Trekonomics - a new book about Star Trek's futuristic economy

[Aegon Spengler]

Yeah, but who says I want to do any "job"? My personal interests may not align with the needs of society so the things I personally want to do might be worthless.

That's true, although I imagine that would depress you. A good shrink and a career councillor with tig bitties could help you see the light.

 

[IDL]

That's true, although I imagine that would depress you. A good shrink and a career councillor with tig bitties could help you see the light.

In the soviet union, that could mean re-education camp and/or Gulag

Citizens have to prove their worth to the collective.

In Huxley's depiction the people were indoctrinated from birth to love their servitude. Either way, there are ways around the problem but they aren't pretty.

 

[Aegon Spengler]

In the soviet union, that would mean re-education camp and/or Gulag

Citizens have to prove their worth.

In Huxley's depiction the people were indoctrinated from birth to love their servitude. Either way, there are ways around the problem but they aren't pretty.

There are other ways around the problem besides gulags and indoctrination. You're just not flexing your creative muscles in that direction.

 

[IDL]

There are other ways around the problem besides gulags and indoctrination. You're just not flexing your creative muscles in that direction.

Realistically though, we have to keep in mind that 'the controllers' of such a system don't care about the people.

So it's whatever is most efficient.

Indoctrination I am sure will be part of it. That can come in the form of belief systems, tailored education (class based. Let's face it, there will be classes)

In the soviet union it was part of it. All students learned the blessings of Marxist/Leninist brilliance. Education was centrally managed so everyone was taught the same.

From Bertrand Russel on education

Spoiler

This subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship. Anaxagoras maintained that snow is black, but no one believed him. The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray. Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen. As yet there is only one country which has succeeded in creating this politician's paradise

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Impact_of_Science_on_Society

 

[TheGoodNews]

that might have something to do with the "Federation Credits" I posted about earlier. I think they're going to have to do some creative thinking in order to piece all the inconsistencies together.

Some of the inconsistencies probably have to do with writers who couldn't negotiate the no money concept for some reason. Add on the time constraints of writing for a tv show. The late Iain Banks probably wouldn't have had that problem, though.

23rd century would be correct for Kirk ...

...if this was Kirk discussing the 23rd century..

Yes, it was a scene in the middle of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home when Kirk (in 1980's San Francisco) and a 20th century woman had to pay the bill for their pizza and beer.

Interesting enough. But its being done now. We actually have the technology for a moneyless economy today. People have been working on this for quite a while and have come a remarkably long way in building a transitional roadmap. Of course most everyone views them as quacks.

Read up on the Venus Project and Jacques Fresco.

https://www.thevenusproject.com

And read his book, 'The Best Thing That Money Can't Buy'.

Well, actually you don't need fancy futuristic technology, it was done during the thirties:

"Some collectives did in fact abolish money. They had no system of exchange, not even coupons. For example, a resident of Magdalena de Pulpis, when asked, 'How do you organize without money? Do you use barter, a coupon book, or anything else?,' replied, 'Nothing. Everyone works and everyone has the right to what he needs free of charge. He simply goes to the store where provisions and all other necessities are supplied. Everything is distributed free with only a notation of what he took.'" The Anarchist Collectives by Sam Dolgoff

The utopian vision of star trek is in theory possible, but it defies real world examples of power dynamics.

And yet.....

"The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle.....

.....Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Senor' or 'Don' or even 'Usted'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' and 'Thou,' and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenas Dias.' Tipping had been forbidden by law since the time of Primo de Rivera; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor cars, they had all been commandeered, and alll the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loud-speakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night.....

.....There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gypsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barbers' shops were Anarchist notices (the barbers were mostly Anarchists) solemnly explaining that barbers were no longer slaves. In the streets were coloured posters appealing to prostitutes to stop being prostitutes." George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia

...When electricity is abundant everywhere and nearly free, that will change a lot.

At or near zero-marginal cost as Jeremy Rifkin described in his recent book.

 

[GhostZ06]

Most of these ideas would in reality require a massive war, tyranny, and genocide in order to implement. That certainly hasn't stopped the communists in the past though, so it could still be scheduled.

But in theory, the end product could work once all competing interests have accepted their submission to world government run by a corrupt oligarchy.

don't get me wrong, this is probably going to happen. UEF is probably the next step for mankind, but i dont think it will happen anytime soon

 

[Orgasmo]

We already have some of the technologies that Star Trek envisioned. The tablet PC, MRI scans, nano-technology, and pretty soon self driving vehicle that will act like a automated taxi. If we crack nuclear fusion power and fully robotic manufacturing, then we would literally be steps away full blown space age. One thing is for sure, the economy will be completely different 50 years from now compared to today.

 

[GhostZ06]

We already have some of the technologies that Star Trek envisioned. The tablet PC, MRI scans, nano-technology, and pretty soon self driving vehicle that will act like a automated taxi. If we crack nuclear fusion power and fully robotic manufacturing, then we would literally be steps away full blown space age. One thing is for sure, the economy will be completely different 50 years from now compared to today.

And force fields are being developed.

 

[IDL]

don't get me wrong, this is probably going to happen. UEF is probably the next step for mankind, but i dont think it will happen anytime soon

I think it's inevitable with the way things are going. It's really just jockeying for position.

I think we'll see it in our lifetime. We currently have the nucleus which is the United Nations and a slew of international organizations. We'll see national sovereignty erode steadily and we'll see countries merge together economically, culturally, and politically.

The globalization process is happening rather quickly.

 

[IDL]

And yet.....

I do think humans have a great capacity to work with one another when in the right conditions, but Catalonia wasn't a world power. To be a world power you have to be ruthless and that is what we're talkin about here.

It could be speculated that once the world has been conquered, these dynamics no longer apply, but self serving and corrupt leaders with people that are attracted to wealth and power is pretty much a universal law.

 

[JDragon]

Yes, it was a scene in the middle of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home when Kirk (in 1980's San Francisco) and a 20th century woman had to pay the bill for their pizza and beer.

Right. I had been under the impression that the aim was to quote the embedded video..

 

[SakuMemories]

It's always about those at the top, because they are managing things and are moving things in that direction both deliberately, and naturally. They will, if things continue on the same path, remain in power.

Whether I like it or not, is irrelevant. But based on their behavior up to this point I have no reason to believe they won't abuse their power incredibly once it is monopolized fully. They will care about the efficiency of the system much more than the interests of any common person. The interests of the common man become nothing.

The utopian vision of star trek is in theory possible, but it defies real world examples of power dynamics.

Sharing a bigger % of the surplus labor cannot be abused. No one can abuse you into having more wealth, or rather into selling less of your time and labor. That goes against logic itself.

You mean to say that in a Star Trek future, a population that does not need to work (or, more realistically, needs to work very little) is actually being oppressed by the tyrannical small clique of globalist overlords?

Man, you would make an awesome employee in the Ministry of Truth.

 

[IDL]

Sharing a bigger % of the surplus labor cannot be abused. No one can abuse you into having more wealth, or rather into selling less of your time and labor. That goes against logic itself.

You mean to say that in a Star Trek future, a population that does not need to work (or, more realistically, needs to work very little) is actually being oppressed by the tyrannical small clique of globalist overlords?

Man, you would make an awesome employee in the Ministry of Truth.

I wasn't referring to the utopian depiction of Star trek where that wasn't happening, presumably.

But, even in Huxleys Brave New World the people were somewhat happy and had their needs met while at the same time being oppressed.

So the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. In BNW I think it would be an ignorance is bliss situation.

 

[SakuMemories]

I wasn't referring to the utopian depiction of Star trek where that wasn't happening, presumably.

But, even in Huxleys Brave New World the people were somewhat happy and had their needs met while at the same time being oppressed.

So the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. In BNW I think it would be an ignorance is bliss situation.

You know if someone is happy and has his needs met, isn't it stupid to tell him that its oppressed? Sounds like a Minitrue thing: Freedom = slavery etc

 

[IDL]

You know if someone is happy and has his needs met, isn't it stupid to tell him that its oppressed? Sounds like a Minitrue thing: Freedom = slavery etc

Maybe. In BNW the citizens were probably better off not knowing how the system worked.

It would be like waking up from the Matrix.

 

[SakuMemories]

Maybe. In BNW the citizens were probably better off not knowing how the system worked.

It would be like waking up from the Matrix.

Using holywood movies to understand the world, its people, societies and politics highly retarded... but if I really have to say this then it doesn't matter.

 

[IDL]

Adopting views on the real world and its politics based on holywood movies is highly retarded, but if I really have to say this then it doesn't matter.

It's just an analogy. I'm sure you get what I'm saying assuming you are familiar with BNW.

 

[TheGoodNews]

But, even in Huxleys Brave New World the people were somewhat happy and had their needs met while at the same time being oppressed.

So the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. In BNW I think it would be an ignorance is bliss situation.

No it's more like a soma-induced intoxication situation without which the ruling clique wouldn't be able to maintain subtle control for long.

 

[Wayweary]

They'd have to go way beyond analyzing the economics of Star Trek. It would be an essay more than a book if they stuck to that. Economics is the study of how scarce resources are allocated. With something like replicator technology, the concept of scarcity is largely removed.

 

[TheGoodNews]

^The author suggest in the intro that for more or less that reason Star Trek is post-economic.