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Comment by Tloewald | Hacker News Reader

Star trek's economics make no sense at all and never have, unfortunately. It's clear that money is used outside the federation which means the federation needs it to interoperate. There's also clearly private ownership (they buy Kirk antique spectacles).

It's not clear that the Federation president is elected. Has there ever been any discussion of federation politics ever? Even on an aircraft carrier someone would mention an election.

Trying to infer post-scarcity economics from an internally inconsistent bunch of TV shows and movies where it's pretty clear there was never much thought given to the matter seems like a waste of time. I lost interest in the article when it tried to do this, Iain Banks's Culture which is much more clear about its economics still doesn't answer basic issues such as "why can't anyone have x?" Or "what if two people want the same x?"

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Actually, I think Banks does address some of those points - mostly by pointing out that if you do have a society where almost all reasonable requests can be satisfied by asking then the perceived value of "owning" something becomes negligible. You could make unreasonable requests, say to have planet built for you, but you'd have to ask a Mind for that and they might or might not do it - depending on how interesting the request was. (Given that the Culture regards planets as bit wasteful from an engineering perspective, I can't imagine any self respecting Mind would build one).

Of course, the real get out, as Banks has pointed out a number of times - Culture people are not humans - they are the results of 10,000+ years of direct (genofixing) and indirect (their language Marain) manipulation by machines to be a good deal smarter, rational and more capable of enjoyment than we are. You could argue that this is the machine gods making their pets more compliant, or not....

Also, Look to Windward does mention "re-inventing" money... :-)

Banks has the advantage of being flip when explaining anything, so none of his explanations really need to hold much water. If you "need to ask a Mind" it just elevates the question to the next level (and the whole idea of Culture percentage, or however it's put, indicating almost any Mind is really only partially conformant to the mainstream, is a huge loophole -- what stops the Culture from becoming the hegemonizing swarm from Hell? It comes down to an argument about what sentient beings will do with unlimited power).

Banks at least has put enough thought into it to give flip answers, though. Star Trek is a mindless mess.

There is a section in Surface Detail (I think), where Banks makes the point that the difference between a galactic civilization like the Culture an a hegemonizing swarm is just a degree of restraint. :) It kind of reminds me of Michael Eddington's comment about the Federation -- at it's core, there's not much separating it from the Borg. At least the Borg tell you they're assimilating you. Just look at what happened to the Ferengi Alliance by the end of DS9. They appointed a "liberal" Nagus who had never made any profit and allows his females to walk around clothed!

It is also hinted in the Culture novels that there is a very rigorous psychological test that goes into the creation of a new Mind. I wish he went in to the "birthing" process a bit more. It seems at least the more even-keeled Minds become Hubs or GSVs, and the more crazy ones become ROUs, but what about the Minds that are too psychotic to be entrusted to the safety of pan-humans? They can't make "perfect" Minds, because "Perfect AIs Always Sublime". Apparently you have to be slightly off-kilter to want to stick around this plane of existence, but not too off-kilter.

StarTrek economics does not have to make sense for post-scarcity society to make sense.

For that to happen a number of things will certainly have to be in place, but in truth none of us know how the world will look like when most production is automated.

Right, the problem is that Star Trek isn't even a useful jumping-off point.

This article is "link-bait gone wild". Calling the article "The Economics of Star Trek" is valid in that the Star Trek setting is supposed to be post-scarcity. But that's about where Star Trek's usefulness disappears.

They don't even take their ground assumptions into account in either their background setting or their stories. (Most of the intrigue in the episodes is conflict over resources (unless it's the "Prime Directive" which is even sillier). Why do the Klingons want this planet?)

I don't see any link-bait with the article.

What I see is someone trying to speculate out loud about how such a society could work using Star-Trek as reference point.

Keep in mind that Star-Trek has always been fairly scientific in its approach to story telling and so I think it's absolutely fair to use it as a jump of point since it provides an already existing narrative to talk about an otherwise abstract idea for many.

To me it's speculation and it's concise enough to take serious. What he basically claims might be a possibility even if you took away Star-Trek but it would be harder to communicate the ideas.

After all isn't that what creativity is al about exploring?

Sorry, I didn't mean to deride the title. I think the article was based on a good idea (Star Trek is post-scarcity and people will read articles on Star Trek), but went down the rabbit hole trying to justify its title (by dwelling on analysis of Star Trek, which is a hopeless task).

I think a better approach would be to look at markets that are already post-scarcity or approaching post-scarcity. E.g. entertainment, many kinds of information, and software. What happens when the price of things gets so low that the cost becomes finding the thing you want rather than getting access to it?

In the world of open source (which isn't post-scarcity, but is similar in that people do stuff for "free" and so they aren't incented by money) we see what I refer to as the "economy of interestingness" where things programmers are interested in get lots of attention (3d game engines, web browsers, programming languages, editors) while things programmers don't care about are horribly neglected (e.g. accounting software, email clients)

I hear you.

Sometimes though you need a bit of a fictional narrative to help push thinking past the constraints if nothing else as inspiration and motivation.

But I am sure there are more rational ways to approach this.

27 Million died in WW2 for the USSR - that's a lot of volunteering .. That said .. Star Trek is based on a system of exploration ( We gain in knowledge and Lose in WAR) The Federation hopes to bring enlightenment when your capitalist society is ready for it.. And will not go to WAR over it. .ie. (With a phaser a can rule the world) In a Zero-sum fashion. As for the (USS war-boat) view of the world. We in the Federation would see it for what it is a WAR making ship to exploit any and all how can't stand against it. The Federation is about knowledge as wealth and the Ferengi, Klingon Empire, or in the Cardassian Union – it is all about power. And WAR keeps it in power. When the federation encounters the Borg by way of Q. The Borg seeks knowledge and power and only a Q can stop them with a greater power. The Borg has perfection as a goal of their collective. .i.e. 7of9 .. the Federation has freedom to learn as its goal. And will kill anyone who tries to stop it.

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