucrats who are doing this "matching" will make a mistake, resulting in a supply shortfall (remember the Soviet bread lines?). However, when there's an over-abundance of product, this cannot happen. Consider the example of the fresh produce section at your local supermarket. They throw out a lot of food, because they chronically stock more than they can sell. Is this bad? Of course not; it ensures that nobody with a job (or even a welfare cheque) will starve, and it also lets us carefully pick only the most ripe and appetizing food.
2. Freedom of consumer choice. When there are too many products out there, all vying for your money, you have the luxury of choosing which one you want. But Karl Marx's communist government would take away your ability to choose what you need and which supplier you'll use. The freedom to choose is not a triviality; it is power. Why does the government care what voters think, even if only during election years? Because our votes give us the power to choose the other party. Why do companies care what customers think? Because our dollars give us the power to choose a competitor. In a free market, the masses have the power to not only punish a company for wrongdoing, but to totally destroy it, driving into bankruptcy and erasing it from the face of the planet.

He seems to think that "over production" means that more goods are made than people will buy, and that is good because it means that consumers get to choose to buy higher quality or more personally appropriate goods. That's not what it means. Over production means that demand is insufficient to keep up with supply, and the people making supply lose their jobs and depress demand even further because now they can't buy stuff. This is not a "strength" of anything. If you think that a crisis of overproduction (which is the same thing as a demand-triggered recession) is a good thing, you're either completely heartless or batshit insane.

Anyone who can't at the very least grasp the idea that recessions are bad has no business attempting to review an economics treatise from any era. And Wong is very up front about the fact that he doesn't understand that:

How can periodic recessions be a strength, you ask? That's simple: like any self-regulating system, a free market economy corrects itself whenever it gets "out of whack". Sometimes, this correction comes in the form of a recession, and sometimes, it comes in the form of a boom. Either way, it's evidence of the free market's self-regulating mechanism in action. Millions of people subtly and collectively influence the cyclical direction of countless separate industries through their spending and investing choices (every dollar counts as a "vote" of sorts, making the free market more democratic than the government in many ways). Did you ever wonder why central banks often raise interest rates in order to slow down an "overheated" economy? It's because they understand that know that an excessive upswing must be followed by a correspondingly violent downswing, so they try to encourage the masses to invest more and spend less. At all times, it is the masses who are truly in control of the economy, while the government merely tries to nudge them in the right direction. Compare this to the communist system, where the government takes control of the economy away from the masses. It is ironic that an economic system which purports to fight for the masses will actually take away most of their power.

He thinks that a recession is democracy in action? That people are choosing to not have jobs? Rather than calling this the "Great Recession", we should call it the "Great Vacation", because obviously it's caused by tens of millions of people all around the globe deciding to spend more time with their families, and the giant associated increase in suicides must be from pure joy!

-Username17

[Libertad]

@ Wong attacking Trek for not using "real science":

Didn't Star Wars make heavy use of Hollywood science, like how the explosion of the first Death Star wouldn't carry sound through space; or how Endor would have become post-apocalyptic for being in close proximity to the second Death Star's explosion; or how Naboo has a planet core made entirely out of normal sea water and has low enough pressure for a ship to fly through; or how parsecs is used as a measurement of time instead of distance?

I'm sure Wong has a perfectly logical explanation for each and every one.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Seems relevant: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Civilia ... _starships

[John Magnum]

Does Wong even try to present evidence that there exists an ideal equilibrium state of economies, toward which recessions and booms always nudge things? Does he think it's even possible for depressions to occur? That passage on recessions seems like it is really taking some of the stupider axioms of ultra-right-wing "free"-market-fellaters and doing idiotic things with them.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Wong attacking Trek for not using "real science":

As a ST fan, I think it's kind of churlish to do a tu quoque on science.

ST has always been pro-rationalism and pro-skepticism, with the exception of Enterprise. Even so, ST lapses into pseudoscience are pretty appalling. Not just their stupid made-up science like positronic brains either, but when they misrepresent real science (VOY: Threshold) or worse when they misrepresent real science to push a hideous moral (ENT: Dear Doctor).

Sure, ST is less pseudoscientific than pretty much any show that you care to mention. But because it is also specifically pro-rationalism, we also need to hold the show to a higher standard in this area.

[ishy]

(...) or how parsecs is used as a measurement of time instead of distance?

I actually know the answer to this one, I haven't seen the movies, so I've been catching up with darths & droids. And they talk about it here:
http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0767.html
So the reason is: Han Solo is a moron.

[Kaelik]

So technically, Han Solo's statement could be compatible with reality and parsecs as distance, in that the actual Kessel Run involves skirting close to a giant cluster of Black Holes, so doing it in the fewest parsecs means that you cut the closest to the black holes without dying, and therefore your ship is not a hunk of junk.

Of course, since the Kessel Run being an attempt to skirt a black hole cluster was made up way later, George Lucas is still a retarded monkey.

[Juton]

If you look at ObiWan's during this scene he has a pretty incredulous look on his face. I think that suggests that in universe Han is either an idiot or trying to fool some rubes.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

If you look at ObiWan's during this scene he has a pretty incredulous look on his face. I think that suggests that in universe Han is either an idiot or trying to fool some rubes.

I think it just means Alec Guinness was smarter than George Lucas.

[Chamomile]

Ben's reaction to obviously false information is in the script.

[Kaelik]

Ben's reaction to obviously false information is in the script.

Even though you are just making that up out of your ass and you are completely wrong, you are still an idiot for using it to argue that Han is dumb as shit.

If I were going to lie about how fast I run, I would know what measurements to lie in.

Likewise, ship captains know what unit of measurement is used to describe ship speeds, or the time ships take to go X distance.

And if Han were lying, he would lie in the right measurement, and Obi Wan knowing he was lying with the force would not in any way prove your point.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Are you saying that ishy, Chamomile, and David Morgan-Mar are all lying?

[hyzmarca]

(...) or how parsecs is used as a measurement of time instead of distance?

I actually know the answer to this one, I haven't seen the movies, so I've been catching up with darths & droids. And they talk about it here:
http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0767.html
So the reason is: Han Solo is a moron.

That isn't Han Solo. That's Greedo. Han Solo was the green guy. Greedo killed him, took his place, and stole his ship.

[Chamomile]

Are you saying that ishy, Chamomile, and David Morgan-Mar are all lying?

Also imdb, apparently, who maliciously fabricated the line in the script just to make Kaelik angry.

[Kaelik]

Are you saying that ishy, Chamomile, and David Morgan-Mar are all lying?

No, I was saying that Chamomile is a fucking liar, and I didn't say anything about the other two. But now I see that Chamomile is just illiterate/gullible and is taking the word of some guy who thinks that Usain Bolt is the fastest racer in all the land, but that when Ryan Bailey, an olympic sprinter lies about his speed he claims to run the 100m in 6.12 Newtons.

Once again, while I believed that Cham was pulling that out of his ass, it doesn't matter that he was actually talking about some other guy who refers to two of eight scripts as indicating a lie. Because it being a lie has fucking nothing to do with a professional smuggler knowing what unit of measurement people use for ship speeds/distances.

People who fly ships for a living are not going to lie with the wrong units. Do you really think it is more likely that Lucas planned for Han Solo to be a fucking idiot who doesn't know his own profession than that Lucas didn't know space measurements that he never ever used in his life?

[Chamomile]

Describing the stupid in that post is really hard. The amount of idiocy is so jaw-dropping it leaves me wondering where to start. Pointing out that Han Solo is a fictional character and is therefore entirely capable of actions that would not make sense for a real person might be good. Or maybe how no amount of internet rage is going to change the fact that it is written in the script that Han Solo's line was "obvious misinformation," which completely sinks your position that Han Solo's line wasn't obvious misinformation no many how many tortured mental gymnastics you try to put yourself through.

[Stubbazubba]

Kaelik, walk away, you're so wrong about this.