What's Earth like in the 24th Century?

[Arpy]

I think that's more because of exotic constituents of certain molecules that can't be replicated (like latinum) but not the case for most of them (like gold).

Similarly, whenever they need the transporters or scanners not to work on a planet, they say there are ____ deposits in the surrounding rock. The deposits are never lead or uranium, but something very alien like kelbonite.

 

[The Wormhole]

Star Trek's theme is that natural is preferred whenever possible, and therefore real food is better than replicated. Just the way it is.

I seem to remember a young Jaffa who saw the way things were and yet dared to dream of a way they might be!

Not so young. He waited until he was in his 90s to do anything.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Based on what the characters on the shows say from time to time, I think the replicator can make just as good a copy of a food item as the original.

Riker even said something about taking patterns from the transporter to replicate food. And the transporter has to recreate whatever the pattern as accurately as possible.

But is the "smoked barbecue chicken" going to taste like smoked barbecue chicken?

I take it for granted that a replicator can't produce the meat from a unblemished, one year old male lamb.

But why can't it? You scan a young lamb's muscle. And if they're still being butchered, you can scan the meat itself. You scan several dozen of them.

Store it and make a copy. If anything, it should be more available and easier than the natural way.


What I see is apparently artificial scarcity or problems created by the plots to drive drama.

We're supposed to believe that the Bajorans starve during a drought because they insist on farming--because it's more natural?

When replicators can feed them sufficiently. Seems a little weird to me.

 

[Jedman67]

Apparently, manufacturing replicators ain't so simple. I'm forced to assume that major food-service companies have licensed what can and cannot be replicated; so you can easily replicate a McSpace Burger but not necessarily medium-rare grass fed steak. And as in institutions everyplace, even though theoretically replicators can replicate - ANYTHING - you can only select from pre-approved menus of institution quality food.

 

[Timo]

Star Trek's theme is that natural is preferred whenever possible

Oh? To the contrary, whenever somebody tries to go natural, Starfleet sends in Kirk, who blasts the organic paradise to bits with infrasounds and then deports the hippies!

Also, synthetic Lieutenant Commanders apparently are to be preferred to organic ones.

"Natural" never held much sway in Trek, except in the broad sense of "natural order of things" which generally was defined by industrial rather than pre- or post-industrial standards...

Apparently, manufacturing replicators ain't so simple.

Which is weird in itself. Make one and you have a billion!

Apparently, there are replicators and then there are replicators, though. The shipment of "industrial" ones to Bajor in "For the Cause" might have kickstarted a replicator-based economy on the planet, if not for the theft. One of those babies could have provided every home with a food replicator, assuming enough power was available. And Bajorans did seem to be thinking that power is food back in "Progress" already, where they destroyed an entire planet (well, moon, by somebody's definition, but those are fuzzy) full of life and food in order to get power.

Soil reclamation as in "Shakaar" I can understand: replicators would supposedly make these people more dependent on the central government and its infrastructure, while farming might sustain them independently of the state. But replicators would feed them better and more securely.

Hunting for pleasure is probably outlawed or looked down upon.

To the contrary, both Sisko and Riker are known to fish, with no social stigma attached. Apparently, giving the victims a fair chance is fine, while enslaving in raising pens and the like is not.

Then again, we only saw Sisko holo-fish. If the unreality of the situation makes it dandy, then eating raw flesh including the still pulsating heart of the poor beast ought to be fine, too, provided this flesh is replicated.

As observed, Sisko father serves real shell fish

All we know is that he serves things that need to be processed first, the way real shellfish would. But he thinks that cooking that way is fun - so for all we know, he gets synthetic shellfish that he then prepares the traditional way.

We've seen "home cooking" in TNG and DS9, labeled as highly exotic and eccentric. But we haven't seen where the ingredients came from. Hardly from the local arboretum, I'd think. More probably from the replicator!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jedman67]

Apparently, manufacturing replicators ain't so simple.

Which is weird in itself. Make one and you have a billion!

That is the obvious assumption; but in the shows its shown not to be so simple. When you have the technology to instantly teleport objects (and humans) from one place to another on the atomic/quantum level, and another technology that can instantly recreate complex items on the molecular level; why can't you just replicate - MORE replicators?
It seems that even TNG replicators have significant limitations and DS9 shows that converting a 'kitchen replicator' into a transporter requires some fancy equipment and serious know-how. I would suggest that in theory, one can create a replicator capable of even replicating people; after all if everything can be stored as a pattern, and a person is just another pattern....
But since that is demonstrated to be impossible, then it makes sense that there are hardware and software limitations preventing such misuse, among other things.

 

[T'Girl]

And with replicated it's safer to eat

How is safe food from a replicator "safer" than safe food from a non-replicator source.

... no animal needed to be raised for slaughter

I spent a chunk of my childhood on a farm, what in the slightest is wrong with raising animals to be slaughtered?

and you can design it to be exactly what you want.

Not a given in this discussion.

 

[Tarek71]

And with replicated it's safer to eat

How is safe food from a replicator "safer" than safe food from a non-replicator source.

... no animal needed to be raised for slaughter

I spent a chunk of my childhood on a farm, what in the slightest is wrong with raising animals to be slaughtered?

and you can design it to be exactly what you want.

Not a given in this discussion.

Oh it's much safer. It's built right there in front of you. No concern about time spent in shipping, packing, refrigeration. Far less concern about food bourne illnesses. It's wonderful. Say goodbye to food poisoning! Why would the replicator decide to replicate a harmful bacteria on your replicated salad to make you sick?

It is a given that you can have it however you want. Design exactly the cut, thickness, molecular composition, etc.

Some people have moral concerns about slaughtering animals. That moral concern is gone. Again, wonderful.

 

[Nightdiamond]

^^ The replicators also have virus filters built in. A replicator can simulate the freshest of meat every time, courtesy of scanning the pattern



What in the slightest is wrong with raising animals to be slaughtered? That question answers itself. That's exactly what Riker was talking about.

Ok, right now, maybe it's necessary or not, and maybe that makes a lot of us hypocrites. But that's exactly why an invention like the replicator is needed and anticipated.

Whenever a trek crew was in danger of being eaten, they didn't take it too well.


We might as well throw religion in the mix now . Humans are probably noticeably less religious on earth in the 24th century, I'd guess.

 

[Timo]

I would suggest that in theory, one can create a replicator capable of even replicating people; after all if everything can be stored as a pattern, and a person is just another pattern....
But since that is demonstrated to be impossible, then it makes sense that there are hardware and software limitations preventing such misuse, among other things.

Yet that has not been demonstrated to be impossible. Nowhere in Trek has anybody said "Oh, if we just could replicate people - but as you well know, we can't!" or any words to that effect.

Very much to the contrary, we know that at least the following are replicable: (human) eyes ("Loud as a Whisper"), (Vulcanoid) blood ("Data's Day"), (Klingon) spinal cords ("Ethics") and (random Delta alien) brain stem neural matter ("Emanations"). Creating living tissue piecemeal is not a problem. Putting it together may be a challenge, but it is a distinct possibility rather than an impossibility.

It's just a capability for which there is no demand. Oh, some mad scientist may have replicated a living human or a Vulcan in his laboratory/kitchen, but since there's no market for those, we don't hear about the feat. The UFP is not short on people!

Similarly, we never learn that replicators couldn't replicate further replicators. When the Voyager suffers from a shortage of those, it's a total shortage: there's no "seed" replicator they could use to repair the others. In normal circumstances, our heroes suffer from no shortage of replicators and hence von Neumann machines are not a subject that should arise.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MacLeod]

Replicators do have their limitations, for example for Latinium to be worth anything replicators can't be capable of replicating it.

Voyager had replicators yet we are told they have no way to replace their limited supply of torpedeos, so the inferrence once again is one or more components can't be replicated.

 

[Timo]

Replicators do have their limitations, for example for Latinium to be worth anything replicators can't be capable of replicating it.

How so? It's not all that difficult to make coins - anybody could do that in their garage, really. But coin forgery still isn't a worthwhile effort, simply because there's a cost attached, and the profits don't cover the costs.

Latinum isn't just a substance, it's a currency. For all we know, replicating a slip or a bar of latinum just creates a useless duplicate that has zero value because its serial number is identical to the original, and it's trivially easy to check the number against the public record with those super-duper computer connections of tomorrow.

Okay, so nobody bothers to check in case of the slips. But anybody toying with a bar would check, and spot the forgery.

And with "serial number" I don't mean an actual engraved string of numbers, but a chemical code of some sort. Simple enough to check by tasting in case of slips (Quark does that on occasion), but readable in finer detail with suitable machinery if somebody tries to offer you a bar.

Voyager had replicators yet we are told they have no way to replace their limited supply of torpedeos

Actually, they did replace that limited supply - they used more than the originally specified 38. OTOH, when they spoke of having a limited supply, their replicators were still shot to hell.

It seems that it was impossible to get good spares or conduct proper repairs while in Kazon space. Past the Nekrit Expanse, there would finally have been civilized ports of call, and a source for both new torps and the parts with which to repair the replicators.

In DS9 "Tribunal", it's implied that standard replicators can't produce torpedo warheads, or else the Maquis wouldn't have been plausible suspects in the theft of those. But as said, there are different sorts of replicators. And we never hear of an impossibility - we only hear of various limitations. And those can be ignored by a stubborn replicator operator with power, computing power and time to spare... And with no interest in things like optimization or profit.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nightdiamond]

I can see where having a farm where cows roam free and getting milk from them from time to time would be acceptable to 24th century humans. And the same with chickens.

But locked up in an enclosed space and used as a milking machine or butchered-- I don't see that being approved of in the 24th century.

Why need to keep a cow handy, when the replicator can provide the same product, in a dozen different varieties. Plus with instant temperature, disease control etc.

I noticed that in order to explain why people would rather have the natural thing instead of the replicator, Trek had to make the replicator preform progressively worse.

Based on memory of certain episodes and fan ideas;

First, it could make anything a person wanted.

Then it was it could create a very close copy but not quite enough.

Then it couldn't make certain things at all, even though previously it was suggested it could.

Then finally, it makes a poorly adequate copy of certain items.

So we see that certain species like Bajorans rely on farming, even though they have to deal with drought and bad weather, even though it has been stated a replicator could do a lot to feed them efficiently to get them back on their feet.

It seems like an odd situation when you have the replicator available. It was never explained.

 

[Jedman67]

Replicators do have their limitations, for example for Latinium to be worth anything replicators can't be capable of replicating it.

How so? It's not all that difficult to make coins - anybody could do that in their garage, really. But coin forgery still isn't a worthwhile effort, simply because there's a cost attached, and the profits don't cover the costs.

It's not simple at all. Anyone who wants to spend the time and money to be able to mint their own coins, technically can. After learning HOW to mint coins. And buying specialized equipment. And purchasing the raw materials. etc, etc.

 

[Timo]

It seems like an odd situation when you have the replicator available. It was never explained.

But would Bajorans have the replicator available? For some reason, the UFP was unwilling or unable to dump all of its paradisial technologies and customs onto the planet - perhaps not least because Bajorans hated outside interference. We saw precious little evidence of replicator technology on Bajor, but then again, we saw precious little of Bajor...

It's not simple at all. Anyone who wants to spend the time and money to be able to mint their own coins, technically can. After learning HOW to mint coins. And buying specialized equipment. And purchasing the raw materials. etc, etc.

And after that's done, yes, making coins is simple. Any hoodlum in the First World could make the modest effort, just like any hoodlum in the UFP has access to a replicator. But there's no point, because it doesn't pay.

In general, creating copies of precious items has the unfortunate side effect of making them non-precious: abstract value is only to be found in rarity or scarcity, whether natural or artificially created. So while replicators would make people rich by any absolute definition, they would be of no real use in get-rich-quick schemes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tim Walker]

Abstract value...in scarcity.... In terms of coins, think of gold and silver. Metals that are shiny and scarce.

There were some coins minted privately in Salt Lake City. Using gold from the California gold rush. These coins are now collector items, and they are quite expensive.

www.bunkerhillrarecoin.com/?id=17

 

[Timo]

And replicating those would make them lose that value: by making two of a gold rush coin, you'd probably drop the value of each to way less than half the original.

OTOH, most coins are made of cheap, even worthless materials. Their value is purely abstract, and scarcity is artificially created and would keep on being so generated even if somebody dumped a trillion replicated coins to the market.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tim Walker]

Typical coins, like paper money, is fiat currency. It has economic value because the government says it does.

 

[Jedman67]

But you also have inflation; too many dollars floating around and then the cost of goods goes up since it costs more to produce.

 

[voss749]

We have Barclay living in a not-worth-rebuilding yet still old-looking apartment in Boston in VOY, and that's about it.

Were there ever any Mad Max years? 600,000,000 sounds like an awfully low death toll for the loss of "all the major cities", each of them no doubt clocking in at 20 million or so at least (as that's the real standard of "major city" even today). Were only the major cities destroyed, and nothing else? Were the weapons employed especially good at killing cities and did little or no harm to the countryside or the smaller towns?

The nature of WWIII has never been described in great detail, but we know from "A Matter of Time" that nukes and even a nuclear winter were involved. From "Omega Glory" we know this was not the classic Commies vs. Yankees superpower exchange, as this was specifically said to have been "avoided" by Earth. So we don't know the combatants (except for this mysterious ECON) nor the length of the fighting, and we don't know how global this incident was. "Post-atomic horror" could have been a local phenomenon or a global one: "Encounter at Farpoint" gives few pointers. No landmark or location is specifically said to have been victimized by the war.

Timo Saloniemi

600 million sounds consistent with a conventional war a limited nuclear exchange (a couple hundred nukes) and breakdown of civil authority.