Human Civilian Occupations in Trekverse

[polyharmonic]

If I won the lottery, I'd still work, I'd just work when I feel like it in jobs that won't necessarily make me money.

And herein lies the problem.

Unless everything is automated, there needs to be grunt work done. By definition, that is the kind of work that no one will want to do and no one will do it if no one has to work. And even if there are people doing it out of civic duty, they won't do it reliably if they aren't compelled by having to do it to make ends meet.

The only solution is to make non-sentient androids do all the grunt work. In which case, we should be seeing Trek full of androids rather than humans doing it.

 

[Idran]

The only solution is to make non-sentient androids do all the grunt work. In which case, we should be seeing Trek full of androids rather than humans doing it.

Why androids? There's tons of automation today, and they don't use human-shaped robots for any of those, because human shapes are horrible for most of those grunt tasks; it's unnecessary to have a human form for those roles. From assembly line work to roombas, you don't need human-form robots to do grunt work when you can design a robot whose overall form is specifically modeled for the task necessary.

We know that starships have automated cleaning, for example, and we didn't see any nonsentient androids in janitor outfits or something, because that would be silly.

Beyond that, when do we see humans doing grunt work with no benefit? I can't remember any reason why we should assume there aren't robots doing all the grunt work.

 

[polyharmonic]

Beyond that, when do we see humans doing grunt work with no benefit? I can't remember any reason why we should assume there aren't robots doing all the grunt work.

Well all those servers on Ten Forward are doing grunt work.

Now I suppose there are people that enjoy being food servers and busboys and such but IRL this is a "menial" job that people do simply for the money. And more to the point, you could easily have robots do it. The whole idea of employing civilians as servers on Ten Forward just makes no sense.

 

[1001001]

Free travel and adventure across the galaxy?

 

[Mr Soak]

The only solution is to make non-sentient androids do all the grunt work. In which case, we should be seeing Trek full of androids rather than humans doing it.

Remember, in Voyager, we saw repurposed EMH Mk-1s being used as slave labour in mines, as holograms don't have rights. There's your "grunt" workforce automation.

 

[Timo]

The thing is, menial work is the angle best covered by volunteers. After all, it requires little or no training. In the pool of trillions of bored citizens, a suitably bored million will always be available for sweeping the streets - and if they get too bored halfway through the day, that's no problem because the queue behind them spans the galaxy. Nobody need sweep the streets twice in their lives. That is, unless they want to.

At the other end of the spectrum, volunteer brain surgeons surely trump brain surgeons who only go through the motions to get money for a hovercar... Similarly, if Boothby agrees to mind the premises for free, he's obviously going to do a better job than the guy who asked for a condo and two holowives in return. Heck, the Academy should actually hire the guy who says he'll provide a condo and two holohusbands for the Commandant for the privilege!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The whole idea of employing civilians as servers on Ten Forward just makes no sense.

Not at all.

Wherever you have people drinking, you'll need bartenders. It provides a valuable way for crewmembers to socialize (they'll tell their bartender things they won't tell their doctor, as Dr. Boyce once said), and there's always a market for unique drinks that people don't want to get from a replicator.

It's the same reason why Garak exists as a tailor even though people can get clothes from replicators (only a real tailor knows what the customer likes).

 

[Timo]

Or at least that's what people will continue to like to think. In practice, a computer might know much better what a customer really likes - but that isn't all that helpful if it turns out that what the customer likes is real tailors.

As for replicators and variety, again computers probably do much better. Take a hundred cooks and they can only produce a hundred different filet mignons. Take a single replicator and it can produce a hundred million varieties. And at no extra cost, probably, because mechanistically "variety" is what replicators do for a living (that's what Picard's personal settings for his tea is all about), and creatively the recipe part of varieties of food can either be done by an expert program running on a computer that does much more demanding things at utter leisure and can effortlessly spare computing time for sentient holograms and the like, or then be outsourced to live cooks on a social network, easily resulting in a million filet mignon recipes per day.

Whether it would be necessary to pretend that there are live people involved, just because the customer mistakenly thinks he prefers live people, we don't know. Joe Sisko runs a pseudo-business, but it's a tiny one... And not replicating one's food is considered freaky whenever the issue arises.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

At the end of the day, you want your real friends and family, whatever form they take. If you have a hologram friend and someone makes a robot of him, it's not the same. If you have a flesh and blood spouse/love interest/sibling and somebody makes a hologram, it's not the same. If you have parents and somebody makes a sock puppet version of them, it's not the same.

 

[Timo]

...Might still be damned convenient to be able to turn off your parent or spouse, tho. Or at least adjust the volume. And I could well see many going for it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I meant if you had them in one form and then were given a permanent, other-form replacement.

 

[Idran]

At the end of the day, you want your real friends and family, whatever form they take. If you have a hologram friend and someone makes a robot of him, it's not the same. If you have a flesh and blood spouse/love interest/sibling and somebody makes a hologram, it's not the same. If you have parents and somebody makes a sock puppet version of them, it's not the same.

Depends, really. If it was some kind of transhumanist mind transfer, where it's legitimately the same person (as in same experiences, same personality, etc.), then it'd be the same to me. A person is their mind, after all, not the physical form they happened to start out existence with.

 

[Nyotarules]

In Trek, we have encounter many "civilians". But upon further reflection, many of these menial occupations simply make no sense.

Servers on Ten-Forward:
Why would you need such people? I get that you need a dining area but couldn't people just bus their own food from replicators?. Or just have non-sentient robots do it! And in Trek, since no one seems to have to work to survive, why would anyone want such a menial job anyway?

Boothby the groundskeeper:
Really? I mean IRL this is a menial job that people do to survive. Aren't there robots or fully automated grounds keeping equipment that can do all this work?

Joseph Sisko, restaurateur
In the future where all food can be prepared to perfection with replicators at home, the idea of someone doing all the grunt work of running a restaurant seems out of place. Maybe he runs it as a hobby and sets his hours as he sees fit?

Robert Picard, viticulturist
I suppose one could say its just a hobby rather than a true occupation. But otherwise this "occupation" makes no sense. Would seem to be completely obsolete.

There must also be a lot of people who do all sorts of other grunt work, both for StarFleet and in civilian life. But why would they do it?

I am sure that I am missing a lot more examples of menial occupations that simply shouldn't exist in such a futuristic utopian Trekverse. Having said that, I can still imagine people being artists, athletes, scientists/engineers/physicians and so forth.

In the future no job is seen as menial....

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Depends, really. If it was some kind of transhumanist mind transfer, where it's legitimately the same person (as in same experiences, same personality, etc.), then it'd be the same to me. A person is their mind, after all, not the physical form they happened to start out existence with.

Soul, actually.

And I was referring more to if it was a facsimile made simply based on what someone knew of that person, nothing of the real person aside from what you'd remember/draw from their records. 2D.

 

[Idran]

Soul, actually.

Eh, if there's a soul, there's no reason it wouldn't just be part of the mind and travel along with it (otherwise brain damage couldn't change a person's personality, for example), so you may as well consider them interchangeable concepts, two names for the same thing.

 

[Timo]

Also, the whole issue of "dolls as people" is largely dependent on the immense flexibity of the human mind. In the right circumstances, a human may find companionship in a pet rock. A speaking doll is a person to the flexible mind if need be; a doll "drawn from records" may convince us if we wish, but fail to do so if our minds are set the other way, even when the simulation is ramped up all the way to 100% perfection. After all, it's a well known psychopathological phenomenon that people may persistently mistake other people for inanimate objects, fakes, ghosts or whatever, as well as vice versa; there's a delicate switch inside all of us that can be jiggled to that effect, and future dollmakers may become more adept at jiggling it.

Timo Saloniemi