Star Trek Social Club

I don’t believe what we see from the genetically-engineered characters in DS9 is representative of the intellectual disabilities they possessed beforehand.

The implication is that, as Khan and the augments from the 20th Century developed a superiority complex and compulsion to enact their desires on the world, personality traits from Lauren, Patrick, and the others also became heightened. Lauren may have had learning disabilities and a high libido before her cognitive abilities were enhanced. The learning disability was removed, but her enhanced cognitive abilities tipped the high libido into a permanent state of nymphomania.

Likewise, Patrick may have had learning disabilities and emotional processing issues. The learning disabilities got “fixed” but the cognitive enhancements supercharged his emotional processing issues.

Also inferred from dialogue is Bashir’s enhancements were less intensive than the others, which prevented him from developing the kinds of neurosis the others suffered from. Jack, for instance, mentions a “full package” implying a full augmentation, à la Khan and his supermen.

I agree that there was likely censorship involved that toned down the presentation of the neurosis (a great deal of TV was like this at the time) along with a lack of nuanced understanding of the subject matter.

It was significantly harder as a writer to research a subject before the 2000s than it is today. This is before Wikipedia and Google where researching a topic like this could take months and misinformation was harder to refute. Look at how they did poor Chakotay.

Writers used personal experience, cliches and stereotypes to inform their characters. I find the Institute characters to be extreme representations of kids that grew up with parents that would go too far to make their kids the smartest.

I think Bashir is "lucky" not because the surgery didn't have extreme side effects. He is lucky because his parents pushing him resulted in him being the type of person that society could accept. His trauma made him a people pleaser rather than a recluse or a hedonist or neurotic.

DS9 was not a UPN show - it was syndicated.

The residents of the Institute are a bit of a minefield, not least because the show didn't do much to sketch out exactly what challenges they were living with. We're unfortunately left to assume that they would be at risk of harming themselves or others were they living on their own.

I do think Lauren was portrayed as having delusions more than any kind of "sex addiction," and you could make the case that Patrick may not be able to safely care for himself.

But a lot has happened in the deinstitutionalization movement since those episodes were produced, so it's pretty tough to justify way they were treated. It is, however, a decent mirror to the way society was at that time.