This isn’t about guys’n’gals.

This is simpky about how people work:

If your peers (friends, colleagues, family) have an opinion (any opinion), their default expectation is that you share that opinion - this is what being a peer is mostly about.

You can demonstrate solidarity by agreeing - this is virtually always the safe option.

You can demonstrate backbone by disagreeing - this can generate respect or animosity.

You can refuse to weigh in - this is mostly a middle ground between the two above.

How it actual shakes out in reality will depend on a myriad of factors, many of which you’re not even consciously aware of.

Thus, this random internet stranger can give you only three pieces of advice:

• Trust your instincts on how to handle this. Your subconscious is very well wired to navigate social situations as best as possible.

• If you ever change your opinion or “change your opinion”, announce it clearly and give/make up a reason. People disrespect people who are inconsistent, but they respect people who can admit to mistakes / learn.

• Sometimes, you can’t win. Sometimes, someone will be pissed off, no matter what you do. It’s no fault of yours, some situations are just not salvageable to begin with.

Right.

In particular I really like the episodes that deal with interacting with other civilizations, diplomacy, and exploration more-so than say, an anomaly episode.

In light of this, and since you were able to work through the not-so-stellar episodes of ST, I’d strongly argue that Babylon 5 should be your next stop.

It has a slow start, some more mixed episodes, dated special effects and both main characters (they switched after season 1) are plain “heroic American leader” types, but virtually everything else is top tier even today. An excellent political plot, humor, great characters with genuine growth.

Just be aware that it is different from DS9 (personally, I like both).

Battlestar Galactica (the new one) and The Expanse are probably worth pointing out, too. To me, they’re the best high-production-value sci-fi shows that didn’t sacrifice their plot. Nevertheless, both are far more grim than the shows you’ve mentioned and overall “feel” different.

Found the morality relativist.

Except at that point the Mafia are somehow supposedly the good guys?

Anyone who hits enter on a dd command without triple-checking it gets exactly what they deserve.

I’m aware.

I just didn’t want to go into detail with this particular can of worms.

Hypothesis: what matters here is a social toolbox for engaging with “attractive”/compatible women in a non-romantic/sexual way.

I.e. someone who, even as a teenager, had lots of female friends, is likely to have a learned how to deal with them as persons, beyond “I’d like to hit that”.

(Paradoxically, such a person is more likely to find a romantic partner, because they might have lots of M-F acquaintances/friendships that can potentially become something more.)

Someone who never learned that, can only interact with (to them) attractive women through the lens of “I’d like to hit that”, which has a much higher risk of ending in failure.

If someone in the second category was always raised on the values of romantic success being a requirement for a non-failed life, and possibly with a touch of chauvinism/misogyny, they might wind up caught up in a frustrating loop of failure.

This is how incels can happen.

A landlord and their tenant(s) are at a natural conflict of interest to begin with.

Also, for most tenants, the rising costs for many goods and services associated to housing are bundled into rent, so to them, it’s their landlord who’s jacking up prices and being frugal with repairs etc.

Next, the term “landlords” encompasses not only uncle Mike who invested his life savings in two apartments to secure his retirement, but also the millionaire who owns a dozen houses and the middle manager who doesn’t even own the units they’re managing but has to represent a large company.

So landlords make for easy targets of frustration to begin with.

A landlord who is, on top of that, intent on not only covering costs (including their own), but wants to create generational wealth get rich(er) quickly, will have to squeeze their tenants more.

Remember: wealth isn’t created. It’s extracted.

(Yes, there’s money genuinely being generated somewhere in the realms of credits and banking, but my LL isn’t being paid by a bank. They’re being paid by me.)

Arguably, that’s actually plausible

• No one claimed the Alliance were free from casual racism. They may be trying, but their personal culture was formed by decades of imperial rule.

• Those medals are for “command staff” only. Han is the captain of the MF and Luke is the acting squad leader of Red Squad (you might notice that the veteran, who missed his shot but survived, doesn’t get a medal, either.)