Do you think the 24th century earth has junkies and addicts?

[Arpy]

I still think that in the 24th century, getting high will not be considered a vice, but instead the highest and most exquisite form of personal artistic experience, especially as the experiences are engineered to remove any negative effects on physical and psychological health. Why won't anyone run with this idea? Show us a future human society with values radically different from ours!

Kor

Because you're arguing for a dystopia? A world in which we escape into fantasy instead of trying to make reality fantastical. Why would one need The Future to experience a high they wouldn't care about returning from? They could buy a lethal amount of a drug and take it until they don't care that they have moments to live. Their biology has been hacked, and they'll die like the Joker got to them.

Maybe it's the religion we grow up with that tells us that "free will" is easy. That's basically begging to be disillusioned...conquered, dominated, enlightened, f'd. Not very different form Adam and the Apple. We need the perspective. The 0 to understand the 1. We think that free will is our "immortal" "soul," a magical ball of light in the center of our chests, waiting to be ultimately sublimed.

Being a person we want to be takes effort.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I suppose treatment in the future could be involuntary.

If they have a system that uses sensors to detect when someone is addicted and force them into treatment, but NOT one that senses when people (like Picard's family) are in danger of dying in a fire and beams them out, they really need to get their priorities straight.

The Ferengi deal in profit and gold and other things too so money is not gone. Sisco give Quark a bill maintenance and power so there money is used on DS9

Not that I'm stating this as definitively true or false, but, has it occurred to you that maybe the people from the Federation that we've seen make such financial transactions with Ferengi do it just to screw with them? Sisko didn't need the money. And maybe command-level Starfleet officers can secretly replicate latinum and they just don't make it known because it would wreck the Ferengi way of life.

 

[Arpy]

^ Sisko threatened with a bill for 5 years back rent, maintenance, and power consumption when Quark was mistreating his employees, but there wasn't one until then. Federation services appeared to be free on the station.

 

[UssGlenn]

In the 24th Century, it's not that drugs are unavailable or the side effects have been removed or even that an addiction can be removed with a hypospray. In the 24th century no one has any reason to start taking drugs in the first place. They are happy with their life and don't feel the need to alter their brain chemistry.

 

[Voth commando1]

I don't think we should conflate happiness or lack thereof with drug use. I'd say in the 24th century there are still going to be people who are lonely, depressed, dissatisfied with their marriages or careers, disappointed in their children, angry at their parents, etc...

Drug use though as a result of mental illness and poverty has been eradicated. Janeway talks to Seven in Latent Image about not letting a crewmen put a phaser to their head which implies to me they don't have the attitude of "your depressed and suicidal and so go ahead."

Their will be no material basis for whatever reason people have to be unhappy(in the federation) but that doesn't mean their won't be people who are unhappy for whatever reason.

People like Lieutenant Picard in Tapestry for example-people like that are not likely to be very joyous and probably aren't drug users-they probably do their shift, take naps, try to get some time on the holodeck, read, etc... While being either dissatisfied or potentially even miserable with their lot in life.

Star Trek isn't a Brave New World dystopia where happiness is artificially enforced(ironically with regards to this conversation through drug use). Star Trek is a utopia and drug use by TNG/DS9/VOY's era is probably a relic of a bygone age. That doesn't mean however that people won't be unhappy.

 

[Tenacity]

DS9 argued for nature, TNG (and arguably Voyager) nature. I lean towards the latter.

Was one of those suppose to be "nurture?"

Federation services appeared to be free on the station.

Or, only Quark's bar was rent free. Quark's rent-free arrangement could have been owing to Sisko needing Quark to stay. That might not have been the arrangement with the other business operators on the station.

 

[Arpy]

Or, only Quark's bar was rent free. Quark's rent-free arrangement could have been owing to Sisko needing Quark to stay. That might not have been the arrangement with the other business operators on the station.

I don't think that's what the writers were putting out there re Federation administration of the station. Also, if Quark had a deal with Sisko for him to stay, he would have pointed it out while being threatened.

The question I have is who owns the replimat? Is it a free station food dispensary (to Quark's horror), is it an automated private business, or is it owned by the station and replications get charged and deposited to the station owners -- the Bajorans?

 

[Nyotarules]

I think if from childhood you're taught to have slaves, you'll always think that there's a natural order to life and some race should always be your slave, even if you emancipate the one you started out with.

These days most of us think differently.

The system is no longer set up to accept slavery but its still promotes a social hierarchy and/or attitude based on physical appearance, and all within living memory.

 

[Herbert]

In the 24th Century, it's not that drugs are unavailable or the side effects have been removed or even that an addiction can be removed with a hypospray. In the 24th century no one has any reason to start taking drugs in the first place. They are happy with their life and don't feel the need to alter their brain chemistry.

But that presupposes that everyone only takes drugs or alcohol because they are unhappy, which is not always the case.
I agree that the addictive effects can be medically treated (Crusher does that in Season 1 of TNG) and perhaps are not seen as debilitating as they are today.

 

[Gary7]

Judging by the crew of the Enterprise-D, they're also a lot more boring.

Really? We need crime and war to keep things interesting?
They have games. They have adventures. I wouldn't say life in Star Trek's 24th century is boring! I wouldn't mind the financial freedom to pursue my interests to whatever degree I wish.

 

[Tenacity]

I wouldn't say life in Star Trek's 24th century is boring

If their lives weren't boring, then why do they spend so much time on the holodeck?

 

[USS Triumphant]

If their lives weren't boring, then why do they spend so much time on the holodeck?

If our lives weren't boring, why would we spend so much time on message boards? :P

You're engaged in a false dichotomy. Message boards are PART of our life, not a separate thing - and holodecks are part of theirs.

 

[Voth commando1]

I think people make the assumption that digital activities are a mere diversion from "real life."

 

[Arpy]

The system is no longer set up to accept slavery but its still promotes a social hierarchy and/or attitude based on physical appearance, and all within living memory.

One thing at a time. These days interracial couples are far more common and there's an anti-body-shaming movement. Again, I think that people who are raised to only see their own race as attractive or regard the superficial above the whole are suffering from delusional thinking. Like people who suffer from body or facial dysmorphia and think their nose is so hideous that no one could truly love them. Racists see other races not as they really are (same "soul," different body) but as "subhumans" incapable of equal intelligence. Doesn't that just tickle the ego?

In the past, sick people were considered morally corrupt. God was punishing bad behavior. Later we learned about viruses, bacteria, and genetics, but can you imagine trying to explain any of that to someone who thought pneumonia was divine intervention? Centuries past people believing it just fine.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Of course there is.

 

[Gary7]

If their lives weren't boring, then why do they spend so much time on the holodeck?

Ummm... you've seen what the holodeck can do, right? If I lived in that century, you can bet I'd be experimenting with that thing for as many time slots as I could get! Imagine being able to act out ANY life scenario you wish (real or imagined) and have absolutely no repercussions. Unbelievable.

 

[UssGlenn]

But that presupposes that everyone only takes drugs or alcohol because they are unhappy, which is not always the case.

Yes but we are talking about junkies and addicts, not social drinking. No one on 24th Century Earth needs to depend on drugs to make their life tolerable so there is no reason to develop a dependency.

 

[Voth commando1]

People's lives may not be "intolerable" but that does not mean their lives are uniformly happy.

The Lieutenant Picards are gonna be unhappy, the Bashir family-their not materially deprived but their clearly have problems, Lon Suder-he couldn't have been a happy person, B'llanna she wasn't happy as a child.

 

[Nightdiamond]

I used to think that Trek's WWIII would have been that wake-up call for Earth, but I don't anymore. That suggests that people are logical and would hear it. Such people wouldn't need WWIII to hear it.

In the Star Trek universe its 'the aliens have landed' that is the wake up call for humanity. If the Klingons had discovered Cochran, humans would be turned into cannon fodder or slaves. The whole planet might be overrun by addicts or someone might consider it a good idea to augment the race to get rid of the Klingons and hope there are no side effects.

I used to think Trek was saying that the past WW3 is what woke humans up and made them make changes. And then First Contact comes and says it was the discovery that we were not alone in the universe that does it.

Funny, in various episodes, advanced people from alien cultures said the opposite. That they warred and warred and almost destroyed themselves, and then woke up. No mention of alien life landing.

I wonder why Trek went the other way with humans--that it was discovery of alien life that woke humans up, and not being led to the brink of extinction by the bad side of our human nature?

And then there's the religious aspect or lack thereof. Trek strongly implies technology played more of a part in solving these medical/psychological/social problems and no mention of religion playing any part.

 

[Voth commando1]

Trek isn't religious(that much) but there are still hints of a remaining metaphysical.