The least realistic thing in all of Star Trek is that 99% of the population isn’t addicted to Holodecks?! It’s literally a world that feels, looks, tastes real. You can have any friends you want, and you can program them to be completely kind, wonderful people. You can do amazing things with only mild fear that you can even get a papercut. Go anywhere without traveling, see anything, be anyone. But somehow almost everyone manages not to live there forever? I think not.
This post (yeah, why ISN’T holo-diction an epidemic in the future?) is making me think about how there’s a greatly diminished need for escapism! On Earth, and in the other idyllic parts of the Federation we see, people have all their basic needs guaranteed, so they’re free to pursue careers and hobbies they love. Without money, there’s no barrier to study or travel. Future Humans are stereotyped as being irrepressibly friendly, so I imagine community is pretty easy to come by too (and difficult to avoid – all the “isolated misanthrope” characters we encounter had to literally find deserted moons someplace to live on). Even better: the people in the community are also living low-fear lives doing things they care about, so on the whole they’re probably kinder and more interesting than people today.
When we see holodeck addiction in Star Trek, something has gone wrong. Barclay isn’t getting the support he needs in a high-stress professional environment. Nog is suffering from intense trauma he’s not ready to process. Our friends on Voyager are stuck on a sterile ship with the same 100 people for their whole lives and every time they go outside someone tries to kill them.
But most people at most times in their lives probably go with friends on the occasional binge-LARP of Sherlock Holmes adventures and then that’s it! They go home! Because as cool as it is, spending that much time in an unreal environment with no real accomplishments or consequences to your actions – the very same things that make it so appealing to us – would feel unsatisfying when real life has so many opportunities.
Not only would it be easier to be a saint in paradise, I’d probably see the “are you still watching?” screen on Netflix less often is all I’m saying.
