Why can't Latinum be replicated?

[Pavonis]

Well, how many people in the 24th century have jobs? Maybe most of the human population, or even most of the Federation's population, are idle. There must be a reason humans don't use currency-based economics. Maybe it's the replicator.

Why do the Ferengi have jobs, then, if they have replicator technology, too? Maybe it's purely cultural, with latinum as a useful way to keep track of who is "winning" economically.

[Unicron]

Well, everyone in Starfleet has a job with some level of training, even if they don't receive a physical payment like currency for it. And then there are the civilians who maintain things like Earth's environmental systems and research, or even simply want to run a vineyard like Picard's or a restaurant like Sisko's. There's no reason to assume they're idle just because there's not a valuable monetary reward in it for them.

[Saturn0660]

And i would say the their "pay" is in replicator credits. Most likely for Lux goods. Tradable of course for transporter credits.

[Pavonis]

Transporter credits were only mentioned in relation to Starfleet Academy students. There's no indication that civilians are issued or required to expend transporter credits to move around.

[Deks]

Pavonis wrote:

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Well, how many people in the 24th century have jobs? Maybe most of the human population, or even most of the Federation's population, are idle. There must be a reason humans don't use currency-based economics. Maybe it's the replicator.

Or maybe... you know, it could be simple robotic/computer automation of, practically everything.
WE are already able to automate 75% of the global workforce with the technology readily available today, whereas 99% (or essentially VERY close to 100%) can be automated in less than a decade, because we are at a stage that we can automate tasks that hadn't been automated yet.

Robotics, computers, - mechanization/automation.

Most of the production industry today is mechanized.

Trek Humans have supposedly been using their technology for betterment of everyone (and not just the select few) since First Contact with the Vulcans.
They would already automate everything they could in the 50 years following FC (even though realistically, it could be done in less than 10 years with OUR technology - however, lets give them some leeway due to the WW3).

[T'Girl]

Pavonis wrote:

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Well, how many people in the 24th century have jobs?

Might be easier to figure how many people don't have jobs. I mean how many people did we see without one?

I can only think of a few. And they were usually someones child or spouse. Picard's not-son Jason Vigo was a adult and "between jobs." There had to be more, but most people we saw (when the matter was mentioned) did seem to have an occupation.

Saturn0660 wrote:

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And i would say the their "pay" is in replicator credits. Most likely for Lux goods. Tradable of course for transporter credits.

It might make more sense for their compensation to be in "general" credits. Acceptable tender for replicator use, transporter fees, restaurant bills, buying a retirement boat, and the occasional bolt of cloth in a foreign port.

Deks wrote:

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Or maybe... you know, it could be simple robotic/computer automation of, practically everything.

One of the problems with that is robots are almost unknown in the 24th century federation, the ones we do see are oddities. Even mining robots, which would seem a natural use for them, are seen only once and regarded by the Enterprise crew as unusual.

[Saturn0660]

I'd give you that. "federation credits". I wonder what the exchange rate is to Latinum.

[T'Girl]

Saturn0660 wrote:

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exchange rate

I'd imagine that it bounces around a fair bit. The Federation's fortunes rise and fall, and and so does the value of the credit against foreign money. New resources are discovered, a spacial phenomena destroys a sector, pirates raid a trading corridor, members join and members leave again. Plus the Federation apparently can't stay out of wars.

I could see the Ferengi manipulating the value of GPL to keep it artificially low, they're the galaxies traders, they would want the people to come to them for their good and services, and not their local markets. The Ferengi might dream of the big deal, but make the majority of their GPL by undercutting the competition by a few percentage points.

The game source book for Star Trek Universe puts the exchange rate at one federation credit to ten slips of GPL. However, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine game rule book says one credit to one slip. I personal put the TOS era credit at five dollars in value, base on The Trouble with Tribbles initial bar fine for a tribble (10cr), verses the cost of getting my kitten out of the shelter (50 $us).

[Deks]

T'Girl wrote:

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One of the problems with that is robots are almost unknown in the 24th century federation, the ones we do see are oddities. Even mining robots, which would seem a natural use for them, are seen only once and regarded by the Enterprise crew as unusual.

We do know that Federation ships per early TNG have self-repair and self-cleaning systems
(this alone implies pretty large implementation of automation as is).

Automation as its used today for example with robots in the real world wouldn't necessarily apply to the Federation as most of these processes could be done by similar, yet different types of automated technological processes.
For mining, just automate remote computer controlled systems with phaser drills, transporters, and replicators to process the ore.
There are tons of applications from the technology we have in the real world the writers could have used and mixed it with Federation technology.

As for what we saw in Voyager 'Author, Author' in the end with holograms working in a dilithium mining facility...
What we saw was writers being utterly stupid (as usual) completely ignoring what could have been done in the real world using available technology today to automate things (if we decided to do it instead of letting 'money' dictating everything), let alone the Federation with its technology and computers where its actually SENSIBLE to implement vast quantities of automation wherever possible in order to allow people to pursue their own interests in life.
I mean, Robotics are the technology from 1958. I can imagine Trek humans implementing vastly more advanced means of robotics in the 50 years following First Contact... but in the 24th century....

I'm thinking many people are stuck with a perception: 'you need people to do the work' instead of 'machines doing most of the 'dirty work'' - that's why the writers 'de-evolved' the show into 'current conditions set in SPACE' as time went on (they simply got extremely lazy).

[T'Girl]

Deks wrote:

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We do know that Federation ships per early TNG have self-repair and self-cleaning systems

The thing there is, it's made clear in TNG-DS9-VOY that starships are incapable of repairing themselves, and therefor don't engage in self repair.

Anything requiring even the smallest level of physical manipulation, is done "hands on" by a living being. How many times did we see people crawling through jeffries tubes to make small adjustment directly to equipment and replace small components?

this alone implies pretty large implementation of automation as is

Actually, just the opposite. The implication is that macro level physical automation is all but absent, "cleaning itself" would seem to be the most the ship can do too itself.

the writers could have used

But they didn't.

I can imagine Trek humans implementing vastly more advanced means of robotics ...

But they didn't.

As for what we saw in Voyager 'Author, Author' in the end with holograms working in a dilithium mining facility.

Only because Starfleet could not figure out what to do with them, and it's unlikely that more EMH mark ones were created (beyond the 600 plus existing) to be a large "automated " work force given Starfleet's overall displeasure with them.

that's why the writers 'de-evolved' the show into 'current conditions set in SPACE' as time went on (they simply got extremely lazy).

Where do you see any "de-evolution" at all? Starfleet/Federation never had a large robot contingent, that was subsequently removed as time went on.

What we saw was writers being utterly stupid (as usual)

No, it was them being consistent within the Trek universe that was created.