How to explain this quote from "The Survivors"?

Yeah, most likely.

But it's part of the fun to find in-universe explanations for these things.

 

Why, when there's Pornhub?

 

Not really. You can be a starving student with a threadbare suit and mismatched shoes and still be a millionaire or whatever. The issue isn't that Rishon's parents objected to his poverty. They just objected to his appearance, which may have been the result of eccentricity or slovenly behavior.

 

Uh-huh. No excuses for anyone "starving" in Utopia. Just a writer's inconsistency.

 

Well, starving literally means dying of hunger. I don't think she met him in a hospital or a gutter with his last breath. There's hyperbole going on just with the use of starving here.

Whether that's starving for attention, "starving" because he was skinny, or "starving" because he was low-class (certainly, classes exist in your so-called "Utopia"), or most likely just a common variation on "starving artist" - a phrase that the writer, through Rishon, was certainly evoking, which would imply that Kevin was focused on his studies to the cost of everything else (but, not, you know, actually starving, as "starving artists" aren't dying in droves).

Not everything said in an episode is meant to be taken literally. There's metaphors, turns of phrases, exaggerations, you know it better than I.

It's not an inconsistency. Only early TNG Data might object to the statement. Everyone else knew what she was getting at.

 

It may be worth mentioning that this isn't the real Rishon. It's a romanticized recreation of Kevin's. I don't know how much it matters in this instance in particular, but it's relevant in others, such as when she insists on remaining in the house despite the fact that everything outside the yard is an apocalyptic wasteland. It's a plot point that Picard is able to read through her mannerisms and perceive her as unreal.

Additionally, Kevin's appearance when he met the real Rishon had no basis in causality as a Federation citizen. As someone who could alter his form, he was how he wished to appear. If there had been any incongruity in how he appeared, it would have been on Rishon for overlooking it. Or, maybe she saw it but didn't care.

 

It's pretty easy to explain. Despite Picard's poetic waxing about how the 24th century is a post-scarcity utopia blah blah blah...it's yet another example in a massive pile of evidence that there is SOME form of economy, and yes...people need to get paid...in the future.

 

The first part I just consider a turn of phrase, but the idea that she proposed two hours after she met him raised my eyebrow.

 

It could be just a term that survived past the era where it meant more literally... like “burning the midnight oil”? It might be used to describe a 24th century college student for a reason.

 

....but that still leaves the question of why he was wearing a "threadbare suit" and "mismatched shoes" unless it really was a fashion statement/youth subculture like I proposed earlier.

 

I've been working on this one. The "Universal Basic Income" equivalent is a place to live, a base model replicator, and healthcare. Any luxuries on top of that you get by how much you "better humanity". We won't get into how that's calculated here. But someone who is completely devoted to a subject, who either has not yet gotten to the point of sharing their work with the world (or everyone is uninterested in what they produce), would be stuck at the basic "Starving artist" level. So artists who don't share their work, Musicians who write but don't perform, Students who learn but haven't done anything with that knowledge yet.

 

Maybe Kevin read some of the same books that Alixus ("Paradise", DS9) read and shunned the use of technology? It's not a matter of money, it's a matter of not wanting to wear replicated clothes.

 

I don't think I'd want to live in any society where so much of your life is judged based on how worthy you are to the State. That sounds a lot like Starship Troopers (the film, anyway).

In any case, what if your line of work doesn't involve bettering humanity (whatever the hell that actually means)? What if you're NOT an artist or musician or whatever?

 

Personally I prefer in the idea that the Federation in the 24th century doesn't use any money anymore. No money, no credits no nothing, unless we're bartering with places outside the Federation.

However, as I said in another thread, as an alternative I could see a sort of system where all your basic needs and most desires are met for free; you get a nice place to live, electricity, water and everything you can possibly replicate for free, this includes things we would today call luxuries, i.e. you can replicate diamond necklaces up to the wazoo if you feel like it.
But beyond that non-replicated things might be a priced luxury for which you have to pay "credits". For example if you want a hand-sown dress made from non-replicated cotton (I assume non-replicated silk is unavailable, because you'd need to kill silk worms to produce it), you have you have to spend the credits you have earned from work. And non-replicated things are probably held in higher regard, judging by how much the characters on TNG always whine about how "non-replicated food is better!"

 

The Short Trek "The Escape-Artist" pretty much put paid to that notion.

I mean, ever since TOS, we've always known that "Federation credits" were a thing. We didn't know exactly what credits WERE, but we always knew they were there.

But in "The Escape-Artist", we are told that bounty hunters (IIRC, not all of whom were actually from species who are members of the Federation) looking for Harry Mudd could expect to be paid...in Federation credits.

So that is as close to conclusive proof (that Federation credits are money) as we are ever likely to have. Why would a bounty hunter want to be paid in anything that ISN'T money?

And before anyone brings up the possibility that credits were done away with by the 24th century: I might point out that, in TNG's "The Price", the rights to the Barzan wormhole were being negotiated...in Federation credits.

Also in "Firstborn" (again, TNG), Riker cashes in his stock of Federation credit vouchers in order to get Quark to give him information. Like the aforementioned bounty hunters, I don't see Quark placing any value on anything that isn't money...

 

Then ignore my first paragraph and go to second and third ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Or it could be a currency that the Federation (and its citizens) uses when bartering with societies that still have money.

 

The money doesn't exist on Earth, I take that to mean the UNE doesn't use money, and everyone is cared for, under UNE tutelage or visit.

But the FEDERATION, the Federal polity, has a Federal currency, the Credit, which by its name is probably tied to a credit system. A UNE citizen can have Fed Credits, but not Earth ones, or there are Earth credits, but its using a more distributionary system than a monetary? one, or a reputation-based one. or a trust (E.g every citizen gets this as a base, there are ways to get more by some bureaucratic process or application, visitors get this package/services guaranteed, so on).

Now Gene says there's no money, but I can take that to mean that a Fed citizen would be bemused or disgusted if I gave them a coin, a wad of banknotes, or something of that nature. The Federation currency is most likely electronic, if not tied biometrically, fiat based, and transferrable akin to our Cypto of today, but much more mature, easy to use, and standardized.

 

Perhaps, because he was a creepy alien observing humans but didn't know the intricacies of how to blend in.

 

We know he's not really starving because he's some super powered alien who could do whatever he wants so maybe he looked like some super skinny lad who looked to her like he needed a feed, his outfit was something he made or found which is why it's mismatched and it's one of those things where someone makes assumptions about what you look like and having no idea about your environment you just roll with it. Even with Trek Earth as post-scarcity utopia I think there are still real people that fall through the cracks one way or another or choose to live away from what one might think as government handouts, especially if one fancied themselves as something like a Christopher McCandless type.

 

The most straight forward explaination is often the best.

Earth has a society with money by whatever name, Kevin was short on money as he was a then primarily a student and his employment was not full time. Guy was short on cash. The starving part was him fitting the role.

What is this?