The Star Trek Economy • Hacker News Board

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#71

Post by qbrass » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 12:47 PM UTC

etler wrote: post #50

>The big challenge here is how does society get someone to do the menial jobs that cannot be done in an automated manner. Are there examples of menial jobs in the Star Trek universe? I would imagine by then there simply are no menial jobs. I'm not sure what menial job examples there are that can't be automated. The jobs left over are interesting jobs. I'd imagine the motivation to do so are on par with the same motiv…

On the Starfleet side of things, menial tasks are delegated to the lowest ranking members of the crew. The civilian side of things tended to be based on apprenticeship, which works similarly.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#72

Post by kijin » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 12:55 PM UTC

> If it were, the credit would be too much like money because a) accounting is done in it, b) it is issued by a governing body (like a fiat currency) and c) it is fungible, i.e. you can already buy things with it and if you could buy things with it AND a and b were true, it would pretty much be a currency.

By that reasoning, the Joule is the currency of the Federation.

a) The article already supposes that "the accounting is done in energy units", so a) is satisfied.

b) Energy isn't exactly "issued" by a government. But neither is gold, and this hasn't prevented gold from being money through most of human history.

c) Finally, energy is fungible, especially if you have replicators. 1KWh of electricity in your battery is as good as any other 1KWh of electricity.

It doesn't matter whether the people who live in the Star Trek universe actually call it "money" or not. If it walks like money and quacks like money, it is money.

And once there's technology to convert anything to and from energy relatively easily, a Joule does sound like a good candidate for a universally accepted unit of value. An alien species might not give a damn about some shiny yellow metal, but they need good ol' Joules just as much as we do.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#73

Post by squozzer » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:06 PM UTC

My reading of history tells me the human hunger for wealth and power (what some call greed) would easily adjust to any increase in prosperity, no matter how large.

And some materials would still be scarce. They could not replicate dilithium, it had to be mined. So like oil is today, such materials would become the new next of power.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#74

Post by gaius » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:06 PM UTC

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…

And then the Borg show up... The analogy breaks down because the Federation is still resource constrained. Why bother with planets if you can build Dyson spheres? Because they can't, they still need to find new planets and colonize.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#75

Post by blueskin_ » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:12 PM UTC

Amazing article. Explained it roughly how I always assumed it as being, but far better than I ever could have.

Also, interesting link from there on The Culture, another of my favourite scifi universes: http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#76

Post by blueskin_ » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:15 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #10

So, economic models are more or less based on, or at least constrained by, human psychology, right? Communism and socialism don't work because peoples' brains aren't wired to do lots of work for little or no or unequal reward. This isn't restricted to just people, either, it's been observed in monkeys ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_... , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhAd0Tyny0 -- it…

If a job someone doesn't want to do pays well enough, it becomes a job someone wants to do.

See: Working in $expensiveCity, banker, lawyer, jobs requiring lots of travel, etc.

If the lack of available workers pushes the pay up, more people consider the previously undesirable job desirable again and start learning the requisite skills if applicable, increasing the candidate pool and pushing pay back down - in this way, jobs find equilibrium.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#77

Post by vinceguidry » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:22 PM UTC

I think the author overlooked a much more elegant solution to the problem of menial labor. People simply don't do it, except when they want to, and rely on automated / robotic solutions to do it for them. At some point, it will get far easier and cheaper to design and implement robotic maids than it will to convince a human to do anything resembling a good job at something people are bound to shit on him for.

The economy will simply optimize all such tasks out of the system. Surfaces won't need more than the quickest of spot cleaning, people will get used to checking out their own groceries, they'll go get their own drink refills and clean off their own tables.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#78

Post by belorn » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:29 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #54

thaumaturgy wrote: post #10

So, economic models are more or less based on, or at least constrained by, human psychology, right? Communism and socialism don't work because peoples' brains aren't wired to do lots of work for little or no or unequal reward. This isn't restricted to just people, either, it's been observed in monkeys ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_... , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhAd0Tyny0 -- it…

> Capitalism rewards not just work and the investment of capital but also greed and cheating. That implies that socialism and communism do not reward greed and cheating, which is hard to believe.

There is no such implied statement. Capitalism is not the logical opposite to socialism and communism. Assuming that what is true for one is automatically false for the other is a logical fallacy.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#79

Post by fulafel » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:35 PM UTC

BugBrother wrote: post #69

fulafel wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You describe life in the rich west. It's not looking as rosy for most people. It'll be interesting to see how the perception of capitalsm's problems shifts as we wade towards the deeper end of the climate crisis. Will human suffering invoke more actionable empathy when it's in the form of agricultural collapse vs current income inequality problems?

>> [ capitalism's] current income inequality problems I will assume you talk about the income inequality between nations. That is, in most cases, not solvable by other countries. To make a country (without military conflicts) better is not rocket science. You get infrastructure and education to work well in addition to limiting corruption. The corruption part is probably enough, since non-corrupt politicians will fix…

First you say that this problem can't be helped by other countries and then you discuss the EU's eastward expansion... which is largeely about Western European countries getting together and lifting up ex-Soviet countries.

The terms under which those countries were allowed into the EU were largely about building strong anti-corruption measures and improving transparency in government.

Supernational institutions like the EU and UN can do great things like this.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#80

Post by Shivetya » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:36 PM UTC

The major problems with capitalism in Western economies is that the government regulations corrupt the process and create artificial scarcity. There are lot of areas where competition does not exist because regulatory hurdles prevent or discourage it. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, if not everywhere, game the system. The put in rules/roadblocks to help out favored groups which in turn damages the system.

As for the planned economies, well we saw how well those worked. I know, I know, the people coming up with ideas now will of course do better than THOSE people. Yet that is the typical lack of hubris politicians always show, just like ACA - of course it will be better than how those other people did it because we are so smart.

Keep telling me about the EU safety net and I will keep pointing out Greece and riots in other EU countries. Sorry but I tire of hearing about a safety net then reading how bad off some of these people are. Whats the point of a net when so many slip through or never had a chance to get caught.