Star Trek: Get rid of holodecks.

"Does my opponent think that establishments such as Ten Forward should thus be removed from ships as well?"Ten Forward has much the same function as a mess hall on smaller starships [9]. So no, I am not suggesting removing mess halls, even if there's been a few cases of food related injury (such minor subplots as Q overeating, and some alien on Voyager who could not handle alcohol). Further "Ten Forward is the hub of the ship's social activity. Everyone on board comes here." -Captain Picard [9]. While I do agree it's the most likely place mutiny would be plotted (should the bridge crew abuse their "communist utopia" too much, thus actively causing it), and bar fights (which are awesome) have almost certainly happened there. It is however safe enough to have a real place named after it in Hollywood CA [10], with an average Yelp rating of 4.5 stars. The alternative to Mess Halls, is locking the crew up when not on duty, and maybe feeding them through Borg Alcoves. "The officers have earned some measure of executive privilege and the holodeck is one of their prizes,Stratification of resource allocations. Of the very few people who have access, is the one crew member to receive a bad performance review. This would only enable the holodecks to poison morale outside the clique. Plus holodeck privileges are not revoked from these people, no matter how many times they manage to place to whole ship in danger with it (or accidentally lock themselves in it, when the ship has an emergency)."Can you imagine hosting dignitaries of other civilizations and not providing access to holodecks?"Quite easily. While a holodeck could simulate their homeworld (risking insult in any detail is wrong), plus risk cultural objections to the technology (like if they dislike anything that resembles slavery, or a host of other reasons). It would be far preferable to show them real samples of starfleet culture such as Ten Forward. Putting dignitaries into a holodeck knowing it's prone to malfunction, would risk war. Then there is the problem of races (Klingons, etc.) who would likely object to safety protocols; as displayed by even a half-Klingon child who needed to decrease the safeties for it to be fun, nearly getting Lieutenant Worf and Commander Troi killed [11]."Young people on the ship seems a bigger liability than the holodeck."I'm all for flushing Wesley Crusher out the airlock, but that's a separate argument.Back to ethics.Not only can a small error in phrasing cause programs to become both sentient and hostile [5], but leaving them on too long causes sentience, and all the dangers thereof. James Moriarty attempted to gain freedom, and was imprisoned for all time. The Emergency Medical Holograms developed distinct personalities if left on too long, and were sent to the Dilithium Mines as self aware slaves. One of them stranded in deep space even wrote a book covering their maltreatment (in addition to other abuses in Starfleet, damaging the reputation of the whole, hurting diplomacy), Photons Be Free [13]. Even these EMHs are a danger, Lieutenant Torres having once been crippled and tortured by one wanting her to alter his program, and throwing another crew member off a real cliff (resulting in them having to lobotomize him for safety) [14].A side note: When designing a safer EMH, the best candidate (Doctor Bashir) was rejected as a model, due to discovery of his ethnic group.Photonic Wars.A species the Lokirrim actually destroy holograms when discovered, since they they had a violent civil war when their own holodecks rebelled (not the same, but a danger of the technology) [12]. The Hirogen were nearly wiped out by using Starfleet holodecks with disabled safeties.Sources:[9] http://en.memory-alpha.org...[10] http://www.10forwardcoffee.com...[11] http://en.memory-alpha.org...[12] http://en.memory-alpha.org...[13] http://en.memory-alpha.org...[14] http://en.memory-alpha.org...