BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:
> On Aug 20, 2022 at 6:04:30 PM PDT, "Ubiquitous" <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
>
>> STAR TREK has a huge universe that is constantly growing through the
>> additions of new shows and movies into the franchise. Holding up the
>> narratives and vast array of alien life forms is a solid foundation of
>> lore, fiction science, and various socio-political structures. Among
>> these is Starfleet, a military/exploration organization (the era in
>> question determines which aspect will have the emphasis). This
>> organization's history and formal structure has been fleshed out a lot
>> over the years. One of the key fundamentals of their culture, which
>> spreads across a lot of the Federation-- not just Earth-- is their
>> 'evolution' away from currency and monetary importance. While this
>> sounds utopian in design, it does create some fairly dark issues.
>>
>> The idea that the Federation had ridden itself of the need for money
>> was first introduced in the golden age of Starfleet, during the early
>> days of NEXT GENERATION. The Federation had grown almost complacent
>> over the years of peace: the war with the Klingons had ended, and the
>> Romulans were keeping to themselves. Their evolution past money was
>> something pioneered by Gene Roddenberry, the show's creator, in an
>> effort to show the most ideal and utopian version of what humanity can
>> achieve in the distant future. As the show began to distance itself
>> from Roddenberry, however, who suffered a multitude of health problems
>> at the time, they began to drift away from his vision, often for the
>> best. And in later series, they began to poke holes in the moneyless
>> culture.
>>
>> One such hole, vaguely conceptualized during the last season of TNG,
>> was that the Federation economy was much more trapping and controlling
>> than first appearances might suggest, and acted as a fairly solid brick
>> wall for social mobility. The idea of limiting people into very narrow
>> career paths and choices is present (shown rather than specifically
>> explored) within the Picard show. In this series, the stoic captain has
>> grown old, and has retired from Starfleet to run his ancestral vineyard
>> in France. This is great for him, a man who has inherited this land,
>> but what would happen if someone else wanted a change in career and
>> wanted to make wine? How could one can they 'buy' a vineyard when money
>> no longer exists? Picard shows that inherited wealth is still
>> prevalent, as Picard explicitly owns the vineyard, and there is no
>> suggestion of a communist or sharing scheme. The Federation economy
>> only makes it harder for everyone else to achieve dreams unrelated to
>> what they were born into.
>
> I made this same point years ago in a STAR TREK discussion group. It was
during the DS9 era when episodes were airing showing Sisko and Jake back on
earth visiting his father's restaurant in New Orleans. It looked every bit
like any restaurant you might currently find in New Orleans and I was like,
"How does this work without money?"

And they talked about Jake or Ben having transporter rations so they could
come visit a lot but not every day. Somehow they have money in every way
shape and form except the name.

Do people just wander in, order some food,
eat it, and then get up and leave without paying for anything? And does
Daddy
Sisko just get supplies of meat, poultry, eggs, fish, flour, etc. from
farmers
who just drop it off, free of charge?
>
> With replicator technology, a lot of this becomes meaningless, but all
throughout the TNG-era shows, we've been led to believe that replicator
food
isn't as good as real food, so one assumes the appeal of a restaurant
like
Daddy Sisko's is that it's using real ingredients, cooked by real people,
so
the question then becomes how the hell does it all work?
>

Voyager is the biggest defender here. They said so many horrible things
about replicators and the holo deck that we can’t ever reconcile it. At
least if they’d crippled voyagers holo emitters in the pilot they could
rely on the fact that the system doesn’t work right.

Voyagers food replicators can’t make crisp celery. So every planet they
pass, Neelix takes a runabout down into a gravity well and looks around
randomly for crisp greens to cook with.

Apparently there’s some intrinsic difference between transporter technology
and food replicator technology and holodeck technology. We know replicator
food replicators use a different kind of power than anything else does.

But the systems are at least similar. If they can’t make crisp celery, are
you really going to ride in the transporter? Why the hell not just find
some celery you like and keep it in the transporter buffer and duplicate a
batch now and then? How can you possibly need crisp celery badly enough to
fly a spaceship to the bottom of a gravity well with every planet you pass?
How often do you feed the crew celery? Has anybody mentioned to Neelix that
there is no nutritional benefit in celery?

But then the trolley went completely off the tracks when they made a
restaurant on the hoodeck and people would be in there for days eating and
drinking while there was a food shortage on the real ship and nobody ever
suggested people just go to the holodeck to eat. Does the holodeck subtract
the food from you like it does everything else when you exit? If so, and
you’ve been in there for three days, why don’t you die when you leave?

> And then I pointed out exactly what that paragraph above described: How the
hell does someone who, say, wants to be a chef and run their own restaurant
actually *get* the restaurant? Do they just ask the government for a
building
with a fully-equipped kitchen and a completely furnished dining room and
the
government gives them one? That seems absurd, but otherwise, they
either have
to pay someone for a restaurant or pay someone to build them one. The only
alternative is that the answer is, if you're not already a chef who owns a
restaurant somehow-- like Picard's inherited vineyard-- then no, you can
never
become one.
>
>> The same issue is present with the morally ambiguous Captain Sisko's
>> New Orleans restaurant in DEEP SPACE 9. It's great for Sisko, but what
>> about someone else who wants to open up their own place in the same
>> area? The lack of money eliminates even the possibility of purchasing
>> an establishment. The only other option to rely on a barter system
>> which, effectively, is a primitive and far less measurable form of
>> currency. If one doesn't have the inherited wealth, what exactly can
>> they offer in exchange that the 'wealthy' (for want of a better word)
>> would not already have?
>>
>> The other issue that arises in a world without money is another double
>> edge sword. Removing monetary incentive removes a massive pressure on
>> people who are working endlessly to simply put food on the table. The
>> Federation of the 24th century has eradicated world hunger through the
>> widespread use of replicators, and providing shelter does not seem to
>> be an issue. This creates a problem, however. If people don't need to
>> work to live, who would do the unsavory jobs necessary for a society to
>> function?
>
> Yes, in the same DS9 restaurant episodes, there was a scene of Daddy Sisko
ordering around the busboys and line cooks, and I was like, "Why the hell
would someone who lives in a society where there's no need to work to live
conceivably take a job in a restaurant doing back-breaking work like busing
tables and mopping floors? Or cleaning toilets or any of the other things
that
one would think 24th-century technology could do but apparently doesn't?
>
>> STAR TREK has provided half an answer for this, using AI and automated
>> systems to carry out the majority of these functions, although this
>> does raise another issue regarding the ethics of creating a permanent
>> slave race.

And then there’s the tailor who makes better clothes than the automatic
systems can. There’s just no way to defend that.

>
> I've always hated the way TREK portrays using technology to do rote, menial,
and/or unpleasant tasks is equated with 'creating a slave race'. Have I
enslaved my toaster when I force it to make me toast in the morning?
>
> How is using a computer that controls cleaning apparatus to clean a bathroom
become enslavement, but me currently forcing my computer to facilitate my
postings to Usenet not enslavement?
>
>> The problem is only half solved, however, as through the
>> various shows it is shown that there are still actual people who are in
>> jobs such as bartending or waiting on tables-- but what's the point if
>> there is no wage and no opportunity to progress in this career? Not
>> everyone can be a business owner, so surely there must be ten
>> subservient roles needed to be fulfilled for every one privileged
>> owner, with no apparent way to escape this.
>>
>> The Federation economy is one of those science fiction concepts that
>> sounds, on paper, to be utopian. But the further the concept is
>> explored, the more holes can be found in its logic, and various
>> societal dark underbellies are shown.
>
> This doesn't even get into the Ferengi and their whole platinum-based economy,
which no small number of Federation people seemed to participate.
>

Gold pressed Latinum.
I watched an episode the other night where somehow somebody had managed to
remove all the gold leaving just Latinum sludge behind. Even though gold is
intrinsically worthless to the Ferengi somehow Latinum without gold is
worthless as well. Also apparently gold pressed Latinum can’t be replicated
but it can be carried through a transporter. It’s the monetary equivalent
of crisp celery.

>> It may seem like a freeing
>> notion, to not be tied down by the necessity to make money each and
>> every day to survive. But strangely, by removing this, the Federation
>> has managed to find a way to solidify even further the massive class
>> divide that exists today. Ironically, it's impossible to eliminate
>> poverty by taking away all the money. It only seems like this is
>> possible because audiences are only shown the lives of the social
>> elites, such as Picard.
>

>

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.