The Star Trek Universe is Broken - How Star Trek's Future Works, Part 4

[@tipulsar85]

This quote from Q really helps sum up my thoughts: "The trial never ends. We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.... For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknowable possibilities of existence."

[@cockroach2]

See you...out there!

[@krixpop]

"The trial never ends" But Cardassians can endlessly chop Bajorans no problemo ... Romulan Empire, the moral standards of the Q's ? And yes ! The peace loving Klinglongons, example of Q "charting the unknowable possibilities of existence" The Drama is/was toddler level hilarious !!!

[@willmfrank]

"I'm human; I don't have any money." That line hits harder and harder with each re-run.

[@Jalu3]

I think the paraphrased response is Then you certainly don't need any of mine!

[@Irisishunter]

You will own nothing and be happy?

[@cheech7900]

Humanity, mooching off the universe, just bumming around, sleeping on alien species couches. 😂

[@willmfrank]

@cheech7900 " ...to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly sleep on their couches..."

[@Varadiio]

@@willmfrank Humans to alien invaders: "Hey, can I bum a few bucks? I'm broke but I can get you back soon."

[@sterlingpratt5802]

Love the rallying cry at the end. As many issues as I have with the "cashless" aspect of ST, lets not allow our dreams to be only of our present. Lets take our dreams seriously, and dream big, eh?

[@sampetrie340]

Fair enough. But let’s not lose sight of how quickly one man’s utopia can turn into another man’s nightmare.

[@redjupiter2]

@@sampetrie340 that seems to be the quandary in human existence. Restructure your sentence or reframe the actual frames of reference for both sides, and you still come up with the same conundrum… from whatever perspective you are in the universe, you will have a different perspective.

[@sampetrie340]

@@redjupiter2 Are you pointing out that any change produces both winners and losers? Without doubt, true. I didn’t fully appreciate that fact when I was younger, and believed that all changes were universally either for the betterment of humanity or made things worse. Often it just depends on your perspective i.e. whose ox is getting gored. This is not to say that human betterment should not be strived for, but rather that unintended consequences must be at the forefront of our thoughts. “First, do no (or at least minimal) harm.” Every monstrous ideology of the 20th century started out as someone’s quest for what they perceived as utopia.

[@1978rharris]

I remember reading someplace that dilithium can’t be replicated because it exists in both normal space and subspace which by its very nature helps regulate the matter/antimatter reaction, and this element just can’t be replicated. You just get a chunk of useless crystal with no subspace properties

[@5Gburn]

I'd never heard that. Pretty innovative of the writers, I must say!

[@STSWB5SG1FAN]

Like I said, inconsistencies. Best way to explain it, the more molecular complex an item is, the more energy it takes to create. Sometimes it's just easier to actually have that item on hand than to try to recreate it.

[@Gosti85]

That's a line from Discovery, and they got Dilithium completely wrong if you ask me. In older Star Trek, Dilithium was the best material to create antimatter for their matter/antimatter reactors, which provides enough energy for the warp drive. There are other methods as well of course (like the Romulan Singularity Reactor), but in discovery, warp travel somehow became impossible completely because of their loss of Dilithium...

[@romancernjak]

​@@Gosti85actually in matter/antimatter reactions in warp cores, what they use is deuterium i.e. a heavy isotope of hydrogen.

[@sladewilson9741]

It's from well before Disco.

[@H3xx1st]

I think of replicators as a printer, it uses energy to place atoms, it doesn't create the atoms. It moves them from one place to another in a specific way.

[@sawyer6264]

Didn’t they confirm that on Enterprise? Where the crew is answering questions from a bunch of elementary students in like season 1?

[@OllamhDrab]

Well, they can of course apparently turn one kind of atom into many others, or go off pure energy, but they seem to get most of the energy from other matter stocks in the first place.

[@snegglepuss6669]

​@sawyer6264 Enterprise and TOS were before replicators, the Enterprise machines would essentially be 3D printers using recycled biomass. Including poop

[@rayfwu]

@@OllamhDrab I thought so too when I thought of the episode where the Ferengi tried to pay for access to the Barzan wormhole with gold. I remembered that Riker said that they could just replicate the gold but when I watched it again he never actually said anything like that. A bit of a Mandela effect on my part.

[@rayfwu]

@@snegglepuss6669 Apparently they still worked that way in the 32nd century.

[@Agent789_0]

That speech about Utopia near the end right before the Oscar Wilde quote was phenomenal. Captain Picard would be proud.

[@jusadude7162]

What I’ve noticed, after rewatching many episodes of Trek from TNG, VOY, and DS9 they don’t seem to believe in using security cameras!! Every episode where it’s a “who done it”, they go thru hoops trying to create algorithms and using the Holodeck when a simple security camera would’ve shown them exactly who it was!!! It boggles my brain!!

[@jogymogy3691]

You are right. I never thought about that before

[@stephenramsey5585]

Security cameras operate on the assumption that somebody WILL commit a crime and violates everyone's right to privacy in thr interest of protection. It's the mildest form of orwellian tyrany. I could see them being antithetical to federation philosophy and so falling out of use.

[@jameshughes3014]

@@jusadude7162 your explanation would make sense.. Maybe they see it as an unacceptable invasion of privacy

[@satoau1]

really? i always figured that in the future privacy was important too.

[@LordKosmos]

If it would be a privacy thing, they only started implementing it after The Voyage home. Kirk and Sarek watching the death of Spock in III, and the Audio Visual evidence presented by the Klingon Ambassador in IV on the trial are evidence against it. The cameras only work when convenience as always. ^^

[@KenMathis1]

Pointing out that Star Trek’s depiction of a utopian future makes no sense does not also mean a better world is “outright impossible”. There is no logical shield that prevents criticism of a concept until it’s been fully analyzed and some other means of achieving that concept is found. That’s like the Benzite Ensign Mendon faulty logic for not reporting a potentially dangerous grow on the Enterprise in the episode, A Matter of Honor by stating, “I have not completed my full analysis. It would not be improper to report it until then”. There is value in understanding problems and why things don’t work.

[@baronOdaighre]

The idea of certain materials being irreplicatable has always seemed like a neat fix to me. You can come up with a technobabbly reason why ("latinum has a molecular structure that resonates on a fundamentally unpredictable subspace frequency that the Heisenberg compensator can't adjust for", or whatever), but the main justification for me is an issue of narrative. As you say, if you have complete post-scarcity, then you're in Iain M Banks territory, and I will say as someone who has tried and failed to finish reading two Ian M Banks novels: I am glad Star Trek is not in Iain M Banks territory. My favourite thing about Star Trek is its versatility, that anything you can imagine can exist in the Star Trek world, and I'm glad that that can include things like mining colonies, industrial hellscapes, and the dystopian corporatocracies that run them can be places we can visit in Star Trek stories. That said, some of Star Trek's depictions of poverty have seemed a bit odd to me. Like the refugee camp we see in the TNG episode where Ro Laren is introduced. These people really only need a fusion generator and a replicator and there is no reason why they should have to live in temporary structures and have to ration blankets! I think the only way poverty makes sense in Star Trek is if it is being deliberately imposed, if the people in charge are forcibly denying the fruits of their infinite resources machines to some section of their population. (and there are a lot of examples of Star Trek going with this angle). I think the benefit of this kind of depiction is that it makes us think how undifferent that is to our own society, because, compared to previous centuries, we DO live a post-scarcity economy, but poverty is still around, and reminds us that there will probably never be a purely technological fix for poverty, that there is still work in reforming our societies that will need to be done to fulfil the promise that technology offers.

[@SG-17]

One of the novels says dilithium is quartz that has part of its crystalline lattice extending into subspace. This would explain why it can't be replicated.

[@3Rayfire]

I like your take, Star Trek is a hopeful vision of the future, but first it is an inquisitive reflection of ourselves and our time.

[@apollo4619]

Let’s all be honest, the biggest issue with Star Trek was not having a few scenes at the end of Voyager with the crew at home😂

[@darkarma3603]

Di-lithium being unreplicatable makes sense. It somehow mediates matter-antimatter reactions. So, probably when you try and replicate, it just fizzles out or explodes before the di-lithium is created. And going from matter to energy to matter is just a matter of energy density. You keep feed stock around so you don't empty your warp core making a hamburger. At least that's my thought on it. And as for latinum? My headcanon is its either non-baryonic matter.

[@rayfwu]

This guy graduated with a degree in technobabble.

[@dustinmartin2369]

Pretty sure dilithium has a subspace component which is why it is used to create warp fields and that is why it can't be replicated

[@rayfwu]

@ It’s canon until it’s not. That’s my motto.

[@ErshErshovich]

Like the idea. I would suggest another option why certain substances are not to be replicated: it's energetically non-profitable. Imagine if you need to create a gallon of gas to power up, let's say, a generator or a car. But, with your current level of technology, you need to spend as much energy to create that gallon as it will release in said generator. Or you need to spend even more than it gives you back. But, if you already have so much energy that covers your needs, why would you waste it for less profit? There can be other implications, but this one seems viable

[@Sekir80]

@@ErshErshovich This is the reason why hydrogen powered cars are basically nonsense. Create electricity by whatever means, split water to create hydrogen, use fuel cell to create electricity, drive an electric motor. Instead, we can just create electricity, store it in batteries, use it to drive electric motors.

[@Freelancer4tehwin]

As a note on the Matter -> Energy -> Matter aspect: Ships store replicator matter because matter is a very space efficient storage medium - famously on the scale of c^2, in fact. It's a practicality issue.

[@adam346]

Its a neat thought experiment that I regularly indulge in but I often have to tell myself "It's soft Sci-Fi" and remember that it's not entirely necessary for everything to make sense.

[@rayfwu]

@@adam346 Slipping from Watsonian to Doylist I see.

[@tymek200101]

My only gripe is with the assertion that 'if it can be transported it can be replciated' as that is clearly contradicted by pretty much all transporter lore, but other wise I largely agree

[@Sekir80]

Yeah, but I think those are just arbitrary rules, like "there are stuff that can't be replicated". Story needs limitations to have something to be conquered, overcome. This is the reason I find not trying to explain everything makes sense. As Rowan explained, unlimited energy with replicators makes a pretty boring story.

[@ManOutofTime913]

The only way that Star Trek ever made sense to me was imagining the Replicator as a recombinator; something able to take raw materials, break them down to their base components, and recombine them into a shape requested by the user. It doesn't perfectly explain everything away, but it makes a lot more sense to me if resources still matter on some level just the need for so many specific resources has been eliminated.

[@marcussinclaire4890]

That's how I always thought they worked.

[@ManOutofTime913]

@@marcussinclaire4890 Unfortunately, it's been contradicted by actual canon many times like with the self-replicating minefield.

[@rayfwu]

@@ManOutofTime913 I feel like, beyond the matter to energy to matter concept, is people think of the replicator as either a transmuter or a 3D printer. There’s evidence for both of course, but I personally feel that the transmuter theory basically breaks the universe. To put it simply, it can take any type of matter and transform it into some other type of matter, like turning lead into gold. I like the 3D printer theory better because it helps explains some of the inconsistencies. It can’t take lead and turn it to gold. It can just make more lead. But it can take individual atoms and recombine them, like hydrogen and oxygen to make water. That explains why they couldn’t make deuterium, which is merely an isotope of hydrogen.

[@robertanderson6929]

If you start with Transporter tech i.e. convert matter on one pad into pure energy patterns then reassemble them on a second pad then the idea of the Replicator taking pure energy using a pattern to create matter is straight forward. This is why the 1st episode of Star Trek Picard made no sense. Raffi complains she's living in a hovel in the desert while Picard lives in a chateau with heirloom furniture. Later she re-recreates the interior of Picard's chateau on the holodeck proving she has the patterns for his furniture. So, either Raffi lacked a replicator or she was too dumb to press a button on the replicator so that out pops some chairs and tables. I honestly think it was the latter. Star Trek Picard was extremely misogynist since women occupied all positions of power and the galaxy they ruled over was total shite.

[@rayfwu]

@@robertanderson6929 I consider the term “pure energy” to be a form of technobabble. In universe they use the term “matter stream” which feels more structured than a vague “energy” concept.

[@BanksZero]

I think the introspection and critical thinking makes this your best video of this series. Thank you for challenging ideas and believing.

[@marcybones64]

The thing that I always thought was resonant about Star Trek's future, especially as depicted in the 90s, is the idea that even with technology that makes resource wars essentially irrelevant and eliminates scarcity, there will still be people and peoples who try to seize political/military/even economic power anyway. Think about the kinds of technologies we have even today; we are more than capable (on paper), even without replicators, of creating a post-scarcity society where nobody wants for food, shelter, or medical care. The problem is that people don't always agree on how or whether or not society should be "improved," and there are still people who can profit greatly from a society that DOESN'T meet everyone's needs. The way I see it, Star Trek's future just exaggerates these kinds of societal issues by bringing them to a galactic scale; technologically, there's no need for anyone to fight over resources, but people still do. The struggle for utopia is eternal, even when it's essentially already been established in some places.

[@Wh0isTh3D0ct0r]

One must remember that A.) Star Trek is positing the idea that humans have evolved as a species beyond what we in the present day can image, and as such, they may be able to consider sociological solutions that elude us in the present day; and B.) ultimately, it is just a TV show, and that means that ignoring things like Starfleet payroll is as practical a production consideration as the "invention" of transporter technology as a way of bypassing the cost of landing a shuttle on a planet every week.

[@methos1999]

Great ending with the Oscar Wilde quote. What makes Trek's idea of Utopia still potent for me is how technology has been harnessed in service of people. It feels like we've lost a sense of what Utopia looks like because so much of our current technological landscape is in service of enriching a few techno-feudal overlords. My vision for utopia is to see the capital return driven technology landscape replaced with a public service version - imagine your local library on steroids with server-farms to provide free and secure cloud services and an inventory of housing depending on your needs (singles/doubles/families). And being a US citizen, I dream of a healthcare system where seeing a doctor is as convenient as on Trek, where you basically walk in and say "hey this is bothering me" and the doctor or nurse checks it out without anybody having to ask for an insurance card.

[@rrice999]

I'd say, progress is the process of disproving utopias. Utopia is, by definition, unobtainable. Human drama is, perhaps, the pursuit of utopia, but it inevitably finds utopia just out of reach. Faced with this, some few give up the search, while most others are spurred on. Star Trek could never succeed as a treatise on utopia; it would lose any sort of human drama, which is essential to any story telling. If the paradox you propose has never been satisfactorily explained by its writers, it is not because they don't grasp fully the concept of utopia, but because they are story tellers.

[@christheghostwriter]

The core concept of socialism/communism is control of the means of production. In a post-scarcity system, the means of production is not just irrelevant, it's meaningless in any practical sense Trying to explain Star Trek's socioeconomic systems to those of us in the 21st century would be like trying to explain our modern technological economy to an 18th century agrarian.

[@Hugh_I]

Well for someone living in federation society it certainly would sound like a very weird way of talking about it. But it isn't quite inaccurate to explain it in terms of our narrow minded views as people that grew up in a society of money, capital, exchange of items based on economic value that created artificial scarcity etc., this way: The replicator is basically the universal means of production device. If anyone can have access to it, no one can be forced into selling their work force to someone who does in order to make a living - and no one has any reason nor does it makes much sense to exchange these replicated products based on outdated measure of value from a long dead society, where the amount of human labour required to make it mattered - thus, also money which tries to measures this is pointless. But while there might be less incentive to do so when there's little need for the work force of others, if access to these devices can be monopolized, that is no true any more. These devices could just as easily be exploited for gaining power over others, just as it happens with any cool technology in a capitalist society. So it does matter for that post-scarcity system that there is essentially something akin to what we'd call collective ownership for this society to actually be a post-scarcity system for everybody.

[@christheghostwriter]

@Hugh_I I see it less as collective ownership and more as collective access to information. Presumably, once the information needed to build this technology and the self-replication cascade effect needed to acquire, maintain, and reproduce the technology are unleashed, we have a "can't unscramble the egg" scenario. I'm not disagreeing with your overarching argument about the similarities between socialism and the fictional post-scarcity world of Star Trek, but I still maintain that our ability to even comprehend a post-scarcity system is pretty limited.

[@Hugh_I]

@@christheghostwriter perfectly agree with everything you said. Esp. the hard to even comprehend part. And Good point about information. I would also include in that access to information like blueprints for the replicators on how to replicate things becomes an important issue. It's probably not that hard to program replicators yourself, but Federation also appears to have a kind of readily available "opensource" database of items to draw from or to improve upon.

[@wpatrickw2012]

In the “Ultimate Computer” McCoy states “…and the government bought it.” This is a clear reference to money being a factor in the society.

[@captainyossarian388]

14:34 What a beautiful quote, especially since we seem to be regressing into a period of constant naval gazing. BTW, I hope you join Bluesky at some point, Rowan.

[@picsl8ed867]

The latinum thing always bugged me, but then I started to wonder if it wasn't a limitation on the replicators, but rather that there is a way to tell if something has been replicated. Basically the answer would be they don't just replicate a fortune because it would be easy to detect that the fortune is fake. And just like dollars someone prints at their own home, the galactic community obviously wouldn't recognize replicated latinum as legit currency.

[@davypi2]

On one hand, this makes some kind of sense as what you are talking about is currently true in real life. Lab grown diamonds are generally valued less that naturally mined diamonds. Some of this has to do with the underlying cost, but the larger reason simply boils down to aggressive marketing by diamond cartels. On the other hand, this distinction doesn't really matter to the topic at hand. If something I want to own is replicable, then what is the value of said item? Having a non-replicable currency doesn't impact the supply and demand curve. If bejeweled platinum watches are in infinite supply, why would I give you any latinum for them in the first place? The problem with replicators is not that it destroys currency, its that it destroys the supply & demand curves for tangible assets.

[@Grimdark_Replays]

@@davypi2but diamonds are generally worthless no matter how you aquire it outside of rareness of size or industrial uses, its entire value is because of said cartel, which is why they lose 90% of their value the moment you buy one, nothing else that’s supposed to be perminant loses value as fast.

[@Hugh_I]

That would make sense. You could argue that it has become more of a convention held up by societies such as the ferengi, that have came up with some wild legal constructs to maintain the social function of what a long time ago may have been in actual scarcity. It is kind of similar to how paper money first worked as a symbol for actual gold stored in a bank and now is basically just a construct maintained by law, backed up by the power of states. It doesn't "store value" like gold used to, it's just that an authority who can enforce it says it does and by the convention that everyone accepts and treats it as something representing value. It can theoretically be printed by anyone with the right tools and enough skill to forge it. But just printing your own doesn't make it "real money".

[@brainfreeze10]

These are the exact questions I had when I first watch TNG & DS9 a few years ago, but I always just assumed that lots of people who were bigger Star Trek nerds than me knew the answers so I just carried on trusting that there was an explanation out there somewhere. It's kind of comforting to know those were valid questions that aren't easily answered in the shows. FWIW, my very newbie assumption was that the replicators required a store of all the base elements in whatever it's making, and it essentially just assembled them for you like Legos. So if you want some thing with 5 grams each of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, you would need to have those elements readily available on the ship. Any decent star ship would come with a reserve of each element, and waste would be recycled back through the system - but since even The Enterprise isn't 100% efficient in all things, there would be some unrecyclable waste that would have to be restocked occasionally. And thus, I assumed that dylithium was just another element that they would need to mine and have stores of on their ship to use it. All of that said, I feel like I intentionally skipped over the energy step of that conversion, but it absolutely seems to have that step. So even if we follow my logic, then it would at best just be transporting elements from one part of the ship to another and reconfiguring them in the process - which means you're right, and they're turning energy into matter, and therefore there's not really a direct need for the stores themselves, huh? Which gets to another thought I've always had, because we've seen transporters unintentionally make clones or fuse people. So, like, if the replicators function like transporters, could O'Brien just make a clone of who ever the hell he wants based on whose DNA is saved in the pattern buffer? Yeah, there's probably laws against it, but there's plenty of crazed people in Star Trek that would try to make an army of themselves, or clone somebody they want to do bad things to, or just bring someone back from the dead. Definitely lots of stuff that's a bit glossed over because it might break things if they explained it too much. You see it with medical procedures too, where some major things are easily solved unintrusively, and other issues are uncurable, for reasons that aren't clear, especially when you have someone's entire atomic make-up saved in the computer. What if you just made some edits to the DNA causing the issue in the computer and then send them through transporter to fix it? Maybe that would be a different person coming out than went in... but maybe that's always the case, given the tech? Idk man, all your questions are valid, but eventually I just realize that pulling that thread risks undoing the whole sweater. I'd love for these to be answered concretely, but I'm not sure it's possible within the established canon now - or at least not in a way that would make fans happy lol. I love having the conversation though!

[@RowanJColeman]

I never even considered the transporter duplication thing. If transporters can make doubles though, that just backs up the notion that replicators can make new matter (because they're based on the same principle).

[@spencers4121]

@@RowanJColeman If the "story" is to be believed transporters were added for time and budget. And the writers turned them into the magic machines they're today. That was one plus to Enterprise they used the shuttle, until they got lazy and used the transporter more and more. Plenty of channels have done the "transporters are just suicide boxes" The show Dark Matter used a long range transporter system, that while was more believable. Was still when you think about it a suicide device for the clone. That makes me recall the TNG episode when they find Rikers duplicate on the planet years later, 100% confirms that you're just making copies of people. Writers later in a transporter episode with Reginald Barclay, showed POV view of someone being transported. And showed it was a seem less experience for the person being transported.

[@Commander.Starfleet]

(1) I've lost count of how many of my colleagues have gone crazy or rogue. We really need better vetting of the admirals. (2) wonder why people still (willingly) die after transporters invented, particularly after Rascals, where the transporter is being shown as able to regress a 50 year old to 12. Forget beauty creams, I'll just keep renewing yearly through a age-specific transporter.

[@snegglepuss6669]

IIRC the transporter buffer can't hold a person's pattern for longer than a minute or two unless you're Scotty, and even that messed up half the time. So basically the transporter is replicating a person in far greater fidelity, down to their scars and veins and every brain wrinkle, whereas a replicator will make a uniform and untextured steak that's chemically indistinguishable from real beef but is obviously not real when looked at under a microscope. This also implies it might be possible to replicate functional organs, but they might only be 80% as good or something, so mechanical prosthetics are still useful since they can be better than human with the right tech

[@adamlytle2615]

It actually makes intuitive sense that even if a replicator could take apart any given element and re-arrange the component protons and electrons to make another element, it would follow that there is an energy cost to doing this. So for the sake of efficiency, they would keep a stock of commonly used elements on the ship to save on the energy costs of replicating things.

[@JAGtheTrekkieGEMINI1701]

Wasn't it stated MULTIPLE Times that Dlithium is NOT Replicator-able no matter how nonsense it might sound? You could also argue that later Trek Films and esp. TNG *disrupted* the OG Star Trek "realistic Utopia" of ToS by going to FAR in a "We Reached God Like Abilities" Mantra

[@ssgcmwatsonusa]

I have said something similar for a long time... whenever a modern socialist uses Star Trek as an example of socialism, I say "economics flies out the window when you have the ability to replicate just about anything, and a nearly unlimited power supply"

[@coinopanimator]

Money is just a tool for control. Someone will find something better. Like UBI.

[@coinopanimator]

I hope I'm wrong, but today I am feeling hamanitys stupidity.

[@Emanon...]

Except that in capitalism, corporations and certain people would probably own all the replicators and power sources. And everyone will continue as if unadulterated greed isn't defacto a mental illness.

[@coinopanimator]

@Emanon... Like AI is being corporatized right now. New tech is always taken and used to improve capitals position and reduce working positions of labour. This is something we need break but there's no sign of learning this lesson. A simple way would be that after 10-15 years your previous versions become open source/ public domain. Plus we need to deal with corporate copyright vs individuals.

[@Ma55ey]

@@ssgcmwatsonusa do socialists really use a TV show about a futuristic utopia as an example of socialism?? I mean humans who don't need to work but do anyway is more science fiction than the warp drive lol

[@ArticAnomaly]

My headcanon for latinum being unreplicatable is that it has nothing to do with whether its possible or not but is actually a rule - replicators are programmes to not allow latinum to be replicated to avoid the disruption it would cause to Ferengi society

[@karastern2167]

The idea of a society without the need for money blows many people's minds. If you don't need money to pay for necessities, why would people work? Why not devote yourself to endless pleasure? Why not spend your life playing video games or building sand castles on beaches? Why bother to contribute anything to society? And you know what? I bet there are people in ST's future society who do that. But they don't write episodes of TV shows or movies about them. There is one thing that replicators can't create. Living space. They can't produce more land. You could build bigger sky scrapers with more apartments in them. You could build cities under water or on floating islands or in Antarctica. You could ship SOME people to other planets or space stations. But there is a hard limit eventually. Or you get that ST:TOS episode about the planet that was so crowded that they wanted to introduce new diseases to whittle the population down. But Earth doesn't seem like it's reached anywhere near that limit as you have space for vinyards (why not just replicate the best possible wine?) and vast open spaces for Kirk to drive cars through or climb up cliffs. But I digress. A society that has no necessity for people to work is unimaginable to many people. I think it sounds great. Without a need to make money, people could spend their time creating art or science or doing all kinds of things. How many people could have made great contributions to our culture if they didn't have to spend 8 hours a day working in a factory or serving McDonalds burgers to make rent money? Many people want to contribute. Teachers and nurses and many other occupations pay much less than they are worth. But the people who do those things are passionate about it. If nobody made them have to earn money, they would probably still do those jobs because they love doing them. Personally, I always thought replicators broke matter down to it's component atoms and restructured it into anything you want. The Enterprise doesn't have septic tanks or garbage dumpsters. The waste matter goes right back into the replicator and broken down to be made into ham sandwiches and new uniforms or a replica of the crown jewels or whatever you want.

[@Psyk60]

For a more cynical take, one possibility is that the humans we see in Star Trek are the exceptions. Maybe most people on Earth are happy just enjoying themselves without doing anything in particular, but of course that wouldn't make for a good show so all the characters in it are people who are especially motivated to do something like joining Starfleet. "How many people could have made great contributions to our culture if they didn't have to spend 8 hours a day working in a factory or serving McDonalds burgers to make rent money?" There is a flip side to that. How many people have made great contributions because they were motivated by the need to make money? I'm not saying people are only motivated by money, but it's a factor. How many scientists, engineers, artists, etc would have given up when things got tough if they didn't need to worry about paying their bills? The need to make money gives people a reason to exploit their own abilities, we don't know how many people might just not bother if they didn't need to.

[@TheVeritas1]

The idea that people wouldn't work without getting paid isn't a strong argument. Think about how many guys volunteer to risk their lives as firefighters.

[@Hugh_I]

The "people won't work until forced to" argument has at least two big flaws. One you pointed out already: that there are always people who are interested in doing things with their time for various reasons other than "I need to eat". That's why even we who live in a society that is build around working for others to make ends meat, we do have hobbies, volunteers and people who do work for shitty pay like the teachers you mentioned. Today you have plenty of people who "turn their hobby into a job" - in the federation you just need to stick to the hobby part. Sisko's father for example: he runs a restaurant because he likes doing it. He enriches other people's lifes by doing so, but he doesn't have to deal with pesky restrictions of running a profitable business that ruins the fun of it all. And he can cause there's no downside to that. The other big flaw of that argument is: even if there are people who want to spend their time just consuming, who cares? It's a post scarcity society that has replicators, robots, hologram whatever to provide everything that a long long time ago required human work. This society doesn't need everyone to work all day. Even at our contemporary level of technology we really don't, we just try to maintain an outdated economic system that requires it to not collapse in itself. In our society people need to work like crazy to maintain this broken system. In the federation it's the other way around. Society exists to provide people the freedom to live their lives as they please. And it can because it can exist without forcing anyone to spend all day doing things they don't want to.

[@jameshughes3014]

20 years ago people were saying things like, once we have 3d printers, we won't need to go to the store anymore. I have a 3d printer. I can print some things, but not others. we don't know what limits the replicators have. but no technology is magic, everything has limits. I think it's completely believable that replicators might not be able to replicate everything. And we know that replicated food tastes different, so it's likely that nothing that is replicated is a perfect replica, which leaves open the possibility that certain materials still have a market.

[@raideurng2508]

By the sheer laws of thermodynamics, replicators are not 100% efficient, and could actually be really inefficient, but trying to store things like food are way more of a hassle so it makes sense.

[@DanielSolis]

Well I, for one, have greatly enjoyed these essays and now I feel bad for not saying so sooner. Thanks so much for these thought-provoking videos! FWIW, I'd love to see a continued comparison and contrast to the Culture. Lots to dig into there.

[@AnnoyingCritic-is7rp]

" it's just a TV show, people" -- William Shatner

[@DanielDangerous]

Shatner understood it better than most

[@karastern2167]

Star Trek was fiction. But the ideas it was based on were science.

[@francescozenocchini4428]

We know is a tv show. Is just so fun making headcanons to explain plotholes and universe rules.

[@Hugh_I]

it is. But it is also a TV show that not only entertains, but explores interesting philosophical and social issues that do affect us in the real life. Those are worth thinking about regardless of how they're being brought up.

[@PizzaMineKing]

A way replicators can work without energy to matter conversions is if they are more like 3d printers on an atomic level - you put in something made of matter, disassemble it into storage matter, and re-assemble it from those atoms. This would also explain the metal problem: you still need the same metals in your input as in your output. You still have practically limitless matter - as long as it is made of atoms you can get by throwing a few small asteroids from the nearest asteroid belt in the replicator.

[@connormarchand6302]

What the heck man? You were doing such a good job What happened to Utopia is a destination we should all strive for, yes fiction is always going to have plot holes where we fill in the gaps our selfs, but that doesn’t mean we should call it broken 😭 Edit: sorry bro should have waited till the end 😓

[@KertaDrake]

I always wondered why replicators/transporters couldn't do matter-to-energy-to-antimatter. Turn anything into enough antimatter to power your warp core!

[@robertclark8351]

On sea ships, during a long voyage, it didn't make sense to have or use coin. Instead the items you got out of the ship's stores were accounted against the pay you'd get at the end of the voyage. The fact that money was not used during the voyage doesn't mean that people were working for no pay.

[@peterburghart3059]

I’ve loved this series Rowan. Thank you for making it. I think, idealistically that you can still make good stories in a utopia

[@ArchOfWinter]

My head cannon is that there are certain materials that can't be replicated because of odd quantum level or subatomic quark's interaction with space and subspace. Like something not even the Heisenberg compensator can overcome. Also, replicating from pure energy is probably doable, but having matter around would simplify things more. Less computing power and actual energy usage to rearrange carbon dioxide and water into sugar than build sugar from pure energy.

[@OllamhDrab]

All sci-fi of this sort pretty much has to choose its handwaves. Star Trek has a certain amount of fictional physics and materials and fields tech. 'Magical' to us but if you were writing *fantasy* you also have to be sure there's things magic can't do as well.

[@probablynotmyname8521]

As hitchhikers taught us, a hot cup of tea is a complex and powerful machine. If a replicator can make that, it can make anything.

[@willmfrank]

@@probablynotmyname8521 It is, at the very least, a highly effective Brownian motion producing engine.

[@SavageArms357]

Excellent ending section importing people to think about making things better. Noam Chomsky said something to a similar effect, that the only reason anything gets better, like the civil rights movement or the end of slavery, is because of tens of thousands of people who's names we don't even know laid the groundwork, thought how things could be better, and put in tremendous amounts of work and personal sacrifice to achieve it, to the benefit of us all.

[@SavageArms357]

Imploring*, not importing, gosh dangit autocorrect!

[@MartinPittBradley]

All in service and of story: Latium not being replicable means when $ is a useful element, it’s there.

[@jameskelly3502]

In Star Trek lore, many materials, like dilithium and latinum, have "subspace properties". And Materials with subspace properties can't be replicated. Also, many pieces of technology, like replicators, transporters, and warp-cores, rely on "subspace priciples" to function. This is how writers put limits on the tech and resources for story telling reasons.

[@realitypoet]

Aaah I was just writing a comment that the Culture series shows a post scarcity society a lot better… and then you said it. The Idiran-Culture war arc does a great job of demonstrating exactly what you said how a society with no limits on resources would actually be able to go to war - the Idirans underestimated the Culture because the culture is full of lazy drugged out hippies who have no worries… but they also have a fully automated industrial complex with infinite resources so within a decade they went from a bunch of spoiled intellectuals having orgies all the time to the the biggest and most lethal military force in the galaxy- and still got to keep the drugs and orgies throughout.

[@MeNoOther]

Quark didn’t always use Latinum. He used a pad that required a thumbprint. Probably took money like Venmo or a bank transfer. Maybe The Federation has credits?

[@procedupixel213]

Utopia is a direction, not a destination. If you ever arrive at utopia and stop there, it'll stagnate into some kind of, possibly beautiful, hell. (See, for example, "Lift us where suffering cannot reach".)

[@TheVeritas1]

Great comment.

[@GothicLightingQueen]

I think of all the times people say that replicated food doesn’t taste as good as real homecooked food. So mabye you are right in princible but replicator technology is not advanced enough to replicate everything and things perfectly. Like how printers have evolved and 3d printers can make many things but not anything. I could accept the flaws you bring up then, putting some techobabble limitation that makes it not a end all be all magic box makes it more interesting and a better story tool

[@edinalewis4704]

There is a difference between complex molecular structure and a complex atomic structure. Remember that Star Trek Dilithium is not just 2 bonded lithium atoms as modern day chemistry would use the term. The fictional Dilithium in Star Trek is an element that has unique hyperspacial properties, something that modern day science has no concept of.

[@vzerby]

I think Wrath of Khan worked great in being still utopian but having it be personal revenge that push the conflict and fights. It's what made it truly fit within it so well and also showed that even with the best of intentions given to people they can still end up worse off because of things beyond anyone's control. If Kirk obviously knew that Seti-Alpha 5 would be destroyed soon of course he would have found a different place to leave Khan and his people at. On a side note I believe this is why Star Trek Beyond was pretty good too because once again we were given a villian that had personal issue of what The Federation stood for rather than about ruling or gaining resources. Edison on a fundamental level was stuck in the past, stuck in the mind set that the only way for humanity to become better was to be under threat.

[@genmaicha.lapsang]

Also, "Ketrasell White," couldn't be replicated. Presumably because the founders designed it that way. O'Bryan explicitly states that.

[@mnaglich]

The problem is that too many people focus on the currency. The whole point is that not only is their no money, but that people don't care that it's gone as well. That's why it's never explained, noone in universe needs to except to drop some exposition occasionally. The problem is that we're obsessed with it and keep trying to answer it. I'm sure if you told a roman in 1 CE that their will be no slavery in the future, they'd also react like this....

[@briannevs2772]

Ooh!! Rowan may have seen MY comment about limitless energy replicators!! *Swoon* It was nice to see that the argument I typed out after the IRG chapter is exactly where you went in Contradictions...with Dilithium Crystals, the Ferengi, and Preventing Wars. I have a question, have we ever SEEN those rare resources transported? its a great point that something can be replicated if its transported, but have we ever explicitly seen such things transported? Its also shown that alien races have replicators too. There's obviously SOME unseen cap on replicators that isnt brought up. "Going boldly..." can only go so far...at some point, you go so far as to make the incidents at hand meaningless to the human condition. The further out you go, the more complex the story becomes and you quickly run the risk of being an infinitely more complicated Dune...untranslatable to current audiences. That our current mindframe is so limited that it cant comprehend the continually exponential rise of knowledge inherent in discovery. My comments havent been meant to be harsh dismissals. They have been meant to be challenges to your thoughts on this channel. You're a great presenter and are great at exploring these things...if I have somehow been able to get you to refine those arguments into their current iteration, im glad. Ive never wanted to DISMISS your views or arguments...nor what a utopia would look like. In terms of the makeup of utopia, its my argument is that as humans, we will NEVER have utopia. That the same forces that drive us to be better also drive us to never be happy. I could expound on this more if people are interested. Love your channel and videos! Keep it up.

[@realitypoet]

I think the point that if something can be transported via the transporter then it can be replicated is the end of the discussion re latinum and dilithium. I never thought about it like that but you’re absolutely right - it’s explicitly stated that they work on the same principles so it doesn’t make sense that there’s things you can transport that you can’t replicate. Though that would make an interesting mechanic if it were consistent - like if you go through the transporter with latinum in your pocket when you rematerialize its converted into lead or something, that could be a useful device/add complications.

[@sampetrie340]

I am sure that the writers would ad lib some reason this wouldn’t work, but it also seems implied that Battlestar Galactica style resurrection ships are possible using replicator/transporter technology.

[@SeraphArmaros]

Replicators are just small transporters that pull raw elements from storage based on a recipe pattern, and transporters do not do matter to energy conversion (hence the "matter stream" across a subspace domain). Replicators would require raw materials just as a transporter does to create something, and they still depend on massive power sources to function, so while they'd be a game-changer in production, I don't think they'd offer unlimited resources.

[@AresWasTaken]

Except for the 2 rikers

[@SeraphArmaros]

@@AresWasTaken The explanation for that was refraction of the matter beam, so it's possible quantum pairs of all the matter were crated in subspace to give the necessary matter.

[@janfelchner1543]

I love your your content, especially because you ask questions like this and search for an answer! :-)

[@korakys]

This video feels like the culmination of the past several years of your Trek videos; it encapsulates the core ideals and tensions within Star Trek and is immediately my favourite video of yours. Trek made some key choices about the future, some predictions, that just turned out to be utterly wrong. It turns out that money _is_ actually utopian and that there is nothing inherently wrong about it. And perfect technologies, like replicators, couldn't exist due to basic physics problems (excess heat in the case of replicators), but more importantly reduce the conflict space for interesting story ideas far too much (which you covered well but I wanted to say it again anyway). To make Trek truly great again it has to undo several currently core ideas and to rebase onto _today's_ best guesses about a utopian future rather than yesteryear's. (I look at the novel Utopia would be instructive on how people can guess perfect futures wrongly, as touched on by your Wilde quote.) To quote an obscure Star Wars comic, "Sometimes, for the dream to live…the dreamer must die."

[@CoRDSau]

hopefully I'm not remembering something incorrectly, but i recall something from an episode that said replicators essentially need a source of existing matter + energy to replicate something. which is why they recycle everything through them, it gets put in their matter storage or something. now to just work out where that was from.

[@SIRIishly]

When they find a Dyson sphere in "Relics", they still see it as an almost mythical creation. Something it seems none have even seen before.

[@blackasp001]

And it's not even a practical design, unless you put gravity plating under every square inch of the interior surface

[@NathanielMiller]

They've frequently said that there are things that can't be replicated, usually due to molecular complexity. Latinum, for example, is some kind of rare complex metal that was decided to use as currency for that reason (rarity).

[@orionstark]

I feel like Iain M. Banks said everything in this video before he wrote The Culture Novels. We do not talk about The Chair.

[@michaelhall2709]

Star Trek doesn’t need to present itself as a blueprint for a better future. As a multimedia franchise with its roots in a 1960s action-adventure television series, it is in fact entirely ill-suited to such a venture. What it can do is inspire individuals to think about ways to build that future, or at the very least acknowledge its possibility. And in that, for all its flaws as drama and as science fiction, it has been an unparalleled success.

[@JasonArmond]

I think we're just overthinking this stuff. Star Trek isn't trying to make a blueprint for a better future for us, it's just saying that it's possible to dream up a better future. Examples - How does this phaser work? You push this button and it goes pew pew. How does warp drive work? You push this button and space in front of the ship squishes and the space behind the ship expands and ship goes vrrroooom. These aren't explanations, because how this stuff actually works doesn't matter to the story. So when you ask, how is human society a perfect utopia, the writers don't know any better than you do how to create a perfect human utopia. So they say things like, no money! No boring jobs! Everyone happy! Push this button, utopia go brrrrrr. The story is about: here's how us writers think humanity should deal with this situation, should it ever come up, and if it sounds familiar to a current existing real-life situation, well, now you know how we feel about that. Sure, it's fun to think about how we could make Star Trek real. Actual scientific advancements have happened because smart people were trying to make Star Trek real in some aspect. But to say Star Trek is Broken because nobody figured out how to make Star Trek real right now is silly. The writers can just say, push this button, Star Trek go brrrr. There, fixed.

[@rolypoly4920]

For latinum, I could see the Federation signing a treaty agreeing not to replicate it in exchange of good relations and trade. I could also see the Ferengi having a way to tell if it was natural or not. I feel like replicated latinum would be "too perfect" on a molecular level, similar to how fake diamonds tend to have too few impurities compared to the real thing.

[@NoneofYourBusiness667]

You hear characters in Star Trek constantly comment on replicated food, that it “isn’t like the real stuff” or that the replicated food “doesn’t do (the dish/recipe) justice.” This strongly suggests there are quickly discernible differences between replicated items and “real” items. So yes, seasoned capitalists like the Ferengi would immediately recognize replicated Latinum as fake; they would consider it counterfeit money. Also, as another commenter already posted, Latinum is actually liquid metal. It is contained in the gold bars, strips and slips. The gold it is wrapped in is simply a container; the currency itself is the liquid.

[@WhereIsTheSpartan]

As far as I know, it was explained in many Star Trek episodes that the replicators “beam” molecules to the right places like a 3D printer and do not create new atoms from pure energy. So for a glass of water you need water first and for dilithium you would need dilithium again. Replicators are therefore matter-energy converters and not matter-energy generators. This is similar to what happens in our cells when molecules are assembled into molecular chains with the help of energy and energy is released again by splitting molecules.

[@DavidChipman]

I know this might bother some, but I suspect the Star Trek universe has been going on for too long, creatively. They've made so many stories, that they've painted themselves into something of a corner. Just my spur of the moment opinion.

[@korakys]

I concur that this is pretty much it.

[@Blimbus-Blombo]

I think that trek’s current writers should follow the advice of The Q in “All Good Things”- there’s more to exploration than just charting stars and stuff. The whole universe is there to explore, and starfleet seems to be thinking of it in such 2-dimensional terms. The writers could expand the world building by literally expanding their minds. The hard thing is that we already have a hard enough time expanding our minds to even think about what this could mean, but I think that’s the next logical step in Trek’s worldbuilding. Stop charting stars and start charting other dimensions.

[@MasterHobbes]

Just to want to let you know Rowan that your videos give me a lot of hope and entertainment. Please disregard comments with episodes that directly contradict things that you've said *especially* if it's tos. Star trek is FULL of contradictions and retcons. There's no reason that your well thought out and brilliantly worded essays should be disregarded because of a simple contradiction in lore. Especially when it comes to you looking at star trek OVERALL and not looking for the "small things" that people quote you on to contradict. Live Long And Prosper! Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.

[@spazthespasticcolonel1054]

I love that you brought Oscar Wilde to a Star Trek fight! Great work on this series. And the money, I just assumed that they lied, in the same way that Starfleet isn't a military service. They fight the wars, they have military ranks, they're subject to military discipline - even courts-martial... but they're not a military. I don't know what they call money, but they have something.

[@jc441-i3q]

If I had my own personal holodeck (and replicator), no would would ever see me again...

[@setaihedron]

In Star Trek money is like water. Humans used to have to each spend much of their time acquiring and transporting water, but in modern time water is ubiquitous because of the infrastructure. It still costs but that cost is absorbed into the background, in the 23rd century the global computer infrastructure handles currency and debt in the background.

[@IDH2008]

I always appreciate your content! It’s honestly a highlight anytime you post!! I have noticed you don’t talk about the newer Trek series as much in your discussions on the future utopia. I’d love to see you incorporate that at some point.

[@TheGahta]

you have to imagine a known galactic dread that snuffs out anyone touching a sun and it all works... kinda sometimes XD Jokes aside, to me the essential "star trek" moment was who watches the watcher with the exchange near the end "do you think my people will ever see the clouds from the other side? and picards "of that ive no doubt" plus the earlier exchange that took her fear SW is about fantasy for me, trek about aspiraion... and a liiitle gratifying pewepew

[@epiendless1128]

In one of the first Star Trek novels, "Spock Must Die!" by James Blish, Scotty refutes the suggestion that matter is converted into energy and back again as a "Turrible oversimplification." "What the transporter does is analyze the energy _state_ of each particle in the body and then produce a Dirac jump to an equivalent energy state somewhere else. No conversion is involved - if it were, we'd blow up the ship." Technobabble, of course, with various contradictions over the years, but a useful weasel to avoid certain implications that break the setting.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I must say, maybe the orbital replicators printing ship parts are solar-powered as you outline. The self-replicating mines were powered by the Denorios belt. However, replicators are shown to be able to run on pure fusion power - which doesn’t provide enough power for what we’re shown. That to me argues that they’re just beaming it from place to place, rather than routinely creating new matter, without quoting a Tech Manual. That said the idea they have that much energy sloshing around is exciting, but to me that’s more 31st century than 24th.

[@DarinRWagner]

Latinum is liquid. It's contained within the gold slips, strips, bars or bricks.

[@drumstick74]

🤯

[@snegglepuss6669]

Yep. There's even an episode where it's revealed Morn once stole a massive amount of gold-pressed latinum, siphoned off the actual latinum to keep in his second stomach, and left the empty and easily replicatable gold containers for Quark to find and declare worthless

[@rayfwu]

@@DarinRWagner I’d like to meet this person who said that it wasn’t.

[@Blimbus-Blombo]

Well it’s liquid metal, and assuming based on that episode of DS9 it is probably a heavy metal, possibly a radioactive one, because it caused Morn to go bald. Mercury is a metal, but its melting point is so low that it’s hardly ever in solid form.

[@DarinRWagner]

@@Blimbus-Blombo We don't know that it's metal... only that it's liquid.

[@ManiacalMetal]

I'm sure there's some contradiction out there but my head cannon has been while replicators can in theory create anything they have trouble with complex crystalline structures so dilithium is off the table and something like salt ends up kinda funky which is why replicated food is "fine" but not "great".

[@snegglepuss6669]

Basically an issue of resolution. Transporters presumably use fantastic amounts of energy, that's why stations still use docking bays and you generally only see transporters used heavily in military contexts or for beaming on or off a planet. If dilithium or latinum are strange on a subatomic level, then a replicator might need enough power that it ends up being easier to go find it and mine it out, or they might simply not have the resolution, like how modern computer chip manufacturers are tiered based on how small they can make things in nanometres This would imply it's not a hard limit, but just a practical one

[@SkylerLinux]

It's about the pattern size, there's a lot of atoms and molecules in food. So they "compress" the stored pattern by not keeping every nearly identical bit of the food, which is why real food tastes better than replicated food; it also explains why somebody would have a family "recipe" it's the replicator pattern of their mum's food

[@rayfwu]

@@ManiacalMetal What are you talking about? Table salt is just one atom of hydrogen and one atom of chloride. Put them together and repeat. Easy peasy.

[@ManiacalMetal]

@@rayfwu i was thinking more of some kind of refraction problem with what i assume is some kind of photonic intermediate phase of the process but i'm basing that on holodeck being kinda similar or something; it was just an easy nonsense answer to sci-fi BS

[@rayfwu]

@@ManiacalMetal It’s not BS, it’s technobabble! I try to avoid using technobabble in my own explanations but there’s a certain art to using it creatively.

[@andrewkadis7504]

Setting aside the whole perpetual motion adjacent technology depicted in it, my own "hot take" about how the future in Star Trek works is this: The abundant, resource rich society depicted allows everyone to live like Emperors, but there is enough wealth and resources on Earth right now for everyone to live quite comfortably with little to no hardship. Is the human race incapable of simply "sharing" what wealth there already is? or are we only ever going to accept equality if everyone is able to live the life of Jeff Bezos?

[@chrishughes1376]

I came to this video series because I've been running a Star Trek roleplay game and it's only when you stop and ask someone to genuinely live in a setting do certain questions come up. I understand that when you take everything ever written about Trek as gospel you struggle to define one version of the world because, whilst Trek has made efforts to standardise the concepts presented (making Klingon an actual language for example) it will still have the odd thing slip through that pokes a hole in something previously established. My personal headcanon, somewhat in response to the thought experiment that this video series has been, is that replicators are limited by the following factors- 1) Grade- The more complex an item is the higher resolution a replicator needs to be to create certain materials or items. These higher resolution devices likely take longer to work and a lot more energy (which is why they're often reserved for medical use). 2) Scale- If you want to replicate the parts to create a starship, you need industrial scale replicators which will likely need other large scale replicators to create the parts for. Maybe even meaning that replicators can only make similar or less complex replicators than the level they are. 3) Skill- You might be able to create key survival tools from predefined templates, but if you're having to make things a part at a time you will need a vast amount of science and engineering skill to know what you're doing (which is why the Enterprise can so often just rock up and provide for people). 4) Wear and Tear- Over time and circumstance things break down. Despite being able to travel through space incredibly fast, you still need very complex and heavily crewed ships to do it at convenient speeds. As such, the Federation is full of societies that will require assistance and replacement technology keeping a lot of resources busy to maintain the status quo. The Federation may be post-scarcity as a principal, but the slow development of that infrastructure across a galaxy takes time. As a result, people take a lot of shortcuts through crime, conflict and the occasional cheeky planetary occupation for cheap labour. Just my thoughts, thanks again for this video series. It's been really helpful for playing in the world. 🖖🤠

[@Gregory11811]

Maybe we already live in a post-scarcity society, just not a post-“small percentage hoarding most of the money/stuff/food” society.

[@Karajorma]

The entire first half of this video I was thinking "You're describing The Culture"

[@ThunderMesaStudio]

Another problem with the economics of the Star Trek universe is that, even in a post-scarcity society, people would still want to be compensated for their time. Lifespans are finite and more time cannot be replicated. Who wants to climb into a Jefferies Tube if the value of their time, experience and expertise are not being paid for in some quantifiable way?

[@PDXAv8ter]

Ok, I laughed out loud when I saw the kid's Kirk helmet. Well done.

[@SchismNavigator]

I highly recommend Iain M Bank's Culture series of books for an example of a post-scarcity society and how it might actually function as opposed to Star Trek's very limited depiction of a "not really" post-scarcity society. Edit: Just got to that part of the video haha.

[@HawkGTboy]

Basically the Culture from the books by Ian Banks is what the Federation would be if it weren’t hobbled by all these silly limitations.

[@arnthorsnaer]

Star Trek’s display / suggestion of earth in the future has motivated me to think about the possibilities for many years. The contradictions are also useful for this purpose. As for my own ideas, I think there are credits but I think their acquisition and expenditure is not as dominating of people’s life like today. Mostly because they are mostly not involved with your base needs. You are safe, fed and with a roof over your head without credits coming into it and I think that matters a lot.

[@TheVeritas1]

Rowan, I've really enjoyed your thought-provoking Star Trek video with the latest being the best yet. You make a great point that the Federation would be a galactic hyperpower it if has access to infinite energy and replicators. This reminds me a lot of the Cooperative in Icon (great comic book), a galactic civilization that takes the implications of the Federation's technology to their logical extreme. One of my favorite aspects of the Cooperative is how they take your suggestion on preventing wars with other powers before they start. I also appreciate the quote from Oscar Wilde. We can get so caught up with the daily grind of life that you can accept it as all the future can be. It's better to ask "Can't things be better?"

[@Analog_Mind47]

6:38 I think Quark explicitly stated that Gold lost all it's value because it can be replicated, but latinum can't be

[@DocFlamingo]

One thing that is never addressed with replicators is the insane amount of waste heat they would, by necessity, generate and how it is dealt with.

[@SimpMcSimpy]

I remember that one episode of ST Voyager where captain instructs Chakotay to use antique watch for replicator food. So it's obvious you have to insert some matter in order to generate other elements or objects.

[@yelwinmoisesacostaduarte8915]

most likely for trash management

[@SkylerLinux]

That was the energy it represented, since the metals of the watch aren't very food

[@nickyoung9108]

Star Trek Discovery, 30th century. Admiral Vance said those apple slices they're eating are made from their own shit. And they're set in a time with limited warp and Fed HQ is permanently cloaked so minimal supply runs happen, presumably.

[@SkylerLinux]

@@nickyoung9108 Metaphor, as their shit would be turned into energy. Since we have a pretty good digestion system, all that's in our poo is bodily waste and things we can't use.

[@nitehawk86]

Was about to bring up The Culture (again), but you beat me to it. :)

[@intellectually_lazy]

33 war is good for business, 34 peace is good for business

[@intellectually_lazy]

okay, try not to yell, i guessed the numbers

[@TakedaIesyu]

To your first points, I'd say that it becomes a question of economics of energy. Sure, a sun produces 1 TJ/s, but maybe a replicator costs 200 GJ to use for most things. Maybe a tranporter is around 300 GJ/s to use (after all, it is teleportation). That would make that 1 TJ/s run out if only three people used a transporter. Maybe the solar satellites are deployed at every Federation, Klingon, Romulan, etc. place just to get some starting energy, but larger planets like Earth need other sources so they don't run out of available energy too quickly. As for replicating dilithium and warp plasma, maybe it winds up costing too much energy to be economical. Maybe one dilithium crystal has a maximum of 10 TJ of potential energy over its lifetime, but replicating that crystal is really hard and might cost an unreasonable amount of energy, like 20 TJ because of how long it takes to replicate a single crystal. Thus, it becomes cheaper and easier to establish a minimg operation instead of losing overall energy to replicate dilithium. As for Latinum, maybe it's a similar problem of "too expensive to replicate," i.e. it costs more than 10 slips worth of energy to replicate 1 slip's worth of Latinum. All of these are maybes, and im exaggerating the numbers, but i think the point is valid. As for the "utopia isnt real" commenters: fuck 'em. The darkness in DIS Seasons 1 and 2 and PIC S1 are a big part of why they didn't work as well. By contrast Strange New Worlds, and Lower Decks, and Prodigy are the best New-Trek because of how much they come back to the goal of trying to do good. One of my favorite bits of LD os when Mariner is convinced that archaeologist she's working with is just selling off all of the artifacts they've been gathering, only to fond out that the operation was being sponsored by Picard specifically to protect artifacts from being destroyed. A seemingly dystopic tomb raider is proven to be a utopic preserver. And yeah, these videos are fun, man. Keep on making them, boss, and I'll keep watching them!

[@guilhermesavoya2366]

My headcanon is that non-replicable materials like dilithium or latinum can't be replicated because they have a transdimensional structure. In the books, it was once said that, if you can't detect subspace, you can't see the difference between dilithiun and quartz.

[@allocater2]

It makes more sense if you say: Replicators turn matter PLUS energy into different matter. Then it is not that imba. There could even be a trade-off. Grow wheat normally for 0 energy, or grow algae and turn it into wheat for 10 energy, or turn rocks into wheat for 100 energy.

[@vskane]

Absolutely agree on the Culture comparison. What I always wondered though was, why did the Minds bother with the “human” members of the Culture at all. Were they essentially pets on a gargantuan scale? I guess Excession is the best illustration of that theory.

[@EmperorGuam]

The utopia problem you describe stems from two things. 1 is the lack of scientific understanding about why replicating an element is far easier than a shuttle craft. 2 being writing relatable stories inside a utopia for people who live outside one. The points you make about the implications of having unlimited power are not truly considered in Star Trek.

[@Psiros]

I think a comfortable retirement is the closest modern day analogy to the post scarcity universe of the Federation is in. Money is no longer an issue, so what is there to do? You can live out the rest of your life with relative ease, comfort, and little worries, especially from the financial side. Or you could make a name for yourself and persue a hobby or profession that you've always wanted to do, but couldn't prior for whatever reason.

[@TheViperZed]

I waited with the furious typing but, speaking in formal, mathematical, logic, an implication in one direction does not imply an implication in the other direction. That would mean that equivalence, a more strict version of equality, is equivalent to implication. To show equivalence from implication you need to specifically show the truth of implication in both directions of the logical argument. A very close example comes from real world physics, where we absolutely can convert matter into energy with a particle accelerator. The thing we are looking for, energy spontaneously forming into matter, happens automatically and the only control we have is the energy level we reach. This determines the chance of specific kinds of matter forming. We can do matter -> energy, but not energy -> matter with any control that would allow for, constructive, macroscale applications.

[@FAMUCHOLLY]

Rowan makes some excellent points in this essay. I always found the economic philosophy of the TNG and beyond Federation to be problematic, and I completely understand why the writers avoid it in developing their story lines. I think Roddenberry's goal should be aspirational, not actual...

[@thethirdchimpanzee]

A lot of folks here are forgetting that, just as E=MC² means that combining just a tiny amount of matter and anti-matter yields a HUGE amount of energy...that to make even a small item of matter, say a small bracelet, or a teddy bear, from pure energy would take a VAST amount of energy. Where is that energy on the Enterprise coming from? The engine? That would mean that that every time a kid wants a teddy bear, or someone wants a vase, Engineering would have to run a teddy bears worth of antimatter and matter through the engines. Want a chair? Engineering needs half a chairs worth or matter and half a chairs worth of anti-matter. That is, the equivelent mass of the chair, in matter and anti-matter, would have to be annihilated to make the energy to make the chair. Either that, if the Enterprise has some super-batteries on board that hold many nuclear explosions worth of "pure energy" somehow. Or, have a chairs worth of matter in bulk storage somewhere on the ship, that is converted into evergy and then shaped into a chair. So, this is what I think - and what the technical manual - but basically the Replicators can work on 4 levels: The Replicators CAN convert pure energy into matter, but given the reverse of E=MC², it's VERY VERY INEFFICIENT. Possible - but costly. Also, the Replicators can perform a type of nucleosynthesis, or transmutation, and convert elements into other elements. A LARGE AMOUNT of a light element like hydrogen could be converted into a smaller amount of a heavier elements. BUT, this is an energy intensive process, only done when necessary, and they NEED some obscure element that they don't have enough of. They could also break down or transmute a small amount of a heavier element into larger amount of a lighter element - as long as the mass of the end product = the mass of the ingredients that went into it, and also accounting for any extra energy that either went into to process (making in endothermic) or was liberated in the process, (making it exothermic). I don't know enough about nucleosynthesis, and how you would trigger it to know how much energy is created and how much extra energy might need to be added. I do know that both the processes of fission (breaking appart atoms into smaller ones) and fusion (combining lighter atoms into heavier ones) both processes can create TREMENDOUS amounts of energy - plus often radioactive by-products - in fact these processes are what power our nuclear bombs. Somehow the science of humanity and Starfleet and the Federation in the 22nd - 32nd and onwards (we know now that the Federation exists in the 42nd century too, as the "Rashon" or "Vashon" or something.) Can *control* this process enough some that sending a human through a transporter or the simple act of putting the dishes back into the replicator and pressing the..."CLEAN", or whatever button...doesn't result in a giant thermonuclear explosion. Anyway...the next 2 levels are what I believe comprise the Replicators NORMAL functions: The replicators can draw local stores (on the ship or station or starbase or colony or town or city whatever) on basic atoms...hydrogen, helium, carbon, nirtogen, oxygen, sodum, etc, various metals and gasses, and convert them into food or clothing or furniture or tools, etc, or even use them to form objects with "simple patterns" in hologrograms. After all, most of our food, as well as natural fabrics and wood and paper - as well as our bodies - are made up of some combonations of just carbon and nitrogen and hydrogen and oxygen and a few other things...sodium chloride, and traces of micronutrients and metals and elements and things like potassium, etc. And these kind of...recombinations...are easy. Taking some base hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc, and turning into a steak or some chocolate ice cream or a cotton dress. Hell, not just carbohydrates but hydrocarbon-based things like plastics can be replicated. Then, all our waste, from our "trash" to dirty dishes to worn-out clothing and other items...and, yes, our *poop*, and broken down into base atoms and put back in storage until needed to make MORE clothing or food. The output of the ship's toilet is the Replicator! (Not only did Star Trek Discovery touch on this, rather *directly* but one of the post-TNG era books got into this when refugees were starving, and feeding the replicators grass clippings to make food from...when the Federation porta-potty tanks were filling up with copious organic material! Luckily the clever Tellarite engineer, who explained to Picard and Beverly that this EXACTLY what happens on a Starship or Starbase, came up with a cleaver set-up where the Starfleet porta-potties were lined up on one side of a landed runabout (being used to supply extra power to them) and the Replicator were lined up on the other, and the tubes and cables ran into and out of the Runabout, or hidden underground, or even automated *transporters* used to move materials around, unseen. Look, a carbon atom is a carbon atom, an oxygen atom an oxygen atom, etc, and eveyything WE EAT has...well...at least in the past, human waste and animal waste (*poop*) was used to fertilize plants...sometimes people ate those plants directly, turning them into *us* (muscle, bones, organs, blood, *energy*, fuel for resparation - turning it into carbon dioxide, that again, the plants "breathed" and turned back into oxygen and nitrogen...and, turning it into more POOP)...or we feed them to animals than turn them into meat and milk and eggs and even honey. Circle of Life! Of course, the Replicators can ALSO draw on bulk storages OF things like specific amino acids and fats and even whole protiens (hence "protien resequencers") and complex carbohydrates and simple carbohydrates - sugars - and turn them into food. In this sense the Replicators are basically a 3D printer. And this would probably be the least energy-intensive process. OF COURSE, it's also possible for the crew's poop to be broken down, not into just basic *atoms* of carbon, nitrogen, etc, but just into the larger *molecules* of amino acids or even whole protiens and sugars and fats, and those put directly into storage. And maybe that IS what they do. After all, a protien molecule is a protien molecule. HOWEVER...and I *KNOW* this is irrational - I would *prefer* it if I knew that the human waste was broken down into individual atoms and stored until needed - and THEN turned back into molecules of fats and amino acids and simple sugars and more complex carbohydrates LATER when needed. Even though that is just adding extra steps. But like Picard and Beverly said in that Star Trek novel I mentioned before, humans (and most other species) have a strong biologically inbred taboos against eating their own waste...or waste in general. I saw a video about a Japanese scientists who had invented this big contraption of tubes and beakers and pumps and chambers that basically did exactly, well, it basically sterilized poop and then (in part using bacteria and fermentation maybe, and maybe just chemical processes, broke down and seperated poop into in seperate amino acids and I think whole protiens and fats and sugars, and recombined that into "synthetic meat". I don't even think he turned it into a feed stock for tissue-culture meat. Just made some fake meat out of poop. (Nobody ate it, or was meant to, I think the idea was just to say "Hey, if we had to do this in space travel, because we destroyed the planet. L But, if he had converes that same poop into fertilizer and fed it to plants and then then plants were fed to animals and THEN the animals harvested for meat...well...outside of a few squeemish "city folks", most people wouldn't be AS grossed out. We just want some steps involved. Like, take "eating bugs" - like crickets - high in protien, but no matter HOW processed, most would say "Yuck, no thanks!" BUT - *chickens* LOVE to eat bugs like crickets. And they use that protein to make eggs...and muscle...and most people eat eggs and chicken meat. The more *simple* components something like waste could be reduced to, the more we would be okay re-consuming something made from them...er, well, maybe just the LESS we have to think about it the better. In my head-cannon, starships and starbases and space stations and colonies in space or groundside or towns and cities have a *bulk* matter storage, or basic and commonly used elements (atoms) and proportion to demand. (Lots carbon and water and salt...etc...and heck, why not STORE much of your needed hydrdogen and oxygen AS *water*!? Anyway, and maybe not as much of things you rarely use...and somethings might be stored as molecules...and sometimes, for some things more frequently used, maybe stored in molecular forms...and replenished from re-combined stored atoms/elements. And starships can use their Bussard collectors and transported and trips to asteroids and comets and gas giants, etc to replenish stocks of base matter. But if you need some rare material that is in short supply, and hard to locate, or needed in a pinch...your could create it from simpler elements using the Replicators nuclear synthesis capabilites. And if you are in a pinch and have a lot of extra energy, like the equivelent of a couple of detonated hydrogen bombs, and want to use that to make a teddy bear....go ahead! (I think there would HAVE to be some limitations too, because what is to prevent someone at home from taking their dirty dishes, turning them into energy, then turning that energy into equal parts hydrogen, and anti-hydrogen, you now have the ability to make world-destroying weapons of mass destruction. I have a feeling that, for some [Tech] reason, creating antimatter in the Trek-verse, is highly energy-consuming.

[@hermiod]

In my head cannon, replicators don't transmutate matter, so you need the right amount of each raw material to replicate some object.

[@kathleenhensley5951]

I think that this issue is one of the reasons I've become disillusioned by Star Trek over the decades. I'm 73. The Original Star Trek was on when I was circa 16-19. I've learned a lot about what it means to be human being since I was a teenager. I've experienced a lot of life, both the good and bad. I've watched wars, economic cycles, presidents live and die, a fascinating technological era unfold. I really want mankind to reach for the stars - and, explore the galaxy, someday. Earth is our crib but our adulthood is exploration of our universe, both inner and outer space. Such things as religion and the religious tendency will always be with us because our awe of the unknown is part of who we are as a species, also. I expect religion and it's mother, Spirituality, to always be a part of humanity, century after century until our species is no more. I believe that there will always be good and bad people and choices. Evil is part of mankind, so is Goodness. Just ridding ourselves of want and desire will not make earth an utopia. I don't want an Utopia. Dissent and doubt will always be a human trait. I would love to see war, violence, the vices, all become far far rarer, in the next few centuries. But rarer doesn't mean none existent. I believe our fate, is space exploration and the Stars, but I don't think an utopian future would give us the stars; I think it would give us stagnation, rigidity, and ultimately, some sort of self destruction, or perhaps, we would be suffer the fate of the Kryptonians (to use another science fiction tale). the centuries would fly by and suddenly we would find ourselves victims of our own success and smug certainty as our star begins expanding and consume our planet. What I mean is we need chaos as much as we need order. - we need to break up the puzzle of existence every so often so we can reassemble it. That is human nature and is likely to always be human nature. All the religions and philosophies I've studied still can't give me enlightenment enough to become a person comfortable with a structured Utopia and all utopias would require very tight structures. Human nature does not thrive without some disorder, it is NOT our nature to always be good, gentle people. Freedom from want would not make us all good people. It might do the opposite, make us lazy and complacent. "To Strive, to seek, to find and not to yield" - Tennyson.

[@user-xf2oz6gr2o]

There is a true religion. It's name is Christianity.