When money has no value - The economy of Star Trek

[@gravestone4840]

Profit motives hinder innovation and progress. Between artificially created scarcity withholding goods, planned obsolescence making goods worthless long term and copyright/patent laws that keep ideas and concepts behind a monetary lock and key, profit motives keep humanity itself in a state of poverty both physically and intellectually.

[@christineshotton824]

R&D costs money. No one will put up that money if they do not have a reasonable expectation of a return on investment.

[@aweirdredguy3885]

​@@christineshotton824is there an organ that Ask"profits" in your body?

[@christineshotton824]

@@aweirdredguy3885 Non Sequitur.

[@WolfeSaber]

@@aweirdredguy3885 Is there an organ that says "give away for free" in your body?

[@tigerstyle484]

​@@WolfeSaber The stomach for example

[@StevenHughes-hr5hp]

Who says profit is unimportant? If Bashir and Garak want to use a holosuite they always have to haggle with Quark first.

[@RandomStuff-he7lu]

The station isn't in the Federation.

[@beneagleson3026]

I’ve always wondered why in Star Trek they always go to the holodeck to enact historical stories no futuristic operas or stories always historical - almost like socialism has caused societies creativity to stagnate

[@benjaminve3140]

Their present reality is already a futuristic space opera. When you live in a very scientifically advanced society, it makes sense that you'd begin to see the historical in a similar fantastical and alien way as we do with sci-fi futures.

[@awolfx7947]

This type of society sounds great, but it is based on the idea that people as a whole share an intelligent and largely developed "common sense." Something which is not yet true (not enough anyway), which is nowadays perhaps more obvious than ever with the rise of social media and everyone believing they have something worthwhile to tell and display to us what kind of weird bubbles people seem to live in. However, looking at history as a whole, we have developed more common sense than ever before in the history of mankind, and these weird chaotic times we're going through now all play a role in getting there. The US civil war and the "World wars" are examples of how these tragedies have indeed wisened us up. You can see more examples the further back you go, or in smaller events. It is not inconceivable to believe that the weird tribal polarization we seem to be experiencing now, will ultimately help us advance to something that closer resembles the Star Trek state of society.

[@nachoqualsevol554]

it's Vulcan cultural influence, after the First Contact.

[@awolfx7947]

@@nachoqualsevol554 good point

[@clivemahony9827]

The thing Whit human's is if we want something so bad we can do it just a matter of will power and not letting to few self interested call the shots a wiseman plants a tree knowing he will never enjoy its shade this is a long term goal I believe we will try for it

[@antwan1357]

something has to exist for property rights in star trek. The way they try to display it doesn't work for me.

[@paulevans4905]

Science fiction.

[@WolfeSaber]

I'd still go with capitalism.

[@aweirdredguy3885]

So you like to make people suffer then

[@WolfeSaber]

@@aweirdredguy3885 How it was done back during the Industrial Revolution was not true capitalism. The individual businesses were supposed to welcome companion, much like Elon Musk does when another company successfully creates cheap or reusable rockets, or non carbon vehicles. Plus, Ford practiced a very good form of capitalism when he pays higher wages to his employees, which gave them the incentive to make the cars better since they could easily buy them themselves.

[@aweirdredguy3885]

@@WolfeSaber Ford was a nazi,Musk is a joke born in a privileged family,the USSR started funding the space age, Space x is heavily subsidized by the US state, Einstein was a socialist,most inventions you take for granted came from public sector, capitalism needs poverty to work

[@WolfeSaber]

@@aweirdredguy3885 So, you a Communist, people who don't have brain cells, killed ten times the amount the NAZIs did during their reign, which I doubt Ford was one of some kind, and funded a space program to put weapons into orbit, with no room for civilians? SpaceX is now subsidized by the US government thanks to them actually producing reusable rockets when everyone else was making disposable ones. Before that, the company was on its own dime. Besides, like you said, if these inventions weren't created by capitalist, then it is the socialists, the communists, and everyone else who isn't a capitalist who've impoverished people. Look what happened to Ukraine when the Soviets took over.

[@WolfeSaber]

@@aweirdredguy3885 Besides, Einstein is more for a mixed economy, using socialism to balance capitalism in an economy, despite his lack of knowledge in economics. What he talked about was a democratic socialism, not related to the Soviets. Because, after all, if he truly was a socialist, he'd would have gone to the Soviets, like a bunch of scientist during the Manhattan Project. But instead, he went to the US after bugging out of Germany.