No money. You mean no physical currency? Why is Picard growing Pinots?
Surely wine can be perfectly replicated.
Does he just give it away?
I'm certain there must be a money economy somewhere.
Spoilers Everyday life on earth
- Thread starter robau
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Surely wine can be perfectly replicated.
Does he just give it away?
I'm certain there must be a money economy somewhere.
The Ferengi Alliance.
Trek has always maintained that replicated is not as good, even from characters like Troi:
The Next Generation, Season 3 Episode 8: "The Price" Act 1 Scene 1:
TROI: Computer, dispatches.
COMPUTER: A research enquiry from the Manitoba Journal of Interplanetary Psychology and three communiqués from your mother.
TROI: Transfer the letters from my mother to the viewscreen. And, computer, I would like a real chocolate sundae.
COMPUTER: Define real in context, please.
TROI: Real. Not one of your perfectly synthesised, ingeniously enhanced imitations. I would like real chocolate ice cream, real whipped cream
COMPUTER: This unit is programmed to provide sources of acceptable nutritional value. Your request does not fall within current guidelines. Please indicate whether you wish to override the specified program?
No.
He likes doing it and it is the tradition of his family.
No, not perfectly. Or perhaps too perfectly. Regardless, it is not quite the same.
Yes.
Yes, outside the Federation and perhaps some shadow economy for illegal things. The normal everyday economy is moneyless.
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Well, for as long as we have seen replicators, we have also seen people constantly complaining about how bland, fake, artificial etc. replicated food tastes. I'd guess 24th century people would have the same feelings towards replicated vs. real wine that today's people have towards a $5 bottle of wine vs a $50 bottle of wine. Even if the replicated stuff isn't objectively of lower quality, many people would expect it to taste fake even before trying it, and would prefer wine that actually had the efforts of real people put into making it. Just like how people go to Sisko's to eat Joe's lovingly prepared food instead of just ordering some cajun dishes from the computer.
According to the flashback in "Maps and Legends" the Federation may have solved that problem and the new replicators may actually produce food that is 100% identical to the real deal.
Besides, no money on Earth in the late 24th century doesn't mean people don't trade or use credits in a non-currency system that allows commerce of items that aren't available from commercial replicators. Picard and his vineyard may "earn" credits from customers that allows him and his employees to upgrade to newer and better commercial equipment to use on the property and expand their operation.
Ron Moore was on record of pretty much wanting to ignore the replicator because it made problem solving very easily. Same with the transporter. It is often ignored or conveniently broken because it can quite easily can solve many problems
That's how I've always seen it.
The Federation does have a form of money, it's called "credits". But these have no physical form. There aren't bills or coins. All transactions are electronic, like in the first TNG ep where Beverly buys something and puts it "on [her] account".
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When I was younger I used to have this thought, but then it occurred to me how silly it is.
Lilly: "This ship must have cost a fortune!"
Picard: "The economics of the future are different, we don't use money we work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity!"
Lilly: "No money? You mean you don't get paid?"
Picard: "Oh, no, I get paid. I'm just not given or have available to me physical currency. We just purely use a digital payment/debit system."
It doesn't make much sense. It seems there's got to be some kind of "payment" system as without one there's always the question of why you've got people who'd work BS jobs like in crappy ship-building bunkers with in the 24th century with modified 20th century 3D-printers that produce for you horrible tasting food, or why someone would be a server in Sisko's restaurant.
So the thought I generally have is that all your needs are met on some basic level, food, shelter, health-care, but if you want more, a bigger home, a starship, you've got to "work" for it and you're simply "paid" by those things being more available to you. You get "paid" in a sense but you don't strictly have to work to just live a life.
Or choose to be a barkeep/ waiter on the Federation flagship instead of just magically opening his own place...
*Cough Lower Decks*
It functions very well!
He likes being out in space doing routine diplomatic missions and visiting Starbases for crew transfers, ahem, "exploring the vast reaches of space!!!"
Let's just say the economic of the future can't make sense to us because it's so out of our understanding and how we think things have to work for them to work. The nice thing, for me, about the future in Trek shown in TNG is just that humanity just got its shit figured out and somehow it all just works. Everyone has a home, everyone has food, everyone has medical care available to them, yet at the same time we still need to have waiters in restaurants, or people in the alley behind the restaurant shucking oysters, and you've got to somehow "work" for get that restaurant you own beyond there just needing to be space available. You can be that restaurant owner who has a popular, well visited, restaurant or you can be that famous author who wrote like 3 books who has a large, nice, house and got to attend the Acacdemy when he was in his 50s.
Somehow it works.
Let's equate it to going back in time to 1720 and trying to explain Bitcoin to someone. Something you can hardly explain to people today. (And in this analogy Bitcoin being a currency that's used by everyone/everywhere like any other currency.)
"Well you see, we have these things called computers, and then they use video cards and with them we "mine" through data to get us to a currency one of which is worth thousands of dollars..."
Humanity got its shit together. And that's supposed to be a future we want to see happening.
But, no, lets have this thing with people forced to work on holidays and using food-processing machines that can only make crummy generic-brand TV-dinner like meals when people in ships above you can ask the same device for any meal whatsoever. You get this because you're a lowly blue-collar peon and you deserve it! Be glad healthcare is free! ... Or is it?
It is not silly, it is a realistic result of effective post scarcity and and advanced automation.
Your altered dialogue shows exactly why this interpretation is disingenuous. This simply cannot be the case, it is clearly not the intent. Digital currency is nothing weird or revolutionary, Lily certainly would understand it just fine. No money means no money and that's that.
Those people work there because the ships need to be built so that 900 million lives can be saved! Now normally they'd have plenty of leaves etc, but they happen to be on tight schedule! Granted, It would be nice if someone had provided them with a better replicator. And people work at Sisko's restaurant because they like to socialise with people, want to gain experience because they want to open their own restaurant later or think that the work experience looks good on their CV.
[QUOTE="Longinus, post: 13243573, member: 11531"
Your altered dialogue shows exactly why this interpretation is disingenuous. This simply cannot be the case, it is clearly not the intent. Digital currency is nothing weird or revolutionary, Lily certainly would understand it just fine. No money means no money and that's that..[/QUOTE]
I'm guessing you're kind of agreeing with me? Because that's my entire point. There's no money. Though, at the same time, there's clearly "something" but it's likely a system beyond our understanding.
On the workers thing:
Well, we've seen plenty of times in the various shows with people being forced to work overtime or shifts they wouldn't like (a key interaction with Jelico comes to mind) but, I dunno, the attitude they show in this episode and we get from the little short about the two fighting girls kind of suggests these people are treated the same way we treat people who these kind of jobs today, and then tighten the screws more with the replicator thing.
The look of the building and the interior of the break room (as well as the UI on the computer) seems pretty consistent with what we see in the TOS movies, so yeah, maybe these things are closer to the "food synthesizers" in TOS than the full-on replicators we see in TNG-era, maybe that's what the little programming mentioned was about. It just still seems like it was just there to show that these people are pretty much "owed" their lot in life so they get these crummy little meals that are barely edible made from a device that looks like something built 400 years ago.
It doesn't feel like that hopeful future we're supposed to want to see. Yeah, there's a big job and they have to work on a holiday, shit happens. But the deal with the replicators? Seemed just this side of them going up to a service counter begging the worker for more.
Your altered dialogue shows exactly why this interpretation is disingenuous. This simply cannot be the case, it is clearly not the intent. Digital currency is nothing weird or revolutionary, Lily certainly would understand it just fine. No money means no money and that's that..[/QUOTE]
I'm guessing you're kind of agreeing with me? Because that's my entire point. There's no money. Though, at the same time, there's clearly "something" but it's likely a system beyond our understanding.
On the workers thing:
Well, we've seen plenty of times in the various shows with people being forced to work overtime or shifts they wouldn't like (a key interaction with Jelico comes to mind) but, I dunno, the attitude they show in this episode and we get from the little short about the two fighting girls kind of suggests these people are treated the same way we treat people who these kind of jobs today, and then tighten the screws more with the replicator thing.
The look of the building and the interior of the break room (as well as the UI on the computer) seems pretty consistent with what we see in the TOS movies, so yeah, maybe these things are closer to the "food synthesizers" in TOS than the full-on replicators we see in TNG-era, maybe that's what the little programming mentioned was about. It just still seems like it was just there to show that these people are pretty much "owed" their lot in life so they get these crummy little meals that are barely edible made from a device that looks like something built 400 years ago.
It doesn't feel like that hopeful future we're supposed to want to see. Yeah, there's a big job and they have to work on a holiday, shit happens. But the deal with the replicators? Seemed just this side of them going up to a service counter begging the worker for more.
Yes, but this really has nothing to do with compensation. Troi and Geordi do not put up with Jellico due financial compensations, they do so because they try to do their best as Starfleet officers. It is about duty and responsibility. I'm sure it is same with the shipbuilders. And even in if it was not a high stakes situation, any job or indeed a hobby might involve aspects you don't like so much, but you you tolerate them as the overall experience is fulfilling.
We as inhabitants of scarcity based capitalist society may sometimes have hard time grasping motivations and social dynamics of a society where those things do not matter. But ultimately most people want to feel useful, they want to be part of the society they want to accomplish something. And I think if the financial aspect was completely removed, such psychological aspects would be heightened.
How the ship yard is depicted is indeed a bit weird, but I really don't think there is need to over analyse it. They had an old replicator, there can be thousand reasons why, none of which have anything to do with the plot of the show.
To be fair, in an industrial environment where spilling various chemicals can lead up to all kinds of possibly lethal and destructive chain reactions, a sturdy replicator having an easily closed door might actually be not such a bad idea. Not to mention...
Janeway probably would've loved such a door too after the computer decided to spill her coffee everywhere
.
As i said before, the easiest explanation is that the replicators are better, in the sense that they offer a better resolution and because of that food that is much more like the "real thing". But it may have the disadvantage that the patterns need much more memory space, and because of this the users can maybe only order just one or a few dishes...
They talked about the food as if it were nearly inedible.
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