Fed Citizens and civilians

[Butters]

What do the regular folk do?

The ones that are not exploring the galaxy, terraforming Venus, or running the family restaurant or vinyard? Whats to be done in a demonitised post-scarcity paradise?

The guys in the background, cleaning floors and fixing lightbulbs on the Enterprise. Is that their calling or their punishment?

Is Earth really full of people bettering themselves as Picard suggests in FC?

 

[Xerxes1979]

Probably a lot of recreational sport and use of the commons.

Amateur news reporting and holoauthoring seem to be common activities as well.

 

[captcalhoun]

landscape gardening (bashir's dad was a failed one)

flying cargo ships

working as holiday reps/bar staff/waiters/etc. at all those resorts

 

[Butters]

Yeah, all of Earth does seem to be one giant campus/all inclusive holiday resort. I'd live there.

There are some occupations that could be a passion, or a calling. Like landscape gardening, hospitality or medicine, but most occupations could easily be mechanised by 24th Century tech. Take subway driver for example. Would there be a fleet of automated trains with driver's cabs just in case a number citizens want to be subway drivers?

Landscape gardening could be done in moments with forcefields and transporters.
Replicators and holograms can create a perfect dining experience, but that takes away the reward of providing a perfect dining experience. I imagine everyone would find pleasures, challenges and rewards in different areas, but is there any sign in trek of an individual doing a job they didn't like? Excluding Starfleet jobs?

 

[Timo]

Bashir's father was said to have been unsuccessful in a number of jobs, or perhaps unhappy with them - but there was nothing to indicate that he suffered financially from this. Probably he was merely humiliated by his failure to find a dream job.

What Richard Bashir had tried out included "third class shuttle steward", apparently a job where one can make career progress if one's happy with what one is doing, and competent in it. Richard was "discharged" from that job before making any progress, though, suggesting (but not proving) that he was not competent and that this was grounds for sending him away.

He moved on to landscaping, which probably doesn't require competence and doesn't involve superiors who'd discharge an incompetent worker. But the implication was that he was in the habit of moving from work to work, with some sort of social stigma attached to that sort of behavior (at least his son was embarrassed by it), although with no clear implication that there'd be financial consequences.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Theodore Jay Miller]

Lots of amateurs trying for recognition? People work hard at painting, playing music, cooking, or whatever, and success is measured not monetarily, but by lots of people wanting to have your paintings, listen to your music, eat your cooking, etc.

 

[Arpy]

Physicians, architects, teachers, musicians, holowriters, software/hardware designers, bankers, psychiatrists, politicians, fashion designers, [psycho]historians, lawyers, chefs, police officers, actors, journalists, scientists...tour guides for all those offworlders looking to hover-bungee off Mt Everest or holo-hunt genetically re-engineered dinosaurs.

Most of the fields that exist today will exist in the future and entirely new ones will come about...the biggest change will be that the grunt work will be gone. No cleaning, no basic maintenance, no basic clerical...taxi drivers, etc. Actually, the biggest change will be that the work will be done by those who love it and therefore spend more time doing it and do it better than many who do it today who do it for money or status.

Status will be less relevant in the future for the same reason it's less relevant in the adult world than it is in that of children in schools (unproductive and overpopulated mandatory artificial environments) which is that it's mostly pointless and and more trouble than it's worth. If you can't work with one of your co-workers, your boss won't put you on the other side of the room or give you detention, you're simply gone. Adults are expected to be professional at work, and mature in life.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Is Earth really full of people bettering themselves as Picard suggests in FC?

If there's no money and everything is free for the taking, people probably just sit around and spend more time "buttering" themselves if you know what I mean.

 

[Myasishchev]

There is no doubt an unreasonable amount of fan fiction.

Also, people dating (holo)robots.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

At least on Cestus III, they play baseball!

 

[Steelworker]

I offer the following link as evidence that people have an inherent drive to work at something that they love, something bigger than themselves, and something they can continue to improve at...http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

 

[Mirror_Barclay]

We've seen that there are publishers, marketing holonovels. Presumably they buy ads with the money they don't get for not selling the holonovels, minus the cut they don't take and the portion they don't pass on to the author.

 

[iguana_tonante]

There is no doubt an unreasonable amount of fan fiction.

Ladies and gentlemen, the real reason for the Breen attack on San Francisco.