At a press conference about Star Trek: The Next Generation, a reporter asked Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry about casting Patrick Stewart, commenting that "Surely by the 24th century, they would have found a cure for male pattern baldness." Gene Roddenberry had the perfect response.
Which is absolutely bullshit.
You’re not going to change millions of years of evolution by going to star fleet academy.
I’m bald and although I’m blessed with a great skull shape, and being blonde haired also works to my advantage, I would lie if I said I wouldn’t be more attractive with hair.
It's left a little ambiguous because obviously they don't know what would really work, but the timeline was roughly: WWIII -> Post-Atomic Horror -> First contact with the Vulcans, then the whole push into space getting humanity to pull together over the following couple of centuries would be when this happened. It wasn't just cultural stuff like caring about baldness, during that later period all sorts of things were solved, like hunger and various diseases.
Basically we had to hit our lowest point before we could get better.
Also, there's this gem:
At a press conference about Star Trek: The Next Generation, a reporter asked Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry about casting Patrick Stewart, commenting that "Surely by the 24th century, they would have found a cure for male pattern baldness." Gene Roddenberry had the perfect response.
"No, by the 24th century, no one will care."
(Via https://boingboing.net/2015/07/08/star-trek-creators-perfect...)