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Could you elaborate? Do you mean they’re lazy at world-building? Or do you assert that the process of world-building itself is lazy storytelling? Personally, I

Could you elaborate? Do you mean they’re lazy at world-building? Or do you assert that the process of world-building itself is lazy storytelling? Personally, I happen to love the Ferengi and their Rules. They started off as villains on TNG but they’re just too comical for that. DS9 seriously developed their culture into a lovely satire on capitalism. At the same time, the show developed their individual characters to an impressive extent, transforming them from the “greedy merchant/criminal” hat to something much deeper. I think the greatest lesson of Star Trek is that we need to look past our stereotypes and past the most visible manifestations of culture to see people as individuals. The Ferengi, being such a strong caricature, challenged us to do so even more than the Klingons.

ant6n 3y ago
Once you look past the stereotype, the other cultures allow a new perspective on us, that is, the perfect humans in Star Trek. A rather poignant moment in this respect is the Episode in DS9, when the humans encounter the “dominion” with whom they will start a war a 2 years later. Quark gives this little speech to Sisko, arguably the moral center of DS9, who’s been kind of looking down on Quark the whole episode: “The way I see it, hew-mons used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget. But you're overlooking something: Hew-mons used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery. Concentration camps. Interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you. We're better.”
- acheron 3y ago
  That was one of the best moments where the writers actually took the Ferengi society seriously. Unfortunately they didn’t really stick with it later in the series.

ant6n 3y ago

Once you look past the stereotype, the other cultures allow a new perspective on us, that is, the perfect humans in Star Trek. A rather poignant moment in this respect is the Episode in DS9, when the humans encounter the “dominion” with whom they will start a war a 2 years later. Quark gives this little speech to Sisko, arguably the moral center of DS9, who’s been kind of looking down on Quark the whole episode: “The way I see it, hew-mons used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget. But you're overlooking something: Hew-mons used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery. Concentration camps. Interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you. We're better.”

acheron 3y ago
That was one of the best moments where the writers actually took the Ferengi society seriously. Unfortunately they didn’t really stick with it later in the series.