Star Trek: Get rid of holodecks.

While my argument is focused heavily on the dangers and ethics of the technology (which overlap quite a bit), I am not actually suggesting banning it. The problems come up when it is used recklessly, which even the absolute best crew does frequently; thus I believe that the recreational ones should not be a standard feature on ships. Obviously ships intended for deep space exploration would greatly benefit from them (requiring a far greater ratio than seen on TNG, where we've agreed it's an incredibly limited resource)."If the drawbacks outweighed the benefits, or if the potential drawbacks..."Agreed. I'm pretty sure this is what we've been arguing."Behavior issues ... are supervisory in nature."I should have clarified, I actually like Barclay. His singular spotted record shows issues of standards and their measurements. His 'addiction' may brush against ethical issues, but to my knowledge never lead to anyone being placed in danger. Someone like chief La Forge, who has been directly responsible for multiple near fatal holodeck incidents, has not even gotten an unsatisfactory evaluation for it. Nor lose any of his arbitrary power over the resource allocations.Mountain Climbing:A holodeck would be a bad choice for this. First of all it being a very limited resource, stacked with the hours/days needed to scale a peak; would cause a long que behind that one program (leading to more crew unrest). If anyone can join in, the suspension of disbelief would be ruined every time someone new walks in the door, over thin air thousands of feet up, and then joins in having just reminded everyone where the real floor is. The experience could not compare.Regarding size (a factor to the above):Based on how far characters are able to spread out in the holodeck (literally getting lost), it is likely far larger than the waiting area seen before programs load, which raises the potential quality, but at a price of ship design. On a space station this is less of an issue. DS9 (Deep Space 9) once had a full sized baseball game, the camera showing a couple dozen people spread out at least 500 feet, with the play area closer to 25,000 square feet feet [15].Vic Fontaine:A self aware program on DS9. The design of a space station allows for the holodeck to not be constantly networked to every other system, and most often uses a monetary system to pay for it (as opposed to pulling rank). Seven years, with only a single holodeck malfunction I could find mention of [16], one which did not place the station in jeopardy. Thus mention of Vic Fontaine only enhances my argument."The Doctor"See Emergency Medical Holograms under Ethics in round 3. Even a benevolent program like an EMH, can torture and murder crew members."The big ethical problem is not so much in the creation of holographic life forms, but in their mistreatment."The mistreatment has been habitually done on Starships time and again. The solution after Moriarty was lobotomizing all the programs as a precaution to ensure it never happened again, which since we seem to agree they are a lifeform, is pretty ugly.Benefits (mentioned in round 3, but listed in round 1): R&R: Too small a fraction of the average crew benefits, at the cost of creating a divided caste system (as covered previously). Problem solving sims: No examples yet to counter. In addition to the design needs for such problems, being unlikely to warrant a full scale recreational holodecks on ship. Training sims: [Insert Straw Man fallacy about "swordfighting skills" and "bostaff skills" here]... But seriously, using the technology for actual skill maintenance for the whole crew (instead of sexing and/or killing real seeming people by the upper caste), is a clear benefit to having holoemitters on ship. Holodecks are a wonderful tool, but complacency has turned them into not merely an abused resource, but a true danger. Sources:[15] http://myplace.frontier.com...[16] http://mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com...