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Comment on Why do they turn Federation into a dystopia?

givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

I legitimately don’t know:

But would just every random human have access to a replicator 24/7?

Like, that would be a tally in the Utopia column, but even then, the amount of waste and trash produced would be a problem.

Even in an absolutely ideal situation like that, it would end like The Good Place where getting anything you want burns out your dopamine system.

I dunno. Like I said I’m not a Star Trek expert, I just don’t trust a bunch of rich people working for the one world government telling us the 99.99% of humans we never see are living perfect lives.

It’s fictional so it could be real if the writers want it to be. But it’s a lot more realistic if not everything was as perfect as we’re told, or even Starfleet officers believe.

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GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Perhaps you should start watching trek instead of commenting on it from a distance, you know, so you know what you are taking about.

The federation (in the TNG era which i would count as the most beloved and accepted by fans) is a post scarcity society, the populations indeed do have full and free access to replication technology, which also solves the waste problem you suggest since replicated goods can also be reclaimed by the devices. Make whatever you need, use it, vanish the leftovers when youre done.

So indeed people are beyond our concepts of material need and property. Individuals may also indulge in commerce if they are of the mercantile inclination, nobody cares, but any citizen can acquire any material resource required or desired in their lives regardless, and for free.

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- givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Buddy, if you think someone who’s watched all of Star Trek once is an “expert” than it’s more likely I know a lot more about it than you…
  
  I just understand some people have all this shit memorized, and you are overconfident in your knowledge of the show.
  
  Which is something that goes beyond Star Trek, often the people who know the most say they don’t know everything, and the people who say they know it all. Just aren’t aware of how much there is to know.
  
  Have fun being overconfident tho.
  
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ricecake@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Waste and trash also aren’t an issue because of the aforementioned replicators. Waste and trash become the food. Energy is cheap, next to free, and about as clean as can be.
Why would you live in squalor when you can just as easily push a button and teleport the trash and grime into the nothing?
Education is cheap and easy because we have both plenty of educated people, and sentient AI. Same for medicine.

It’s one of the few pieces of media that has traditionally outright agreed with the spirit of what you’re saying. There’s no need to shit on its message that if we find the cause to work together, we have it within us to develop fully automated luxury gay space communism because we’re more alike than we are different, and an exploration of those differences will bring us together.

The difference between a post scarcity society and the good place is that it’s not that there’s no problems, it’s that there’s no significant material problems. And it’s not like the entire galaxy was like that.

Cynicism becoming conflated with realism is boring.
At it’s heart, the expanse was explicitly not post scarcity, so comparing it’s treatment of inequality with one where those problems have been solved is silly. It’s like saying the expanse is unrealistic because their spaceships are too fast, and Apollo 13 is a more realistic portrayal.

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ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Star Trek is written from the perspective of post-scarcity. There is unlimited free energy, replicators that can create virtually any object from base materials, and an abolishment of money (there is no need for it in post-scarcity, as money is ostensibly just a way to distribute resources).

Rowan J Coleman explores the concepts in a 3 part series here, if you’re interested.

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kboos1@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It’s definitely easy to poke holes in the logic and suspend disbelief for so long. At the end of the day it’s an idea that if all basic human needs are taken care of then what would we do?

The replicator is also the trash collector and dish washer. When you’re done with your food you just put the left overs back into the replicator and when you “relieve yourself” it goes back into the replicator. Want new furniture? Replicator. Want new clothes? Replicator. So on so forth.

The only thing that is in short supply is energy, so there have been occasional mention of energy rations or credits that can be traded for services. There are still some resource limitations and you have to work or be productive and contributing member of society to gain access. But if you wish to sit around until you get bed sores then you can do that, you will probably be ignored and be an outsider and get visits from healthcare workers.

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- Grail@multiverse.soulism.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  And yet wine snobs still insist on working at a vineyard so they can have non-replicated wine, because it “tastes better”.
  
  Truly, I wish I had their problems.
  
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  - Stern@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Thing is, replicator food works from standard sets. Think of it like getting McDonalds. You get Maccas in the U.K.? Tastes like McD’s in Japan or Korea or India. It gets tiresome. Hence why they have Neelix, Guinan, or Quark running bars, kitchens, or lounges to put the human (Well… you know what I mean.) touch on things.
    
    So yeah, deffo wish my biggest problem was my unlimited sauvignon blanc was only 8/10 so I decided to take up winemaking as a hobby to try and one up it.
    
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  - Kirk@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Yeah exactly, it’s about what goes in, not what comes out.
    
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