A lot of cocoa farmers have never tasted chocolate, so it tracks that in the terminal capitalism of the Galactic Empire, moisture farmers wouldn’t have access to moisture.
On my life I didn’t click the link but I know it’s that John Oliver episode and I’m scared to watch it because I love chocolate. I know that’s selfish but I don’t have a lot of just for me things I enjoy and I’m loathe to take one away.
I told my wife and daughter today that I wouldn’t be eating chocolate anymore and when I asked why, I said, “I’ll tell you, but only if you want me to ruin chocolate for you forever.” They opted not to know.
That’s almost literally everything we consume in modern society. It all has costs that hurt someone along the way. Exploitation is a part of capitalism. Only you can draw your line in the sand.
Similarly a lot of my 2x and 3x great grandparents looked better in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s than their kids and grandkids. Most of them wouldve been born in rural regions around the late 1800s so I suspect you are correct in what made folks age faster.
They also have starships, so many droids they are considered junk, and fully working replacement limbs. I have to assume they can fix bad skin. I guess it’s like Patrick Stewart/Picard’s “in the future nobody cares if you’re bald”.
IDK, maybe not. It’s easy to think of space travel and robotics as more complex than medicine, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we have mass produced droids before we’ve totally cured skin aging. Maybe not interstellar travel, but you never know
star wars isn't a utopian society, though. lukes family can't afford or won't spend the money on a droid that could do all the work for them. or the might be supply issues on tatooine - they buy c3po and r2 off jawas, after all.
In The Phantom Menace they didn’t even use Republic standard currency on Tatooine. I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that they don’t have access to all the most advanced technology in the galaxy.
None of those technologies have anything to do with skin. Well, ok, the replacement limbs do, and showed that they can produce artificial skin that even includes the sensation of touch. But what moisture farmers have time to book an appointment on a medical ship when it happens to be in the area (or a quick light jump away)? Oh right, abundance of droids that could be doing whatever labour is involved on a moisture farm (carry the daily bottle of water to the fridge? What is their output even like?).
The next star wars should be about a trade deal between Tatooine and some ocean planet to exchange some water for some sand and moisture farmers hiring some force using mercenaries (let’s explore one of the other cults of the force instead of just the Sith and Jedi again). It would be interesting if the whole thing was written to make everyone morally ambiguous, like a lot of chaotic goods, true neutrals, and lawful bads so that at the end of it, there’s a debate about whether the outcome was a good one. That’s a lot better than debate about what the dumbest parts were.
The next star wars should be about a trade deal between Tatooine and some ocean planet to exchange some water for some sand and moisture farmers hiring some force using mercenaries (let’s explore one of the other cults of the force instead of just the Sith and Jedi again).
But what moisture farmers have time to book an appointment on a medical ship when it happens to be in the area (or a quick light jump away)?
Maybe moisture farming is really easy. Maybe Luke spent like three hours a day moisture farming and the rest of the time bullseyeing womp rats in his T16. That’s probably why he’s such a good pilot.
I mean…none of what you said is incorrect, but none of it precludes the premise either.
On Earth here in 2023 we have cars and trucks, yet many people in developing countries still walk or ride animals to get where they need to go.
E-waste is a major issue and smartphones are ubiquitous, yet there are still areas even in the US that have limited or no Internet access, and in developing countries, access to even fresh water, let alone electricity and Internet, can be hard to come by.
We are capable of amazing medical feats like gene therapy and advanced prosthetics, yet millions lack access to basic care, and millions more die from preventable disease every year.
So maybe in Star Wars it’s less an issue of “they have bad skin because there’s nothing that can be done about it” and more, “They’re poor people struggling to get by in an unforgiving, backwater location, so that type of care is inaccessible, prohibitively expensive, or seen as a non-essential luxury.”
How much better would Rogue One have been if they took a quick 20 minutes to explain how sand effects time dilation? But no, we gotta have some stupid hallway scene and emotional stakes. Unwatchable.
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