Unfortunately, this equality is achieved by handicapping everyone. It’s a society where the most talented ballet dancer has to wear weights, the most intelligent people have to wear an apparatus that continually interrupts their train of thought, and the most handsome would have to wear a mask to make them equal with the least attractive. What I learned from that short story is that our world is diverse and that we can have equality not by making everyone the same, but by embracing diversity and accepting people as they are.

The second Vonnegut book I read was his first, Player Piano, a novel that at its core has fairly accurately predicted our world today: automation putting more and more people out of work, a society where there is a wealthy upper class, and then everyone else who has been displaced by automated production techniques. Not exactly the utopian future Star Trek presented.

In Planet of the Apes we saw a future where mankind destroyed itself in a nuclear war. We don’t know this until the end of the movie when Charlton Heston discovers the ruins of the Statue of Liberty. The destruction of human society allowed apes to become the dominant primates, another dystopian view of the future. Themes of nuclear destruction dominated sci-fi literature of the time as nuclear war was not just a concept—it was a very real and justifiable fear.

Watching Star Trek: The Original Series today, I see the same themes I saw as a child. But there are cracks in the veneer. These cracks are a symptom of the time the series was written, and the fact that I am older, and hopefully, wiser.

Sexism is rampant in Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future. One of the most celebrated episodes is Space Seed, where we first meet Khan Noonien Singh (played by Ricardo Montalbán). The episode is full of sexism. The female lead, Marla McGivers (played by Madlyn Rhue) is treated as little more than a sexual object for Khan instead of a brilliant and talented historian. We see this in other episodes where beautiful, scantily clad women are shown with a filter that softens their appearance and gives the impression of enhanced beauty. They are often afraid and need to be protected or saved by the male members of the crew. In the early iteration of the Star Trek universe, society is still dominated by men. I often have to remind myself that the treatment of women is a byproduct of the age it was created in—it was a different time, and attitudes were far different. Even the lone female writer on the Star Trek writing staff, Dorthy Fontana, had to use a pseudonym for the credits (D.C. Fontana) or in some cases, Michael Richards.

Many of the plots have holes, the sets are primitive by today’s standards, and William Shatner’s overacting is beyond that of an overindulged Shakespearean stage thespian. He is almost a parody of bad actor. Don’t get me wrong—I still think his Kirk was the best of all the Star Trek Captains. His bombast often fit the character, and as a child, I wanted to be Captain Kirk: confident, strong, decisive, and a bit of a ham.

Of all of the science fiction I have read, utopian and dystopian, Star Trek: The Original Series still shows the future that I hope for humanity to grow into. It’s a future where the ideals are peace, equality, and harmony. Greed, hate, and intolerance are vestiges of a more barbaric past.

I look at the world we live in today and I see our society at a crossroads. In one direction we have Trump—a road paved with hatred and intolerance, a road that will take us to the dystopian future described in Player Piano. The other road is not perfect, but leads to a future that while not quite as idealistic and utopian as Star Trek will at least take us to a place where we can continue to work for equality, peace, and tolerance. Maybe the innocent childhood vision I had, the utopian future that Star Trek presented to me, will come true someday. For my son’s sake—and for the future of humanity—I hope that is the road we choose to go down.