Raffi's poverty
- Thread starter GMDreia
- Start date
Clancy demonstrated her apology through her actions.
Clancy: Apologies are for fucking losers!
The "no money" thing on earth never made sense. William Shatner's old Trek novels used to parody it, by having Kirk (resurrected in the 24th century, and ignoring the "no money" reference in STIV) ask Spock what's stopping him from just walking into the best appartment or a newly built house and claiming it, or going to a shipyard and leaving with a brand-new starship. Every time Spock starts explaining, something happens and he never gets it out
The "no money" thing on earth never made sense. William Shatner's old Trek novels used to parody it, by having Kirk (resurrected in the 24th century, and ignoring the "no money" reference in STIV) ask Spock what's stopping him from just walking into the best appartment or a newly built house and claiming it, or going to a shipyard and leaving with a brand-new starship. Every time Spock starts explaining, something happens and he never gets it out
In Asimov's "The Caves Of Steel", they have a society (on Earth) that works without money but it's replaced by social status. Your position entitles you to a certain level of luxury. If you are at the lowest level you eat tasteless food and live in cramped quarters that you have to share with other people...
fitcoin. When Picard says, we work to better ourselves, every Federation citizen's neural connections, physical health, etc. are tracked.The "no money" thing on earth never made sense. William Shatner's old Trek novels used to parody it, by having Kirk (resurrected in the 24th century, and ignoring the "no money" reference in STIV) ask Spock what's stopping him from just walking into the best appartment or a newly built house and claiming it, or going to a shipyard and leaving with a brand-new starship. Every time Spock starts explaining, something happens and he never gets it out
Working out, learning new languages and advanced science, performing tasks, etc. is tracked. Personal improvement is the new bitcoin mining, called fitcoin mining. The more you work out and study, the more fitcoins you have.
Thus, when Picard says people work to better themselves, they are just mining more fitcoins. All other currency (dollars, renminbi, euros, even bitcoins) are eliminated in favor of fitcoins. Thus you reconcile statements saying there is no money since the late 22nd century with the obvious references to money in TOS etc.
Those money references are references to fitcoins, which people earn through bettering themselves.
The elephant in this particular room is the concept of a post-scarcity economy.
To date, with the possible exception of a few hunter-gatherer cultures that lived in places where food and shelter were naturally plentiful, every political, social, and economic system in Human history has been based on scarcity. Some commodity had both scarcity and utility, or some commodity with scarcity was given utility as a convenient token for representing other things that had utility, or in an age of fiat money, some commodity was made artificially scarce to serve as a token for other things that had utility. In a feudal society, it was arable land (and the labor to work it) that was the scarce commodity that defined wealth and poverty. In a capitalist society, money.
In the TOS 5YM era, scarcity still existed in the Federation, as evidenced not only by talk of salary and investments, but by Kirk's apprehension (in "I, Mudd") about whether his crew could handle living in a "gilded cage" where they could have anything they wanted just by asking for it.
In the post-TMP era, the Federation may have transitioned to a post-scarcity economy (as evidenced by Kirk's line in STIV:TVH about "they're still using money"), or may have merely abandoned the use of physical currency when not dealing with less-advanced cultures.
In the TNG era, the Federation has fully embraced post-scarcity, with the combination of replicator technology and more energy than they know what to do with. And yet, latinum still has value, and the crew of the USS Voyager is having to deal with genuine scarcity, some of them for the first time in their lives.
And perhaps the combination of the Romulan supernova relief efforts and the Zhat-Vash-induced android revolt have introduced large segments of the Federation population to scarcity they had never known before.
I agree with those who say that Raffi was living as a hermit, in a 24th century version of a mobile home, out in the middle of nowhere, because she chose to do so. At the time, she evidently valued isolation more than she valued comfort, for reasons others have stated more eloquently.
To date, with the possible exception of a few hunter-gatherer cultures that lived in places where food and shelter were naturally plentiful, every political, social, and economic system in Human history has been based on scarcity. Some commodity had both scarcity and utility, or some commodity with scarcity was given utility as a convenient token for representing other things that had utility, or in an age of fiat money, some commodity was made artificially scarce to serve as a token for other things that had utility. In a feudal society, it was arable land (and the labor to work it) that was the scarce commodity that defined wealth and poverty. In a capitalist society, money.
In the TOS 5YM era, scarcity still existed in the Federation, as evidenced not only by talk of salary and investments, but by Kirk's apprehension (in "I, Mudd") about whether his crew could handle living in a "gilded cage" where they could have anything they wanted just by asking for it.
In the post-TMP era, the Federation may have transitioned to a post-scarcity economy (as evidenced by Kirk's line in STIV:TVH about "they're still using money"), or may have merely abandoned the use of physical currency when not dealing with less-advanced cultures.
In the TNG era, the Federation has fully embraced post-scarcity, with the combination of replicator technology and more energy than they know what to do with. And yet, latinum still has value, and the crew of the USS Voyager is having to deal with genuine scarcity, some of them for the first time in their lives.
And perhaps the combination of the Romulan supernova relief efforts and the Zhat-Vash-induced android revolt have introduced large segments of the Federation population to scarcity they had never known before.
I agree with those who say that Raffi was living as a hermit, in a 24th century version of a mobile home, out in the middle of nowhere, because she chose to do so. At the time, she evidently valued isolation more than she valued comfort, for reasons others have stated more eloquently.
Her character feels like someone from present day, rather than someone from a different time (in this case the future).
That was my issue with it.
She's essentially modelled after a person in the lower economic class of America today. If you're going to portray poverty in the future, have some imagination.
That was my issue with it.
She's essentially modelled after a person in the lower economic class of America today. If you're going to portray poverty in the future, have some imagination.
I always wonder what poor people of the future would look like? Are we not supposed to relate to these people on some level? So why make it so alien?
We're used to people living on Federation starships with pretty much anything they need available at the push of a button or by voice command. VOY (and maybe to some extent ENT) was probably the closest we got to a ship where her resources were somewhat limited or had to be actively replenished due to a lack of Starfleet support.
I was hoping this could be avoided...
Poor people now are better off than rich people 400 years ago.
Yes, they are...not sure how that relates to what I said but I am grateful that poor people, including the ones I work with, are better off than in past history.
There will always be scarcity of land in desirable places, and non-replicated items, which we would assume will always have cultural cachet.
There's a balance in good science fiction / fantasy. Elements aren't so foreign that they have no grounding in our own relatable reality, but at the same time you want things that are different and imaginative which is part of the reason we like Sci-Fi and fantasy in the first place.
In the Expanse they put thought into portraying poverty and socio-economic classes in the future. In Picard Raffi is a generic stereotype of a lower economic class person of today.
Yeah, sorry, I don't see it with Raffi. She strikes me more as the isolationist stereotype that poverty. Though, to be blunt, none of these thoughts went through my head as I watched the episode.
And, for my money, Picard balanced alright for the most part You had outrageous facets with the synths, and explosions and phasers at the chateau. You cool it off a little and try to sympathize with Raffi (mileage will vary on that effectiveness) and back in to space and adventure. Reminds me of a lot of books I would read as a kid.
Don't know about the expanse; don't care either.
But if the replicated stuff looks exactly like the "real" stuff to the naked eye then... who cares?
It doesn't taste the same though, according to some people.
And they do still grow (and catch) their own food in some places. mostly the outer colonies where they don't have the infrastructure yet to use replicators for everything.
We see this in DS9.
Whether it's poverty or isolationist, my issue was that she feels like she's from present day rather than a person from a different time.
The first time we see her (as I recall), she's vaping, drinking a 40oz, and even uses the term "pro tip". That's a person from present day.
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