[flagged]

And science fiction in particular: it is meant to be a reflection on reality.

> I’ve often wondered if The Office inadvertently trained people to be bad managers.

Maybe it exacerbated it, but The Office was mostly a documentary of preexisting behavior.

This is a classic breakdown:

https://ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-t...

The nice thing about Michael Scott is that while he is a self-absorbed and very flawed manager and human, he also genuinely cares a great deal about his employees.

Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) worked in an office for many years, and so he had credibility in making funny observations about it.

There's value in allegory. I don't think there's value in modern mainstream television or film.

A historian can make their interpretation of history plausible. A group of historians can reinforce a narrative that is then undercut by the next generation of historians. What made Rommel a good commander is a complex question and we might not yet be done exploring the answer.

Picard the character was derived from the writers’ understanding of historical leaders. Saying the writing of him was solely for money or entertainment is like saying that a historian is only writing for a paycheck and prestige.

If you read the writings of the TNG writers, they were quite caught up in the ethical dilemmas they were presenting. Art that is purely for money is contrived and one dimensional.

Science fiction has an interesting and irreplaceable role in art: it can take a situation out of its immediate context and put it under another lens, clear of its modern cultural baggage. What makes science fiction interesting or not interesting is what it does with that ability: does it promote a simple good vs evil scenario, or does it explore the rich shades of grey that play out in real scenarios?

TNG was particularly good at showing real moral and ethical dilemmas that were quite thought provoking. Their head writers, particularly Michael Pillar and Ronald Moore and Jeri Taylor were deeply interested in exploring the implications and moral contradictions of the plots they presented.

Waving it all away as money grabbing is a reductive history at best.

> The fault with taking lessons from fictions is the writer can make any outcome seem plausible.

Agree but...

There is fiction also in stories of actual leaders (obviously even if 'non fiction') but more so in actual fiction (no matter who writes it even someone who has had the actual experiences). In a sense non-fiction more dangerous possibly (since it's taken more seriously and generally by many people unfortunately assumed to be true).

So even movies about real people or books have fiction ie creative license. How many times has the Steve Jobs story about 'the other side of the fence needs to be good (or whatever it was)' been told? Did it really happen (just because Steve told it or even his father related it?) Does it matter? Point is you might as well take most stories with a grain of salt. Even if again non-fiction.

What amazes me is how people are discussing a fictional character that they enjoyed watching and apparently learned from (because that character was entertaining). If someone had written a book (with the same info and credentials as the writers) most likely it would never have been taken seriously at all.

Maybe the take away isn't to use the word learn or taught but 'inspired me to think about' which happens in many situations and many places.

> Rommel was able to lead a small group of men to victory after victory, read a biography of him.

My point is also agreeing better than fiction writers but still who knows for sure the truth or what lucky events lead to Rommel being able to do what he did.

Well probably better to look to Picard than a literal Nazi…

>The fault with taking lessons from fictions is the writer can make any outcome seem plausible.

the fault with taking lessons from history is to mistake what just happens to be the case for what could be, or as Rumi said:

"The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell and broke into pieces. Everyone took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth."

thinking the world exhausts itself in history is to mistake the particular for the universal. Shakespeare knew more about reality because, not despite writing fiction. Or put differently, if the actual leaders of our current world were characters of fiction we'd question whether the author wasn't taking the cheap route and was lacking some depth.

Yes, mostly?

My feeling is that while enjoyable and thought provoking, TNG is still a work of fiction, and as such favored entertainment and legibility within a 45 minute window over nuance or subtly. That meant there were clear distinctions between "good" and "bad" sides, and scenarios often felt like they were constructed backwards from an outcome/clever solution.

I think that in turn causes people to view the real world in the same way, except they are always the "good" side and solutions that require compromise and tradeoffs are seen as unacceptable failures.

Or Homer’s?

You're describing the idea that thought leadership should be based on individual character, regardless of [non]fictional status, which is exactly the point of the pushback.

How on earth could you come to the conclusion that the people pushing back believe all fictional characters are good models of thought leadership? The parent's implication was that none are.

Three times. Nixon was a stage actor and in fact that’s how he met his wife, Pat (she was also an actor).

I'm not saying that it is isolated, I'm saying that it has too much influence.

Maybe it doesn't have to be.