cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/63230442
LCARS was made in Star Trek as an interface for a civilization that seems like it actually values coordination, clarity, and shared access to knowledge. That is a big part of why I like it so much. It is not just a cool sci-fi look to me. It feels like a vision of technology that is actually trying to help people interface with reality and with each other instead of just farming attention, trapping people in closed platforms, or burying everything under noise.
That is also a lot of why I care about federated social media. Federation shifts things away from giant closed silos and more toward open protocols, shared standards, and communities being able to govern themselves while still being connected to a wider network. To me that feels like one of the most real paths forward, even within capitalism. You do not have to wait for the whole system to magically transform overnight for better structures to start existing. You can build things right now that are more open, more portable, more humane, and more resilient than what most mainstream platforms push people into.
I think that matters because closed systems naturally tend toward lock-in. They want your identity, your audience, your data, your social graph, all tied to one company and one interface. Federation pushes back on that. It makes competition healthier because the value starts coming more from what a platform or community actually offers, not just from how well it can trap people. It gives people and communities more agency, which I think is badly needed.
So this LCARS Niagara theme is partly just because I like the aesthetic, but it is also kind of philosophical. It reflects a view of the future that feels more connected, more legible, and more open. Not less human, not sterile, not flattened into algorithmic sludge, but more empowering. I do not think the answer is sitting around waiting for some total anti-capitalist rupture before anything gets better. I think a lot of progress comes from building systems that already embody better values inside the world we actually live in. Open protocols, shared infrastructure, portability, cooperation, all of that feels like the right direction.
LCARS as a design philosophy is compelling precisely because it refuses to separate aesthetics from values. The idea that an interface should help people interface with reality rather than farm attention is a genuinely good take, and most modern UI design has done the exact opposite. Federation has the right instincts with open protocols and portable identity, but the ActivityPub ecosystem on the ground is a lot messier than the theory, and most people still choose the closed platforms anyway because good UX beats ideological purity in practice. The gap between building it right and getting anyone to actually use it remains the hard part.
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