A 'Star Trek' Economic System May Be Closer Than You Think 503
HughPickens.com writes: Anna North writes about "Star Trek'"s "post-economic" system, in which money no longer exists and anything you want can be made in a replicator, essentially for free. According to Manu Saadia, the author of "Trekonomics," a forthcoming book about the economics of the "Star Trek" universe, when everything is free objects will no longer be status symbols. Success will be measured in achievements, not in money: ""Instead of working to become more wealthy, you work to increase your reputation," says Saadia. "You work to increase your prestige. You want to be the best captain or the best scientist in the entire galaxy. And many other people are working to do that, as well. It's very meritocratic."
In a time of rising inequality and stagnating wages, a world where everyone's needs are met and people only work if they feel like it seems pretty far away but a post-scarcity economy is actually far more within reach than the technological advances for which "Star Trek" is better known. If productivity growth continues, Saadia believes there will be much more wealth to go around in a few hundred years' time. In general, society might look more like present-day New Zealand, which he sees as less work-obsessed than the United States: "You work to live rather than the other way round." Wealthy retirees today also already live an essentially post-money existence, "traveling and exploring and deepening their understanding of the world and being generally happy." According to Saadia we're beginning to get a few hints of what the post-money, reputation-based economy might look like. "If you look at things like Instagram, Vine, places where people put a huge amount of work into basically just gaining a certain amount of reputation, it's fascinating to see. Or even Wikipedia, for that matter. The Internet has begun to give us a hint of how much people will work, for no money, just for reputation."
In a time of rising inequality and stagnating wages, a world where everyone's needs are met and people only work if they feel like it seems pretty far away but a post-scarcity economy is actually far more within reach than the technological advances for which "Star Trek" is better known. If productivity growth continues, Saadia believes there will be much more wealth to go around in a few hundred years' time. In general, society might look more like present-day New Zealand, which he sees as less work-obsessed than the United States: "You work to live rather than the other way round." Wealthy retirees today also already live an essentially post-money existence, "traveling and exploring and deepening their understanding of the world and being generally happy." According to Saadia we're beginning to get a few hints of what the post-money, reputation-based economy might look like. "If you look at things like Instagram, Vine, places where people put a huge amount of work into basically just gaining a certain amount of reputation, it's fascinating to see. Or even Wikipedia, for that matter. The Internet has begun to give us a hint of how much people will work, for no money, just for reputation."
It only works with no scarcity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It only works without humans (Score:5, Insightful)
Scarcity is a limiting factor, but human greed is even more of a limiting factor. We will never reach anything resembling a utopian society where everyone's basic needs are met, regardless of the means, because of human nature, not because of available resources.
Re:It only works without humans (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmm... Not really.
Greed is your way of saying "people should limit their desires to what is collectively obtainable within the existing scarcity".
I mean... fine... but you're admitting scarcity is an issue.
If there were no scarcity then how could there be greed? I mean... imagine a world where you could have as much of everything as any sane person... even a really greedy one... could possibly want?
in Startrek did you ever look at the population numbers? That people skip over that one is always baffling to me. Whole planets get blown up and they'll say stuff like "there were 3 million people on that world"... Three fucking million people... on an entire planet... and not a shitty one... a giant green/blue idealized paradise planet. Three million. Which means every douchebag on that planet could have a scale reproduction of the French Sun Palace staffed with nympho holograms that bear you on a litter about your palace whilst your dick is being sucked at all fucking times.
That is startrek.
That is what it means to be a post scarcity economy. And we are no where near that on old planet earth.
We'd need about a thousand more planets, probably a few million starships, and of course replicators, the infinite power of however that matter/anti matter reactor works... and computers so powerful that they can create sapient life on a whim just by saying "make a hologram smart enough to match wits with Data.
The untapped idiotically overpowering technology of that show is astounding.
If you think about half the crap they have and then think about the way they do things... it makes no sense.
Take their stupid wars against whomever. Why do they fight that way? That's completely insane.
First, they don't need to have crew compliments of those sizes on those ships. They clearly could automate just about everything. Maybe put one person on each battle wagon. But more to the point, why don't they have specialized warships and why are their specialized warships so completely shitty? They keep closing to knife range and firing ineffectual "phasers" at targets that are clearly best dealt with in other ways.
Their torpedoes seem like they're pretty nasty. Okay... why are they so under powered? In WW2, we had torpedoes that could cripple a ship... ONE torpedo. And for big nasty battleships... maybe you could sink them with four or five of them. But in startrek they're firing dozens of the fucking things at each other. Maybe take the torp size and increase it by a factor of ten or a hundred. Fucking fire a warp core at someone. Eat it. The Borg or whatever shows up with their big ship... You have a big torp ship that has nothing on it but big fuck you torp launchers. It warps into point blank range... fires its entire weapon's compliment in .01 seconds... then immediately warps away. Borg goes boom... everyone returns to their orgies on the holodeck.
Think of the way real war works. You don't just sit there poking at each other like that. It suppose that happened in WW1 but that was more owed to people not understanding the technology. So machine guns pinned people down and tanks were not understood to be the counter to that. By WW2, a big machine gun line just meant you had to bring in a tank column and over run the area.
On and on and on and on... so many things didn't make sense in that show.
But the point is... we don't have any of that stuff. And we're not going to get any of it any time soon.
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> Their torpedoes seem like they're pretty nasty. Okay... why are they so under powered?
Because it's entertainment. If a 24th century photon torpedo had even as much power as a 20th century nuke, then you could obliterate even the largest ships with a single hit, no matter how strong their 'shields' were. But that would be decidedly harder to write epic space battles around (or maybe not, depending on your level of creativitiy).
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Only outlying planets would be vulnerable to something like that. Core systems would not.
And really if you wanted to take this to the next level, I'd suggest you check out the "Culture" novels which are sort of a take off on the federation concept.
In the Culture novels, everything of importance is on giant starships that move around the galaxy like huge cruise ships giving every luxury imaginable to the humans.
The civilization is ultimately run by super intelligent AIs that are sympathetic to humanity and..
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Super-nukes would be just as useless for fighting a multi-planet enemy than normal nukes were for fighting the Cold War. You can't use them without getting yourself killed too, so all they do is take up valuable resources that could be used for expansion, research, economic development, etc. And of course in the interstellar scheme this is
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Just turn your engines [wikipedia.org] towards the explosion.
Re:It only works without humans (Score:4, Insightful)
If there were no scarcity then how could there be greed? I mean... imagine a world where you could have as much of everything as any sane person... even a really greedy one... could possibly want?
Greed isn't a question of absolute amounts. It's about having more than others, whether or not you can actually use/consume/enjoy it. It's about status and power -- limiting what others can have so that you get to have something special.
Of course, a sane person will care little about status. If your neighbour has a faster computer, you can still be a better programmer, which is something no amount of greed will ever take away.
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In a post scarcity civilization how can you possibly be greedy?
I mean... how? There's no way to horde things because there's no lack of anything. Everyone in such a society can have diamond encrusted mansions. What are you hording?
The only thing I can think of would be entire fucking planets. Just one dude... my planet. That's about it.
As to sane people not caring about status... don't be silly. Status has material consequences. If you have status people do what you say and you have high social standing. Wh
Re:It only works without humans (Score:5, Insightful)
Greed is infinite, and is ultimately about power and control. If it were possible, I am sure there would be those who would own the entire galaxy, if for no other reason that to say it's theirs.
Even now, you have executives that earn multi-million dollar salaries, with super yachts and homes that they use for a fraction of the year. What's the point? There is little additional benefit from having a 100 ft yacht compared to a 200ft yacht, but there is a huge difference in the money you have to have to pay for them.
All those dollars have been paid to a single executive to afford such things has been done so instead of making goods and services cheaper for the customer, or by paying better salaries to the rest of the company's employees.
Executive salaries in the 60s were typically 25x the average salary.
Now they are more than 200x the average salary. More efficient production is not going to change this.
Re:It only works without humans (Score:5, Insightful)
Scarcity is a limiting factor, but human greed is even more of a limiting factor. We will never reach anything resembling a utopian society where everyone's basic needs are met, regardless of the means, because of human nature, not because of available resources.
Well, "human nature" is somewhat malleable by social constructs. So I wouldn't say "never." But there are significant roadblocks.
For example, John Maynard Keynes predicted that only workaholics would be working over 15 hours per week by 2030. We don't really seem to be on that path, despite the fact that worker productivity has basically quadrupled in the U.S. [wikipedia.org] since 1950. (I know some people are going to argue over how accurate this claim is -- but the exact numbers don't matter so much. It's undisputed among economists that worker productivity has gone up significantly over the past 75 years.)
We could all be working 10 hours per week and living with a similar economic standard of living to 1950. Personally, I'd be fine with that, though I know many people wouldn't.
Or we could be less contentious and go back the productivity of 1975 or so... and basically keep our current standard of living for middle classes, but just pay rich people less. Alas, we've chosen greed over spare time.
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worker productivity has basically quadrupled in the U.S. [wikipedia.org] since 1950
I see that chart brought up every time worker productivity is mentioned.
It is misleading. People ignore the fact that the U.S. moved off the gold standard in 1971, which is when the red line starts deviating from the orange line. That's not just coincidence; switching off the gold standard caused the deviation you see.
The red line is real wages, or wages after adjusting for inflation. Since 1971, that line is essentially flat because wages increased at around the rate of inflation (because the value of t
Re:It only works without humans (Score:4, Informative)
No, they get paid out as management bonuses and dividends. Productivity enhancements have gone towards making the 1% richer at everyone else's expense. That's not sustainable, and will end up in either social reforms or outright revolution, just like it did the last time.
Then why do all developed economies struggle with unemployment?
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The Star Trek economy only works with no scarcity. And while there is a surplus of labor, there is NOT a surplus or resources or energy. And energy is the big one here, as everyone keeps telling us.
OK, I'll tell you different, if it'll make you happy. Energy is an artificial scarcity. Nuclear and space based solar power, or some combination of the two, can pretty easily eliminate that problem.
Sure there is solar, and wind, but they run up against some rather hard resource limitations.
Planet-based renewables, other than breeder reactors, are pretty iffy. Space-based solar (SPS) is very reliable, and doesn't suffer downtime from weather conditions, just like breeders.
(Especially plastics which depend on oil...)
Actually, like food, they depend for a vast amount of their input on CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen), and on energy.
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I am of precisely the opposite opinion of you. Energy wouldn't be the problem, minerals would be.
First of all, plastics are essentially zero problem if energy isn't scarce. The concept that plastics requires "oil from the ground" is a complete myth. "Oil" can be made - easily - given water, carbon dioxide (from the air), and energy. It can also be made from pretty much anything containing carbon and hydrogen, burned with insufficient oxygen to form "town gas" (H2 + CO). The only reason we use oil to make p
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Or... What if we could revive the dinosaurs? Then we would have all the oil we ever need.
Re:It only works with no scarcity (Score:4, Insightful)
Energy is god. With enough energy, you can do almost whatever you want. Purify ocean water with giant distilleries. Create many chemicals the hard way rather than relying on longer chemistry paths. Even recycle stuff you don't need to recycle anymore.
Re:It only works with no scarcity (Score:4, Informative)
but in an economy without scarcity, with nothing much to do but lay about and make babies, the population tends to grow rather quickly.
This claim appears to fly in the face of every statistic, which shows the wealthier the nation (in other words, the less scarcity there is), the lower the birthrate, to considerably less than 1.5 children per person.
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Birthrate is also quite low in Russia - where they aren't quite calling themselves wealthy yet.
This "high-wealth = low birthrate" correlation seems to be a favorite mantra of those who are optimistic about our planet's future - all we have to do is make everyone wealthy and the birthrate thing will happen voluntarily.
Thing is, these "wealthy" countries have a lot of poor people, and a majority of the population that is full-time employed just to keep roofs over their heads. These people are heavily incenti
Trekonomy works on the Enterprise. Nowhere else. (Score:4, Interesting)
The "trekonomy" only works when everyone is onboard a starship and their cabin and their necessities are provided for them. Their "uniform" precludes fancy watches, gawdy jewelry, or anything other than replication of FUNCTIONAL ITEMS.
In the real world (sorry, fellow Trekies) people need HOUSING and the more $$$ you have the bigger the house. Houses sit on property. So if you're trying to get out of the NYC apartment and into a big Texas-sized house on a Texas-sized ranch, it's $$$.
People who are not in the military wear jewelry, and if you're a famous celebrity with no talent, it has to be big on the diamond front. You need $$$ for that, because even though manufactured diamonds are more perfect, they aren't "prized" as much as the flawed one we send people to the deaths in mines for.
- Fancy watches. You can't 3D print a Breitling. But if you could likely it would be prized less, just like diamonds.
- Cars. You can't 3D print a Lamorghini Gallardo or wrap it around a light pole because your $$$ exceeds your talent (see youtube).
- Planes. Kanye can fly on a private jet, but you can't 3D print one, and only $$$ will get you there.
Trekonomy is a cute concept, and I hope that lots of people spend $$$ reading it. ...because you can't 3D print a book you haven't bought...
Ehud Gavron
Tucson AZ US
Re:Trekonomy works on the Enterprise. Nowhere else (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a few places where the version of communism they are calling "trekonomy" works besides a star ship. Besides modern militaries and families, many religious institutions use something similar. Nuns and Monks are clear examples. So do non-evil prison systems - they don't charge the inmates for food, clothing, etc. Note the highly authoritarian system for all of those categories - military, family, religioun and prisoners.
But yeah, the idea that it is going to be adopted by the general population is stupid. Not all of us want to live like a soldier/child/nun/prisoner.
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There are a few places where the version of communism they are calling "trekonomy" works [...]. So do non-evil prison systems - they don't charge the inmates for food, clothing, etc.
And the warders work for merit? Interesting.
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Housing: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asitha... [www.cbc.ca] - check
Transportation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] - check
The reason people want expensive cars and private planes beyond convenience is as an outward sign of Reputation within a community and culture that revolves around money. The article points to a shift away from that mentality.
Re:Trekonomy works on the Enterprise. Nowhere else (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, with the lack of need for work, there is also a lack of need for workers. So you'd better hope you own some robots, because we only have to look around at the current situation to recognize that those controlling the wealth are willing to do everything in their power to avoid sharing it. For now they need our labor, and so share a few crumbs with us to acquire it. What makes you think they'll share even that much wealth, when we have nothing of value to offer in return?
Technologically we've been more than capable of providing everyone in the world with a life of comfort and leisure (say a 20-hour work week) for several decades, at least. The problems are not technological, they're cultural and political. Further advances in technology are only likely to exacerbate the existing situation.
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Technologically we've been more than capable of providing everyone in the world with a life of comfort and leisure (say a 20-hour work week) for several decades, at least. The problems are not technological, they're cultural and political. Further advances in technology are only likely to exacerbate the existing situation.
How do you figure that? Here we currently have a 37.5-hour work week. Reading about working conditions back during the industrial revolution (e.g. any book by Marx), and we seem to be progressing rather rapidly towards that 20-hour week.
Heck, the previous generation still remember a 6-day working week.
The problems are, sure enough, cultural. But how would technology advancement suddenly start taking us backwards on this development direction?
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There's also no need for the rich to share the output of their robots with the plebes.
Re:Trekonomy works on the Enterprise. Nowhere else (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's going to cut your grass? Who is going to fix the sewer when things get backed up? Some folks who do it just for the "reputation" as the best sewer jockey?
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I'm assuming the answer to your first question is Husqvarna (who already makes a lawnmower robot).
Don't know that there is a sewer cleaning robot in production, but can't imagine it's terribly more difficult than a lawnmower robot or a vacuuming robot....
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Says the guy who wants 99,999 ferraris so he can drive a different one every day. You don't? Huh, weird, I guess there is a limit on want, need, and desire.
There's reasons why this is bullshit (for instance, scarcity of raw materials and energy) but "people want infinite things" isn't one of them.
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Says the guy who wants 99,999 ferraris so he can drive a different one every day.
Because 100,000 would be ridiculous.
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Well, almost. People may not want infinite things, but they want more things that other people have.
Or even better, things that other people don't have. As outward sign of their higher status. It is not about needing something, it is about showing up your neighbours. Post-scarcity is impossible, because artificial scarcity will be immediately invented. Another commenter mentioned that artificial diamonds don't differ from mined ones anymore, but everybody still wants the natural ones. That's good example of artificial scarcity used to create status symbols. So let's say we can 3D print cars, houses, what
Why is it (Score:4, Insightful)
That journalists are the ones arguing about 'not having to work to live'?
I never see economists or machinists or retail workers espouse this philosophy. I mean really, just because a tiny fraction of the planet doesn't have to work (the 1-2 per centers including the wealthy retirees she touts), it does not follow that the people who make life possible for those economic elite are going to suddenly find what amounts to a pot of gold somewhere.
The Post Replicator fantasy economy is just that - a fantasy. Better to wish for a warp drive. At least it's useful.
What about all the pensioners? (Score:2)
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That journalists are the ones arguing about 'not having to work to live'?
Of course. It's a natural progression - from research and writing to copying and pasting. The logical next step is to be a wealthy retiree - but in a meritocracy, somewhere near the top obviously (next to Kim, and Kane). Kind of like a never-ending press junket, but with better food, wine, and not having to read Twitter in order to post a story afterwards. "travelling [through space] and exploring and deepening their understanding of the world and being generally happy."
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Lawrence: "Well, you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he's broke, don't do shit."
The song of the Lotus-Eaters (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The song of the Lotus-Eaters (Score:4, Interesting)
We do have birth control, which is largely why populations are in decline in much of the industrialized world. Even before the Pill, it's long been a feature of wealthier societies that they have lower birthrates. Between contraception and a presumably wealthier society, population would likely stabilize and probably enter a decline.
Re:The song of the Lotus-Eaters (Score:5, Insightful)
Not so sure about that.
The reason why birthrates are low in wealthier societies is due to children becoming a financial liability rather than an asset. In agrarian cultures, children are basically free labor.
When everything is "free", children will not be a financial liability anymore, leaving many folks to breed like rabbits.
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As a parent of a 2 month old, I can assure you that finances aside children are a huge 'time', 'sleep' and 'freedom' liability.
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What population explosion would that be?
In the more advanced parts of the world (USA, Europe, China, Japan, Korea, etc) population growth is already negative absent immigration. Hell, even India is approaching negative population growth, though it's not there yet.
Current trends predict a peak population for the world sometime later this century, followed by a decline to lower popula
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http://www.project-syndicate.o... [project-syndicate.org]
Population is widely expected to peak at around 8 - 10 billion and stabilise somewhere in the next 10 - 20 years, and probably decline a little afterwards. Scary visions of a planet bursting at the seams with people are just hyperbole at this point.
nope (Score:3)
One word: water.
Called "Communism". (Score:3, Informative)
2. That does not change the fact that the economy portrayed in the show is a version of communism. That is the scientific term for the economic system they used.
3. Morons that think calling 'communism' "STAR TREK ECONOMY" will somehow hide what it is should be laughed at.
4. Communism is ALSO the system used by almost all modern militaries and families. You don't charge your kids for the use of the house. Nor do you charge Fighter pilots for the use of the plane, fuel, bombs, etc.
5. While Communism works pretty well within the military and within Families, it SUCKS for a general economy. See Russia, Cuba, North Korea for prime examples.
6. WE WILL NOT EVER END UP USING COMMUNISM / 'STAR TREK ECONOMY' FOR THE GENERAL POPULATION. That battle was fought and Communism lost during the 20th century.
7. A 'post scarcity' economy is a false idea. there will always be scarcity - fuel, ideas, certain types of entertainment, sex, will ALWAYS be scarce. Merely because we will have solved the scarcity of the original commodities - food, clothing, certain types of products, does not mean nothing will ever be scarce again.
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Post scarcity is a spectrum, not an absolute. What kinds of commodities will you kill for to survive?
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Nonononono. This is the 21st Century. We've moved beyond the nuances on non-Aristotelian logic. Everything now must be binary and absolute, you barbarian!
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Scarcity is only part of the equation. Once you have a few million in the bank, "scarce" isn't generally meaningful. So why do the millionaires struggle so to become billionaires? Because at that point, money is the way of keeping score and everyone wants the high score, whether it's dollars, "whuffie" or gold-pressed Latium.
Conversely, Communism failed because A) the Party were hypocrites, living the high life while refusing to share with the masses. Regular capitalists, in effect. B) there wasn't any mean
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1. I love Star Trek.
2. That does not change the fact that the economy portrayed in the show is a version of communism. That is the scientific term for the economic system they used.
Ok, this far we agree.
3. Morons that think calling 'communism' "STAR TREK ECONOMY" will somehow hide what it is should be laughed at.
Why? The (US-)engilsh language is full of PC phrasology. Religion, skin hue & sexual preferences can't be talked about without PC phrases. Why would politcal convictions not need them?
Especially the C-word...
4. Communism is ALSO the system used by almost all modern militaries and families. You don't charge your kids for the use of the house. Nor do you charge Fighter pilots for the use of the plane, fuel, bombs, etc.
You obviously have never even been to a communistic country?
5. While Communism works pretty well within the military and within Families, it SUCKS for a general economy. See Russia, Cuba, North Korea for prime examples.
I'm not sure Cuba is a fair comparison. Its cause of poverty is its big neighbour that refused to trade with it, just because they were 'Communists'.
NKorea seems to be a failure more because of its totalitarianism than
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> That battle was fought and Communism lost during the 20th century.
If the US had gone Communist and the USSR had embraced Capitalism, it would not have guaranteed that the USSR would have "won" the cold war.
The US had better access to resources, and, importantly, the US did not cut itself off from world markets the way that the USSR did.
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bullshit. communism is designed for scarcity, for distributing goods "equally"
the economy post-scarcity does represent the end of capitalism, but it also represent the end of communism
your imagination seems to be "anything not capitalism is communism" when in reality there are many alternative economic models, not just capitalism and communism
Socialist fantasy (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to be left wing and a socialist in my youth thanks to Star Trek TNG. No poverty, happiness, people doing what they want because they want too, no pressure on bills, technology to give you everything you want etc.
Then I grow up and took economics in college and tried living out in the real world and putting up with things.
Here is why it can never happen: ... ... not what is best for themselves.
1. We are in a service economy today. While the Chinese are actually working making things, we count on plumbers, starbucks baristas, help desk weenies, airline baggage handlers, military personnel, construction workers, and so on. How many would work for free because they want too? Seriously? Most humans would sit on their butts and watch TV all day. Those who would want to work to get out of the house won't work as long as if they had a boss and deadlines and bills to pay. Which brings me to point number 2
2. How do we divide scarce resources when no money is involved? Yes with services we have scarce resources again replicators or not. In a free market if there are no large hoard of people desperate for any job and a skill or sucky work is required the price will go up. Someone needs to go out in 110 degree temperates in Phoenix to make that apartment ready for the rest of us to live in. If they worked based on the goodness of their hearts WE WOULD HAVE A HOUSING SHORTAGE. Basically if people did what they wanted and make paintings all day and tried to do IT work then no one would do the crappy work that no one wants. In a free market people work for money and the money will work itself out and have people work for what is best for society
3. It takes a lot of work to become a doctor, lawyer, cisco architect, and so on. Seriously it takes years of tests, certifications, work experience, and blood, sweat and tears.
4. People with free food would become rabbits and reproduce and take over the whole world lowering the amount of opportunities for everyone else.
5. What would society be like if we did this? People would have less services, homes, electronics, etc. Reality it would be like the Soviet Union. Even if you remove fascist elements you would have 10 year waits for cars, starvation (or maybe not with replicators), no where to go, high unemployment and so on.
Ask any eastern European on here or Russian what they think about this? They will be flabbergasted and say you have no idea what you are preaching? I remember life in the Soviet Union ... etc.
So it is sad but a cold hearted reality that our childhoods are over. We need to all work our butts off and be punished for not being the best or persuing the most economically sound path which society is willing to pay more for.
Unless someone can come up with some better ideas? My idea if I were king based on the free market would be to give condoms to poor countries and with less oversupply of workers consuming resources live will be better for everyone :-) The only way Europe left the dark middle ages was the bubonic plague. As horrible as this was with 1/3 of the population gone the middle class and freedom started where people didn't have to be a surf anymore and Paris and London had jobs again that paid something.
The birth rate falls drastically greater wealth (Score:2)
I agree with most of what you say, but the fact is that people stop reproducing once they get wealthy. The birth rate of almost all the developing countries has fallen - most obviously in South Korea where it's gone from over 6 to under 2 in under 50 years. That doesn't mean we don't have a problem in the short term, but in the medium term - 150 years or so from now - our population will be in free fall.
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The reason for this is an economic burden to have more. Remove burden and people won't bother getting fixed
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Dude.,. If you've studied economics then you know that by the Second Welfare Theorem, it is possible to redistribute endowments to achieve alternative pareto optimal distributions... Ie... a tiny few super-elite ultra wealthy with millions or billions in poverty subservient to them is only one possible free market allocation.
You don't have to give up capitalism, free market, or assume the end of scarcity or any other such nonsense... just standard economics... though implementing this is difficult precisely
Good luck with that. (Score:2)
What kind of people are you going to get to do that when money is not a requirement?
Design and the geeks (Score:2)
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Let's take a quick walk out into the real world. That road for instance - not 'designed' to last hundreds of years - maybe ten. OK, you're going to be the next road guru and, for the fun of it, design and build the road of forever.
With what for resources? Who's going to pay for the R&D, the machines and the raw materials? Hmm. You run up against those annoying things called budgets. The city government isn't going to let you take the entire budget for ten years for your perfect road. Or perfect w
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You won't have vending machines and soup machines : these ugly machines are deprecated and instead there's a small room where Neelix the alien is cooking some soup and breverages etc. for you.
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Maybe they'll work for free, as a hobby. Isn't slashdot and reddit moderated by moderators who work for free? Isn't stackexchange.com filled with Q&A created entirely for free, just like posting slashdot comments does not earn you money? Millions of man-hours for FREE.
Of course, someone will have to pay for travel expenses from the technician's house to the house that needs servicing. But his service after that will be f
It's a good idea but it won't work. (Score:4, Informative)
We've been through this before. Computers and automation were supposed to decrease everyone's workload. Keynes predicted we would have a 15-hr work week by 2030. It hasn't happened yet, and likely won't, because the bean counters and CEOs will simply see the untapped 25-hr/week as lost potential growth and will do all they can to exploit it to maximizing profits.
We live in a society that demands growth, not steady-state. Trekonomics does not account for the fact that humans are inherently greedy, some so addicted to shiny things that they are willing to struggle to horde so much wealth that they cannot possibly spend it in a lifetime. Until that mentality is erased I wouldn't make extended vacation plans just yet.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35-hour_workweek [wikipedia.org]
So Keynes was a bit too bullish. That doesn't mean the idea was wrong.
I think the entire point with TFA was that we are seeing the first (faint) signs of just such a mentality change you refer to.
Yes, here's the evidence... (Score:5, Informative)
We're in for a rough ride. A real rough ride. Automation is increasing fast, industry production is being outsourced to 3rd world countries or where labour is cheap, this isn't new, but it's increasing rapidly now. The 1% Richest Elite in America owns 40% of the country, and the rest of the world, the scenario isn't far away. One day, there will be severe uproars amongst the increasingly poor population, not to mention the INCREASING population.
The software companies are essentially building platforms rather than hiring, the industry heads for full automation. The days where you had manual labour is on a fast track to oblivion, all the unemployment numbers speaks for themselves. People are more and more RENTING their own homes rather than owning, more laws are being imposed on the populations "freedoms" to keep them in line during this transaction to new times, it happens with a speed that's similar to cooking a lobster, it dies, but it's so comfortable while dying in the heat that it gets docile and have no clue what's coming, same with the population. We slowly accept the situation.
At some point, there will be so few jobs that socialism technically controls everything, and socialism will by then look more like slavery than freedom and democracy. Voting for all of the above instead of several parties...because they all steer in that direction, they just know...telling you, isn't going to work. But telling you what you WANT to hear, will work. (For them!)
This sounds like some crazy conspiracy tinfoil hat theory, right?
Well it isn't. And it's happening right in front of you, you know it...harder and harder to get a proper job, highly educated people clueless to why they can't get a decent job. Forget manual labour jobs, those are already given to those before you that'll give up their jobs over their cold dead hands before giving it to you, so they now work OVERTIME. Why do you think we just passed laws to allow higher overtime pay?
And property? Don't even get me started. Do you guys remember the 2007 crisis? When hundreds of thousands of people had to leave their homes because they couldn't afford to pay their mortgages? And foreclosures was abundant? Guess what happened after that. Two things, a lot of houses where left abandoned and the banks/financial institutions lost billions on houses that became trashed, unmaintained and uncared for while people still had their debt which they can't possibly hope for to ever repay, now if they had kept their homes - they would have stood a fighting chance, but no. Corporate greed eats itself up.
The second thing that happened, was that smart real estate investors came and purchased the foreclosed homes, and rented them out.
Joblessness, lack of freedom, lack of happiness, lack of money, lack of jobs, outsourcing, automation will ultimately lead to one of the worst periods in history, civil wars will break out, huge fights amongst growing masses of unemployed welfare recipients fighting against the elite who has the law-in-hand, for food and basic needs. This will probably last a good 20 years or so, until we phase into the next "moneyless" society.
The moneyless society is actually good, but it's going to be a rough ride (as described above), and the hardest part will be to convince those with the money to part with the monetary system for good, for the common good of everyone, this will eventually equal man to everyone, and our future jobs will basically be to secure our planets resources and stability. But there's going to be ONE huge fight before we get there. Brace yourselves!
Why Communsim/trekonomy doesn't work (Score:4, Insightful)
There are lots of reasons why we need to pay people to do things.
There are and always will be jobs that some people are very good at - but they DO NOT WANT TO DO. Just because you are the best at something doesn't mean you will like to do it. Prime examples are sexual - just because you are the best at giving blow jobs in the entire world, does not mean you want to spend your life giving blow jobs. But the same goes for many other jobs - garbage man, crab fisherman, and Wall Street drone. etc. etc.
Many jobs pay more note because of scarcity but because of unpleasantness. Almost no one wants to be a Wall Street Drone - working 15 hour days unless they get paid huge amounts of money. There is no scarcity involved - lots of people are smart enough to do it. But the job requires such ridiculous hours that the only way to convince people to do it is to pay them gobs of money. Even then, most get burnt out and quit.
More importantly, scarcity can never vanish - instead what happens is that once very rare luxury items become somewhat rare necessities, and specialization differentiates types. At one point in time the average person owned less than 5 outfits. Clean clothing was a rare luxury. Now, most people own 20 to 100 outfits. It has become a commodity. Has clothing switched to a 'trekonomy?" No - cut and style, has taken over, with certain types of clothing - namely hand made by famous people - becoming extremely rare.
Oh yeah... Just like Star Trek... (Score:5, Funny)
... where the 1% live like Startfleet and the rest of us live like Bajoran refugees.
Even in Star Trek, not everything could be replica (Score:3)
How do you obtain antiques? (Score:4, Insightful)
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So in the Star Trek universe where money doesn't exist, how does one acquire, say, a collectible item like the badge that Wyatt Earp wore, or a rare tea set once owned by Andrew Carnegie?
You have a holodeck malfunction and Wyatt Earp, the hole-in-the-wall gang and some 19th century Robber Barons take over the Enterprise. Then in a plot twist you acquire Wyatt Earp's badge and Carnegie's tea set.
Humans want scarcity (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the idea of a "post scarcity" world is incompatible with some pretty basic human psychology. Even in the modern world, there are some resources (information) that have, for all practical purposes, become infinitely available. Yes, getting access to it isn't universal yet, but even amongst those who have a broadband connection, information is still locked away behind paywalls, media stores, etc.
This leads me to think we'll always have some kind of scarcity, even if it's artificial scarcity. Because there will always be some things that aren't infinitely available. As technology increases, those finite things won't be material, resources or even dare I say it energy but it could very well be abstract things like ideas (copyright) and inventions (patent). Part of it is probably that people need distinction in order to differentiate themselves from their peers. Another is just pure greed; some people like being perceived as better than others.
Except people's intrinsic motivations still rule (Score:4, Informative)
It's a nice picture of a possible future, but you have to reserve some skepticism whenever the story starts contradicting what appears to be constants of human interaction.
For instance, look at the online communities which have similar motivational incentives- no money, just "prestige". What is it like to be a member of such communities?
Even in academia, when times are good and the money is available to any credible researcher with a reasonable research project, how do they act to each other and what do they do to each other?
The fact is that "reputation" is a nice word for status which is always shorthand for "relative status" which implies a zero sum game for attention and recognition.
What do people do to each other within that kind of game? Because if you're my competitor and I can ruin you through underhanded means, then I come out on top. Don't kid yourself, making people smarter or richer does not allievate or even abate these dynamics.
How much of the bad things that happen in the world are because the poor are ruining everything for the rest of us? How much are because people with an unthinkable amount of money, post-money people, are behaving in anti-social ways?
Then there's the underlying, ultimate competition - the competition for mates. How is that going to be mitigated
in a post momey world? Do the current crop of post money people behave in a relaxed, egalitarian fashion or are they underhanded, status seeking, manipulative, competitors who stop at nothing to satiate their ever-expanding, ever shifting desires?
The REAL revolution that's so far out there in terms of thinkability is the one where science learns enough about why humans behave they way they do that they can control it and shape it. You know that that is REAL science fiction because whenever you hear someone say something like that, your imagination fills with visions of what a dystopia that would lead to.
The reason we have that reaction is because of the set of facts I was talking about in the beginning of the post- what people are like- post-money or not. The idea that people would naturally and robustly be inclined to act in reliably decent ways such that, say, we would not need a police force to stop criminals and terrorists from doing what it is they want to do, is totally unthinkable science fiction.
Even Gene Roddenberry didn't go there, except in episodes where he wanted to show what a false veneer any such society ultimately was.
That is all we know about humans and what humans are inclined to act like and that's the point. It's not a revolution if it's not revolutionary and making stuff for cheap is not a revolution, it's an evolution.
It's not going to take away the badness of the world or even much mitigate it, at least for people living in developed nations.
For people in developing nations, yes, it will be amaterial godsend and yes, that would be a huge and welcome event.
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Re:Except people's intrinsic motivations still rul (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider that what we are may not remain static; that's where I get my hope from.
Most people are good some of the time, even saintly (secularly considered). We're not just , you know, totally divorced from goodness.
But as we are, we have brains created under evolutionary pressures which are effectively a bunch of hacks, "designed" not for goodness or beneficience but for survival in the near-zero-sum-game we call natural selection.
You have to believe that we can learn enough about ourselves to tweak ourselves, to close the difference between the best person you know and the worst.
Yes, if we just keep on giving ourselves more nad more powerful technology without making our selves the target of that technology in the way I mean, then we're fucked. We're fucked just for the reasons Einstein said:
"Many persons have inquired concerning a recent message of mine that âa new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels.â(TM) Often in evolutionary processes a species must adapt to new conditions in order to survive. Today the atomic bomb has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we know it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking. In light of new knowledgeâ¦an eventual world state is not just desirable in the name of brotherhood, it is necessary for survival. ..Today we must abandon competition and secure cooperation. This must be the central fact in all our considerations of international affairs; otherwise we face certain disaster. Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars."
Just substitute "future brains" for "future thinking"
Living to work (Score:2)
Seems like TFA is saying that if we don't have to work to live, we're free to live to work.
Wealth = power (Score:2)
We are no where near that (Score:2)
... Star trek's federation is basically a "post economy"... like post modern... you're beyond economics. And the only way you get beyond economics is if you're beyond scarcity. Economics are a way of rationing finite resources. We only have so many of anything. How do we determine who gets what and who doesn't? Demand always exceeds supply.
A post economy is one in which supply exceeds demand. Where you have more stuff than anyone actually wants.
We're no where near that.
Our 3d printers etc might let us produ
half true (Score:2)
We are already pretty much in a post-scarcity economy in places like the US and Europe. Has that gotten rid of money? Of course not. Money is mainl
A Star Trek economy alright... (Score:2)
setting aside our lack of limitless energy... (Score:3)
...I dispute that it would be such a utopia in any case.
We (in the Western world) live in the most benign circumstances ever in human history.
We largely have no fear of death by war, plague, famine, or pestilence. We live longer than ever before, and our primary health problems stem from TOO MUCH FOOD. Violence is steadily decreasing, and average wealth & comfort constantly improving. The average American lives better than a king of only several decades ago, and in fact has many abilities at the touch of a button that the greatest emperors never dreamed of.
Nevertheless...as our comforts increase, so does our bitching. Every imagined grievance, every contrived slight prompts paens of ceaseless grief over how horrible everything is.
Please donate! (Score:2)
I will keep posting insightful, funny and otherwise stupid-ass comments for free!
Donations are appreciated, however:
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Poor San Marino, they're a brutal theocracy and don't even know it. Founded 301 CE.
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Communism has shown us that going by things other than a currency results in countries that fall over due to bankruptcy in a generation at most.
The sad part about life is that there are only two types of nations which survive for the long haul: Extremely brutal theocracies and oligarchies. The rest just get mowed over by those types, or just collapse from within.
A Star Trek is a nice fantasy, but Ayn Rand's words are reality.
Communism uses currency. The proposed utopia doesn't. Not everything that isn't capitalism is communism.
Ayn Rand died eating her words.Unless you are blinded by the sort of drivel produced by Onkar Ghate - who simultaneously says, yes she received Social Security, but she was opposed to it because it's a theft from the young by the old (though she was old at the time) - but she was a genius, so it's all not true, while it's all true.
I never bought into the Star Trek economy anyway - seemed some owned things
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The summary mentions "Wealthy retirees today also already live an essentially post-money existence, "travelling and exploring and deepening their understanding of the world and being generally happy." which sounds great.
Yes it sounds great. Of course it's their savings -- ie: money -- that allows them to do all that. So not so "post-money" after all... TFA and TFS are misguided in that respect. And budget cat food sells well because there's a difference between spending and wasting money :-)
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99.99% of all beneits trickle to the top, and it will continue until the consumers can't consume anymore.
The leeches will continue to leech until there is no one to leech on left, and then they too will starve to death.
And in communism it is the other way around ... oh wait.
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Just out of sheer boredom, what makes you classify this as an "SJW" story?
Or do you have an uncontrollable urge to post anti-SJW snark on Slashdot at least once a day.
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Re:Oh slashdot... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, they represented the Soviets. In the first series the federation wasn't overtly communistic. They were sort of a post economy... economies are all about scarcity and the federation has such bounty of wealth that there's no point in any kind of economy because there's no scarcity. Everyone has effectively infinite everything. If you want to cover yourself in diamonds... you can do that. For free.
In the next generation the federation appears more communistic. And it is generally pointed at by nerd communists that the federation is their ideal system... as a wealthy and happy communistic system.
So it didn't start out being about communism but the fans have basically attributed that to it.
Also you have to look at the Ferangi who were a somewhat rival capitalistic power in the next generation. They were painted as being ugly, barbaric, sexist... unenlightened. And that does a lot to paint the federation as taking an ideologically communistic stand if only as a foil to the Ferangi who are capitalistic... although I don't know how valid that is since the writers of these shows are often not as smart as they think they are... My read on the Ferangi is that they're more "mercantile" than capitalistic. There's a very very big difference which I won't get into. But their behavior appears to be more about hording and monopolization of resources rather than about dominating production. That's the basic difference between the two. You could write books about that. Its why the Spanish conquered the new world and ultimately didn't get much for it while the English founded a few colonies here and there and ultimately made bank.
Mercantilists versus Capitalists was something that played out in the West... and the capitalists won BIG.
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No, they were the chinese.
Regardless, the Klingons were absolutely the soviets if you return to the original series and even most of the movies.
The "undiscovered country" was about the fall of the soviet union for example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
After that, the federation and the Klingons are on better terms... mostly because the Klingons know they can't fight the federation and the federation fears the Klingon's less as the Klingons are increasingly a minor power.
Re:Oh slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely, while this may be the dream of Democrats, Communists and Roddenberry (and Slashdot editors), it is absolute BS.
First of all, we already have replicators, but it is illegal to use them! There is a warning on every DVD that I have that tells me this (and even though I supposedly own the DVD and the DVD player, the player will not skip past that warning. Similarly, while it is perfectly fine for the music labels to cheat the artists, it is not fine to cheat the music labels. And with the stated intention by big industry including Disney to subvert the U.S. Constitution, no copyrighted works will ever pass into public domain again. So if you want to see a movie, listen to music or pay that ever increasing cable bill you are going to need money.
Also, there are finite resources like real estate. Unless your ideal world is one where the party bosses and their pals get to live in big estates and everyone else gets put in a small cell in an undesired location that is deemed perfectly adequate for them, then the Slashdot editor economy doesn't really work. Similarly for any personal service, from a gardener to calling the plummer to domestic help. The fat cats will have all of the body guards (i.e. private mercenaries) that they want, as well as servants (paid slaves) but it will be wrong for you to expect any or not want to wait five to ten years while you go on the list for the plummer.
Even if we had real viable perfect replicators for all physical items and free unlimited energy, this system would never work. In a world where we don't have these, it is ignorant to even suggest that such a system is "closer than you think".
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Eventually we reach a point where it becomes possible to provide everyone with enough to live comfortably at no cost to anyo
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See, this is all about getting free stuff.
The trouble with these arguments is that base resources (iron, oil, aluminum, copper, etc ...) cost to extract and then there are the people who own those resources. So, in a Star Trek economy, I guess robots show up in your back yard and start mining - whether you like it or not?
How will you know? You'll be on a ship somewhere deep in space - on your way to make friends and exchange merit badges with friendly advance life forms.
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Everybody wants 'a bit more money', no matter how much they already have.
Let me address this from the point of view of a small business guy (and not a rich tech employee vesting their options)
Let's say what you can do to better yourself is make a lemonade stand, 'cos you got lemons.
Your neighbors are lazy bastards and won't squeeze lemons, so you win: you are demonstrably more motivated than them, and they are bad. With me so far?
In the current system, you do your lemonade stand, and you have to compete wit
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I think you may be a little mixed up about the goose that laid the golden egg. You may be thinking guys like Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk are the goose, and the hordes of welfare rabble are seeking to kill that goose.
The hordes of underclass people consuming (whether with crappy jobs or on welfare or a basic income) are the goose.
Trump and the others are the egg.
Kill wisely.
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"Wealthy retirees today also already live an essentially post-money existence"
You have to be really, truly full of shit to say something like that
I don't even think the absurdity of that statement even registered with the summary writer.
It's one of the most semantically null statements I've see on /. yet, essentially "The wealthy don't need money to live well." Oookay, but if they didn't have money, they wouldn't be wealthy, now would they? *head-shake*
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Perhaps you should read a second Heinlein novel before making any claims of the sort. May I recommend at least The cat that walks through walls and Beyond this horizon.
This is not the first time someone falls into this trap. I think there should be a new sort of argumentational fallacy coined:
Argumentum ad Heinleinus: Proving your point with a quotation of one Robert.A.Heinlein book, not realizing a second book by the same author proves the anti-thesis of your point.