The federation is like living at your parent’s house. Things are free under their roof, but if you want to drink with Quark, you’re going to have to trade your star fleet allowance for latinum.
I like to imagine they've all got unlimited credit lines but they play along with the Ferengi to respect their culture. Their system might fall apart if they are forced to acknowledge it only works with artificial scarcity.
Have it included with Walmart+ and so far everything I've watched has had one 30 second ad at the beginning and I can return anytime without having to watch anymore.
That sounds cute until some rich asshole sets up his own anti-matter reactor to run their own holodecks with content and filters removed. I'm thinking he sets it up on a remote asteroid and invites his other rich asshole friends. Except he secretly records them and uses it to set up a blackmail network.
He'd probably have to have some weird alien name like, Kah-Epstein.
I always thought the "you wouldn't download a car" ads were based on an assumption that star trek replicator technology would be evil (with the public argument that it would put people out of jobs and the real reason being it would be harder to base a wealth-based hierarchy and system of middlemen on).
Replicators don't replaces services, just goods. Most people aren't willing to render services for free.
The replicators also use enormous amounts of energy. They're basically nukes in reverse. They "solve" this problem with anti-matter but the anti-matter reaction seems to require trilithium. And as we know from several episodes, trilithium is definitely not an unlimited resources.
The economy might not involve anyone hand-making widgets but there would be a lot of economics around acquiring, processing and distributing trilithium.
I know where you’re going with this and it is 100% what our internet famous generations would do today. In the era of “will it smash”, we test “will it crash”, all for views. The key thing about this movie though, it was after war and we humans were tired of fighting for scraps. So one would hope we wouldn’t need to see if our replicator will make 100 burritos because “why do you need them?”.
The economic model would have to be based on energy supply.
But assuming the replicators were perfect to the atomic level; making the parts for power generation would be easy. But the fuel would still have to be found / collected / mined.
Assuming that fusion is the most common type of energy generation; hydrogen fusion would probably be the dominant form of energy generation. Hydrogen collection would be a huge industry, but it also could be fully automated.
While the economic model may not be noticed by the majority; it would still be there.
Need? None, really. It's like when you get to the North Pole, the entire concept of "north" breaks down. It would be the same with post-scarcity. Or should be, except...
Have? Completely up to the whims of whoever controls the technology. Which... takes a look at the planet will be whoever is left standing once the nut jobs wipe out everyone that they hate. "Computer, ICBM, nuclear."
I'm pretty sure by the end, even Roddenberry had come to accept that humans will never be so selfless as a species and the Starfleet he dreamt of could never exist. That's why his later stuff was more bleak. There's just absolutely no way that the money free world they describe is good for everyone
I believe there is a way. Nanotechnology helped along by artificial intelligence could conceivably bring material abundance to everyone. This would be a world dramatically reshaped. Humanity might not even qualify as the same species anymore.
Some people actually think that such a future is an inevitability; that it can't be stopped. Short of everybody dying in a fire of course.
There’s just absolutely no way that the money free world they describe is good for everyone.
Can you elaborate, please? In a hypothetical future where money doesn't exist and technology has granted everyone the means and freedom to pursue their own interests (as long as those interests aren't harmful to others, of course), I'm having difficulty understanding why that wouldn't be amazing. Maybe not perfect, but vastly improved over what we're stuck with now.
Ah yes, because in capitalism, Captains actually own their own ships and you don't need to pay anyone to actually build it! Just use slaves enthusiastic volunteers!