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The Star Trek Economy

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Re: The Star Trek Economy

#11

Post by stormbrew »

patio11 wrote: post #5
gress wrote: post #2

It's worth emphasising that a great deal of work in unnecessary for improving net happiness and consumes resources in the process and so undermines long term prosperity.

A heretical thought I have had about Star Trek: the Federation has no need for Star Fleet. They're fantastically wealthy and cannot meaningfully gain from trade in physical items. They're not just singularity-esque wealthy relative to the present-day US, they're equally more secure. Nobody kills mass numbers of Federation citizens. That occasionally happens on poor planets elsewhere. Sucks but hey poverty sucks. So w…

Yep. Aside from the fact that Star Trek economics make no sense simply because there have been several ideological shifts in its fundamental nature over the last 50 years, this is by far the best and most obvious answer to any question of why there are still people flying around in spaceships.

Post-scarcity doesn't mean post-danger. No one has to do luge in the Winter Olympics to survive, and not more than 4 years ago someone died doing it, and yet people continue to do so.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#12

Post by pjzedalis »

patio11 wrote: post #5
gress wrote: post #2

It's worth emphasising that a great deal of work in unnecessary for improving net happiness and consumes resources in the process and so undermines long term prosperity.

A heretical thought I have had about Star Trek: the Federation has no need for Star Fleet. They're fantastically wealthy and cannot meaningfully gain from trade in physical items. They're not just singularity-esque wealthy relative to the present-day US, they're equally more secure. Nobody kills mass numbers of Federation citizens. That occasionally happens on poor planets elsewhere. Sucks but hey poverty sucks. So w…

I really enjoyed reading this. Great ideas.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#13

Post by tiatia »

Scarcity was a problem, is a problem and always will be a problem: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...

And sorry to break the news to you: A capitalistic system can not be run without growth and nobody has ever been able to show how it is possible to run a "steady-state" economy,

The end is near. Enjoy the ride!

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#15

Post by npunt »

robbiep wrote: post #3
gress wrote: post #2

It's worth emphasising that a great deal of work in unnecessary for improving net happiness and consumes resources in the process and so undermines long term prosperity.

But without a scarcity (market) economy how do you determine which is which?

Awareness. Present people with a real problem, explain its implications, and show how someone can make a difference, and you get action. Most people want to do the right thing, but can't figure out where to start or what good looks like.

The culture our kids grow up in (through media, educational institutions, community support, etc) is not particularly good at this yet. The work we can do on the internet is to translate phenomena into data, stories, and experiences that build awareness of problems and build skills to solve them.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#16

Post by patio11 »

stormbrew wrote: post #11
patio11 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A heretical thought I have had about Star Trek: the Federation has no need for Star Fleet. They're fantastically wealthy and cannot meaningfully gain from trade in physical items. They're not just singularity-esque wealthy relative to the present-day US, they're equally more secure. Nobody kills mass numbers of Federation citizens. That occasionally happens on poor planets elsewhere. Sucks but hey poverty sucks. So w…

Yep. Aside from the fact that Star Trek economics make no sense simply because there have been several ideological shifts in its fundamental nature over the last 50 years, this is by far the best and most obvious answer to any question of why there are still people flying around in spaceships. Post-scarcity doesn't mean post-danger. No one has to do luge in the Winter Olympics to survive, and not more than 4 years ag…

Yep. This means that when the Federation media covers the battle of Wolf 359 (11k dead, worst military disaster in centuries) it probably caused a brief flurry of controversy leavened with "Well at least they died doing what they loved: live-action role playing" and then it promptly went back to more interesting topics like which pop stars had just broken up.

It naturally follows that Earth was never in serious danger at any point because, hah, are you insane? We just didn't hit the Borg cube with the Lance of Judgement and instakill it from half a galaxy away because that would have been a terrible affront to Picard's character arc, and we really care about that sort of thing. Look at our Prime Directive: we'd rather genocide an entire race than interfere too much in the story. (Heh, psych, we're not total psychos. The Prime Directive strikes a few chords with our culture, because it needs to sound plausible to Starfleet officers, but isn't our main guiding principle any more than the US is based on not violating a shot clock. The Prime Directive is actually just there to provide interesting moral situations for Star Trek officers. We wargamed out several hundred generations of officers on a Holodeck simulation and they end up tremendously unfulfilled when doing the right thing is obvious, possible, and successful, like it always is in real life in the Federation.)

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#17

Post by hitchhiker999 »

harshreality wrote: post #7

I think this is a useless exercise. The economics of Star Trek won't be coherent, because it was pieced together through multiple series and some wishful thinking while retaining certain properties needed for the universe to be interesting. You can't have a TV show about drone ships flying around and beaming back exploration data via subspace. Without Star Trek replicators in the foreseeable future, all the 3d printi…

I do not prefer your 'harsh reality' - but good luck to you! I choose something else.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#19

Post by hitchhiker999 »

jedmeyers wrote: post #8

What are those "we" the author keeps talking about? - "we" actually have the capacity - "we" don't have the will I have the will but don't have the capacity. I am assuming that author also has the will. So, again, who are those "we" that don't have the will? And how is the author planning to make them to go against their will to not have the will?

I assume this is a 'thought piece' - it is designed to foster discussion. I don't think the author is suggesting a force against any will. The 'we' refers to his understanding of the collective '?consciousness?' subjectively observed in his surroundings.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#20

Post by InclinedPlane »

harshreality wrote: post #7

I think this is a useless exercise. The economics of Star Trek won't be coherent, because it was pieced together through multiple series and some wishful thinking while retaining certain properties needed for the universe to be interesting. You can't have a TV show about drone ships flying around and beaming back exploration data via subspace. Without Star Trek replicators in the foreseeable future, all the 3d printi…

> Concrete and glass might be virtually unlimited, but certain metals are definitely not.

Automated asteroid mining basically takes care of that. Even the largest asteroids can be easily excavated right down to the core, and many of them contain a wide abundance of many metals, basically everything from Lithium to Copper to Nickel to Platinum or Iridium. With low gravity and 24/7 in situ solar power any reasonable separation technology can just be let loose and given time to work. Near Earth orbit there's more than 10 gigajoules of energy available per year per square meter from solar power, and that includes factoring in the efficiency of conversion.

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