Maybe a lot of laws will be concerned with who has access to the replicators and at what time, and what you can use them for and what you can replicate. But, I don't think this will be a big issue. People will wait their time in the queue. To be fair, I think that the security services will spend a LOT of time monitoring people, just to make sure no-one is building an army, or starting a war, or arranging an insurrection, more so than they do now. A better future comes at a cost! Does that satisfy you?
Perhaps Cheapjack this is the prime reason Robert Picard wouldn't have a replicator in his home. He didn't want the security forces monitoring his home.
until you came up with a plan. you might find it difficult to reproduce, on your clearance,as you would be a bad example.
In America today, women on welfare reproduce at three times the rate of women not on welfare. Being a bad example doesn't seem to be a deterrent.
instead of money, you would just get a pass, an account, with clearance to to certain things ... There may be some monetary credit on this account ... People would be given clearance based on what they are going to do to contribute to humanity ...
So people would engage in effort and be compensated with units of value.
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Are you actual helping people by providing a life of little effort?
Allow me to propose an alternative to the society you've put forward. The exact opposite would be a society of free adults, responsible for their own actions, who take care of the own affairs and who don't need to be "
provided for."
By the 24th century humanity will have evolved out of needing a paternalistic government that treats them like a group of children. The people on Earth possess a belief in liberty. They believe that each person owns his own life and property, and has the right to make his own choices as to how he lives his life. Their education has given them a knowledge of both morals and ethics, from a young age they would understand the fundamental difference between the two. A society proud live with virtues (ntegrity, courage, fortitude, honesty, and loyalty). No government will present them with a list of choices. The government will be the employee with billions of bosses.
The 24th century government could provide everyone with a house out of MTV cribs and do so easily, but 24th century society would choose not to because a the possibility of creating a permanent "dependent class" of citizens. They would reject the very idea of "The Pass." and the "BLS," however society would take care of their own. This would be charity, legally it could never be considered either a right or a entitlement.
-You would have access to basic food and water. You won't starve or even go hungry/thirsty.
-You'll have someplace dry, warm and protected to live and sleep, but it might be a open bay arrangement that you share with twenty other people. You won't freeze or cook.
-There will be clothes on your back and shoes (keds) on your feet, a coat too.
-Public transit.
-K through 12 education.
-Health only medical.
-The internet, information and job openings only, no entertainment.
You want college time? Take a test to show you would prosper and maintain a 3.0 average. The world you live in will bend over backward to help you find and keep a job. Want more, then "seek to better yourself" through education and hard work. Push, not for more free charity, push yourself. Society would be compassionate to people needing charity, but there would also be a pressure
to get yourself off of charity.
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Capitalism is an economic system where property is privately owned. Labor, money, goods and resources are traded in markets; and profit is distributed to the people who invested in means of production. There is a general agreement among economists that capitalism encourages economic growth and it provided the
main means of industrialization throughout much of the world.
The system they have isn't 20th century capitalism, it's 24th century capitalism. While there would be differences, many of the basic structural elements of the marketplace that have been with us for thousands and thousands of years would be still present.
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Cheapjack, we have people on welfare now, how many of them use their free time to create great art or better the human condition. I've work in charity kitchens for the homeless for years, the ones who have the most pride are the ones who climb out of shelters / welfare to become paid member of society. I'm not suggesting over-flowing greed or laissez-faire capitalism, or really anything extreme. The future will be filled with people who largely want to just be left alone to live their lives, raise their children, worship their God, and when the work days done play some cards and drink a little wine. They will have more free time than we do and new things to do with it. Technology will be in the background, not the center of their lifes.
T'Girl,
From what I can work out, you're an american. It's my impression, that you have an instinctive distrust of the words 'common good' and 'working to better others' and 'contribute'. You seem to be, in my impression, brought up from childhood to associate this with socialism, which you don't have and communism, which you defeated, for which we thank you.
Picard has used these words in ST and I have tried to see how this would work.
This invention of fusion will be a big thing. We will be a tribe of apes that have discovered not one orange, not two oranges, but a whole pile and how will we react? If it was just one,I would give some people one third of my orange. I might, if I was threatened with a thump, give them more than two thirds. They would just give me the basics, one segment, and I would have to beg for that. What if there was a pile? I think we would surprise the Q being, if he was watching and I think we will hand this out to all, the way we now give everyone water and don't charge much for it. We can't believe we once fought wars over it! If you brought a caveman into the 21stC and offered him a meal, he wouldn't believe you were going to give him it, for free! He would eat the food off your plate and stuff down his own. He would snarl and look at you distrustingly. He wouildn't believe that you would feed him ,for free, for the rest of his life. What would he do in this life? Live, that's what! Would some people do this when taken to the 24thC, or would they say, Yippee, i'm free, this is the world i've dreamed of!?
You use the word freedom a lot, but I can't see that people are very free, in your world. They seem pigging miserable to me, owned and controlled by employers who ration and take the biggest bit of the orange for themselves. Why do people seem to be have to be owned, in your world? Why do you have to ration? They would be a lot freer in mine, free to travel the world all they would have to do is have a plan.
The world you portray is not much better than America now, and that has a hell of a lot of poverty and misery. I admit, some people do swing the lead, and you are right to be concerned about how they would fit in in this world, but I think they would be pulled up sharp, if they tried to get away with too much and that's not totalitatianism, its common sense. It may be that some people will NEVER contribute on iota to anyone, apart from being human and being company, but I think even they would get this card. It wouldn't be a big thing, to them. It would if you took it away. It would be just basic living. You are very wary about the government monitoring people too- you associate that with communism, is my impression, but it would have to be done if people are given this power to do things - maybe not too much, maybe just enough to stop a hitler. Robert p doesn't have a replicator cos he wants to make his own food, not cos he wanted to be not monitored.
You seem to use the word charity, a lot too, but is cheap running water, for everyone, charity? Is salt? No, it's practically a right, in our western world! We can't believe we once fought wars over it! Fusion will be like this.
It's a very dark world, you portray, T'Girl. It's not much better than the world we have today and we can do better. That is a common ST sentence.
I have tried to show how snobbery would drive things in this world, too. The cocktail party effect. What have you done this week, for the community?
If I invented fusion, I would give it to the world for free and if I was in government, I would give people my pass, which again, may have some unitary credit on it, but would mainly be just a pass.
You use the word freedom a lot, which is part of some constitution, I can't remember which, but my world would be freeer than yours. You use the word 'self' and 'better' a lot too, but you would be able to do this more in my world. 'Common good 'and 'contribute' are used a lot in TNG and I have tried to see how and they don't balk me.
I may be wrong. Maybe the24thC will be just like 21stC America, with extremes and unitary money and aquisitiveness of things, but they have been said not to exist in the 24th, and I can see how. I admit, you do have a lot of people who swing the lead in your country, and take a lot, but don't give, and you have a right to be concerned about this. Maybe they only do this cos they only get a little, maybe a lot would make them refined, but I must admit, some people are absolute pigs and have absolutely no concern for others, even when they are loaded. Maybe would be be only introduced gradually. The scientists may be even able to PROVE that some people are inherently lazy and some people will no benefit from a better lifestyle, but that has not been proved yet. But this cheap power would be a big thing. I wouldn't withhold it from the masses. It might not be possible, anyway. It might not be all that cheap, but Daneel from Asimovs books was powered by microfusion. I wish I was. Maybe, it won't even be invented by Americans, like Concorde, and they will refuse to have anything to do with it and ignore it and cause problems for it, as they did with that. Maybe they will say it is unamerican, but it seems to me to represent all that is good about it. Maybe it will end up in a museum, too.
I have just tried to flesh out how this common good, not seeking to aquire things and contribute to humanity ideas work. They don't make me spit! And, i have said, you would not be forced to do these things, it would just be like not picking your nose is to us. Politeness. And I can see how the TNG laughed at the Ferengi, too, and I understand why. Capitalism has given us a high standard of living, but it does treat employees like performing animals, rewarded with doggie biscuits for tricks performed and patted on the head and owned!
It MAY be, with this pass, that I proposed, that you would get it, and all you would have to do, in America at least, is promise not to overthrow the goverment, abide by the constitution, and screw the social responsibility bits. That would balk me a bit, but maybe that's all you would have to do and it would give you the lifestyle of a 20thC middleclass, or even a low grade 20thC millionaire. That's the goal of all people, isn't it? To give everyone the highest standard of living??At least, that's what poiliticans tell, us, when they want to get elected.
To go back to the original point, maybe something will come along that is completely different, something that
both 20thC economic camps would initially sniff at, be wary off, growl at, be scared of, but eventually wag their tails at and let in and dive into, realising this is what they have wanted, all along!
I must admit, when roddenberry thought of these things, he didn't elaborate and we are not telepathic. He also said in the 60's that they weren't going to depict a 23rd century earth, cos it would lead to the sort of arguments we have had here. But, he managed to make us all want to live in this world and we all feel that we are genetically and mentally represented in it and it is more preferable to ours.
