Warning: The following three are all from Star Trek. I’ve grouped them together because I’m aware that some people have an aversion to said fictional universe. Also, that some younger people aren’t even aware of it! Whatever, bury your bias and give these a try.

#10 Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home – When Scotty talks into a computer mouse, then touch types on a QWERTY keyboard and uses a 1986 computer UI, despite the fact he’s traveled back in time 300 years from 2286.

A classic scene from the film. Another being the pivotal moment where Kirk confirms that they don’t use money in the 23rd century, pivotal in the sense that this scene cements the non-existence of money in the future of the Start Trek universe. A point that makes Trekonomics all the most interesting. 

I remember ‘the mouse’ bit more because I thought it was impressive that Scotty could touch type so well, considering I’d never seen him use a keyboard before (most UI’s on starships being either voice activated or simply Hitchhikers Guide-esque touch screen backlit gubbins). 

I think of it every time I use – or introduce others too – a new UI or device. The idea that it will be so long lasting that people in the future will know how it works, when in reality, could many people even remember how to programme a VCR, or set an alarm on their first mobile phone, or tune a radio dial, or send a telegram over the wire?

It ties into the fickle and fast nature of technological change, and in an exciting way, begs the question of what future UI might actually look and operate like, when they are clearly just a product of what the technology of the time can afford.

Like, we all know that part of operating a smartphone is plugging it in every night, and that ‘portable’ computers need mostly to be tethered to a power-line, and that if you want to watch movies on your tablet device that you might need to download them in advance. Would someone from a future where they have wireless and ever present power and internet access know to do those thing? Imagine the classes that must exist in the Star Trek universe, that Scotty must have taken. UI History and Advanced Legacy Technology For Time Travellers.

The scene also ties into the cultural assumptions that smart people probably know everything and that in the future we’ll all be smarter. If only that were true and Moore’s Law applied to collective human intelligence. Alas, the linage of Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump prove that time alone doesn’t enhance intelligence. 

#11 Star Trek, TNG, Relics: When Scotty tells Geordie not to give an accurate deadline estimates to Captain Picard, in order to look more impressive when he get’s the job done quicker.

This has the planning fallacy, Hofstadter’s Law and the maxim ‘under promise, over deliver’ written all over it. Plus a scattering of people being inspired to be diligent when the person in charge is stable and fair (Captain Kirk is a semi-misogynistic egotist, Picard is the future manifestation of Clement Attlee, John Maynard Keynes and Maya Angelou. Heck, he even looks like Attlee and has the intonation of Angelou). 

#12 Star Trek, TNG, The Best of Both Worlds: When they have to change phaser frequencies because the Borg shields adapt and prevent them from being attacked. 

I can’t find video of this, but I think I remember it happening more than once. The analogy is of people adapting to methods that were previously successful in fooling or duping them.

I think of it most from an advertising and marketing point of view. Techniques are developed to coerce consumers, but they slowly become immune or less susceptible, meaning the frequency or method needs to be changed. Think, website banners, pop-ups ads, newsletter sign-up pop-ups, ad-blockers and ad-blocker detection messages, ‘skip this ad in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1’, video screen adshels on escalators, and the takeover of all of them at once for one campaign.  

Also, in a less overt sense, it reminds me of the constant ‘levelling of the playing field’ as SME’s learn smaller scale tricks like having a website, then making it ‘SEO’d’, then using adwords, then studying their analytics, then getting on social media and so on. Each milestone over the years has proved beneficial for early adopters, but as soon as everyone learns the lesson, it becomes ineffective, or a least, so competitive that the effort involved in trying to win outweighs any benefit left to gain. 

In this sense I feel that Instagram has hit saturation point, with so many people buying followers that the metric of seeing a high follower number has become almost meaningless, or at least, more a sign of someone having bothered to buy followers. This too ties back to Personal Parables #3 and the futile nature of constant and ongoing one-upmanship.

All which makes me wonder where social media went in the Start Trek universe. Do we all give it up in 300-400 years time? Maybe that one’s a question for Riker Googling. 

Footnote. Turns out Patrick Stewart even played Attlee once!