Oh of course they were dystopias. But at least they were cool and there was a fair amount of competence floating around.

My point is exactly that we got the dystopia but also it's not even a little cool, and it's very stupid. We could have at least gotten the cool dystopia where bad things happen but at least they're part of some kind of sensible longer-term plan. What we got practically breaks suspension of disbelief, it's so damn goofy.

> The primary "technology" of star trek was socialism lol.

Yep. Socialism, and automatic brainwashing chairs. And sending all the oddball non-conformists off to probably die on alien planets, I guess. (The "Original Series" is pretty weird)