Star Trek oneupmanship

[Wawona Girl]

Star Trek is a lovely concept. Being able to do what you want in life because money is no object is heart-warming. But not all societies are alike and greed will continue to exist in the future, whether we like it or not. To my mind, money will continue to exist and will take many forms. The idea of one currency is a fantastic idea. But after seeing how the euro has worked out, I doubt it will work.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Stick. Wrong end of.

If you posit a money free society where "all the greatest virtues of our species could have runaway advances" and everyone sips ambrosia and philosophises and has higher thoughts and pushes the boundaries of knowledge and that - no one is going to be sitting round watching mediocre episodic TV like Star Trek.

I was being ironic. Pointing out that the very thing that started this thread would not have come into existence if it had actually existed. (Gods I hate explaining my jokes.) Do you really think the crew of any of the Enterprises would watch Star Trek? I don't. All too busy not reading Moby Dick, and quoting Shakespeare in the original Klingon, and enjoying that particularly naff sort of lounge ballad jazz crap that I seem to remember Riker schmoozing along to.

 

[Nick B]

I understood the irony, and I wasn't criticising your post, I was emphasising mine. To be honest, I don't think it would make any difference as to what entertainment people like. Even megarich superintelligent people watch total rubbish on TV.

I don't think it would happen anyway, as posted above, human greed will always exist. If anything, capitalism will more likely become even more extreme. Certainly that is how things panned out in my own sci-fi writing.

 

[Dulahan]

The idea of Star Trek is simply what "would you do if you had everything you need?" What do you spend your money on? Housing? Food? Vacations? Luxury items? If all of those things can almost instantaneously provide for you then you are left with is your own pursuits.

How many of you have written a story, made a quirky YouTube video, or created a piece of art? Who has rebuilt a classic car, installed a pool, or built a deck on their home? How much money did you receive for these things? If the number is low (or zero) then why did you do it at all? That is what motivates the people of Star Trek.

Not a tough concept if you open you mind a little.

I do agree with a lot of what @JunkMonkey is saying, however. Money, in the non-Star Trek world, is the driving force for a lot of people. Money means comfort, safety, and survival. We protect our selves and families with money -- to say anything otherwise is just silly.

 

[Nick B]

That is right. We seek money to provide for and protect ourselves and our families. Because that is how our society works, we are taught from birth that it is the way things are done.

 

[Ursa major]

We seek money to provide for and protect ourselves and our families.

We seek the wherewithal to provide for and protect ourselves and our families. What we're taught is that in our society, we can use tokens -- ones that are easily convertible, ones that, in the absence of high inflation, do not perish -- to represent that part** of our wherewithal not within ourselves.

One could consider a society where the means are provided come what may, so money would not necessarily be needed to represent this (as the wherewithal not within us would be, in effect, owned by others, so we wouldn't need to know what it was all worth), but as I've argued earlier, there would be those who'd want to show that they are "more worthy" than others, and a (large) subset of those who'd want to (or have to, have nothing else to offer) do this by accumulating things (and tokens representing the ability to acquire those things).


But before we get too deep into all this.... Star Trek only seems to have an absence of money when its stories are dealing with the public servants who are exploring brave new worlds where there's no convertible currency available anyway. The rest of the time, either money is explicitly shown (as on Deep Space Nine) or is implicit... unless one thinks the various mining colonies are populated by people whose hobby is mining. If there was no money, Cyrano Jones would have had no need to trade in tribbles; Harry Mudd (who had a pretty good idea of some miners' aspirations) would not have been engaged in people trafficking.

As for the Culture.... At the risk of boring people who may have heard me mention this before: I tend to see the Culture as one in which "humans", and the other biological species within it, are kept like pets (in particular, cats). A pet doesn't need money and, in the absence of owner cruelty or neglect, is none the worse for that.


** - The other part being things such as our skills, our reputation, our position within society (which may be based on many things, including family links, our job/profession, wealth).

 

[HareBrain]

A pet doesn't need money

Just pencils.

 

[ThomasG]

I cannot conceive a society of independent individuals where everyone shares exactly the same notions about their wants, needs and desires, share the same notion of how to measure them, and where everyone values their own family's survival equally to everyone else's. Neither can I imagine a society where everyone is equally good, or even have equal measures of good. Wherever such "unalignment" exists, people will be measuring something against another, and this measuring will try to find a common token to represent value.
It does not mean I cannot enjoy a story that adopts "no money" - like TNG.
By the way, this is already in a story prompted by this debate.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I must agree with earlier assertions UT, about life in the ST universe being dull...I hadn't first thought that might be linked with absence of money, but I wonder if its dullness is an artefact of the premise that money is no longer figuring in their Maslow's hierarchy .

Apart from the odd 7 of 9 episodes, DS9 season finales I can't face ST because of its grey soup of clinical approach.

Sadly (for me) my love of the pew-pew-pew episodes over the more thoughtful ones comes from Voy and DS9 which I think happened after Roddenberry. I know he wasn't happy with the heavily sexualised DS9.

However, until I read this thread I had no idea there was no money in the ST world!

pH

 

[Dulahan]

First of all, it's important to remember that in the Star Trek Universe only Humans don't use currency. Presumably the Federation itself, in working with Ferengi and other races, would have a supply of value accessed currency which would be used as a tool for Starfleet personal. Gold Pressed Latinum to a Starfleet officer would have as much value/use as Copy Machine Paper to an employee in the office. The machine needs paper, I'll go and get some from the closet. It could be that because the Federation gives away so much free stuff they are not expected to pay for third-party goods and services, I seem to recall and episode of DS9 where Sisco threatened Quark with the Rent-Free existence of his Bar on the station (he came up with some arbitray calculation of back-rent). It's clear Quark wasn't expected to compensate the federation for his business being on the station.

"The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity." (Picard, First Contact)

"It's not my fault that your species decided to abandon currency-based economics in favor of some philosophy of self-enhancement." -- "Hey, watch it. There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity." - (Nogg to Jake Sisco; DS9)

From these we could assume that "Wealth" and "Materialism" simply don't exist in the general sense with Humanity. A good analogy would be the Christian Religion, Christian's today -- via various Enlightenment Periods -- has generally taken a more progressive view of Faith. Someone 1000 years ago would think it mad you weren't praying to a saint every day, they may even consider it preposterous that you don't believe in Saints at all (post-Reformation)

... unless one thinks the various mining colonies are populated by people whose hobby is mining. If there was no money, Cyrano Jones would have had no need to trade in tribbles; Harry Mudd (who had a pretty good idea of some miners' aspirations) would not have been engaged in people trafficking.

We don't have many pictures of Mining Practices in the ST Universe. Mining in their time may be as far removed from us Technologically wise as we are from the Ancients who lit fires and threw water on cave walls to fracture them. A miner from ST's time may very well be a guy in a climate controlled office clicking away at a touch-screen in-between complaining about politics on the 24th's version of Facebook. In fact, there was a Voyager episode where The Doctor wrote a novel. At the close of the episode we find hundreds of retired EMH programs talking about his Novel as they work in a Mine. I we are to believe that any want or need can be produced on a whim then it is not a stretch to believe much labor-intensive work is automated.

But why does my hypothetical Miner bother to even work at something as pedestrian as a computer touch-screen? Because "We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity" The goods this man is collecting are being handed out to make the lives of his neighbors better, there is a good deal of pride in that I would guess.

Cryno Jones and Harry Mudd are interesting cases, but they are both people who live on the fringes of society. Their antics made them generally unliked. If you are going to live off-the-grid in the Federations shadow then I suppose you might need money to survive with the other races.

 

[Khuratokh]

First of all, it's important to remember that in the Star Trek Universe only Humans don't use currency. Presumably the Federation itself, in working with Ferengi and other races, would have a supply of value accessed currency which would be used as a tool for Starfleet personal. Gold Pressed Latinum to a Starfleet officer would have as much value/use as Copy Machine Paper to an employee in the office. The machine needs paper, I'll go and get some from the closet. It could be that because the Federation gives away so much free stuff they are not expected to pay for third-party goods and services, I seem to recall and episode of DS9 where Sisco threatened Quark with the Rent-Free existence of his Bar on the station (he came up with some arbitray calculation of back-rent). It's clear Quark wasn't expected to compensate the federation for his business being on the station.

"The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity." (Picard, First Contact)

"It's not my fault that your species decided to abandon currency-based economics in favor of some philosophy of self-enhancement." -- "Hey, watch it. There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity." - (Nogg to Jake Sisco; DS9)

From these we could assume that "Wealth" and "Materialism" simply don't exist in the general sense with Humanity. A good analogy would be the Christian Religion, Christian's today -- via various Enlightenment Periods -- has generally taken a more progressive view of Faith. Someone 1000 years ago would think it mad you weren't praying to a saint every day, they may even consider it preposterous that you don't believe in Saints at all (post-Reformation)




We don't have many pictures of Mining Practices in the ST Universe. Mining in their time may be as far removed from us Technologically wise as we are from the Ancients who lit fires and threw water on cave walls to fracture them. A miner from ST's time may very well be a guy in a climate controlled office clicking away at a touch-screen in-between complaining about politics on the 24th's version of Facebook. In fact, there was a Voyager episode where The Doctor wrote a novel. At the close of the episode we find hundreds of retired EMH programs talking about his Novel as they work in a Mine. I we are to believe that any want or need can be produced on a whim then it is not a stretch to believe much labor-intensive work is automated.

But why does my hypothetical Miner bother to even work at something as pedestrian as a computer touch-screen? Because "We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity" The goods this man is collecting are being handed out to make the lives of his neighbors better, there is a good deal of pride in that I would guess.

Cryno Jones and Harry Mudd are interesting cases, but they are both people who live on the fringes of society. Their antics made them generally unliked. If you are going to live off-the-grid in the Federations shadow then I suppose you might need money to survive with the other races.

-"Hey, watch it. There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."
-"Yeah, but what does that mean exactly?
-"......."

One of the best lines of dialogue from DS9.

 

[Dulahan]

@Khuratokh haha Very true. I think that was a round about way of saying "You're not supposed to understand" Human's of the 24th are very 'holier than thou'

 

[Ursa major]

We don't have many pictures of Mining Practices in the ST Universe.

There's the Series One episode of the original series, The Devil in the Dark. Hadn't there been a significant number of deaths there? Were all those killed sitting in climate-controlled offices at the time? I don't think so.

But, on the other hand, there's the convenience of the Prime Directive when obtaining resources from non-Federation worlds that use, in effect, slaves** to do the mining. Perhaps they can rely on a few tames philosophers to argue that working in the mines, and banished from the civilised life available only in the orbiting/flying cities, is simply self-improvement encouraged by those living permanently above.


The problem seems to be that the whole "we don't use money" was never thought through properly and is simply a mixture of:

1. simply missing out the bit where people pay for what they've consumed (even in, say, bars away from the ship);
2. slogans about money not being needed;
3. slogans about how the Federation is now more civilised, "just because";
4. very poor continuity, so that activities are present where the last thing the participants are doing is "improving" themselves.

Items (1) and (4) conveniently -- not really (I mentioned him earlier for a reason) -- bring me back to Cyrano Jones. Why was the bartender so keen that Jones not simply help himself to drink? Jones was far less disruptive a "customer" than the members of the crews of the Enterprise and the Klingon ship. Jones never seemed to be drunk (one reason bartenders sometimes refuse to serve customers even when they have the means to pay for their drinks). Jones very expertly avoided being drawn into a fight (unlike everyone else in the bar). Perhaps Jones hadn't set up a tab; perhaps the Enterprise and the Klingons had each set up a tab.... No, it can't be that: there's no money, so it can't be involved.


** - Speaking of which.... Isn't it convenient how Risians, the residents of Risa, "are extremely open and will freely share their planet, and even themselves, with vacationers"? Tourists there don't even have to hand out beads to get what they want.... The whole thing is rather... er... risible. (Note that Risa is the Risians' home world; Risians are not people who've moved there to "improve themselves" by being perfect hosts.)

 

[Dulahan]

There's the Series One episode of the original series, The Devil in the Dark. Hadn't there been a significant number of deaths there? Were all those killed sitting in climate-controlled offices at the time? I don't think so.

I don't recall the episode specifically but reading the synopsis seems to say they were killed by an Alien. I am not sure what point you're trying to make really.

But, on the other hand, there's the convenience of the Prime Directive when obtaining resources from non-Federation worlds that use, in effect, slaves** to do the mining. Perhaps they can rely on a few tames philosophers to argue that working in the mines, and banished from the civilised life available only in the orbiting/flying cities, is simply self-improvement encouraged by those living permanently above.

You're pointing out that these are Non-Federation worlds so, again, I am not sure what point you are trying to make. It could be mentioned, however, that socially the term 'slave' is adopted colloquially for a lot of stuff. There are no shortage of pundits who are quick to label less-compensated or poor working conditions "slavery".

The problem seems to be that the whole "we don't use money" was never thought through properly and is simply a mixture of:

1. simply missing out the bit where people pay for what they've consumed (even in, say, bars away from the ship);
2. slogans about money not being needed;
3. slogans about how the Federation is now more civilised, "just because";
4. very poor continuity, so that activities are present where the last thing the participants are doing is "improving" themselves.

1. I addressed this in my comment about currency being a "tool" and related it to paper for the office copy machine. The machine needs paper and you go and get it from storage -- but the paper itself has no real value to you. Within the Federation money is not needed but should the need arise with outside dealings then I am sure it is available to take and use at your discretion.

2. I don't understand what you are saying here about slogans. If you are saying that Federation citizens claim time and time again they do not use money then yes, I agree

3. uhh... sure. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

4. ....

Items (1) and (4) conveniently -- not really (I mentioned him earlier for a reason) -- bring me back to Cyrano Jones. Why was the bartender so keen that Jones not simply help himself to drink? Jones was far less disruptive a "customer" than the members of the crews of the Enterprise and the Klingon ship. Jones never seemed to be drunk (one reason bartenders sometimes refuse to serve customers even when they have the means to pay for their drinks). Jones very expertly avoided being drawn into a fight (unlike everyone else in the bar). Perhaps Jones hadn't set up a tab; perhaps the Enterprise and the Klingons had each set up a tab.... No, it can't be that: there's no money, so it can't be involved.

Perhaps the bartender just didn't like him just as no one appeared to. I am not all that well versed in TOS but are you seriously trying to use a single continuity issue in a program to discredit an entire theme of the show? Not for nothing, amigo, but that is kinda desperate as shows contradict themselves from time to time.

Your speculation of a Tab could as easily be explained away with the Bartender not wishing payment from either the Enterprise or Klingons. But should we humor this 'tab' idea, perhaps the Bartender would file a claim with The Federation at a later day and receive as much valuable "Copy Machine Paper" as he desired.

** - Speaking of which.... Isn't it convenient how Risians, the residents of Risa, "are extremely open and will freely share their planet, and even themselves, with vacationers"? Tourists there don't even have to hand out beads to get what they want.... The whole thing is rather... er... risible. (Note that Risa is the Risians' home world; Risians are not people who've moved there to "improve themselves" by being perfect hosts.)

Indeed. I can't say I have ever heard of a culture which had an inherent belief in hospitality for guests. <sarcasm>

 

[Khuratokh]

There's the Series One episode of the original series, The Devil in the Dark. Hadn't there been a significant number of deaths there? Were all those killed sitting in climate-controlled offices at the time? I don't think so.

But, on the other hand, there's the convenience of the Prime Directive when obtaining resources from non-Federation worlds that use, in effect, slaves** to do the mining. Perhaps they can rely on a few tames philosophers to argue that working in the mines, and banished from the civilised life available only in the orbiting/flying cities, is simply self-improvement encouraged by those living permanently above.


The problem seems to be that the whole "we don't use money" was never thought through properly and is simply a mixture of:

1. simply missing out the bit where people pay for what they've consumed (even in, say, bars away from the ship);
2. slogans about money not being needed;
3. slogans about how the Federation is now more civilised, "just because";
4. very poor continuity, so that activities are present where the last thing the participants are doing is "improving" themselves.

Items (1) and (4) conveniently -- not really (I mentioned him earlier for a reason) -- bring me back to Cyrano Jones. Why was the bartender so keen that Jones not simply help himself to drink? Jones was far less disruptive a "customer" than the members of the crews of the Enterprise and the Klingon ship. Jones never seemed to be drunk (one reason bartenders sometimes refuse to serve customers even when they have the means to pay for their drinks). Jones very expertly avoided being drawn into a fight (unlike everyone else in the bar). Perhaps Jones hadn't set up a tab; perhaps the Enterprise and the Klingons had each set up a tab.... No, it can't be that: there's no money, so it can't be involved.


** - Speaking of which.... Isn't it convenient how Risians, the residents of Risa, "are extremely open and will freely share their planet, and even themselves, with vacationers"? Tourists there don't even have to hand out beads to get what they want.... The whole thing is rather... er... risible. (Note that Risa is the Risians' home world; Risians are not people who've moved there to "improve themselves" by being perfect hosts.)

It is made clear in DS9 "let he who is without sin" that Risa's Garden of Eden appearance is a façade held in place by a plethora of machines in it's orbit. So one might assume it's residents weren't always like that either. Indeed when the complaints from the guests are starting to pile up, the Risians aren't feeling the joy so much either.

My take on the federation economy is that the further you get from the core worlds like Earth, the less resources can be allocated freely, the more money you'll need. Stations like K-7 and DS9 are far removed from the core and sit on the border of other territories.

As for the miners in "devil in the dark" all those deaths were attributed to the griefstricken Horta, not working conditions. Still you could ask why anyone would volunteer to mine manually. As later series mention this as a form of capital punishment.

 

[Ursa major]

I don't recall the episode specifically

It's the episode with the species that can burrow through rock (by dissolving it). The deaths were down in the mines, so the point I was making was that a miner working there clearly wasn't

a guy in a climate controlled office clicking away at a touch-screen in-between complaining about politics on the 24th's version of Facebook

.

You're pointing out that these are Non-Federation worlds so, again, I am not sure what point you are trying to make.

That the "we're so civilised that our people don't need money" Federation doesn't do the sort of due diligence in its supply chain that we (quite rightly) expect private companies to do now and actually have a rule -- their prime rule for dealing with non-Federation worlds -- that allows them to look the other way or (if they can really be bothered) shrug.

1. I addressed this in my comment about currency being a "tool"

Of course currency is only a tool -- I've said so more than once in my earlier posts here -- but the claim is that it's a tool that the Federation claims it doesn't need. (I mean to say, do they rely on barter back at Starfleet Command? Does Capt. Sisko's father give away his meals in his restaurant, because cooking is his hobby?)

2. I don't understand what you are saying here about slogans.

The point about slogans is aimed more at the writers than the society they claim to be "describing". The description is not even paper-thin on this matter: it's no more than some empty words backed up with a holier-then-thou attitude given to the characters saying them.

Perhaps the bartender just didn't like him just as no one appeared to.

That would be the bartender who was buying tribbles from him.

I am not all that well versed in TOS but are you seriously trying to use a single continuity issue in a program to discredit an entire theme of the show? Not for nothing, amigo, but that is kinda desperate as shows contradict themselves from time to time.

It's just one example I'm using to highlight that the show simply does not back up its claims. In part this is understandable: the main characters are the officers and crew of the space equivalent of a naval vessel and, in such an environment, it's easy to see that there's no need for money to be visible (so that even if they were paying for, say, their meals -- and there's no need for them to do so on board ship -- it could come straight out of their pay, something that our technology could easily facilitate now). And if the writers had simply not wanted to show how the economy worked, that would have been fine. It's that they went out of their way to make a point about it, but singularly failed to back it up in any serious way.

Indeed. I can't say I have ever heard of a culture which had an inherent belief in hospitality for guests. <sarcasm>

Of course some cultures do. But I've never heard of one making itself a resort destination while sticking with its "what's mine is yours" philosophy, even building free hotels for its guests.

 

[Ursa major]

It is made clear in DS9 "let he who is without sin" that...

I must admit giving up watching this episode when it was on the TV a few months back, mainly because I couldn't help thinking that there'd be serious repercussions for Worf after he did what he did, repercussions that I don't recall in later episodes. They'd have been better setting the holiday in a holosuite. But given that we know that weather control is not unique to Risa -- so that there's the episode where a child of refugees from the Q Continuum mentioned that her parents were killed by a storm on Earth that should never have happened given that the weather is controlled there -- I'm not sure why that has any bearing on Risa's existence as free resort planet.

As for the miners in "devil in the dark" all those deaths were attributed to the griefstricken Horta, not working conditions.

As you'll see in my previous post, I mentioned it to point out to Dulahan that 23rd centiry miners don't all work in offices, but actually work -- whatever that entails -- in the mines.

Still you could ask why anyone would volunteer to mine manually. As later series mention this as a form of capital punishment.

Capital punishment in a society "too advanced" to use money.... But there was no mention of the miners being prisoners, or being punished. In fact, rather the opposite. To quote the episode's Wiki page, (spoiler alert ), Kirk

offers the possibility that in exchange for leaving the Horta alone, [the miners] could get the Horta to help them locate more valuable deposits within the rock.

That wouldn't be much of an incentive if the recovery of those deposits wasn't valuable to the miners, would it? *wonders what valuable even means in the Federation.... *

 

[JunkMonkey]

The mention of prisoners there made me wonder how a society without money would punish minor offences. If you can't fine people for neglecting to bring their library books back on time, or parking their car in a restricted zone - how do you penalise minor offenders, and those guilty of larger crimes where imprisonment would be pointless (or maybe even counter-productive)?

 

[JunkMonkey]

The mention of prisoners there made me wonder how a society without money would punish minor offences. If you can't fine people for neglecting to bring their library books back on time, or parking their car in a restricted zone - how do you penalise minor offenders, and those guilty of larger crimes where imprisonment would be pointless (or maybe even counter-productive)?

Ferinstance, Some things are the same no matter what kind of society you run. Microbes breed at the same rate in an anarchic society and a capitalist one. How would a non-money society deal with an establishment that broke basic food hygiene regulations and served tainted food to its customers patrons?

 

[psikeyhackr]

Lack of money in Star Trek. How the hell does that work? In my sci fi books, money has to exist in the future in order to live and advance. But if people in the future don't earn money, then oneupmanship can't exist. And that's pretty boring. Do you agree or not?

This is curious in that it relates science, technology, money and EGO.

Years ago I was having a meeting with my boss about something and somehow he got started talking about whether or not he should lease a Porche. And I sat there thinking, "Why in the world does he think I give a sh*t?"

I have not been to an auto show in more than 30 years. The apparent fact that millions of people with college degrees can't figure out that Planned Obsolescence has been going on in cars for decades is hysterically funny. It is 47 years after the Moon landing and 30 years before 1969 engineers could design flying machines that could dogfight at 400 mph to destroy each other for WWII. So spending a lot of money on cars today just looks stupid.

So how can technologically astute people that can appreciate "good" science fiction find Star Trek bizarre? I will agree that eliminating money entirely seems odd but people not getting their egos wrapped up in expensive but stupid trash does not seem peculiar to me. Hewlett Packard has a line of computers named Envy.

HP ENVY 15 laptops | HP® Official Store

But with Raspberry Pis selling for $35 why buy a $1000 laptop? Windows 10 is nothing but the Planned Obsolescence of software.

This shows the point:

The Neutral Zone (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But is this the cure:

The House of Quark (episode)

What would the alternate timeline be like if accounting had been mandatory in our high schools since 1960?

psik