Watch Part 1 Here: ua-cam.com/video/JJwWxT269ec/v-deo.htmlsi=FFPH3BQ1TP9k0eCj P.S.:- To all the people asking about housing and/or money, as I said in the video, I covered money in the previous video and housing will be covered in the next video. To all the people who keep comparing the concept of social capital to a dystopian Black Mirror "Nosedive" system that's not what I was referring to at all. Social capital isn't regulated, it's a purely social system. Social capital exists today, but in Star Trek, it simply plays a much larger role in society. Thank you for engaging with the video though. If you want to see the next video in the series early and ad free, join me on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/rowanjcoleman
10:48 HMS _Beagle_ did exploration. And Captain James Cook, was a naval officer and renound explorer. Military service does not negate exploration. Indeed, they're usually first-exporers *because* they can cope with any bad things that might crop up.
Part 2, mention previous video, no link in comment or description. So checking out the video that does deal with money, as many comments noted you seem to believe that replicators mean free energy. Which isn't a thing in universe and violates the laws of physics. You even use clips of Kirk in the videos. Who lived in a time before replicators existed. Earth at least had achieved post scarcity before replicators. So unfortunately it appears that a lot of your arguments are based on a flawed premise.
@@s_1884I probably should have gone into more detail about replicators. I'm well aware of thermodynamics and my explanation of replicators doesn't violate the laws of physics. What I mean was that replicators can create the means to achieve virtually limitless energy by building household fusion reactors and the like. As long as there's a constant supply of raw materials to break down and reuse for replicators (for example human waste) then replicators can keep making fuel. In TOS we did see something like food synthesizers aboard the Enterprise which I think have been retroactively made replicators. Another point, I think it's interesting that Trekkies are happy to accept dozens of physics violating technologies, but when it comes to replicators there's no wiggle room Also, the previous video is linked at the end and in a video card on screen.
@@RowanJColeman We simply have no idea how energy requirements are met at scale - they might be per household or per building (in the case of apartment buildings) or larger (on the city/county/region size). Probably a mix of all those depending on context
Social capital reminds me of a line in Enemy at the Gates: “Man will always be man. There is no new man. We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbour. But there's always something to envy. A smile, a friendship, something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there will always be rich and poor. Rich in gifts, poor in gifts. Rich in love, poor in love.” Perhaps Star Trek finds a way to that new man.
Voici la correction et la mise en page de ton texte : Communism is not about helping people; it’s about the centralization of power. They sell it to people by stimulating their envy. As the writer of 1984 said, "The left does not love the poor; they hate the rich because they envy them."
I'd actually argue that the Federation is proof that the lack of a new man, and that's a driving force to the betterment of the Federation. Take, for instance, Dr. Bashir's dad. The writers wrote him with the base idea of "what does a loser look like in the Federation?" This is a man who wants to find his calling: something to make him rich in happiness, but just cannot find it, and winds up bouncing from dead-end to dead-end. What drives people in the Federation? It's no longer a desire for wealth in terms of money, but wealth in terms of other things: reputation (to be the one to crack transwarp), ingenuity (the joy of finding coffee in that nebula), contemplation (to be a doctor at Oxford), and more for sure, but ultimately: happiness. The self-satisfaction of doing what makes you whole, and contributing to others by doing that thing **well**. We have historically used more limited ways as criteria to identify if someone is happy, like the money in their pocket, the size of their family, or the size of their house. And the story of "the man who has everything and yet nothing," i.e. the man who is wealthy yet unhappy is a tale as old as time. Star Trek shows that when you don't need these criteria, the question of "are you happy" is much simpler. Some find happiness in running a simple restaurant, others by running farming colonies which use less and less technology, and others through traditional public service like Starfleet. What makes these people wealthy isn't their nice houses on Chateau Picard or Pike Ranch, but their happiness.
@@TakedaIesyu I do find that the focus people have on questions like "but who gets to live in that big, fancy mansion suspended on a cliffside?" are missing the forest for the trees. And they have failed to ask themselves why they would want to be given such a property. And, hell, the question isn't even that difficult to answer. You want a mansion? Submit a request for a plot of land and materials to the United Earth Government's, erm... Office of Civic Management, say, along with any particular features you would require in location and design. They respond with a list of alternatives for you to choose from. Some existing structures, others land that may be allocated for a dwelling of the specified size and design. Now you have a mansion. Great. Now what? No one is impressed. In fact, most people will probably think it's a gaudy waste of energy. You don't need a mansion. You need a comfortable, safe place to live. A place that satisfies your particular needs and proclivities.
Yeah, I also keep on remembering this gut-punching scene from the film from time to time. It was said by Joseph Fiennes' character. Telling it to Jude Law's Vasily Zaitsev.
@@john-lenin Deconstruction (noun): a method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language which emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression.
Absolutely. People just love to say it's impossible when it isn't. Bunch of cynics. The whole point of Star Trek is hope for a better future. That doesn't just mean flying around in space - it means a hopeful future for economy and society as well.
@@john-lenin Being realistic and understanding that this idea cannot work does not work and never will work. There are a lot of good examples of futuristic economies in Sci-Fi, Star Trek is not one of them. It is a very poorly written attempt in the next generation to show a post scarcity society and frankly you can talk about it as much as you want but you have to go to beta cannon sources in order to have it be anything other than authoritarian communism. I'm a navy veteran I understand why my captain had moral authority over me and why I had to follow his orders but I am still mystified as to why anybody followed Picards orders. Damned fools being ordered to their death for no reason by somebody with no righteous authority.
Tbh I always just assumed that in Star Trek humanity just matures to the point the whole world or Federation is such a high trust society... there is no crime. It is utopia but even in our world we get glimpses of it: eg. shops in small villages where owners just leave the shop open and unmanned and people take what they need and leave money on the counter. Now imagine the world where 99.99% of people behave this way. I think that was the Roddenberry's dream: that we as humanity will stop war just by virtue of no one wanting to start wars, not by forcing others to act nice. That's why he was always against the conflict between Federation officers, assuming that the humanity will reach the level where people don't fight each other. And yes, it changed a lot in the later series, even TNG and especially DS9 causing terrible mental gymnastics. Eg. DS9 being a trade center and Federation not using money.
I've recently moved from a town where there was crime, to a town where most people don't bother to lock their doors and yet there are no burglaries. These places actually exist. What's worth remembering is that they don't "still" exist. There are small towns with no burglaries or murders right now. There was a need for laws to handle burglary in ancient Israel, in Athens, basically everywhere. It's not a matter of different times. It's a matter of, just as you say, maturity. When people value the ability to trust their neighbors then they don't abuse their neighbors. When people value fearing their neighbors (to politically manipulate others, or to socially manipulate) then the childish emotions that separate people also devalue people in one another's eyes. Roddenberry's view was that "maturity" meant being open to seeing the value in others.
@@kennykuhns9843 First, places like Bajor and Ferenginar still use money to represent power. "No money" is an Earth thing. Second, there are a lot of exotic materials that can't be replicated, so you have to go to where they are to pick them up. It just makes sense to have distribution centers for them. Third, "trade" isn't just materials. People value information, and a lot of socially-minded people prefer to get their information face to face. People value food, and there is something special about experiencing food made especially for the meal instead of the mathematically identical meals made by replicators. People value live art (dance, music, spoken poetry, and so on), and the real thing just feels different from a holosuite program you can just pause or rewind. Replicators are for convenience. Trade, in 24th century Earth culture, is about having a more interesting life and sharing it with other people.
A reputation-based society? Don't we have that now with social media? In such an economy, your wealth isn't based upon what you do, but upon people's *perception* of what you do. Your "optics" so to speak. No room for gaming *that* system...
A wholesale meritocratic society, your value in society determined by your achievements.... it sounds like a horrific world! A world of tiger moms pushing their kids to perform, a mass of underclass citizens who aren't particularly talented, a ruling class of Elon Musks who get to decide what "success" and "meaningful achievements" are.
Yeah see this is the angle that I find missing even assuming star trek's society is as perfect as depicted. People will min-max the living hell out of a favor economy and make the society extremely rigid and full of social conventions (Japan). Some people are just bastards, even if most people are innately good. Those people have abused every and any system we've constructed to try to be on top and dictate affairs. Most of them are just not capable of doing it and end up in prison, but a few very shrewd ones always fill the top. Maybe that's why Star Fleet Admirals are always so vain and antagonistic but if they are all like that it doesn't make sense that the society is setup this way still.
The idea of reform and rehabilitation is something that needs to be talked about much more in the US. We aren't helping ourselves by simply locking people up.
Not helping yourselves, but some people do benefit from it: - The system of private prisons. - Whoever benefits from very cheap or even free labour (slavery IS legal in USA, if you're a convict). - The people who promise to the electorate that they will be "tough on crime": politicians, judges, sheriffs. It's not in *their* interest to reform criminals.
There are a great many conversations that need to be had about the state of things in the US. Infrastructure, law enforcement, health care, education, etc. Conversations that cannot be had so long as the people at the top of the pyramid who gain from the way things are now actively prohibit and attack anyone who wants to even suggest things are broken. This is why they hate and fear Trump and his supporters so much. He represents an end to the gravy train they've been riding for a century. Until their stranglehold is broken, things are only going to get worse. And before you dismiss me as a "MAGA Moron" or something, I'll remind you that the Republicans are just as complicit in this affrontery as the Democrats are, just not as many of them.
@@joeboxter3635 That wasn't rehabilitation, that was outright mind control and is one of the examples used by the people who talk about how the Federation is low key a tyrannical dystopia where you get reprogrammed if you don't toe the company line.
Excellent, comprehensive presentation! I am quite confident that there is a threshold in our near future, once crossed, that will lead us to the beginnings of a Star Trek universe. Much of that threshold is attitude and perspective. As we draw closer to a near zero cost society, we need to begin to think in a different way about property, ownership, and land borders, both local and international. Yes, this may take decades, but again I am confident we can get there.
A credit system, you better yourself by exercising and doing little odd jobs, but you no longer need to spend money on shelter, food, healthcare and clothing
Just wanted to add that I know there are those who might see the Star Trek future earth as soft, spoiled and unmotivated seeing as so much is easily provided for, if that's the case there's always the colonies you can just leave earth and sign up to be part of a colony even one that wants to break off from the federation to establish a new society on another world built from the ground up with your own hands.
I think one reason the society works onscreen is that only fleetingly see it in its full civilian glory--mostly, we see Starfleet, which is populated by glory-driven overachievers who have voluntarily put themselves under something like a military command structure, and who quite definitely have armed security officers, brigs, court-martials, etc. to police *them* while they're on the job. All that makes sense since it's inspired by real-world military services. But we don't get a lot of how things work outside of that.
Well thought out and well presented. You gave me several new views of Roddenberry's vision that I'd not considered! Thank you VERY MUCH!! I look forward to MORE from you as a subscriber!!!
It came to me that we humans actually only need 2 laws to funktion together. They would be 1 All things are legal/allowed in regard to your personal activity. 2 Your rights/freedoms may not impede/hinder/restrict an other persons rights/freedoms. There may need to be lists of examples as a guide but beyond that all normal scenarios should be covered.
Interesting how star fleet deals with first contact. Any new civilisation would have there own culture and political systems in place. Would the Federation insist on their compliance to the new order? Not every King or Emperor would be willing to be made redundant.
If another society was ruled by a monarchy they'd be disqualified from joining the Federation, but the Federation wouldn't impose on them. There's the Prime Directive after all.
This is exactly why the TOS writers’ bible was intentionally vague about the social system. The writers were told not to worry about Earth because “you are not going there.”
Working despite not getting paid also hepls keeping the permission to board any long distance public transport or having apersonal conveyance. Gotta keep that social credit score up somehow, and obedience is the best way to do this.
I don't think there will be such an asshole in Star Trek. Because why would there be? Something would have to have gone wrong in their childhood, or later life to become like this. And things just don't go that wrong in an utopia. And even if there would be. They would immediately be surrounded by 100 councilors, anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists and be a fascinating research project to find out what happened and why they became like this.
It's called a Resource-based Economy. The term was coined by futurist Jacques Fresco who does some years ago at his compound in Venus Florida. The Venus Project, as its known, is still there and is run by Fresco's life partner Rachel Meadows
As an I.T. person I would be made instantly obsolete if dropped in the Star Trek Universe. My skills and knowledge is based on our contemporary tech and I would have to do several years of school just to catch up. Bar attendant roles I think would be a more timeless and applicable job.
Amateur social scientists! 🙄 “A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.” Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711)
Wow, just wow. Way to hurt my head and my heart at the same time! I'm wondering if there's a way to incorporate free will, nature vs nurture, and basically trauma, developmental disorders, etc into this. At the end of the day, poverty is the worst disease and one we that "arguably" we've created for ourselves. A lot of trauma/developmental disorders/ societal issues are the result of generational trauma and not getting needs met. Crazy to think how all that could be handled...
Question. If there is no money but the ferengi are extreme capatilists then how do they interact? Or why don't they just replicate as much latium as they want and if the answer is the amount of energy required then that makes the federation or in fact the galaxy wide currency is energy. Replicators convert energy into things so everything has a price. Money is not the only currency... ohhh so many questions
I have a lot of thoughts on this: Property and protection: I don't see why there wouldn't be a civil police force. Earth's main administrative body is the United Earth, and within it a number of member bodies still exist (though they may not look like the countries of today). The local administrative groups within United Earth (The African Confederation, European Alliance, etc) could administer their own police forces, probably on a more granular scale (city by city), but all still bound by United Earth's laws and rules. There is no need for complex and highly energy-intensive technical solution (per-house force fields) when simpler solutions exist. And a police force freed from being focused on private property protection (e.g, working on behalf private business owners to "subdue" their pesky striking workers) and also free from most personal property-related crimes can be much smaller in scale (fewer police per 1000 civilians) and almost certainly have shed its violent behaviors. Social "currency": Reputation as a means of exchange is something that has been demonstrated in a number of pre-agricultural societies, and is though to be the way many if not most pre-agricultural societies worked. The way it works is not as a literal currency as means of exchange where "I give you X of something for Y levels of reputation" and not a pool of something that is deducted from as you use it, but as one's reputation as a barometer for their value within that society. And that reputation varies from person to person or group to group. Your tribe may know you as trustworthy, but the new tribe in the valley may have no idea who you are. In a technological and highly-connected society reputation is a lot easier to share so many more people can take at face value that you are a great shuttle pilot or have written great articles on warp physics because of awards, merits, etc. you are probably worth trusting. Governance: See above, but there are canonical references to more granular governance, but still under the purview of the United Earth govt. Techno-Transcendentalism: I disagree with the idea that the 24th century society is highly individualistic. Some people might like to live out in the countryside but we have lots of on-screen evidence of vastly more people living in cities. It's an illusion then and much more so this century that anyone is "self sufficient" - we all rely on many other people for our food, power, infrastructure, etc. While you can get away with replicators (personal or industrial) to a certain degree, most projects will necessarily require lots of human cooperation. When Picard's brother and nephew died in a fire (RIP) I bet there was a lot of fire damage. There is very little chance he rebuilt the chateau all by himself but relied on help from others to restore it, source or replicate replacement pieces (Picard's always seemed like he prefers genuine articles over replicated ones), and used his reputation to get that done. Emergency Services: there are definitely reasons for ESes to work only within one locale, such as familiarity with the people and places there and their peculiarities. Also public trust esp in police is higher when they live in the area they police; this is a problem in the US where many police do not live in the areas they police (esp in lower income areas) and are trusted much less. Even with a friendly, non-aggressive police system, there has to be a level of trust there. This would not preclude civilian police from having access to records from all over the Federation (depending on their security clearance level). Likewise, you may have certain medical needs that, while available to every doctor in Federation (upon request), are still best treated by your local doctor who you trust and knows your situation. Criminal Justice: definitely agree here, a rehab-based system is what we have seen outside of the brig (which is just short-term holding cell in a martial context). Other non-Federation groups are used to contrast with Earth's rehab-based system, like hard labor mines on Klingon penal colonies
I've never seen anything that makes me think Roddenberry had all the details worked out. My impression is he was working from a concept rather than a blueprint. And while Roddenberry's Star Trek universe sounds like a wonderful place to live, I'm not sure humans are capable of it. Just look at what's been done to the franchise in recent years. And like what STD and Pisscard did to Star Trek, I think any utopia would be quickly washed away by a flood of pretentious apes.
The easier solution is money does exist. For basic needs it's not needed. But if say, Scotty wants to buy a luxury item like a boat, you need to work for it.
I wish Star Trek would actually deal with the implications of its own suggestions as opposed to just smugly saying "this is a paradise. We've solved everything". This future has a lot of terrible implications that aren't being considered. - If reputation is capital, what that functionally means is how much you comply with social norms. If someone is significantly culturally different or neurodivergent, what stops them from falling down the ladder for making faux pas? You'd need laws and top down education in place to prevent this from becoming an issue. - Who controls land? How do you buy/sell it? How do you manage what people are allowed to do with it? Even if everyone is socially a good person, they could misuse the land by mistake. - If the land has no value and is just traded based on reputation, that would either mean every sale being laboriously difficult or it would mean reputation being somehow quantified in an Orwellian top down system.
The last part, probably make it like a fair bit of people, and the amish do. If you know people you know, you ask them and give some party of food. And as communal effort, lie amish and barns? It would be a bit weird with ever changing people probably in plans for the average person, but that can be done for the sake of helping out too. And of course maybe a specialist and the federation lends mashinery. Which makes logistics a bit wonkier, but people do that in real life in lack of resources. Also yeah its work but i see enough people wanting to , do that. I hope workers ther too have some kind of measure reputation enough that they do an ok job at least for sure and arent terrible, and maybe have a school for getting better and , chances, but prople volunteer and houses are partly built with volunteers already? Or renovations, or other stuff. Just make it an actual system somehow and connecting better there? Maybe that became some system outside of just people you know but , hobby volunteer construction groups or something. Its not that it needs to be desastrous but people finding their niche if they whyever , that would make pretty interesting struggle and conflicts. Dunno if a graffity artist gets in trouble and has to find his niche in a system , and that works out, could have the utopia and conflict part. And touch on the social pressure part, what if you want to be rebellious. Are ther outlets,
One thing you have to consider with land is that 24th century technology dramatically opens up what land you can live on. You can beam a cabin to most of the planet without the need for it to be connected to any infrastructure. If you look at how we use land now it's all about crowding into very small population centres - with the vast, vast majority of land being used either for farmland, forest or otherwise undeveloped. There will be considerably more acres available than demand from the population. So, it comes down to how much demand there is to live in 'popular' locations - which I imagine would be controlled by governments and leased out to individuals based on a set of criteria such as historic claim, their contribution to society and the social value of what they intend to do with it.
If the writers and producers of Star Trek had any clue as to how such a future could actually work, I'm sure they would. The reality is that, when it comes to how to create the near utopian future that Star Trek tries to portray, they are just as stumped as everyone else.
As an anarchist, I often feel frustrated that in Star Trek, capitalism has been abolished but all the other stuff of today (patriarchy, hierarchies, competitive and graded school as well as hierarchies between family members and the cisheteronormative monogamous nuclear family) are still there! I often fantasize about meeting the crew of the Enterprise-D who have traveled back in time (maybe to save the bees this time around instead of the whales 😉) and going with them to the 24th century. I could do medical transition instantly without having to worry about the cost and the advanced medical technology make it an outpatient procedure (at least according to the abysmal Profit and Lace). So I would be frustrated that there isn’t wide spread anarchism around on 24th-century Earth. But then I thought: maybe the reason (and the reason why Star Trek writers haven’t tried to explain 24th century economy and political ideology) is because it’s an ideology and system we cannot yet conceive of just like a medieval person couldn’t perceive a world without the divine right of kings. In my headcanon, queerness is so normal in the 24th century that people no longer need to use labels (like Captain Jack Harkness says in Torchwood about us: „You pans your quaint little categories!“) and family dynamics are a lot more diverse and so are education systems. Some go to traditional schools (with grades perhaps being only symbolic) while others go to democratic schools like Sudbury Valley schools or some use unschooling to let their kids educate themselves. And I believe that political decisions are made in the grassroots principle, from bottom to top instead of how it is now. When a problem only concerns one family, that family will reach a consensus for a solution and if it concerns a village or city block, the facilities that area will send messengers to a village or city block council who will meet. If all families have the same idea, the problem is solved, if not, the messengers will return and the families will debate until a consensus is reach by the community that pleases everyone. I also believe that 24th century earth is way more solarpunk that what we see in the series.
I really think Star Trek should do a non-Starfleet based series, looking at Earth, society and the rest of the ST universe, specifically to answer some of these burning questions. However, I do worry that modern Trek's creators are too pro capitalist to either do it, or do it properly. In fact, the biggest concern I think, would be that if handled by pure capitalist thinkers (who simply view a non-capitalist future as a purely fictional product to be consumed by contemporary consumers) it may not just misrepresent our core ideas, but outright create pure capitalist propaganda aimed at us pesky socialists.
I think we need to return to Roddenberry's core message. Humans are different in the future. We, in our modern world, are all abused children. In the future there would be no asshole that would kick in PIcard's door. And if someone did they would be treated for mental illness. This is also what modern Trek doesn't get. It's WHY the show was so hard to write for.
I agree. Trek humans aren't just modern day people with warp drive and phasers. They live in a different type of society where they are educated and helped to evolve beyond the psychological problems we have today.
yeah you just have to accept the creepy stuff like the authorities knowing where you are and what you are doing at all times and technology like thought reading/control existing and entrusted to the benign all knowing all seeing government.
The problem with Roddenberry's message, is that no interpersonal conflict in the future is creepy and makes for boring TV. There's a reason why the Season 1 and 2 of TNG was bad.
@@seeingeyegod Yeah, they're pretty chill about that sort of thing in the future. I guess if you trust your government it doesn't matter if they operate that kind of control.
@@seeingeyegod If only the Earth government worked that way. Then they'd have known a firefight happened in former Admiral Jean-Luc Picard's house as soon as the first Romulan disruptor went off. Instead, Picard and his household staff had to handle it themselves. For that matter, they seemed to handle it so completely that there was no scene of the police being called. It looks like such technologies are mainly aboard Starfleet vessels, where knowing a crewmember's location could save their life, and where encountering mind-reading and mind-controlling aliens is just one of the countless risks of the job.
All you need for space communism to actually work is material replicators. Then you can create anything you want, even a bacon sandwich. Without replicators though there can be no system based on social capital, because people will still demand their share of available resources based on their contribution of effort. A social capital system without replicators would instantly have social comparison theory kick in, essentially a race to the lowest common denominator of effort, declining production, declining living standards, with the state allocating goods and services to individuals, actual communism. Always remember the biggest source of inequality in the world today is effort inequality.
Did you forget that both Dilithium and Latinum *cannot* be replicated? ;) And there may be more materials and elements that for various reasons which cannot be replicated! This may be why the Ferengi use gold-pressed latinum, and various polities spar over dilithium deposits ;)
I wanna push back on the future of Star Trek not being communist/socialist: the main characteristic of communism is the abolition of private property (as can be read in chapter two of the communist manifesto), and is completely replaced by two other kinds of property, those being collective/communal property and personal property. I see this fulfilled in Star Trek, since, as you mentioned, most property is personal, and some things like public infrastructure i'd consider communal property. So I'd say that communism fits quite well as a description of the Federation's economic system. There's a caveat though, that being that communism is frequently described as a moneyless, classless and stateless society. While moneyless and classless are certainly true for the Federation, it is not quite stateless. If someone doesn't want to use the word communism because of this, the word socialism would still be the next-most-fitting description.
Right? He says there is no money so it's not an economic system in the video, but no money is a feature of many old and suggested economic systems. Though, money and credits/currency are often confused by most people. This video seems to use communism to mean something akin to the USSR's state capitalism (authoritarian communism), rather than (democratic) libertarian socialism or anarchist communism.
I also wonder what Rowan means when he says individual vs collective. Marx was critical about how liberal democracies (as we have now and have had for a couple hundred years) would fail to fulfill it's own promises of self-determination. As Picard said at the end of Best of Both Words part 1: "My culture is based on freedom, and self-determination." Or, as Marx said it: "For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic and must remain so if he does not wish to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic." - Karl Marx, "The German Ideology"
Problem is there will always be finite resources. Land is limited. Beachside land is limited. There has to be some kind of governingbody determining land allocation otherwise generational land holding would occur. You'd get parents passing their land to children with inner city families being trapped there. A social contract is weak because it's subjective. How do you determine who is the most worthy of a land allocation? Can a PhD student evict a 3 generational family of lower class workers? Fun idea, but even in a world with replicators not practical.
@Its__Good if you believe that, I've got a beachfront property to sell you. Beach front in Alaska is not the same as beachfront in California. Beach front in Florida after climate change won't be as valuable. Also how big is a fair allotment of land? 1000 foot? 100 meters? Who decides this? How do you preserve wildlife? Do you burn down sanctuaries so everyone gets a Beach front house? It really isn't that simple mate. You can't just give everyone the same Beach front house. There isn't the land or the climate.
Well if you’re talking about the Star Trek universe they are constantly making new colonies and there are plenty of plots about land rights conflicts. If you’re talking about real life not everyone wants beach front property. There is a finite amount of it which is why you’re average person gets mad when rich people buy up previously public beach front land and cut of the general public’s access to it. Most experts seem to agree the global population will level out at 10 billion which is sustainable with finite resources. If you live in North America and are middle or upper class your abundance of resources will shrink to meet the rest of the world, but no one is really arguing that we’re all going to live like millionaires if we do enough socialism. A comfortable life with everyone’s needs met is pretty achievable tho.
Maybe the fact that we simply accept that there will always be a lot of assholes and sociopaths who will ruin things for everyone else is part of the problem. But there are many societies on earth today with different cultures where people behave very differently. For example, look at how people treat public property in Japan. People take much better care of public property in Japan conpared to most other countries. They don't throw their trash on the ground and they voluntarily help clean up. Yes, Japan has their own problems, but it just goes to show how different culture and beliefs can create a very different society than people may be used to or even think is possible.
@@genmaicha.lapsang BUt you can have exreme levels of ostracism rigid hierarchy and classism *without* people caring for eahch other or their towns too, and you don't have to look too far to see that. It means among other things that things that seem impossible in daily life here or say in Russia where we or they have many of the same darn drawbacks, are a nice part of daily life elsewhere. Maybe it's not such a simple zero-sum or inextricable equation. People blame 'human nature' for a lot of things that ...actually humans don't do or have to do everywhere. There are many possibilities.
@@OllamhDrab Your premiss is not true. The "clean cities" that you see in these counties are ONLY possible in societies that have a level rigidity, conformity, ostracism, classism and intense hierarchy. People only "care about each other" becuase they are forced too do so in these cultures. It's not out of genuine concern. Sure, Dubai, Seoul, Singapore, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur and even Tokyo look really clean and friendly but they only show parts of the city for social media purposes and those cultures are very difficult to live freely in. Even the most free ones like South Korea and Japan are very ridged and repressive by western standards.
@@genmaicha.lapsang I disagree. Look at Stockholm, or any given Scandanavian city, for one. That was my point. These things are not inextricable 'human nature' or based on current ideas of a 'political spectrum between authoritarianisms in scarcity' ...never mind without such scarcity and greed. Whether people or governments care for each other and places.... is a matter of priorities and abilities and if.... people care.
As a bartender I love getting customers talking about Star Trek economics and society. Just imagine being born and everything you need is automatically provided for you. The need to educate, master a craft, or learn about the universe is as easy as binging a tv show on netflix. You step onto a holodeck and you learn how to become a master at french cuisine, and making samurai swords. Then you find a program to teach you how to master Klingon sword making. But it doesn't end there, travel is pretty much free, so you can leave Earth to apprentice under an actual Klingon sword maker. As a gift, you cook chicken chasseur for the Klingon sword master. Your skills in french cooking leaves a lasting impression on the Klingon. Sharing what you learned in your life is your gift to society. Society isn't just where you live on Earth, it expands throughout the galaxy; thanks to the invention of the replicator and holodeck. Your skills give you value in the Star Trek universe, not your money. Lol, down the road, Klingons become obsessed with french chicken dishes.
" _I have a dish for you of great honor_ " -Klingon eats it- " _By Sto'vo'kor itself. This is G'rohkthar!_ " " _No actually, it's called Swedish Meatballs, but it seems every race in the universe has their own take on it._ " x3
Another answer to "who are the police?" is that citizens themselves are given power of arrest, given certain conditions. Said citizens would have to be certified to ensure they knew the law, but given we do that for drivers in our world, and Star Trek is a universe where 10 year olds are leaning Calculus in schools, I see no reason why they need a special class of people to enforce the law.
Also, Everybody has a stun rifle like the farmer in the first episode of enterprise. Everybody becomes a texan-ish (stun first, ask questions later). 🤠
I rather like the approach to crime taken in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. If someone commits a serious crime, their social capital disappears, and also a robot follows them around to make sure they never do it again.
That reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode "to see the invisible man" where the punishment for some crimes is complete social isolation. You're made "invisible" for a year, and people are forbidden to acknowledge your existence
I was thinking of the Culture watching this too. I really recommend anyone to read these books (or listen to the audiobooks - the ones read by Peter Kenny are excellent) because the way their society operates compared to our own is extremely eye-opening as to just how little freedom we really have. Even the example you mentioned is actually a fair bit more nuanced because The Culture doesn't really have laws or "crime" as such. Because they are truly post-scarcity in every way there isn't any need to steal anything (or anything to steal) and no reason for anyone to kill someone else. Think about pretty much any crime and there's no motive when there's nothing to acquire. (Also they have modified their genome and bodies to the extent that psychological issues that might lead to crime in our world aren't going to be a problem) Along with this, they don't really have a concept of "punishment" which when you think about it, is really an abuse in all cases, even if we can argue it is necessary in our current system where people are motivated to harm others. In the example you give, the "slap drone" is there (as a volunteer, drones being sentient members of the society) to ensure the person being monitored can't harm others again, not as a punishment. The fact they might lose their social cachet is a side-effect rather than the intention.
@damoncurrie7103 the culture is not an easy read and if the way you've attempted to communicate here is any indication they will be way over your head. They presuppose a lot from the reader.
I think the idea of Social Capital explains why Star Trek humans are so easy to trust. For social capital to work properly, the Federations education system would have to discourage all forms of deception the same way our current education system tacitly discourages creativity. Someone adept at deception could easily exploit social situations to retain their reputation at the expense of another, or abuse essential positions where their expertise would be vital, such as maintaining technical information on replicators, FTL communications, or anything sufficiently specialised or complex. People like Harry Mudd or other outlaws might end up informally exiled if any abuses of their power came to public light, which might explain why we don't get to see them in Star Trek. No one wants to listen or even associate with people who put themselves so far ahead of everyone else in the Federation.
Your idea manages to explain a fundamental plot point about classic Star Trek. Doesn't it feel strange that most people have to book passage on a ship to go to another world, but Harry Mudd has his own ship? In fact, lots of eccentrics out in the colonies have access to surprising resources. This would be because they deceitfully gamed the system to gain such things, but then were found out. Unable to find anyone to collaborate or to share resources on any of their endeavors following that discovery, they hopped to a colony world or joined the deep space markets. It's possible to find another culture within the Federation that suits a different personality (much like what happens in Bank's Culture novels). It's also possible to make quite a living for oneself in the interstellar market. The core Federation worlds' ways of living aren't the only ways to live, even in the 24th century. Gold-pressed latinum can be gathered by humans as well as by anyone else out there. It's just that the people we see in Starfleet, the ones we'd love to emulate, are from Earth's culture.
@@SingularityOrbit Well, in Mudd's case he seems to have operated largely outside the Federation economy from the start, usually being someone the Feds meet 'out there where we're exploring and here he is already' ...and trading with/swindling some pretty remote outposts of like miners and prospectors and all. One could easily see him having parlayed smaller schemes and scams into obtaining his own ship, wherever it came from.
@@SingularityOrbit (Also on that kind of character and his business, there's also every likelihood he had at least for much of his career an actually very-legitimate trader setup going on. If one did nothing but smuggle and scam, one's pose of legitimacy or even being allowed to land at least without tons of inspections would wear thin fast. (And as it is he always seems to be trying to stay ahead of all the people he ripped off.) Certainly in Star Wars the best way to avoid geting caught as a Reb or smuggler or doing various adventurey jobs of other kinds is to actually *have* a suitable legitimate business going on, rather than just fake passes and credentials and hope to escape . :) (And hey, if you simply don't *tell* how fast your hyperdrive is, you can get a lot done before you'e even expected anywhere. on your timetable. )
@@OllamhDrab That's all true, and good points to add besides. We can't really know how much or how little Mudd was tied to Federation activity, or to some little-acknowledged breakaway social order out there in the galaxy. His wife, Stella, was the daughter of an arms dealer who supplied weapons during the Federation-Klingon War, about a decade prior to the original series. Either the Feds were desperate for extra war materiel fast and bought from outside their borders, or things were more different than we realized between TOS and TNG.
@@SingularityOrbit If you remember that when TOS was making stories without any background 'canon' or anything, it'd been a concept of a Western-like story in space, so a lot of the characters and circumstances they find out that really parallel that, including some 'What did you do in the last war,' finding old outposts and places the 'government' folks hadn't been in some time, quirky settlements of Humans and towns needing 'straightening out,' etc. Carpetbagging scoundrels, too. :)
When people do not have the threat of real punishment, there can be those who see any negative to bad behavior. If I kill someone, will others just ignore me? In a TNG episode, a data broker mentioned a federation rehabilitation colony. There is a legal system and forms of limiting personal liberties. In DS9, those with mental challenges were institutionalized, and basher talked about what happened to those with genetic modifications. Basher's dad was sent to 'jail' for taking this son for genetic modification. The penal colony thing was how Australia was formed. The sentence "Transportation for life" got that person exiled from the state of England/Britain and sent to some 'other' place which for a time was Australia.
@@Chris-ut6eqsome of us have been metaphorically living in the Island of misfit Toys for most of our lives there are many human beings who don't fit in for no understandable reason there's always always going to be misfits
@@aeonsbeyond There are always reasons for why we do not fit in. I'm a misfit toy but carry my island with me in my mind. Sometimes I'm joined on that island, but like the Tom Hanks movie, it's often just me and Wilson :)
The biggest change for this to work is the change to the human condition. All the practicalities are completely second to the psychology of the concept. Transporters and replicators are not the unbelievable part in this scenario. What would have to happen to human psychology is what needs explaining. This social currency inequality changes nothing by itself. Why would it? It's just another form of wealth inequality. Some people will be wealthy and some people will be poor. Some people will go far and some people will struggle. Some people win the genetic lottery and some won't. Some people win the lottery of being born into (social) wealth and some won't. And humans will have human reactions to this.
One thing about Picard's estate and other properties said to be 'in the family' is particularly the former doesn't seem to be something the family *gained* by 'social capital' ....just no one took their land *away* in this whole process. (And of course France and whatever authorities thereafter surely value the production of French wine as heritage: they already do, that.) So as long as the Picards and their people keep doing what they do, nothing's wrong. It's presumably just not that they're doing it for a money economy anymore. Also while Earth presumably has a lot of Starfleet people around all the time to help, given all the headquarters there, I do presume it has local security and emergency people and other systems like most Federation worlds, we just hear about it when the shows' characters are involved. Small town police tend to have plenty to do even if there's no big incentives to crimes. Cows stuck in fields, bar evenings getting out of hand, all kinds of that 'community policing' that may not seem much like 'policing' in some senses at all. The on-call problem-solvers and watchmen and all. Maybe Earth's 'paradise' has Mayberry policing, too. Certainly I think the things that drive first-responder types like firefighters and medics, as well as your forestry service types and similar, would also still be there and socially-valued, even if no one locks their doors at night. A lot of times in the real world, all the money and scarcities, real and perpetuated/invented for money's sake, (Or for prejudice's) , that doesn't actually define people's sense of who they are and what they do, just makes life *harder* about it. I'm still a 'fixit lady' even if I'm not being paid to do it. I'd likely have the same inclinations (maybe after Starfleet, good chance I'd try for that right away, of course) ...at least in civillian life.
@RowanJColeman 2:41 Derp. I have a bad feeling about how the rest of this video is going to go. You might want to re-visit what Marx meant when he talked about private property. Personal property are goods that have a use value, like Picard using Chateau Picard to live at, grow grapes and ferment wine. Private property are goods that have an exchange value like if their Earth was still like today and a realtor on behalf of the owner would sell you Chateau Picard in exchange for some fat stacks of dolla dolla bills; that's Chateau Picard as private property, a commodity. In a capitalism everything is a commodity produced for it's exchange value while produced secondarily for it's use value (if any, a la 'Bored Ape.') It's weird I know, but it's the context that fosters the meanings, out of context and in the modern parlance makes it super confusing and easily misunderstood (as well as easily warped by the disingenuous to intentionally confuse so yeah, not your fault my guy.) Recall that the pursuit of happiness from the Declaration of Independence just means to own property as well. Marx wrote this stuff at the tail end of enlightenment during Kant's age of idealism which branched out into a whole bunch of utilitarianism and ontologism and existentialism and positivism and social darwinism and pragmatism and transcendentalism and marxisms. Dictionaries were this new fangled fad at the time and not even as old as Trump or Biden yet. If you've read any Kant then you what I'm talking 'bout and know the weird structures everything was written in back then before all them -isms invented things like common terminology. Yeah. normally I'd watch the whole viddie before posting but I foresee quite a few butthurt commie trek fans starting an avalanche of this exact same comment or variations thereof and I wanted to be...oh what's the meme...the one with the numbers about posting early? 😆 Lolz.
I went back to rewatch part 1, which I really liked. He makes the private/personal distinction there and says the vineyard and the restaurant are both personal property because they actually work there... Which isn't completely inline with Marx and many socialists.
@@everearnest9935 Ah, thank you immensely my guy. I love RJC's viddies and after I went full on uptight and had to pause it and post I just didn't want to see what lead from what appeared to me as a foundational error in the whole shebang. When I have the time I'll watch the 2 back to back for the full context. Although I now wonder when I pull it up if I'll have some butthurt comment about that one from way back whenever it dropped that he'll have addressed on this one, lolz. 🤦♂
For the emergency response personel it reminded me of the voluntary firemen system we have in Czech Republic and I imagine a lot of other countries too. They typically inherit older vehicles from professional fire brigades, they don't have the same level of training (but they are trained) and equipment and they don't hold shifts sitting at the station. Instead when the alarms sounds (and they typically get text message about half a minute before that) they drop what they are doing and run/cycle/drive to the the station, suit up, jump into the truck and get going. Since most villages have them these volunteers are often first to arrive to the emergency. A friend who is one told me their average time to depart the station from the first alarm is under 4 minutes so if their route is by 5km or more shorter than the proffesionals they will get there first. Even today in our money based society people both able and willing to be a voluntary fireman gain in social status. In the future moneyless economy I imagine something like that would be at least the same level of boost to social status or more. And since material is no problem there is no reason to have lesser equipment available. Any difference between these emergency responders and some who do it as their main life goal would be in amount of training and experience. I think there would be no lack of personel to help with any kind of accident or disaster no matter how big or small. If the "professionals" are occupied with one elswhere when your emergency happens you would have trained and equiped volunteers transporting to your location maybe 30 seconds later than the main guys could if they were not occupied.
I just watched Edge of Tomorrow again and thought about you doing a retrospective on Tom Cruise's contribution to sci-fi. 'Oblivion', Edge Of Tomorrow, the film's you've already done like Minority Report & War Of the World's....Tom Cruise sci-fi movies have their own identity and think they'd make a good subject for your critical eye.
(SPOILERS ahead) Wasn't Cruise's Vanilla Sky from 2001 also a sort of science-fiction? You only found out about it in the middle of the film with that 'WTF' plot twist that went so far that it even partially altered the whole film's genre/classification. Till that point in the story, the film appeared to be a regular romantic drama. And then it all got turned on its head...... I've watched the film twice, if I remember correctly, but the last time was more than 20 years ago and memories tend to fade away.
@@subraxas That can be included. I really didnt watch it all the way thru. Tom's sci-fi movies generally have a sense of urgency to them with him running from disaster or running to it.
You realize it took a catastrophic period of near global genocide, and several hundred years of starvation, death, disease and rebuilding, to get there, right.
@@ObiGommGaming if history has shown anything, it’s that we’re not terribly adept at learning from our past mistakes. This also tends to beg the next question, in the grand scheme of things at a universal scale, given how we are as creatures, is humanity really deserving of anything but the ultimate end.
@@c1ph3rpunk Close. It took the existing social hierarchy being wiped out, and then the arrival of a unifying force to get there. The genocides and hundred years of four horseman themed Mad Max nonsense only achieved the removal from power of those in power preventing the societal reforms necessary to achieve that social system. We could get to that society in a few years if we just abolished capitalism, the prison industrial complex, fascism, authoritarianism, and we all let the "radical leftists" do the social reforms they've been demanding for the last several decades.
There’s always going to be *some* scarcity, even in an idyllic post scarcity society. There’s only so much beachfront property, not every apartment can be the penthouse, there’s only one of original artworks, etc.
This is my issue. The concept of a post scarcity universe is just fundamentally flawed and it comes down to what is often our largest asset in today's world. Property. This whole thought exercise is moot when the most important thing we own, where we live, where we raise our children, where we call our home, is just side stepped.
As mentioned in another comment of mine, I compare this to today's Europe. Money, resources etc. are not an issue. Still, migration is. Why? Because of available space and cultural differences (which is important in Star Trek, as different cultures will handle reputation differently). You cannot solve every issue with money, thus having those replicators alone does not solve all issues. People will be unhappy because they got worse homes. Or because they lose reputation due to things out of their control. Then what? They might use their democratic power to change things (to the worse?) or start an uprising.
I think you underestimate how big the earth is (and the Federation for that matter). It's so big, everybody will find their perfect spot. (If they even try to find their perfect spot, some just want to be Wanderers) and then there will be 1000 perfect spots to spare on top of that that you skipped.
@@kevinmeville2631 Yeah, nah. I know it's all very scary and frightening for you but we could feed the entire world right now, it's just that we couldn't make a profit from doing so. Planned obsolescence and artificial scarcity are how things are done to increase demand and y'know, that's kind of the opposite of your what you're trying to sell friend. All the food and goods filling our landfills, things we produce only to dispose of since no one needs them enough to buy them all being thrown out just to keep demand marketable and so much so to the point that we pay good tax money to other countries just to take all the garbage we ship to them off our hands; that kinda appears to be a little side stepped in your perspective there Hoss.
Weirdly, Star Trek future works very similar to social media and influencers in a vacuum. People find ways to express themselves to build a community and is rewarded for providing fulfilment whether it be entertainment, knowledge, or other aspect of life.
I read a SF short story once where someone landed in a future where criticism was currency. So a restaurant would serve you a meal, and as payment you would comment to the waiter or chef about the food and give detailed (positive) feedback. In the story the protagonist pissed off a waiter by just saying the food was nice, which was the equivalent of leaving an insultingly meagre tip.
One of the major thing that made me think that this future utopia couldn't exist was seeing Joseph Sisko's Restaurant. He had people there that washed pots or waitered, bussed tables and did all the grunt work in his kitchen/restaurant. Now, I have worked in kitchens and restaurants in my life-time and I can safely say that NO-ONE is taking on those job without some kind of compensation. If you have the choice to either be a pot-scrubber, table-busser or sit at home, living the good life, in a post-scarcity future utopia, you're choosing the latter, I can assure you. The only way I can see that working is if they were on some type of apprentice program and the end result was to become a master chef at the end of it, but that doesn't account for the waiters or table bussers. No-one sets their sights on becoming a world reknowned waiter, unless they're gonna be paid a fortune for it.
I thought about this too, I reasoned in my mind that they are compensated with fresh, actually cooked, non-replicated food. Remember Eddington's reply to Sisko that he was impressed by not eating replicated food.
There are always people who want to do those kinds of things. I know someone who enjoys doing authentic 1940's cooking. There are people who volunteer to work as historical reenactors for all sorts of seemingly dull tasks. If you have full support from societal you'll be amazed what people choose to do. And yes, I imagine the manual labour in a restaurant is relatively uncommon. Which makes Sisko's unique and desirable to visit.
It's actually not as crazy as you think. My mother in law does dishwashimg as day labor and very much doesn't need the money. She and a group of her friends do it at the same places every day and basically hang out. And waiting there are very much people that enjoy.
There are many people who do that in homeless shelters completely free as the others have said just to hang out with like minded people just to do some good.
Reminds me of an episode of Dark Mirror. Who controls the standards? There's always someone asking, "Can I manipulate them for my benefit? Put me in charge."
My best friend and I go around and 'round about this topic. I can't stand that we could already be working towards and building this future now (there's no reason Basic Universal Income can't be a thing) but he staunchly opposes it because he thinks the technology comes first.
Now imagine it wasn't a squatter but the President of the Federation basically saying, "Chateau Picard belongs to me now." Would there not be some way to legally challenge that?
The President isn't above the rights enshrined in the Federation charter so they could be challenged on that front. But also in a system of social capital the President would be throwing away votes if they did something like that.
That President of the Federation had to build up social capital through years, perhaps decades, of good work in the Federation bureaucracy to gain that position. A person like that who decided to go full authoritarian would suffer two consequences. First, they'd be put on medical leave while doctors worked to understand how their personality changed so severely. Was there Romulan brainwashing? An alien virus? Strange energies? Second, if no excuse was found for the radical behavior shift, then that President would lose social capital with alarming speed. A Federation president who decided to declare ownership of a citizen's home would be worse off than Richard Nixon post-Watergate. At least people still returned Nixon's calls.
@@RowanJColeman I see a guy like Trump and wonder about assholes like that. There seem to be no end to the lies and distortions and it never impacts his social capital and his followers seem to endlessly shield him from accountability.
@@GeahkBurchill Presumably the Federation has education systems that render its citizens informed enough and capable enough of reasoning not to enshrine a clown fascist. Federation policy probably also has something like the pre-Reagan Fairness Doctrine which prevents the existence of a large scale media enterprise like Fox where a billionaire can broadcast fascist lies 24 hours a day into the minds of the populace. And the Federation definitely doesn't have anything as inherently anti-democratic as a billionaire to begin with. So we kind of have to be failing as a society from a lot of different vectors to enable the absurdity of the present situation
Reputation as currency doesn't work when moving to another planet or even just another part of the same world is commonplace, or are we saying that when you look at someone's digital profile or w/e it shows a list of all of their supposed transgressions?
I'll confess that I love love Star Trek. I love the idea and the positivity behind it. However, I'm also someone who was born and grew up in the USSR. A place where certain ideas were also in place that are not too dissimilar to what Start Trek uses. That is the idea of most people being good and simply wanting to be self-sufficient and working towards on overall benefit of the society. Well, I think most people are aware how that turned out. One of the biggest failings of USSR was not taking human nature into nearly as much consideration, or perhaps thinking that human nature was something else than what it really is. Certain things and outcomes were simply inevitable due to it, the main one being the breakup of the country. Star Trek is great an all but it's idealistic and naive in certain ways, especially regarding people. Though, it is a nice exercise in "what if" scenarios.
But, were people from the distant past very different from us, wouldn´t it mean our species can change? Maybe it just requires a lot of human perceived time and tecnological discoveries? And Ideas are tecnological discoveries.
Eh... with all the autocracratic, oppressive, and inegalitarian elements built into the very system of the USSR, I'm not sure "belief in the goodness of people" is where I'd lay the blame for its failure.
A fatal flaw in any organization, whether it is a government, a corporation, or whatever, is too much centralized power. It is why the U.S. has separate branches of government, as checks and balances against each other, and antitrust laws to break up monopolies. Nothing is perfect if people are involved. Power corrupts and attracts the corrupted.
Nah, war is like their side hustle not their main gig. At least I hope not, if the Navy stopped to check out some unusual tidal phenomenon every time we send them to the Strait of Hormuz I seriously wonder about their commitment to their charter. Have you happened to have read the Army's military charter though, pure badass, looks down at the Navy's from a great height and the Navy's got the Marines yo.
I feel that Starfleet is like the 18 century Royal Navy. It is a military, but its traditions are nowhere near those of the army. It also has a lot to do with exploration, scientific discovery and research. The Navy was also a much more prestigious assignment than the army
That's no accident. Roddenberry was influenced by adventure stories like The Adventures of Horatio Hornblower (first published when he was 16). Not to mention he spent some time in the pacific during WW2 so he would have been influenced by naval traditions during that time as well.
@@hellacoorinna9995 yeah I know he was army air core, but he probably would have interacted with Navy guys - the islands he flew out of weren’t very big.
As a Norwegian, I have always been proud of our penal system. It is a demonstration that humans are capable of setting aside their prejudices and preconceptions to make informed decisions based on rigorous research. That research, and results of a penal system built on the lessons of that research, both tell us that treating people with respect, showing them understanding, and providing a framework to help rather than punish JUST FUCKING WORKS. It doesn't matter what anyone feels about it. It works. - The most famous thing to have happened in Halden prison was caused by careless staff neglecting to lock several doors in the maximum security wing. A bunch of prisoners left their cells and went to the mess hall kitchen, where they made a chocolate cake. They ate it and returned to their cells. Oh yes, what vicious brutes...😂
This is why i like that there's some prisons have a cat/dog program. Inmates learn how to take care of the animals and can get them taken away if they don't behave. They use their money to feed them and to buy treats. Use the books in the prison library to teach them tricks, or how to look at stool samples to make sure they're healthy. They even have the cats' litterbox in their cells that they clean. This helps reintegration as well as rehabilitation, while saving animals from overcrowded shelters/ kill shelters.
@@TheWarrrenator there’s also the ideological component. For many Americans, particularly conservatives, the carceral system is as much or more about punishing people than about any benefit to society. The conservative American takeaway from the inmates having an escape opportunity and not taking it would be “clearly your prisons aren’t punitive enough-they should be such awful places that no one wants to be there ever, and they would do anything to stay out of them or to escape them at the first opportunity. They should _want_ to escape. And then when they try to escape you should punish them even worse.” It’s your standard “beatings will escalate until morale improves” mentality, IMHO.
that would not work in a country with *real criminals* like in latin america. scandinavians are educated and non violent in general. here in latin america the criminals are capable of atrocities you would never even imagine.
Smaller governments definitely exist with in the federation i think at least in the early era with The Andorian Imperial Guard still existing, United Earth existing, and Vulcan High Command
@@RowanJColeman The interesting thing about Cassidy Yates is that she's technically doing the same thing as Harry Mudd, but without the immorality and manipulation. She owns her own ship, which implies that she has, or had, social capital, yet she spent it to own a ship and go outside of Earth to trade. She's one of the "eccentric" humans who don't live entirely within Federation culture. However, she winds up with Benjamin Sisko, Starfleet officer and (struggling) exemplar of the Federation way. That shows the complexity of the issue at an individual human level. It's possible to be fully human, to be able to meet a Starfleet officer halfway, and yet to seek out things that Earth has left behind as no longer useful. Sisko and Yates are a perfect example of the kind of nuance that Star Trek is rarely able to express about its fictional future. Yet, in their relationship, the writers found a way.
Star Trek's utopian future simply does not work, and social currency as a patch can't fix it. Social Currency doesn't work because there are many types of social currency that aren't interoperable. For example, there is street cred that would actually reward someone for exerting unfair dominance over another. Religions are self contained social circles that have a horrible history of mistreatment of those outside the religion with no adverse ramification inside the religion, and so on. There has to be a universal determination of wealth or it doesn't work, and that that determination is what we call money. In addition, there will always be money because it is the most efficient way to allocate finite resources. And no, replicators do not remove all resource limits. As an example, who gets the front row seats at a Taylor Swift concert without using money to decide. Social currency, outside of the previous problem, would be a highly inefficient means. Would Picard get that front row seat even though he barely cared about Swift, while a die hard fan, who simply just wasn't as renown, be left out. You need money to efficiently allocate resources for a single person. People are constantly reevaluating what they want relative to other things they want. A person who really loved Taylor Swift would be willing to give up an opening day opera ticket for that front row seat, whereas someone like Picard would do the reverse, thus making sure the limited resource of tickets is given to those who would appreciate it most. A social currency can't do that because there is no way to spend it. Someone with a high social currency would get the best of everything regardless of how much they desire it. Your system would create a dystopia of the few haves who get everything, and the have-nots who only get the scraps the haves don't even have the slightest desire for.
Well, there is one way to spread social currency. With a highly invasive police state that monitors all of our interactions and dolls it out depending on how the technocratic administrators feel. Which as you point out is very dystopian. You have pointed out exactly why social currency is so dystopian and frankly, evil. I hope Rowan reads it.
@@genmaicha.lapsang True, but even that social currency would be another name for money. It'd just be money you'd earned by doing the things the government wanted you to do as your job. That'd earn you some kind of social points you could use to get the limited resources you wanted. aka Money.
i think the idea of post scarcity gets miss interpreted. it means we have plentiful supplies yes we have fusion + energy to matter but there are still X seats in the restaurant, in the opera hall, only one house can be built in that spot by the lake, people will still be needed to do police work medical caretaking etc you will still have a station and value it just wont be about how much money you can generate but the utility or value you bring. everyone gets a clean safe place to live and healthy food to eat but we still cant all live in chateau Piccard. i like to hope it would be much like our original tribal societies and economies.
The reason we struggle to understand how things work in the Federation is because we're conditioned to think the system we live in is normal. Just like our ancestors were conditioned to believe slavery was normal. And their ancestors believing feudalism was normal. Etc etc. When you examine Capitalism from an outside perspective - its really weird, full of contradictions, unspoken rules, blatant lies and deceptions, with huge amounts of corruption. And yet to most people on Earth today - its normal. To some people its not only normal - its somehow the natural state of how things should be! A few people even believe Capitalism is how things always have been! We can't really grasp how society that's been post-scarcity for two centuries works. Go back six generations in Trek and society is mostly unchanged on a fundamental level. You can't do that with modern understandings. Think to how different the Boomer generation and the Alpha generation are while both experiencing the same current world. A society that survives in peace and prosperity for centuries is going to be conditioned to discourage crime - there's no desperation, no material greed, better access to medication and social support. And if you're just a jerk - well, no-one has to work with you. And if you take it too far then the few 'police' that exist can deal with you through the properly funded and staffed legal system.
Also - there IS an economy in Star Trek. There IS trade. The economy is just a planned one, and trade is either personal exchanges or its with an outside group that does use money. Which would make it, by definition, Communist. Not the Communism we'd be familiar with - but it fits the bill. And its very, very much a collectivist society. Just one that values individuals.
One could also point out that a lot of therapists would say "laziness doesn't exist and is actually a sign of an unresolved mental health issue." Humans by nature like to be doing things and contributing. Maybe there would be some people who just want to stay home and do nothing, and that's fine too, but I bet there would be less than we'd think if everyone had access to counseling and sci-fi medical care.
The occam's razor explanation is that Star Trek was written by utopian idealists who had no realistic idea of how this society could possibly work. We're not supposed to think about it, the focus is supposed to be on the short stories in the individual episodes.
Orville isn't fan fiction as it had actual Star Trek writers. New Paramount Star Trek is fan fiction ... well they don't seem to know enough about Star Trek to be considered fans.
People lie on the couch because they're depressed or wiped out by hard work. When you're excited by the things you know you can achieve, you're unstoppable.
I think Rowan is mostly off base here. Star Trek still has legal private property ownership. Like, they stated at first Data was legally owned by Star Fleet in the trial episode, and the Sisko family certainly owns their restaurant. And while humans rarely have a use for money, Star Fleet still pays a salary (which allows them to pay for drinks at Quark's bar, for instance). Unlike Communism, property is owned by individuals in Star Trek, but technology removing scarcity just means people are rarely interested in thinking about money. If a squatter came to Picard's vineyard, he'd certainly pursue legal means for removal. And if Picard wanted to sell his Orchard, he definitely could, it's just not something that's particularly motivating for him or anyone else b/c land is so cheap and abundant and all other goods are free.
It’s interesting that we don’t see the transition from one system to another in Star Trek. It seems to be a chicken and egg scenario: if replicators came into being *before* reputation became capital, then capitalists would simply… capitalize on it. So you still need to implement a reputational economy in a pre-post-scarcity (did that make sense?) world. Hmmmm 🤔 Well. Back to the drawing board, comrades.
My headcanon is similar, though I don't feel that the Federation is really all that communist, but is definitely on the socialist side of things. I definitely agree that most people have a replicator in their homes that attends to their basic needs and a computer with access to the broader Federation-wide network, so they can look up just about anything, talk to anyone, read any books, listen to any music and watch any videos. But you do have to control access to items that are more scarce, even though most of the things people might want to use or do are scarce due to being limited in use as opposed to limited in terms of resources. Like only one person or group can be beamed somewhere from a transporter pad, eight people can't use a holodeck at the same time for eight different programs. If your replicator at home is too small to make something you need to go to a communal one and queue up to use it - we see Data and Worf do this in Data's Day. We also know that a lot of people put a premium on hand-crafted items like food. And we know that the Federation has a currency of sorts -- the Credit. It'd make sense for the Credit to be tied to energy usage, probably the energy it takes to replicate a small cube of aluminium or something simple like that. More complex things use more energy and cost more credits. So my assumption is that everyone gets a home with a replicator and a computer and a stipend of credits they can use for bigger things like a meal out, beaming to somewhere else on the same world, booking a trip to a different world or whatever, just for living in the Federation. And if you want more credits, you contribute to society. This can mean getting a job, but it could just as easily be writing holonovels and putting them out in the world, making ice cream and giving it to neighbourhood kids, whatever. I lean towards thinking that there are municipal authorities or similar local governments, which may well be a variation on the communist idea of worker's councils. And those would be responsible for maintaining and managing the land in an area for the communal good. If you wanted to start a "business" in a neighbourhood, you'd go to the people and ask if they wanted that facility and they'd vote on it. We also know that some things can't be replicated, probably most notably Dilithium but quite frequenly medicines and other volatile items that are vital to this week's episode. So the Federation will have some level of external trade and an exchange rate between Credits and other trading currencies like gold-pressed latinum and maintain stores of these currencies to use in trade. Though with a large population, most of whom probably spend a lot of their time in the pursuit of leisure I'd assume one of the biggest imports for the Federation is entertainment.
The thing is: no one sat down to work out how the Federation economy worked, and then had the writers show it to us. The writers simply told us how great the Federation is in every way, and we are now trying to rationalise a system based on what we are told. There is no reason to assume that one and only one possible system will match what we are told. In all probably no possible system will do that, because the Federation is presented as being better than every other system in every way: there are no downsides. Things don't work like that. To be best in the world at something, you have to be less than best in the world at something else. A writer can always assume a problem away, but that does not make the assumption realistic.
A social credit system would never work because it would put an elite group of people in charge of deciding what is valuable to society. Even within Starfleet there are tiers of people with various degrees of value. As long as resources are limited there will be a need for an economic system. If everyone can't have their own Galaxy class starship and Chateau Picard can't supply the entire Federation with wine there will need to be some form of ecomonics and currancy.
Thanks for the great video. It's very interesting how they live in the future startrek. Specially after. Here in America the price of rent. Has skyrocketed here in south west Florida I think when deep space 9 went back intime with the. Rent wars. And vets had no way to afford a place to stay. I think something like that has to happen soon too many homelessness and people. That can't even go to doctors or hospitals things have to change. I also think holodeck. And other tech from startrek. Can help people out. I think there also was a nuke war that had to change the way people lived. And ease tension
The Social Currency aspect is so intriguing. Everyone in Starfleet is pretty outgoing, but what if that's just because that's the type of person who gets to have that social status? If you sit at the back of the class and keep your friend group small as a kid does that lead into your adult social standing, your job, your house? For every Starfleet cadet how many NEETs are there behind them?
I find it interesting that you’d have more references to non-Trek franchises than you do to modern Trek. Could it be the future they’ve built in nuTrek isn’t really that appealing? I do agree with your original premise, the conversion of energy to matter is the fundamental pinning under the Trek universe. It’s what opens up all other possibilities, it is the great equalizer. The one part that has always eluded me was how they power it, mainly on shore (off starships). Are there massive warp style reactors on planet? How is that power delivered globally? The problem I see before energy conversion is the massive power needed to enable it, that needs solving first. Is this conversion energy inefficient? Electricity is, the conversion of electrons to another form, motion typically, emits heat as waste. How about delivery? How can that be efficient?
![[UA] Eternal Fire проти NAVI | EPL Season 20 Malta](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/chvlsDygrZM/mqdefault.jpg)
Watch Part 1 Here: ua-cam.com/video/JJwWxT269ec/v-deo.htmlsi=FFPH3BQ1TP9k0eCj
P.S.:- To all the people asking about housing and/or money, as I said in the video, I covered money in the previous video and housing will be covered in the next video. To all the people who keep comparing the concept of social capital to a dystopian Black Mirror "Nosedive" system that's not what I was referring to at all. Social capital isn't regulated, it's a purely social system. Social capital exists today, but in Star Trek, it simply plays a much larger role in society.
Thank you for engaging with the video though. If you want to see the next video in the series early and ad free, join me on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/rowanjcoleman
10:48
HMS _Beagle_ did exploration. And Captain James Cook, was a naval officer and renound explorer.
Military service does not negate exploration. Indeed, they're usually first-exporers *because* they can cope with any bad things that might crop up.
Part 2, mention previous video, no link in comment or description.
So checking out the video that does deal with money, as many comments noted you seem to believe that replicators mean free energy. Which isn't a thing in universe and violates the laws of physics. You even use clips of Kirk in the videos. Who lived in a time before replicators existed. Earth at least had achieved post scarcity before replicators. So unfortunately it appears that a lot of your arguments are based on a flawed premise.
@@s_1884I probably should have gone into more detail about replicators. I'm well aware of thermodynamics and my explanation of replicators doesn't violate the laws of physics. What I mean was that replicators can create the means to achieve virtually limitless energy by building household fusion reactors and the like. As long as there's a constant supply of raw materials to break down and reuse for replicators (for example human waste) then replicators can keep making fuel.
In TOS we did see something like food synthesizers aboard the Enterprise which I think have been retroactively made replicators.
Another point, I think it's interesting that Trekkies are happy to accept dozens of physics violating technologies, but when it comes to replicators there's no wiggle room
Also, the previous video is linked at the end and in a video card on screen.
@@RowanJColeman We simply have no idea how energy requirements are met at scale - they might be per household or per building (in the case of apartment buildings) or larger (on the city/county/region size). Probably a mix of all those depending on context
@@vinapocalypse If we can't be certain, why not assume the best?
Social capital reminds me of a line in Enemy at the Gates: “Man will always be man. There is no new man. We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbour. But there's always something to envy. A smile, a friendship, something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there will always be rich and poor. Rich in gifts, poor in gifts. Rich in love, poor in love.”
Perhaps Star Trek finds a way to that new man.
Voici la correction et la mise en page de ton texte :
Communism is not about helping people; it’s about the centralization of power. They sell it to people by stimulating their envy. As the writer of 1984 said, "The left does not love the poor; they hate the rich because they envy them."
I'd actually argue that the Federation is proof that the lack of a new man, and that's a driving force to the betterment of the Federation. Take, for instance, Dr. Bashir's dad. The writers wrote him with the base idea of "what does a loser look like in the Federation?" This is a man who wants to find his calling: something to make him rich in happiness, but just cannot find it, and winds up bouncing from dead-end to dead-end.
What drives people in the Federation? It's no longer a desire for wealth in terms of money, but wealth in terms of other things: reputation (to be the one to crack transwarp), ingenuity (the joy of finding coffee in that nebula), contemplation (to be a doctor at Oxford), and more for sure, but ultimately: happiness. The self-satisfaction of doing what makes you whole, and contributing to others by doing that thing **well**.
We have historically used more limited ways as criteria to identify if someone is happy, like the money in their pocket, the size of their family, or the size of their house. And the story of "the man who has everything and yet nothing," i.e. the man who is wealthy yet unhappy is a tale as old as time. Star Trek shows that when you don't need these criteria, the question of "are you happy" is much simpler. Some find happiness in running a simple restaurant, others by running farming colonies which use less and less technology, and others through traditional public service like Starfleet. What makes these people wealthy isn't their nice houses on Chateau Picard or Pike Ranch, but their happiness.
@@TakedaIesyu I do find that the focus people have on questions like "but who gets to live in that big, fancy mansion suspended on a cliffside?" are missing the forest for the trees.
And they have failed to ask themselves why they would want to be given such a property.
And, hell, the question isn't even that difficult to answer.
You want a mansion? Submit a request for a plot of land and materials to the United Earth Government's, erm... Office of Civic Management, say, along with any particular features you would require in location and design.
They respond with a list of alternatives for you to choose from. Some existing structures, others land that may be allocated for a dwelling of the specified size and design.
Now you have a mansion. Great. Now what? No one is impressed. In fact, most people will probably think it's a gaudy waste of energy.
You don't need a mansion. You need a comfortable, safe place to live. A place that satisfies your particular needs and proclivities.
Haha, I think you took the wrong message from this quote.
Yeah, I also keep on remembering this gut-punching scene from the film from time to time. It was said by Joseph Fiennes' character. Telling it to Jude Law's Vasily Zaitsev.
It is so refreshing seeing someone actually think about how this future could Logical work in stead of Deconstructing it ❤
You have no clue what deconstructing means.
@@john-lenin Deconstruction (noun): a method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language which emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression.
Absolutely. People just love to say it's impossible when it isn't. Bunch of cynics. The whole point of Star Trek is hope for a better future. That doesn't just mean flying around in space - it means a hopeful future for economy and society as well.
you got a few ink in the matter. check trekconomics and Trekspertise.
@@john-lenin Being realistic and understanding that this idea cannot work does not work and never will work. There are a lot of good examples of futuristic economies in Sci-Fi, Star Trek is not one of them. It is a very poorly written attempt in the next generation to show a post scarcity society and frankly you can talk about it as much as you want but you have to go to beta cannon sources in order to have it be anything other than authoritarian communism. I'm a navy veteran I understand why my captain had moral authority over me and why I had to follow his orders but I am still mystified as to why anybody followed Picards orders. Damned fools being ordered to their death for no reason by somebody with no righteous authority.
Tbh I always just assumed that in Star Trek humanity just matures to the point the whole world or Federation is such a high trust society... there is no crime. It is utopia but even in our world we get glimpses of it: eg. shops in small villages where owners just leave the shop open and unmanned and people take what they need and leave money on the counter. Now imagine the world where 99.99% of people behave this way.
I think that was the Roddenberry's dream: that we as humanity will stop war just by virtue of no one wanting to start wars, not by forcing others to act nice. That's why he was always against the conflict between Federation officers, assuming that the humanity will reach the level where people don't fight each other. And yes, it changed a lot in the later series, even TNG and especially DS9 causing terrible mental gymnastics. Eg. DS9 being a trade center and Federation not using money.
I've recently moved from a town where there was crime, to a town where most people don't bother to lock their doors and yet there are no burglaries. These places actually exist.
What's worth remembering is that they don't "still" exist. There are small towns with no burglaries or murders right now. There was a need for laws to handle burglary in ancient Israel, in Athens, basically everywhere. It's not a matter of different times. It's a matter of, just as you say, maturity. When people value the ability to trust their neighbors then they don't abuse their neighbors. When people value fearing their neighbors (to politically manipulate others, or to socially manipulate) then the childish emotions that separate people also devalue people in one another's eyes. Roddenberry's view was that "maturity" meant being open to seeing the value in others.
Why have a trade center is everything can be produced by replicators?
@@kennykuhns9843 First, places like Bajor and Ferenginar still use money to represent power. "No money" is an Earth thing.
Second, there are a lot of exotic materials that can't be replicated, so you have to go to where they are to pick them up. It just makes sense to have distribution centers for them.
Third, "trade" isn't just materials. People value information, and a lot of socially-minded people prefer to get their information face to face. People value food, and there is something special about experiencing food made especially for the meal instead of the mathematically identical meals made by replicators. People value live art (dance, music, spoken poetry, and so on), and the real thing just feels different from a holosuite program you can just pause or rewind.
Replicators are for convenience. Trade, in 24th century Earth culture, is about having a more interesting life and sharing it with other people.
@@SingularityOrbit why does Ricker insist in collecting the debt?
@@kennykuhns9843 It's been a bit since I've watched the video. Who was Ricker and what was the debt?
A reputation-based society?
Don't we have that now with social media?
In such an economy, your wealth isn't based upon what you do, but upon people's *perception* of what you do. Your "optics" so to speak.
No room for gaming *that* system...
Thank you, Rowan! 🙂 ❤
A wholesale meritocratic society, your value in society determined by your achievements.... it sounds like a horrific world! A world of tiger moms pushing their kids to perform, a mass of underclass citizens who aren't particularly talented, a ruling class of Elon Musks who get to decide what "success" and "meaningful achievements" are.
Even the father of Meritocracy himself, Confucius warned against relying solely on merit as a means to determine who was in power.
Yeah see this is the angle that I find missing even assuming star trek's society is as perfect as depicted. People will min-max the living hell out of a favor economy and make the society extremely rigid and full of social conventions (Japan). Some people are just bastards, even if most people are innately good. Those people have abused every and any system we've constructed to try to be on top and dictate affairs. Most of them are just not capable of doing it and end up in prison, but a few very shrewd ones always fill the top. Maybe that's why Star Fleet Admirals are always so vain and antagonistic but if they are all like that it doesn't make sense that the society is setup this way still.
The idea of reform and rehabilitation is something that needs to be talked about much more in the US. We aren't helping ourselves by simply locking people up.
Not helping yourselves, but some people do benefit from it:
- The system of private prisons.
- Whoever benefits from very cheap or even free labour (slavery IS legal in USA, if you're a convict).
- The people who promise to the electorate that they will be "tough on crime": politicians, judges, sheriffs.
It's not in *their* interest to reform criminals.
We do that
It doesn’t work
Of course we do t have mind control machines yet
There are a great many conversations that need to be had about the state of things in the US. Infrastructure, law enforcement, health care, education, etc. Conversations that cannot be had so long as the people at the top of the pyramid who gain from the way things are now actively prohibit and attack anyone who wants to even suggest things are broken. This is why they hate and fear Trump and his supporters so much. He represents an end to the gravy train they've been riding for a century. Until their stranglehold is broken, things are only going to get worse. And before you dismiss me as a "MAGA Moron" or something, I'll remind you that the Republicans are just as complicit in this affrontery as the Democrats are, just not as many of them.
In dagger of the mind, in the ST universe, they were still struggling with rehabilitation.
@@joeboxter3635 That wasn't rehabilitation, that was outright mind control and is one of the examples used by the people who talk about how the Federation is low key a tyrannical dystopia where you get reprogrammed if you don't toe the company line.
Excellent, comprehensive presentation! I am quite confident that there is a threshold in our near future, once crossed, that will lead us to the beginnings of a Star Trek universe. Much of that threshold is attitude and perspective. As we draw closer to a near zero cost society, we need to begin to think in a different way about property, ownership, and land borders, both local and international. Yes, this may take decades, but again I am confident we can get there.
A credit system, you better yourself by exercising and doing little odd jobs, but you no longer need to spend money on shelter, food, healthcare and clothing
Just wanted to add that I know there are those who might see the Star Trek future earth as soft, spoiled and unmotivated seeing as so much is easily provided for, if that's the case there's always the colonies you can just leave earth and sign up to be part of a colony even one that wants to break off from the federation to establish a new society on another world built from the ground up with your own hands.
_five hundred cigarettes_
replicate victoria secret harem
Thanks for another amazing video 😁
I think one reason the society works onscreen is that only fleetingly see it in its full civilian glory--mostly, we see Starfleet, which is populated by glory-driven overachievers who have voluntarily put themselves under something like a military command structure, and who quite definitely have armed security officers, brigs, court-martials, etc. to police *them* while they're on the job. All that makes sense since it's inspired by real-world military services. But we don't get a lot of how things work outside of that.
Well thought out and well presented. You gave me several new views of Roddenberry's vision that I'd not considered! Thank you VERY MUCH!! I look forward to MORE from you as a subscriber!!!
Love this! Thank you for the fun and interesting take!
It came to me that we humans actually only need 2 laws to funktion together. They would be 1 All things are legal/allowed in regard to your personal activity. 2 Your rights/freedoms may not impede/hinder/restrict an other persons rights/freedoms. There may need to be lists of examples as a guide but beyond that all normal scenarios should be covered.
Interesting how star fleet deals with first contact. Any new civilisation would have there own culture and political systems in place. Would the Federation insist on their compliance to the new order? Not every King or Emperor would be willing to be made redundant.
If another society was ruled by a monarchy they'd be disqualified from joining the Federation, but the Federation wouldn't impose on them. There's the Prime Directive after all.
This is exactly why the TOS writers’ bible was intentionally vague about the social system. The writers were told not to worry about Earth because “you are not going there.”
Working despite not getting paid also hepls keeping the permission to board any long distance public transport or having apersonal conveyance. Gotta keep that social credit score up somehow, and obedience is the best way to do this.
AWESOME VIDEO AND GOOD POINT, BLESSINGS
Can you go into detail how credits work? And how we could achieve this future?
I don't think there will be such an asshole in Star Trek. Because why would there be? Something would have to have gone wrong in their childhood, or later life to become like this. And things just don't go that wrong in an utopia.
And even if there would be. They would immediately be surrounded by 100 councilors, anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists and be a fascinating research project to find out what happened and why they became like this.
It's called a Resource-based Economy. The term was coined by futurist Jacques Fresco who does some years ago at his compound in Venus Florida. The Venus Project, as its known, is still there and is run by Fresco's life partner Rachel Meadows
As an I.T. person I would be made instantly obsolete if dropped in the Star Trek Universe.
My skills and knowledge is based on our contemporary tech and I would have to do several years of school just to catch up. Bar attendant roles I think would be a more timeless and applicable job.
I think the Orville explain this really well
Very good video 👏
Amateur social scientists! 🙄
“A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711)
Wow, just wow. Way to hurt my head and my heart at the same time! I'm wondering if there's a way to incorporate free will, nature vs nurture, and basically trauma, developmental disorders, etc into this. At the end of the day, poverty is the worst disease and one we that "arguably" we've created for ourselves. A lot of trauma/developmental disorders/ societal issues are the result of generational trauma and not getting needs met. Crazy to think how all that could be handled...
Great video
social capital to weild reward would in practice mean huge, desparate poverty. like many things in trek, it's a nice idea.
Question. If there is no money but the ferengi are extreme capatilists then how do they interact? Or why don't they just replicate as much latium as they want and if the answer is the amount of energy required then that makes the federation or in fact the galaxy wide currency is energy. Replicators convert energy into things so everything has a price. Money is not the only currency... ohhh so many questions
I have a lot of thoughts on this:
Property and protection: I don't see why there wouldn't be a civil police force. Earth's main administrative body is the United Earth, and within it a number of member bodies still exist (though they may not look like the countries of today). The local administrative groups within United Earth (The African Confederation, European Alliance, etc) could administer their own police forces, probably on a more granular scale (city by city), but all still bound by United Earth's laws and rules. There is no need for complex and highly energy-intensive technical solution (per-house force fields) when simpler solutions exist. And a police force freed from being focused on private property protection (e.g, working on behalf private business owners to "subdue" their pesky striking workers) and also free from most personal property-related crimes can be much smaller in scale (fewer police per 1000 civilians) and almost certainly have shed its violent behaviors.
Social "currency": Reputation as a means of exchange is something that has been demonstrated in a number of pre-agricultural societies, and is though to be the way many if not most pre-agricultural societies worked. The way it works is not as a literal currency as means of exchange where "I give you X of something for Y levels of reputation" and not a pool of something that is deducted from as you use it, but as one's reputation as a barometer for their value within that society. And that reputation varies from person to person or group to group. Your tribe may know you as trustworthy, but the new tribe in the valley may have no idea who you are. In a technological and highly-connected society reputation is a lot easier to share so many more people can take at face value that you are a great shuttle pilot or have written great articles on warp physics because of awards, merits, etc. you are probably worth trusting.
Governance: See above, but there are canonical references to more granular governance, but still under the purview of the United Earth govt.
Techno-Transcendentalism: I disagree with the idea that the 24th century society is highly individualistic. Some people might like to live out in the countryside but we have lots of on-screen evidence of vastly more people living in cities. It's an illusion then and much more so this century that anyone is "self sufficient" - we all rely on many other people for our food, power, infrastructure, etc. While you can get away with replicators (personal or industrial) to a certain degree, most projects will necessarily require lots of human cooperation. When Picard's brother and nephew died in a fire (RIP) I bet there was a lot of fire damage. There is very little chance he rebuilt the chateau all by himself but relied on help from others to restore it, source or replicate replacement pieces (Picard's always seemed like he prefers genuine articles over replicated ones), and used his reputation to get that done.
Emergency Services: there are definitely reasons for ESes to work only within one locale, such as familiarity with the people and places there and their peculiarities. Also public trust esp in police is higher when they live in the area they police; this is a problem in the US where many police do not live in the areas they police (esp in lower income areas) and are trusted much less. Even with a friendly, non-aggressive police system, there has to be a level of trust there. This would not preclude civilian police from having access to records from all over the Federation (depending on their security clearance level). Likewise, you may have certain medical needs that, while available to every doctor in Federation (upon request), are still best treated by your local doctor who you trust and knows your situation.
Criminal Justice: definitely agree here, a rehab-based system is what we have seen outside of the brig (which is just short-term holding cell in a martial context). Other non-Federation groups are used to contrast with Earth's rehab-based system, like hard labor mines on Klingon penal colonies
I've never seen anything that makes me think Roddenberry had all the details worked out. My impression is he was working from a concept rather than a blueprint. And while Roddenberry's Star Trek universe sounds like a wonderful place to live, I'm not sure humans are capable of it. Just look at what's been done to the franchise in recent years. And like what STD and Pisscard did to Star Trek, I think any utopia would be quickly washed away by a flood of pretentious apes.
The easier solution is money does exist. For basic needs it's not needed. But if say, Scotty wants to buy a luxury item like a boat, you need to work for it.
I wish Star Trek would actually deal with the implications of its own suggestions as opposed to just smugly saying "this is a paradise. We've solved everything". This future has a lot of terrible implications that aren't being considered.
- If reputation is capital, what that functionally means is how much you comply with social norms. If someone is significantly culturally different or neurodivergent, what stops them from falling down the ladder for making faux pas? You'd need laws and top down education in place to prevent this from becoming an issue.
- Who controls land? How do you buy/sell it? How do you manage what people are allowed to do with it? Even if everyone is socially a good person, they could misuse the land by mistake.
- If the land has no value and is just traded based on reputation, that would either mean every sale being laboriously difficult or it would mean reputation being somehow quantified in an Orwellian top down system.
The last part, probably make it like a fair bit of people, and the amish do. If you know people you know, you ask them and give some party of food. And as communal effort, lie amish and barns?
It would be a bit weird with ever changing people probably in plans for the average person, but that can be done for the sake of helping out too. And of course maybe a specialist and the federation lends mashinery. Which makes logistics a bit wonkier, but people do that in real life in lack of resources. Also yeah its work but i see enough people wanting to , do that. I hope workers ther too have some kind of measure reputation enough that they do an ok job at least for sure and arent terrible, and maybe have a school for getting better and , chances, but prople volunteer and houses are partly built with volunteers already? Or renovations, or other stuff. Just make it an actual system somehow and connecting better there?
Maybe that became some system outside of just people you know but , hobby volunteer construction groups or something.
Its not that it needs to be desastrous but people finding their niche if they whyever , that would make pretty interesting struggle and conflicts. Dunno if a graffity artist gets in trouble and has to find his niche in a system , and that works out, could have the utopia and conflict part. And touch on the social pressure part, what if you want to be rebellious. Are ther outlets,
One thing you have to consider with land is that 24th century technology dramatically opens up what land you can live on. You can beam a cabin to most of the planet without the need for it to be connected to any infrastructure. If you look at how we use land now it's all about crowding into very small population centres - with the vast, vast majority of land being used either for farmland, forest or otherwise undeveloped. There will be considerably more acres available than demand from the population. So, it comes down to how much demand there is to live in 'popular' locations - which I imagine would be controlled by governments and leased out to individuals based on a set of criteria such as historic claim, their contribution to society and the social value of what they intend to do with it.
If the writers and producers of Star Trek had any clue as to how such a future could actually work, I'm sure they would. The reality is that, when it comes to how to create the near utopian future that Star Trek tries to portray, they are just as stumped as everyone else.
@@Its__GoodDecided by...? Those most aligned with popular opinion are the most rewarded.
@@cw5081 Sure. Trek writers have no more idea how a utopian society works than how a warp drive work.
As an anarchist, I often feel frustrated that in Star Trek, capitalism has been abolished but all the other stuff of today (patriarchy, hierarchies, competitive and graded school as well as hierarchies between family members and the cisheteronormative monogamous nuclear family) are still there!
I often fantasize about meeting the crew of the Enterprise-D who have traveled back in time (maybe to save the bees this time around instead of the whales 😉) and going with them to the 24th century.
I could do medical transition instantly without having to worry about the cost and the advanced medical technology make it an outpatient procedure (at least according to the abysmal Profit and Lace).
So I would be frustrated that there isn’t wide spread anarchism around on 24th-century Earth.
But then I thought: maybe the reason (and the reason why Star Trek writers haven’t tried to explain 24th century economy and political ideology) is because it’s an ideology and system we cannot yet conceive of just like a medieval person couldn’t perceive a world without the divine right of kings.
In my headcanon, queerness is so normal in the 24th century that people no longer need to use labels (like Captain Jack Harkness says in Torchwood about us: „You pans your quaint little categories!“) and family dynamics are a lot more diverse and so are education systems. Some go to traditional schools (with grades perhaps being only symbolic) while others go to democratic schools like Sudbury Valley schools or some use unschooling to let their kids educate themselves.
And I believe that political decisions are made in the grassroots principle, from bottom to top instead of how it is now. When a problem only concerns one family, that family will reach a consensus for a solution and if it concerns a village or city block, the facilities that area will send messengers to a village or city block council who will meet. If all families have the same idea, the problem is solved, if not, the messengers will return and the families will debate until a consensus is reach by the community that pleases everyone.
I also believe that 24th century earth is way more solarpunk that what we see in the series.
THEY USED CREDITS ON THE ORIGINAL SERIES TO BUY THINGS. THIIS VIDEO SEEMS TO CONCENTRATE ON THE NEWER TV SERIES SOCIALISM
the elephant in the room, half of us sychos.
I really think Star Trek should do a non-Starfleet based series, looking at Earth, society and the rest of the ST universe, specifically to answer some of these burning questions.
However, I do worry that modern Trek's creators are too pro capitalist to either do it, or do it properly. In fact, the biggest concern I think, would be that if handled by pure capitalist thinkers (who simply view a non-capitalist future as a purely fictional product to be consumed by contemporary consumers) it may not just misrepresent our core ideas, but outright create pure capitalist propaganda aimed at us pesky socialists.
I think we need to return to Roddenberry's core message. Humans are different in the future. We, in our modern world, are all abused children. In the future there would be no asshole that would kick in PIcard's door. And if someone did they would be treated for mental illness. This is also what modern Trek doesn't get. It's WHY the show was so hard to write for.
I agree. Trek humans aren't just modern day people with warp drive and phasers. They live in a different type of society where they are educated and helped to evolve beyond the psychological problems we have today.
yeah you just have to accept the creepy stuff like the authorities knowing where you are and what you are doing at all times and technology like thought reading/control existing and entrusted to the benign all knowing all seeing government.
The problem with Roddenberry's message, is that no interpersonal conflict in the future is creepy and makes for boring TV. There's a reason why the Season 1 and 2 of TNG was bad.
@@seeingeyegod Yeah, they're pretty chill about that sort of thing in the future. I guess if you trust your government it doesn't matter if they operate that kind of control.
@@seeingeyegod If only the Earth government worked that way. Then they'd have known a firefight happened in former Admiral Jean-Luc Picard's house as soon as the first Romulan disruptor went off. Instead, Picard and his household staff had to handle it themselves. For that matter, they seemed to handle it so completely that there was no scene of the police being called.
It looks like such technologies are mainly aboard Starfleet vessels, where knowing a crewmember's location could save their life, and where encountering mind-reading and mind-controlling aliens is just one of the countless risks of the job.
All you need for space communism to actually work is material replicators. Then you can create anything you want, even a bacon sandwich.
Without replicators though there can be no system based on social capital, because people will still demand their share of available resources based on their contribution of effort.
A social capital system without replicators would instantly have social comparison theory kick in, essentially a race to the lowest common denominator of effort, declining production, declining living standards, with the state allocating goods and services to individuals, actual communism. Always remember the biggest source of inequality in the world today is effort inequality.
Would be embarassing if they forgot about this when making Star Trek Picard.
THUNDERBIRDS MENTIONED!!!! 💥💥💥🔥💥🔥💥💥😉
Did you forget that both Dilithium and Latinum *cannot* be replicated? ;) And there may be more materials and elements that for various reasons which cannot be replicated! This may be why the Ferengi use gold-pressed latinum, and various polities spar over dilithium deposits ;)
I wanna push back on the future of Star Trek not being communist/socialist: the main characteristic of communism is the abolition of private property (as can be read in chapter two of the communist manifesto), and is completely replaced by two other kinds of property, those being collective/communal property and personal property. I see this fulfilled in Star Trek, since, as you mentioned, most property is personal, and some things like public infrastructure i'd consider communal property. So I'd say that communism fits quite well as a description of the Federation's economic system. There's a caveat though, that being that communism is frequently described as a moneyless, classless and stateless society. While moneyless and classless are certainly true for the Federation, it is not quite stateless. If someone doesn't want to use the word communism because of this, the word socialism would still be the next-most-fitting description.
Right? He says there is no money so it's not an economic system in the video, but no money is a feature of many old and suggested economic systems. Though, money and credits/currency are often confused by most people. This video seems to use communism to mean something akin to the USSR's state capitalism (authoritarian communism), rather than (democratic) libertarian socialism or anarchist communism.
I also wonder what Rowan means when he says individual vs collective. Marx was critical about how liberal democracies (as we have now and have had for a couple hundred years) would fail to fulfill it's own promises of self-determination. As Picard said at the end of Best of Both Words part 1:
"My culture is based on freedom, and self-determination." Or, as Marx said it:
"For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic and must remain so if he does not wish to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic."
- Karl Marx, "The German Ideology"
Problem is there will always be finite resources. Land is limited. Beachside land is limited.
There has to be some kind of governingbody determining land allocation otherwise generational land holding would occur. You'd get parents passing their land to children with inner city families being trapped there.
A social contract is weak because it's subjective. How do you determine who is the most worthy of a land allocation? Can a PhD student evict a 3 generational family of lower class workers?
Fun idea, but even in a world with replicators not practical.
There is far more land, even beachfront land, on Earth than any population could possibly inhabit.
@Its__Good if you believe that, I've got a beachfront property to sell you.
Beach front in Alaska is not the same as beachfront in California. Beach front in Florida after climate change won't be as valuable.
Also how big is a fair allotment of land? 1000 foot? 100 meters? Who decides this?
How do you preserve wildlife? Do you burn down sanctuaries so everyone gets a Beach front house?
It really isn't that simple mate. You can't just give everyone the same Beach front house. There isn't the land or the climate.
@Its__Good
Also what if aliens come from off world?
What if there is a population boom?
You can't make assumptions you don't know about.
I'll cover this in the next video in the series.
Well if you’re talking about the Star Trek universe they are constantly making new colonies and there are plenty of plots about land rights conflicts.
If you’re talking about real life not everyone wants beach front property. There is a finite amount of it which is why you’re average person gets mad when rich people buy up previously public beach front land and cut of the general public’s access to it. Most experts seem to agree the global population will level out at 10 billion which is sustainable with finite resources. If you live in North America and are middle or upper class your abundance of resources will shrink to meet the rest of the world, but no one is really arguing that we’re all going to live like millionaires if we do enough socialism. A comfortable life with everyone’s needs met is pretty achievable tho.
Maybe the fact that we simply accept that there will always be a lot of assholes and sociopaths who will ruin things for everyone else is part of the problem.
But there are many societies on earth today with different cultures where people behave very differently. For example, look at how people treat public property in Japan. People take much better care of public property in Japan conpared to most other countries. They don't throw their trash on the ground and they voluntarily help clean up. Yes, Japan has their own problems, but it just goes to show how different culture and beliefs can create a very different society than people may be used to or even think is possible.
Yeah, the fantastic country of Yakuza, Hentai, Bukkake, illegal whaling, and excruciating working hours. 🙂
Sure, if you don't mind extreme levels of ostracism, rigid hierarchy and classism.
@@genmaicha.lapsang BUt you can have exreme levels of ostracism rigid hierarchy and classism *without* people caring for eahch other or their towns too, and you don't have to look too far to see that. It means among other things that things that seem impossible in daily life here or say in Russia where we or they have many of the same darn drawbacks, are a nice part of daily life elsewhere. Maybe it's not such a simple zero-sum or inextricable equation.
People blame 'human nature' for a lot of things that ...actually humans don't do or have to do everywhere. There are many possibilities.
@@OllamhDrab Your premiss is not true. The "clean cities" that you see in these counties are ONLY possible in societies that have a level rigidity, conformity, ostracism, classism and intense hierarchy. People only "care about each other" becuase they are forced too do so in these cultures. It's not out of genuine concern.
Sure, Dubai, Seoul, Singapore, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur and even Tokyo look really clean and friendly but they only show parts of the city for social media purposes and those cultures are very difficult to live freely in. Even the most free ones like South Korea and Japan are very ridged and repressive by western standards.
@@genmaicha.lapsang I disagree. Look at Stockholm, or any given Scandanavian city, for one. That was my point. These things are not inextricable 'human nature' or based on current ideas of a 'political spectrum between authoritarianisms in scarcity' ...never mind without such scarcity and greed. Whether people or governments care for each other and places.... is a matter of priorities and abilities and if.... people care.
As a bartender I love getting customers talking about Star Trek economics and society. Just imagine being born and everything you need is automatically provided for you. The need to educate, master a craft, or learn about the universe is as easy as binging a tv show on netflix. You step onto a holodeck and you learn how to become a master at french cuisine, and making samurai swords. Then you find a program to teach you how to master Klingon sword making. But it doesn't end there, travel is pretty much free, so you can leave Earth to apprentice under an actual Klingon sword maker. As a gift, you cook chicken chasseur for the Klingon sword master. Your skills in french cooking leaves a lasting impression on the Klingon. Sharing what you learned in your life is your gift to society. Society isn't just where you live on Earth, it expands throughout the galaxy; thanks to the invention of the replicator and holodeck. Your skills give you value in the Star Trek universe, not your money. Lol, down the road, Klingons become obsessed with french chicken dishes.
"The Poulet Cordon Bleu, is truly a meal fit for a warrior!"
I wonder, Did Picard learn his sword fighting with a Klingon Sword master lol.
" _I have a dish for you of great honor_ "
-Klingon eats it- " _By Sto'vo'kor itself. This is G'rohkthar!_ "
" _No actually, it's called Swedish Meatballs, but it seems every race in the universe has their own take on it._ "
x3
Somebody has to do the dirty work there are jobs that you don’t see anybody doing what are they all been done by robots
This is extremely deep. This is extremely deep to put this together someday maybe we might be able to do it.
Another answer to "who are the police?" is that citizens themselves are given power of arrest, given certain conditions. Said citizens would have to be certified to ensure they knew the law, but given we do that for drivers in our world, and Star Trek is a universe where 10 year olds are leaning Calculus in schools, I see no reason why they need a special class of people to enforce the law.
People forget all the other functions peace officers perform, I do assume they'd still be around, even if people aren't very crimey.
Even today, the us has Citizens arrest.
Also, Everybody has a stun rifle like the farmer in the first episode of enterprise. Everybody becomes a texan-ish (stun first, ask questions later). 🤠
We've seen police in the 09 film and in Lower Decks. I don't understand this point or the way the video is making on this. There is police.
@@Kaede-Sasaki Well, I think it was a plasma rifle. Seems Starfleet was just getting phase pistols with stun introduced.
I rather like the approach to crime taken in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. If someone commits a serious crime, their social capital disappears, and also a robot follows them around to make sure they never do it again.
That reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode "to see the invisible man" where the punishment for some crimes is complete social isolation. You're made "invisible" for a year, and people are forbidden to acknowledge your existence
I remember somebody telling me about that I thought they were lying are them books a easy Read
I was thinking of the Culture watching this too.
I really recommend anyone to read these books (or listen to the audiobooks - the ones read by Peter Kenny are excellent) because the way their society operates compared to our own is extremely eye-opening as to just how little freedom we really have.
Even the example you mentioned is actually a fair bit more nuanced because The Culture doesn't really have laws or "crime" as such. Because they are truly post-scarcity in every way there isn't any need to steal anything (or anything to steal) and no reason for anyone to kill someone else. Think about pretty much any crime and there's no motive when there's nothing to acquire. (Also they have modified their genome and bodies to the extent that psychological issues that might lead to crime in our world aren't going to be a problem)
Along with this, they don't really have a concept of "punishment" which when you think about it, is really an abuse in all cases, even if we can argue it is necessary in our current system where people are motivated to harm others. In the example you give, the "slap drone" is there (as a volunteer, drones being sentient members of the society) to ensure the person being monitored can't harm others again, not as a punishment. The fact they might lose their social cachet is a side-effect rather than the intention.
@@boriszakharin3189 black mirror did that too, where people's brain implants would censor out a punished person.
@damoncurrie7103 the culture is not an easy read and if the way you've attempted to communicate here is any indication they will be way over your head. They presuppose a lot from the reader.
Excellent analysis, especially given the somewhat vague nature of the source material!
I'm looking forward to the next one!
I thought I remembered Dax saying something in DS9 about talking to a local government on Earth for housing.
I recall a local magistrate, administrator, and/or mayor being mentioned on earth in tng
A great reminder that Star Trek is the rare hopeful future in a sea of dystopia futures
I think the idea of Social Capital explains why Star Trek humans are so easy to trust. For social capital to work properly, the Federations education system would have to discourage all forms of deception the same way our current education system tacitly discourages creativity. Someone adept at deception could easily exploit social situations to retain their reputation at the expense of another, or abuse essential positions where their expertise would be vital, such as maintaining technical information on replicators, FTL communications, or anything sufficiently specialised or complex. People like Harry Mudd or other outlaws might end up informally exiled if any abuses of their power came to public light, which might explain why we don't get to see them in Star Trek. No one wants to listen or even associate with people who put themselves so far ahead of everyone else in the Federation.
Your idea manages to explain a fundamental plot point about classic Star Trek. Doesn't it feel strange that most people have to book passage on a ship to go to another world, but Harry Mudd has his own ship? In fact, lots of eccentrics out in the colonies have access to surprising resources. This would be because they deceitfully gamed the system to gain such things, but then were found out. Unable to find anyone to collaborate or to share resources on any of their endeavors following that discovery, they hopped to a colony world or joined the deep space markets. It's possible to find another culture within the Federation that suits a different personality (much like what happens in Bank's Culture novels). It's also possible to make quite a living for oneself in the interstellar market. The core Federation worlds' ways of living aren't the only ways to live, even in the 24th century. Gold-pressed latinum can be gathered by humans as well as by anyone else out there. It's just that the people we see in Starfleet, the ones we'd love to emulate, are from Earth's culture.
@@SingularityOrbit Well, in Mudd's case he seems to have operated largely outside the Federation economy from the start, usually being someone the Feds meet 'out there where we're exploring and here he is already' ...and trading with/swindling some pretty remote outposts of like miners and prospectors and all. One could easily see him having parlayed smaller schemes and scams into obtaining his own ship, wherever it came from.
@@SingularityOrbit (Also on that kind of character and his business, there's also every likelihood he had at least for much of his career an actually very-legitimate trader setup going on. If one did nothing but smuggle and scam, one's pose of legitimacy or even being allowed to land at least without tons of inspections would wear thin fast. (And as it is he always seems to be trying to stay ahead of all the people he ripped off.)
Certainly in Star Wars the best way to avoid geting caught as a Reb or smuggler or doing various adventurey jobs of other kinds is to actually *have* a suitable legitimate business going on, rather than just fake passes and credentials and hope to escape . :)
(And hey, if you simply don't *tell* how fast your hyperdrive is, you can get a lot done before you'e even expected anywhere. on your timetable. )
@@OllamhDrab That's all true, and good points to add besides. We can't really know how much or how little Mudd was tied to Federation activity, or to some little-acknowledged breakaway social order out there in the galaxy. His wife, Stella, was the daughter of an arms dealer who supplied weapons during the Federation-Klingon War, about a decade prior to the original series. Either the Feds were desperate for extra war materiel fast and bought from outside their borders, or things were more different than we realized between TOS and TNG.
@@SingularityOrbit If you remember that when TOS was making stories without any background 'canon' or anything, it'd been a concept of a Western-like story in space, so a lot of the characters and circumstances they find out that really parallel that, including some 'What did you do in the last war,' finding old outposts and places the 'government' folks hadn't been in some time, quirky settlements of Humans and towns needing 'straightening out,' etc.
Carpetbagging scoundrels, too. :)
We know there are laws. Genetic engineering gets you thrown in jail, for example.
When people do not have the threat of real punishment, there can be those who see any negative to bad behavior. If I kill someone, will others just ignore me?
In a TNG episode, a data broker mentioned a federation rehabilitation colony. There is a legal system and forms of limiting personal liberties. In DS9, those with mental challenges were institutionalized, and basher talked about what happened to those with genetic modifications. Basher's dad was sent to 'jail' for taking this son for genetic modification.
The penal colony thing was how Australia was formed. The sentence "Transportation for life" got that person exiled from the state of England/Britain and sent to some 'other' place which for a time was Australia.
Also reminds me of Brave Nee world, where they have an island for anyone that doesn’t fit the paradigm instead of prisons.
@@TheIgnoramus An island of misfit toys like the old Christmas special? :)
@@Chris-ut6eqsome of us have been metaphorically living in the Island of misfit Toys for most of our lives there are many human beings who don't fit in for no understandable reason there's always always going to be misfits
@@aeonsbeyond There are always reasons for why we do not fit in. I'm a misfit toy but carry my island with me in my mind. Sometimes I'm joined on that island, but like the Tom Hanks movie, it's often just me and Wilson :)
The biggest change for this to work is the change to the human condition. All the practicalities are completely second to the psychology of the concept. Transporters and replicators are not the unbelievable part in this scenario. What would have to happen to human psychology is what needs explaining. This social currency inequality changes nothing by itself. Why would it? It's just another form of wealth inequality. Some people will be wealthy and some people will be poor. Some people will go far and some people will struggle. Some people win the genetic lottery and some won't. Some people win the lottery of being born into (social) wealth and some won't. And humans will have human reactions to this.
One thing about Picard's estate and other properties said to be 'in the family' is particularly the former doesn't seem to be something the family *gained* by 'social capital' ....just no one took their land *away* in this whole process. (And of course France and whatever authorities thereafter surely value the production of French wine as heritage: they already do, that.) So as long as the Picards and their people keep doing what they do, nothing's wrong. It's presumably just not that they're doing it for a money economy anymore.
Also while Earth presumably has a lot of Starfleet people around all the time to help, given all the headquarters there, I do presume it has local security and emergency people and other systems like most Federation worlds, we just hear about it when the shows' characters are involved. Small town police tend to have plenty to do even if there's no big incentives to crimes. Cows stuck in fields, bar evenings getting out of hand, all kinds of that 'community policing' that may not seem much like 'policing' in some senses at all. The on-call problem-solvers and watchmen and all. Maybe Earth's 'paradise' has Mayberry policing, too. Certainly I think the things that drive first-responder types like firefighters and medics, as well as your forestry service types and similar, would also still be there and socially-valued, even if no one locks their doors at night.
A lot of times in the real world, all the money and scarcities, real and perpetuated/invented for money's sake, (Or for prejudice's) , that doesn't actually define people's sense of who they are and what they do, just makes life *harder* about it.
I'm still a 'fixit lady' even if I'm not being paid to do it. I'd likely have the same inclinations (maybe after Starfleet, good chance I'd try for that right away, of course) ...at least in civillian life.
@RowanJColeman 2:41 Derp. I have a bad feeling about how the rest of this video is going to go. You might want to re-visit what Marx meant when he talked about private property. Personal property are goods that have a use value, like Picard using Chateau Picard to live at, grow grapes and ferment wine. Private property are goods that have an exchange value like if their Earth was still like today and a realtor on behalf of the owner would sell you Chateau Picard in exchange for some fat stacks of dolla dolla bills; that's Chateau Picard as private property, a commodity. In a capitalism everything is a commodity produced for it's exchange value while produced secondarily for it's use value (if any, a la 'Bored Ape.') It's weird I know, but it's the context that fosters the meanings, out of context and in the modern parlance makes it super confusing and easily misunderstood (as well as easily warped by the disingenuous to intentionally confuse so yeah, not your fault my guy.) Recall that the pursuit of happiness from the Declaration of Independence just means to own property as well. Marx wrote this stuff at the tail end of enlightenment during Kant's age of idealism which branched out into a whole bunch of utilitarianism and ontologism and existentialism and positivism and social darwinism and pragmatism and transcendentalism and marxisms. Dictionaries were this new fangled fad at the time and not even as old as Trump or Biden yet. If you've read any Kant then you what I'm talking 'bout and know the weird structures everything was written in back then before all them -isms invented things like common terminology. Yeah. normally I'd watch the whole viddie before posting but I foresee quite a few butthurt commie trek fans starting an avalanche of this exact same comment or variations thereof and I wanted to be...oh what's the meme...the one with the numbers about posting early? 😆 Lolz.
I went back to rewatch part 1, which I really liked. He makes the private/personal distinction there and says the vineyard and the restaurant are both personal property because they actually work there... Which isn't completely inline with Marx and many socialists.
@@everearnest9935 Ah, thank you immensely my guy. I love RJC's viddies and after I went full on uptight and had to pause it and post I just didn't want to see what lead from what appeared to me as a foundational error in the whole shebang. When I have the time I'll watch the 2 back to back for the full context. Although I now wonder when I pull it up if I'll have some butthurt comment about that one from way back whenever it dropped that he'll have addressed on this one, lolz. 🤦♂
For the emergency response personel it reminded me of the voluntary firemen system we have in Czech Republic and I imagine a lot of other countries too. They typically inherit older vehicles from professional fire brigades, they don't have the same level of training (but they are trained) and equipment and they don't hold shifts sitting at the station. Instead when the alarms sounds (and they typically get text message about half a minute before that) they drop what they are doing and run/cycle/drive to the the station, suit up, jump into the truck and get going. Since most villages have them these volunteers are often first to arrive to the emergency. A friend who is one told me their average time to depart the station from the first alarm is under 4 minutes so if their route is by 5km or more shorter than the proffesionals they will get there first.
Even today in our money based society people both able and willing to be a voluntary fireman gain in social status. In the future moneyless economy I imagine something like that would be at least the same level of boost to social status or more. And since material is no problem there is no reason to have lesser equipment available. Any difference between these emergency responders and some who do it as their main life goal would be in amount of training and experience. I think there would be no lack of personel to help with any kind of accident or disaster no matter how big or small. If the "professionals" are occupied with one elswhere when your emergency happens you would have trained and equiped volunteers transporting to your location maybe 30 seconds later than the main guys could if they were not occupied.
I just watched Edge of Tomorrow again and thought about you doing a retrospective on Tom Cruise's contribution to sci-fi. 'Oblivion', Edge Of Tomorrow, the film's you've already done like Minority Report & War Of the World's....Tom Cruise sci-fi movies have their own identity and think they'd make a good subject for your critical eye.
(SPOILERS ahead) Wasn't Cruise's Vanilla Sky from 2001 also a sort of science-fiction? You only found out about it in the middle of the film with that 'WTF' plot twist that went so far that it even partially altered the whole film's genre/classification. Till that point in the story, the film appeared to be a regular romantic drama. And then it all got turned on its head......
I've watched the film twice, if I remember correctly, but the last time was more than 20 years ago and memories tend to fade away.
@@subraxas That can be included. I really didnt watch it all the way thru. Tom's sci-fi movies generally have a sense of urgency to them with him running from disaster or running to it.
I wish our society worked this way
You realize it took a catastrophic period of near global genocide, and several hundred years of starvation, death, disease and rebuilding, to get there, right.
@@c1ph3rpunk sadly so yes, if only we could learn from our own past and skip those times
@@ObiGommGaming if history has shown anything, it’s that we’re not terribly adept at learning from our past mistakes. This also tends to beg the next question, in the grand scheme of things at a universal scale, given how we are as creatures, is humanity really deserving of anything but the ultimate end.
@@c1ph3rpunk Close. It took the existing social hierarchy being wiped out, and then the arrival of a unifying force to get there. The genocides and hundred years of four horseman themed Mad Max nonsense only achieved the removal from power of those in power preventing the societal reforms necessary to achieve that social system.
We could get to that society in a few years if we just abolished capitalism, the prison industrial complex, fascism, authoritarianism, and we all let the "radical leftists" do the social reforms they've been demanding for the last several decades.
@@c1ph3rpunk Sounds like someone needs to read the book mentioned in the video, Rutger Bregman's "HumanKind"
There’s always going to be *some* scarcity, even in an idyllic post scarcity society. There’s only so much beachfront property, not every apartment can be the penthouse, there’s only one of original artworks, etc.
Wait, food does just grow on trees.
This is my issue. The concept of a post scarcity universe is just fundamentally flawed and it comes down to what is often our largest asset in today's world. Property. This whole thought exercise is moot when the most important thing we own, where we live, where we raise our children, where we call our home, is just side stepped.
As mentioned in another comment of mine, I compare this to today's Europe. Money, resources etc. are not an issue. Still, migration is. Why? Because of available space and cultural differences (which is important in Star Trek, as different cultures will handle reputation differently). You cannot solve every issue with money, thus having those replicators alone does not solve all issues. People will be unhappy because they got worse homes. Or because they lose reputation due to things out of their control. Then what? They might use their democratic power to change things (to the worse?) or start an uprising.
I think you underestimate how big the earth is (and the Federation for that matter). It's so big, everybody will find their perfect spot. (If they even try to find their perfect spot, some just want to be Wanderers) and then there will be 1000 perfect spots to spare on top of that that you skipped.
@@kevinmeville2631 Yeah, nah. I know it's all very scary and frightening for you but we could feed the entire world right now, it's just that we couldn't make a profit from doing so. Planned obsolescence and artificial scarcity are how things are done to increase demand and y'know, that's kind of the opposite of your what you're trying to sell friend. All the food and goods filling our landfills, things we produce only to dispose of since no one needs them enough to buy them all being thrown out just to keep demand marketable and so much so to the point that we pay good tax money to other countries just to take all the garbage we ship to them off our hands; that kinda appears to be a little side stepped in your perspective there Hoss.
Weirdly, Star Trek future works very similar to social media and influencers in a vacuum. People find ways to express themselves to build a community and is rewarded for providing fulfilment whether it be entertainment, knowledge, or other aspect of life.
I read a SF short story once where someone landed in a future where criticism was currency. So a restaurant would serve you a meal, and as payment you would comment to the waiter or chef about the food and give detailed (positive) feedback. In the story the protagonist pissed off a waiter by just saying the food was nice, which was the equivalent of leaving an insultingly meagre tip.
One of the major thing that made me think that this future utopia couldn't exist was seeing Joseph Sisko's Restaurant. He had people there that washed pots or waitered, bussed tables and did all the grunt work in his kitchen/restaurant. Now, I have worked in kitchens and restaurants in my life-time and I can safely say that NO-ONE is taking on those job without some kind of compensation. If you have the choice to either be a pot-scrubber, table-busser or sit at home, living the good life, in a post-scarcity future utopia, you're choosing the latter, I can assure you. The only way I can see that working is if they were on some type of apprentice program and the end result was to become a master chef at the end of it, but that doesn't account for the waiters or table bussers. No-one sets their sights on becoming a world reknowned waiter, unless they're gonna be paid a fortune for it.
I thought about this too, I reasoned in my mind that they are compensated with fresh, actually cooked, non-replicated food. Remember Eddington's reply to Sisko that he was impressed by not eating replicated food.
Perhaps the bussers and dishwashers in the restaurant are serving community service for criminal behaviour?
There are always people who want to do those kinds of things. I know someone who enjoys doing authentic 1940's cooking. There are people who volunteer to work as historical reenactors for all sorts of seemingly dull tasks.
If you have full support from societal you'll be amazed what people choose to do.
And yes, I imagine the manual labour in a restaurant is relatively uncommon. Which makes Sisko's unique and desirable to visit.
It's actually not as crazy as you think. My mother in law does dishwashimg as day labor and very much doesn't need the money. She and a group of her friends do it at the same places every day and basically hang out.
And waiting there are very much people that enjoy.
There are many people who do that in homeless shelters completely free as the others have said just to hang out with like minded people just to do some good.
Reminds me of an episode of Dark Mirror. Who controls the standards? There's always someone asking, "Can I manipulate them for my benefit? Put me in charge."
Panopti-KHAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!
I see what you did there, you had to assume I was looking and this time I was.
My best friend and I go around and 'round about this topic. I can't stand that we could already be working towards and building this future now (there's no reason Basic Universal Income can't be a thing) but he staunchly opposes it because he thinks the technology comes first.
You friend is correct in his assumption. Technology is the only fundamental vehicle on top of which society can change.
@@SimpMcSimpy
We, the Mankind, should finally complete and implement a viable fusion reactor(s).
When you get something for nothing, it isn't appreciated. It gets wasted.
Now imagine it wasn't a squatter but the President of the Federation basically saying, "Chateau Picard belongs to me now." Would there not be some way to legally challenge that?
The President isn't above the rights enshrined in the Federation charter so they could be challenged on that front. But also in a system of social capital the President would be throwing away votes if they did something like that.
That President of the Federation had to build up social capital through years, perhaps decades, of good work in the Federation bureaucracy to gain that position. A person like that who decided to go full authoritarian would suffer two consequences. First, they'd be put on medical leave while doctors worked to understand how their personality changed so severely. Was there Romulan brainwashing? An alien virus? Strange energies? Second, if no excuse was found for the radical behavior shift, then that President would lose social capital with alarming speed. A Federation president who decided to declare ownership of a citizen's home would be worse off than Richard Nixon post-Watergate. At least people still returned Nixon's calls.
Nope
@@RowanJColeman I see a guy like Trump and wonder about assholes like that. There seem to be no end to the lies and distortions and it never impacts his social capital and his followers seem to endlessly shield him from accountability.
@@GeahkBurchill Presumably the Federation has education systems that render its citizens informed enough and capable enough of reasoning not to enshrine a clown fascist. Federation policy probably also has something like the pre-Reagan Fairness Doctrine which prevents the existence of a large scale media enterprise like Fox where a billionaire can broadcast fascist lies 24 hours a day into the minds of the populace. And the Federation definitely doesn't have anything as inherently anti-democratic as a billionaire to begin with. So we kind of have to be failing as a society from a lot of different vectors to enable the absurdity of the present situation
Reputation as currency doesn't work when moving to another planet or even just another part of the same world is commonplace, or are we saying that when you look at someone's digital profile or w/e it shows a list of all of their supposed transgressions?
currency of any kind leads to destruction long term. same as trade and barter. even credit if you think that is something else.
I'll confess that I love love Star Trek. I love the idea and the positivity behind it. However, I'm also someone who was born and grew up in the USSR. A place where certain ideas were also in place that are not too dissimilar to what Start Trek uses. That is the idea of most people being good and simply wanting to be self-sufficient and working towards on overall benefit of the society. Well, I think most people are aware how that turned out. One of the biggest failings of USSR was not taking human nature into nearly as much consideration, or perhaps thinking that human nature was something else than what it really is. Certain things and outcomes were simply inevitable due to it, the main one being the breakup of the country.
Star Trek is great an all but it's idealistic and naive in certain ways, especially regarding people. Though, it is a nice exercise in "what if" scenarios.
But, were people from the distant past very different from us, wouldn´t it mean our species can change? Maybe it just requires a lot of human perceived time and tecnological discoveries? And Ideas are tecnological discoveries.
Humanity in Star Trek is basically a best case scenario. Is it likely we will achieve it? No. But it’s a goal to strive toward. A better tomorrow.
@@Gunnar001 I agree with you. It is the best case scenario, which is what USSR was "supposed" to achieve, a utopia.
Eh... with all the autocracratic, oppressive, and inegalitarian elements built into the very system of the USSR, I'm not sure "belief in the goodness of people" is where I'd lay the blame for its failure.
A fatal flaw in any organization, whether it is a government, a corporation, or whatever, is too much centralized power. It is why the U.S. has separate branches of government, as checks and balances against each other, and antitrust laws to break up monopolies. Nothing is perfect if people are involved. Power corrupts and attracts the corrupted.
Starfleet isn't an army but it is a Navy
More like the Coast Guard
Nah, war is like their side hustle not their main gig. At least I hope not, if the Navy stopped to check out some unusual tidal phenomenon every time we send them to the Strait of Hormuz I seriously wonder about their commitment to their charter. Have you happened to have read the Army's military charter though, pure badass, looks down at the Navy's from a great height and the Navy's got the Marines yo.
@@Noms_Chompsky more like the Royal Navy than the US Navy
I feel that Starfleet is like the 18 century Royal Navy. It is a military, but its traditions are nowhere near those of the army. It also has a lot to do with exploration, scientific discovery and research. The Navy was also a much more prestigious assignment than the army
That's no accident. Roddenberry was influenced by adventure stories like The Adventures of Horatio Hornblower (first published when he was 16). Not to mention he spent some time in the pacific during WW2 so he would have been influenced by naval traditions during that time as well.
@@methos-ey9nf
Roddenberry was Army Air Corps, though.
@@hellacoorinna9995 yeah I know he was army air core, but he probably would have interacted with Navy guys - the islands he flew out of weren’t very big.
@@methos-ey9nf
True.
As a Norwegian, I have always been proud of our penal system.
It is a demonstration that humans are capable of setting aside their prejudices and preconceptions to make informed decisions based on rigorous research.
That research, and results of a penal system built on the lessons of that research, both tell us that treating people with respect, showing them understanding, and providing a framework to help rather than punish JUST FUCKING WORKS.
It doesn't matter what anyone feels about it. It works.
-
The most famous thing to have happened in Halden prison was caused by careless staff neglecting to lock several doors in the maximum security wing.
A bunch of prisoners left their cells and went to the mess hall kitchen, where they made a chocolate cake.
They ate it and returned to their cells.
Oh yes, what vicious brutes...😂
This is why i like that there's some prisons have a cat/dog program. Inmates learn how to take care of the animals and can get them taken away if they don't behave. They use their money to feed them and to buy treats. Use the books in the prison library to teach them tricks, or how to look at stool samples to make sure they're healthy. They even have the cats' litterbox in their cells that they clean. This helps reintegration as well as rehabilitation, while saving animals from overcrowded shelters/ kill shelters.
Here in the USA, incarceration is a business which puts an incentive to criminalize people.
@@TheWarrrenator there’s also the ideological component. For many Americans, particularly conservatives, the carceral system is as much or more about punishing people than about any benefit to society. The conservative American takeaway from the inmates having an escape opportunity and not taking it would be “clearly your prisons aren’t punitive enough-they should be such awful places that no one wants to be there ever, and they would do anything to stay out of them or to escape them at the first opportunity. They should _want_ to escape. And then when they try to escape you should punish them even worse.”
It’s your standard “beatings will escalate until morale improves” mentality, IMHO.
that would not work in a country with *real criminals* like in latin america. scandinavians are educated and non violent in general. here in latin america the criminals are capable of atrocities you would never even imagine.
"ALERT: CODE 308: MUNCHIES ALER!" 😂🍄🥞🍔🍨
9:10 - You forgot about one proud little Russian geezer. 🙂
Smaller governments definitely exist with in the federation i think at least in the early era with The Andorian Imperial Guard still existing, United Earth existing, and Vulcan High Command
If a government covering the entire Earth fits your definition of "small" then sure.
In the 30th century, local govt is the galactic govt. The supercluster complex is the whole federal govt.
You say there isn't any trade, but we see plenty of trade and freighter captains. Cassidy Yates for example
We can assume she mostly trades with people outside the Federation.
@@RowanJColeman The interesting thing about Cassidy Yates is that she's technically doing the same thing as Harry Mudd, but without the immorality and manipulation. She owns her own ship, which implies that she has, or had, social capital, yet she spent it to own a ship and go outside of Earth to trade. She's one of the "eccentric" humans who don't live entirely within Federation culture. However, she winds up with Benjamin Sisko, Starfleet officer and (struggling) exemplar of the Federation way. That shows the complexity of the issue at an individual human level. It's possible to be fully human, to be able to meet a Starfleet officer halfway, and yet to seek out things that Earth has left behind as no longer useful. Sisko and Yates are a perfect example of the kind of nuance that Star Trek is rarely able to express about its fictional future. Yet, in their relationship, the writers found a way.
Star Trek's utopian future simply does not work, and social currency as a patch can't fix it. Social Currency doesn't work because there are many types of social currency that aren't interoperable. For example, there is street cred that would actually reward someone for exerting unfair dominance over another. Religions are self contained social circles that have a horrible history of mistreatment of those outside the religion with no adverse ramification inside the religion, and so on. There has to be a universal determination of wealth or it doesn't work, and that that determination is what we call money.
In addition, there will always be money because it is the most efficient way to allocate finite resources. And no, replicators do not remove all resource limits. As an example, who gets the front row seats at a Taylor Swift concert without using money to decide. Social currency, outside of the previous problem, would be a highly inefficient means. Would Picard get that front row seat even though he barely cared about Swift, while a die hard fan, who simply just wasn't as renown, be left out.
You need money to efficiently allocate resources for a single person. People are constantly reevaluating what they want relative to other things they want. A person who really loved Taylor Swift would be willing to give up an opening day opera ticket for that front row seat, whereas someone like Picard would do the reverse, thus making sure the limited resource of tickets is given to those who would appreciate it most. A social currency can't do that because there is no way to spend it. Someone with a high social currency would get the best of everything regardless of how much they desire it. Your system would create a dystopia of the few haves who get everything, and the have-nots who only get the scraps the haves don't even have the slightest desire for.
Well, there is one way to spread social currency. With a highly invasive police state that monitors all of our interactions and dolls it out depending on how the technocratic administrators feel. Which as you point out is very dystopian.
You have pointed out exactly why social currency is so dystopian and frankly, evil. I hope Rowan reads it.
@@genmaicha.lapsang True, but even that social currency would be another name for money. It'd just be money you'd earned by doing the things the government wanted you to do as your job. That'd earn you some kind of social points you could use to get the limited resources you wanted. aka Money.
So Star Trek is that episode of Dark Mirror where money is your 5 star social media rating.
i think the idea of post scarcity gets miss interpreted. it means we have plentiful supplies yes we have fusion + energy to matter but there are still X seats in the restaurant, in the opera hall, only one house can be built in that spot by the lake, people will still be needed to do police work medical caretaking etc you will still have a station and value it just wont be about how much money you can generate but the utility or value you bring. everyone gets a clean safe place to live and healthy food to eat but we still cant all live in chateau Piccard. i like to hope it would be much like our original tribal societies and economies.
The reason we struggle to understand how things work in the Federation is because we're conditioned to think the system we live in is normal. Just like our ancestors were conditioned to believe slavery was normal. And their ancestors believing feudalism was normal. Etc etc.
When you examine Capitalism from an outside perspective - its really weird, full of contradictions, unspoken rules, blatant lies and deceptions, with huge amounts of corruption. And yet to most people on Earth today - its normal. To some people its not only normal - its somehow the natural state of how things should be! A few people even believe Capitalism is how things always have been!
We can't really grasp how society that's been post-scarcity for two centuries works. Go back six generations in Trek and society is mostly unchanged on a fundamental level. You can't do that with modern understandings. Think to how different the Boomer generation and the Alpha generation are while both experiencing the same current world. A society that survives in peace and prosperity for centuries is going to be conditioned to discourage crime - there's no desperation, no material greed, better access to medication and social support. And if you're just a jerk - well, no-one has to work with you. And if you take it too far then the few 'police' that exist can deal with you through the properly funded and staffed legal system.
Also - there IS an economy in Star Trek. There IS trade. The economy is just a planned one, and trade is either personal exchanges or its with an outside group that does use money. Which would make it, by definition, Communist. Not the Communism we'd be familiar with - but it fits the bill.
And its very, very much a collectivist society. Just one that values individuals.
8:42 - This is highly debatable, IMO.
One could also point out that a lot of therapists would say "laziness doesn't exist and is actually a sign of an unresolved mental health issue." Humans by nature like to be doing things and contributing. Maybe there would be some people who just want to stay home and do nothing, and that's fine too, but I bet there would be less than we'd think if everyone had access to counseling and sci-fi medical care.
Sure. Take a pill to keep you from being lazy.
The occam's razor explanation is that Star Trek was written by utopian idealists who had no realistic idea of how this society could possibly work. We're not supposed to think about it, the focus is supposed to be on the short stories in the individual episodes.
Orville isn't fan fiction as it had actual Star Trek writers.
New Paramount Star Trek is fan fiction ... well they don't seem to know enough about Star Trek to be considered fans.
People lie on the couch because they're depressed or wiped out by hard work. When you're excited by the things you know you can achieve, you're unstoppable.
"Your reputation is your capital" , in other words "public shaming keeps people in line" ...like back in the 1400s . Nice
I think Rowan is mostly off base here. Star Trek still has legal private property ownership. Like, they stated at first Data was legally owned by Star Fleet in the trial episode, and the Sisko family certainly owns their restaurant. And while humans rarely have a use for money, Star Fleet still pays a salary (which allows them to pay for drinks at Quark's bar, for instance). Unlike Communism, property is owned by individuals in Star Trek, but technology removing scarcity just means people are rarely interested in thinking about money.
If a squatter came to Picard's vineyard, he'd certainly pursue legal means for removal. And if Picard wanted to sell his Orchard, he definitely could, it's just not something that's particularly motivating for him or anyone else b/c land is so cheap and abundant and all other goods are free.
It’s interesting that we don’t see the transition from one system to another in Star Trek.
It seems to be a chicken and egg scenario: if replicators came into being *before* reputation became capital, then capitalists would simply… capitalize on it. So you still need to implement a reputational economy in a pre-post-scarcity (did that make sense?) world. Hmmmm 🤔
Well. Back to the drawing board, comrades.
I did an article like this about Pokémon’s economy. Nobody read it. lol
Wait what….?I thought I was Patreon….🧐
Hmmmm…
Anyways, love your work, and proud to be a Norwegian…😉
How about the future depicted in Star Trek is: A post-scarcity, techno-utopia run along anarcho-socialist lines.
My headcanon is similar, though I don't feel that the Federation is really all that communist, but is definitely on the socialist side of things. I definitely agree that most people have a replicator in their homes that attends to their basic needs and a computer with access to the broader Federation-wide network, so they can look up just about anything, talk to anyone, read any books, listen to any music and watch any videos. But you do have to control access to items that are more scarce, even though most of the things people might want to use or do are scarce due to being limited in use as opposed to limited in terms of resources. Like only one person or group can be beamed somewhere from a transporter pad, eight people can't use a holodeck at the same time for eight different programs. If your replicator at home is too small to make something you need to go to a communal one and queue up to use it - we see Data and Worf do this in Data's Day. We also know that a lot of people put a premium on hand-crafted items like food. And we know that the Federation has a currency of sorts -- the Credit. It'd make sense for the Credit to be tied to energy usage, probably the energy it takes to replicate a small cube of aluminium or something simple like that. More complex things use more energy and cost more credits.
So my assumption is that everyone gets a home with a replicator and a computer and a stipend of credits they can use for bigger things like a meal out, beaming to somewhere else on the same world, booking a trip to a different world or whatever, just for living in the Federation. And if you want more credits, you contribute to society. This can mean getting a job, but it could just as easily be writing holonovels and putting them out in the world, making ice cream and giving it to neighbourhood kids, whatever.
I lean towards thinking that there are municipal authorities or similar local governments, which may well be a variation on the communist idea of worker's councils. And those would be responsible for maintaining and managing the land in an area for the communal good. If you wanted to start a "business" in a neighbourhood, you'd go to the people and ask if they wanted that facility and they'd vote on it.
We also know that some things can't be replicated, probably most notably Dilithium but quite frequenly medicines and other volatile items that are vital to this week's episode. So the Federation will have some level of external trade and an exchange rate between Credits and other trading currencies like gold-pressed latinum and maintain stores of these currencies to use in trade. Though with a large population, most of whom probably spend a lot of their time in the pursuit of leisure I'd assume one of the biggest imports for the Federation is entertainment.
Everybody has a stun rifle like the farmer in the first episode of enterprise. Everybody becomes a texan-ish (stun first, ask questions later). 🤠
The thing is: no one sat down to work out how the Federation economy worked, and then had the writers show it to us. The writers simply told us how great the Federation is in every way, and we are now trying to rationalise a system based on what we are told. There is no reason to assume that one and only one possible system will match what we are told. In all probably no possible system will do that, because the Federation is presented as being better than every other system in every way: there are no downsides. Things don't work like that. To be best in the world at something, you have to be less than best in the world at something else.
A writer can always assume a problem away, but that does not make the assumption realistic.
A social credit system would never work because it would put an elite group of people in charge of deciding what is valuable to society. Even within Starfleet there are tiers of people with various degrees of value. As long as resources are limited there will be a need for an economic system. If everyone can't have their own Galaxy class starship and Chateau Picard can't supply the entire Federation with wine there will need to be some form of ecomonics and currancy.
Thanks for the great video. It's very interesting how they live in the future startrek. Specially after. Here in America the price of rent. Has skyrocketed here in south west Florida I think when deep space 9 went back intime with the. Rent wars. And vets had no way to afford a place to stay. I think something like that has to happen soon too many homelessness and people. That can't even go to doctors or hospitals things have to change. I also think holodeck. And other tech from startrek. Can help people out. I think there also was a nuke war that had to change the way people lived. And ease tension
The Social Currency aspect is so intriguing. Everyone in Starfleet is pretty outgoing, but what if that's just because that's the type of person who gets to have that social status? If you sit at the back of the class and keep your friend group small as a kid does that lead into your adult social standing, your job, your house? For every Starfleet cadet how many NEETs are there behind them?
I find it interesting that you’d have more references to non-Trek franchises than you do to modern Trek. Could it be the future they’ve built in nuTrek isn’t really that appealing?
I do agree with your original premise, the conversion of energy to matter is the fundamental pinning under the Trek universe. It’s what opens up all other possibilities, it is the great equalizer. The one part that has always eluded me was how they power it, mainly on shore (off starships). Are there massive warp style reactors on planet? How is that power delivered globally? The problem I see before energy conversion is the massive power needed to enable it, that needs solving first. Is this conversion energy inefficient? Electricity is, the conversion of electrons to another form, motion typically, emits heat as waste. How about delivery? How can that be efficient?