Star Trek fans bash new movie as "watchable/entertaining"

[AJ Dual]

That was my whole point: they have an economy that makes stuff for free.

How can you get people to sacrifice time doing something unpleasant when stuff is free?

Add to it the fact that if someone doesn't do it, the stuff isn't free. Once it's done it is free... so their work benefits everyone exactly as much as it benefits themselves (public good). So how would they induce someone to do it?

It's a quandry.

They've tried to explain it as being motivated by challenge and personal improvement. The main instance was Picard explaining to the investment banker they found frozen on the lost cryonics satellite that things were different now.

And life right now abounds with examples of that already. People who enter law enforcement or the military or other arenas where it's the "love of the job", protecting others or simply "service", when they could make much more and have much more personal security doing other things in the private sector. True, many in our volunteer armed forces may serve due to a percieived lack of economic opportunity, but within the military there are still plenty of postings and duties that require extra training, effort, and a disply of profficiency to attain. And the financial compensation is generally in no way commensurate to the risk.

I suppose Olympic athletes could be doing it for the multi-million dollar endorsements if they medal, but most must know they won't.

Astronauts overlaps with the military example to a great degree, but most all of the civilian/scientists-engineers and military scientists-engineers usually could make more doing things using their knowledge in the private sector as well.

A doctor who works in a free-clinic rather than a suburban hospital etc.

The Star Trek "handwavium" comes in that they somehow explain that most ALL of Humanity now has this attitude to varying degrees.

It also occurs to me that they've dropped plenty of hints that just like today, a premium is often placed on antiquities, original art, "real" food, or other objects or experiences that have a cachet to them due to rarity, irreproducibility, historical and/or artistic significance. And the way to most fairly distribute such limited goods and services is through a capitalistic system and various commercial entities to compete to provide them. It's just that that system has split from the procurement of basic needs.

For instance, with modern movie theater and sound-system technology, it's perfectly possible for a nation to have ONE ballet or symphony orchestra, and everyone can just watch it in their home city much more cheaply and efficiently. However, no one is making a move to implement that. Of course people who are interested can view or listen to such content on stereos and television in their home, but there's obviously still a premium placed on seeing such a performance in person. Which is good, because every major city having a symphony or ballet company better serves to absorb all of those who aspire to be musicians or dancers.

[Phyphor]

Sometimes ya just gotta fire phasers.

It always annoyed me that anytime Worf mentioned taking some kind of action, they would pan out to everyone on the bridge getting disgusted, "not this again!" looks on their faces. "No, no -- we don't use violence. We sit down with the Borg and chat and drink Earl Grey.

You know on the old Star Trek if they had replicators, instead of "Early Grey, hot", Kirk would be saying, "shot of whiskey, straight up".

...While firing phasers...with an Orion girl on his lap.

 

[RocketMan]

You know on the old Star Trek if they had replicators, instead of "Early Grey, hot", Kirk would be saying, "shot of whiskey, straight up".

They had replicators on ST:TOS.  You had to put some kind of programming tape or chip into them to select what you wanted.  Not voice commanded like the ST:TNG and on.

[Perd Hapley]

Who pays for the energy used by the replicators?  Or do they replicate that too?   

[RocketMan]

Who pays for the energy used by the replicators?  Or do they replicate that too?  

I think there was some hope and change involved.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Mak makes an interesting point.  What's valuable when nothing is scarce? 

[Perd Hapley]

There's still got to be some scarcity somewhere, right?  From producing the energy to building/maintaining the replicator, there's a cost involved, yes?  So why doesn't Replicators, Inc. charge a fee for each replication? 

I grok the idea that everything is cheaper, assuming a replicator requires fewer resources than conventional manufacture/delivery.  What I don't quite understand is why the stuff would be free. 

I can also understand that a BMW would cost the same as a Buick, so there's less incentive to work harder than the other guy.  But a Buick still costs. 

[LadySmith]

Mak makes an interesting point.  What's valuable when nothing is scarce? 

Trouble. That's why they had to go into space to find it. Boredom is a terrible thing.

[CNYCacher]

Trouble. That's why they had to go into space to find it. Boredom is a terrible thing.

That's profound. 

[seeker_two]

Trouble. That's why they had to go into space to find it. Boredom is a terrible thing.

That's my motto.....even though I've never been in space....I think I'd fit in well in the 24th Century..... 

[alex_trebek]

There's still got to be some scarcity somewhere, right?  From producing the energy to building/maintaining the replicator, there's a cost involved, yes?  So why doesn't Replicators, Inc. charge a fee for each replication? 

I grok the idea that everything is cheaper, assuming a replicator requires fewer resources than conventional manufacture/delivery.  What I don't quite understand is why the stuff would be free. 

I can also understand that a BMW would cost the same as a Buick, so there's less incentive to work harder than the other guy.  But a Buick still costs. 

How much would the cars cost if they could be produced instaneously using free energy, on free equipment, and by people that were there because they want to make cars regardless of pay? Oh yeah free energy also means free materials.

The premise of the future economic system in the show, if I understood it correctly, was that scarcity had been eliminated. This meant both matter and energy scarcity.

What I disagreed with was the seemingly instant change in society as soon as money was eliminated. It implied money and material posessions being the cause of humanity's problems. To me this was arogant, unrealistic, wildly optomistic.

I believe most of the menial jobs had been solved. There is reference to the enterprise being self cleaning.

Sisko's dad did run the restaurant. I believe he made everything from scratch, and enjoyed cooking/serving.  Seemed reasonable to me.

Bottom line is I don't think it would work as an economy. People need more incentive to develop unique ideas, beyond job satisfaction IMO. But I do see cases of it working on small scales. Mostly retirees opening restaurants because they like cooking, or doing landscaping because they like gardening, etc. Generally these people seem to make little money.

[Firethorn]

How much would the cars cost if they could be produced instaneously using free energy, on free equipment, and by people that were there because they want to make cars regardless of pay? Oh yeah free energy also means free materials.

Except that ST hasn't reduced the cost of the replicator quite to nothing yet.  Going by what I see, it takes non-zero work to create the materials, assemble them, and set up a replicator.  Nothing to suggest that energy is completely free either.

Remember, we mostly see life on board starfleet ships.  It's quite likely that replicator privaliges are treated like a combination dining facility/office supply system where the crew and passengers get rights to them on the basis of either their employment(crew) or status as visitors/dignitaries/refugees/whatever. 

Not saying that they don't make food more or less free, but for some reason many starfleeters consider a hand made meal a luxury, so there's a potential market right there for restaurants. 

What I disagreed with was the seemingly instant change in society as soon as money was eliminated. It implied money and material posessions being the cause of humanity's problems. To me this was arogant, unrealistic, wildly optomistic.

You're forgetting about WWIII in there, and development of some rather extreme psychological capabilities, to go by that, with a population in the trillions, they only had a few dozen/hundred unreformable criminals.

I think that's a critical point.  Eliminate the criminals - there's a good 5% or so of our economy back.  Fix the schools - another 20%.  Mental Illness?  Another 5-10%.  So on and so forth. 

Oh - and one more thing about ST - when was the last time you saw a ship, even a civilian one, that didn't have at least a pea-shooter, and even most of the civilians seem to be able to come up with firearms(whether phaser, disrupter, or other) when they'd be useful.

Think about our society today and if we had a 'magic system' that could cheaply and effectively reduce recidivism by 99.999%, eliminate 99.999% of mental illness to include retardation, and ensure kids actually get optimal educations in school, to include citizenship issues, ethics, etc...

[AJ Dual]

Who pays for the energy used by the replicators?  Or do they replicate that too?   

Well, with E=MC^2 as implied by matter/antimatter conversion in the warp core, the transporter, and the related technology of the replicator, energy is awfuly cheap.

We've seen showers and sinks on occasion on Star Trek, but never a toilet.

So logically, every time a crewmember uses a transporter, they wind up just a few pounds/ounces lighter.  I think the big problem is certain muscles might start to atrophy after awhile.

[Perd Hapley]

Oh - and one more thing about ST - when was the last time you saw a ship, even a civilian one, that didn't have at least a pea-shooter, and even most of the civilians seem to be able to come up with firearms(whether phaser, disrupter, or other) when they'd be useful.

I suddenly really, really wish I had a replicator.  "Tea, Earl Grey, hot.  50 caliber, M2, heavy barrel." 

[slugcatcher]

I thought that replicators were "regulated" or limited to a degree by either design or size. Some were just for food, others for machinery. Civilian replicators could not produce weapons or drugs iirc. One thing I never understood was why most of the equipment on starships was not more modular. Someone was always elbow deep repairing a system instead of just replacing an easily replicated module. Everything electronic seemed to be a reprogrammable and infinitely configurable DSP until it broke. Then someone needed to stick his/her hands into a small opening careful to avoid radiation/HV/plasma/anti-matter/cooties.

[MillCreek]

If replicators were unlimited in output, you would expect to see industrial-sized replicators that could produce a starship or shuttlecraft on demand. 

[scottymac57]

I'm looking for a Star Trek fan to do an on camera interview tomorrow Friday May 8th who is hesitant about the new movie because it doesn't follow the franchise. I would prefer it to be someone in New York but that isn't a breaking point. Can someone please contact me as soon as possible with suggestions of guests?

[Firethorn]

If replicators were unlimited in output, you would expect to see industrial-sized replicators that could produce a starship or shuttlecraft on demand. 

Apparently there's quite a few bits and pieces of technology that can't be replicated directly.  At least at first.

You might be able to get a 90% complete starship, but quite a few components would still need to be installed and configured.

Industrial replicators DO exist, and apparently even a few can make a huge difference in an economy.  Still, if they could easily replicate themselves, you wouldn't need to send more than one.

[DustinD]

I recall in some literature they tried to explain why replicators could not replicate life. One big issue was resolution, most replicators; especially the earlier ones crudely replicated large chunks of matter at the multi molecular level. IIRC, the smallest individual pieces where millions of molecules. On the other hand, the show Enterprise did have a protein resequencer, but I guess that must have worked on a different principal. I know some aliens could create dead cells that were perfect replicas of living cells, except for being dead. TNG's Enterprise has less resolution in its larger bulk replicators than some of its smaller ones. This limits their capacity to larger cruder things.
 
This also supposedly explains why transporters could, by using their fancy buffers and what not, send complex things like living beings that need sub atomic charges, spins, and other properties to be correct, but not create life from scratch.

[MicroBalrog]

Riker gets copied using teleporters at one point. Apparently they need special precautions to avoid that happening.

[roo_ster]

Industrial replicators DO exist, and apparently even a few can make a huge difference in an economy.  Still, if they could easily replicate themselves, you wouldn't need to send more than one.

They would replicate like the Russian dolls within dolls.

Each one smaller than the one that spawned it.

[Balog]

Matroshkas.

[tyme]

Mak makes an interesting point.  What's valuable when nothing is scarce? 

Information.  Even in a world that has Strong AI and replicator (aka cornucopia machine) technology, any useful or interesting information that's not accessible on some universal network, sensitive information, or time-critical information would be valuable.  More than just factual intelligence like that, entertainment material that for some reason isn't universally accessible would also have value to the people who want it.

Being in the right place at the right time to do something physical could be valuable.  Without FTL travel it's possible that there might not be enough time to get a person or robot in place.  When something might be impossible, accomplishing it has value.

FTL travel or communication would change all that, so I'm assuming that replicator technology would rely on physical principles separate from those required for time travel.

I know some aliens could create dead cells that were perfect replicas of living cells, except for being dead.

That seems like it depends on the highly speculative idea that some sort of quantum characteristic is necessary for cellular life.  AFAIK nobody's even demonstrated that particular quantum states are necessary for the brain's operation, much less basic cellular life.  Of course, Roddenberry was never big on plausible physics.

[AJ Dual]

Well, that's the problem with the Star-Trek universe in general. If you try to apply the tenents of hard-SF to it, the whole universe fails. Because some tight-fisted exec would not give Roddenberry the money for enough plywood and christmas lights to make the shuttlecraft the first season of the TOS, they invented the transporter as a plot device and did a simple optical composite of a swirling tank fo glitter and water.

With matter/energy conversion technology and strong-AI, you're really talking about a post-technological singularity civilization. Humanity and any associated species would not look like "The Federation" at all. More likely, we'd be somewhere between the Borg, the V'Ger AI/Ship, and the Q in terms of development and prowess.

They'd be post-human entities, making things like Dyson Spheres, stellar engineering etc. They'd at least be a type II civiilization, and well on their way to type III on the Kardashev scale.

[Nightfall]

Screw all this talk of replicators. I want a holodeck, and yes, to enjoy it in ways I can't talk about on APS.