federation economy.. plausible / beliveable?

[Deks]

The 'wonderful social structure' as you call it has created way too many problems for this society that it's a pain to talk about them.

'Family values', 'marriage' and similar terms are MADE UP.
For some people they may hold merit, but not for everyone.
For those who don't consider those things to be important ... are they any less human than anyone else ?
Hardly.

But look at what people who live in 'marriage' and uphold 'family values' often do to those who are different.
They cast them out, judge them and think they are 'empty'.

I am so sick of the majority imposing and creating a society to fit their own perspective and forcing (yes forcing) just about everyone else into doing it like them.
Because if you are not like them, you are bad (and that kind of stupidity annoys me when it comes from people who aren't supposed to discriminate in any fashion).

And for the sake of argument, the Federation IS considered to be a largely atheist society ... actually, to be more specific ... Humans are.

It's true that the Feds have numerous races that hold different kinds of belief systems (however I can hardly call the Vulcans religious, since they don't believe in a deity, but their kind of belief would be best compared to Budism) ... but the main issue here is that no one in the Federation tries to enforce their own beliefs onto everyone else (which is a main difference from todays society and from what the majority is doing) and that diversity is respected (weather it's displayed in merely 1 individual or a bunch of them).

 

[Timo]

I firmly disagree. Liberty is not a zero-sum game.

Let's agree to disagree, then. But what else could liberty be? It has to refer to the ability to do as one pleases, and in practice just about everything that one can do does limit what the other can do. Only complete hermits could enjoy complete liberty. Hermits, or lifeforms incapable of having "pleasures" or "opinions" because their capacity to abstract thought is severely lacking.

I'm confused. How is providing people with education to make choices, and then stepping back and allowing them to make whatever reproductive choices they want, the same as actively using force to deny them their reproductive choices?

"Providing education" is just the rose-colored version of "dictating choices". Whether this dictating is done in early childhood when the person is malleable to words rather than bayonets, or in adulthood when bayonets are called for, the mechanism is basically the same. There exists a capacity for abstract thought in the individual, but the society chooses to close certain venues so that not all of that capacity can be translated to action.

Whether this closing of venues is less cruel when it's done in childhood (or perhaps in the womb) than when it's done to adults is another matter that could be debated.

Sounds like a constitutional liberal democracy to me.

On those particulars, the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics would have sounded like a constitutional liberal democracy, too. Especially if we had listened to high-ranking members of the Red Army and the Politburo discuss it.

You are forgetting that concepts like 'family, 'marriage' and 'need for children' is a mere propaganda.

Here I'd beg to differ for the other camp. The above concepts are part and parcel of related mammalian species even when those have no observable codes of laws, religions, or means of enforcing a monolith culture across generations and geographical distances.

"Family" can be a flexible concept, and the drastically truncated "mother, father, children" version of it is rather atypical even in the human species. "Marriage" can take many ceremonial forms, or it can exist as a practical concept without ceremony. Certain religions have merely created specific, customary forms of the above biological concepts.

And rest assured that "baby fever" is a real biological phenomenon that can only barely be fought by applying rational thought. If we had the amenities of the 24th century Trek Earth, we'd be jam-packed like the people of Gideon, even if all of us were of the sort who would burst to sinister-derisive laughter at the concept of god or law.

As for how many of us (or them, really) there are in the 24th century Trek Earth, Data seems to consider it exceptional that there would be nine billion of us in ST:FC. Is that exceptionally high, or low? Since it's a Borg-imposed figure, and the Borg like to pack themselves tight, I'd bet on the former.

Let's say there were nine billion of us. Let's also say that about 100 million km^2 of our planet can be made habitable. That leaves each of us with more than 0.01 km^2, that is, more than hundred by hundred meters of turf to set up shop with. Each also gets at least one meter of seashore if that's how we are to be packed. Plenty to go until Gideon. But I'd think the Trek folks would stop long before that already.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

The term 'family' is indeed flexible, but the thing is that there are multiple cases (hardly a minority at that) which prove how 'family ties' mean nothing.
Often have the parents abandoned their children (in both animal and human 'kingdoms') or vice versa for whatever reasons.

'Marriage' is often the term used to describe monogamous relationships and 'family', glorified to no days end, and any kind of different behavior is considered bad by A LOT (but not all) of people.

I don't like the concept of 'marriage' (but not the monogamy itself) because it ruined many peoples lives in the process and from my perspective often limits couples (which of course is not applicable to everyone) ... not to mention that multiple people to this day and age are forced into it out of obligation, expectations and what not.
If it's important to some people, fine, but come on, show some respect for those who don't want it at all instead of shoving it down their throats and expect them to take it.

The 'baby fever' as you call it is a biological phenomenon indeed, however ... it HARDLY applies to everyone.
There are plenty of humans on this planet who for simple biological reasons (for example heterosexual couples) cannot have children as they are sterile, or simply do not want children (I for one thing don't want them as I dislike them ... plus I am homosexual - which in itself is not why I don't like kids).

One can also argue that the primary function behind sex is pleasure and that reproduction is only a byproduct.

What you think that the prehistorical men prior to this civilization or any concept of language thought to themselves 'I wanna be a daddy' so they decided to have sex with females specifically to make babies ?

Cold hard fact:
They were sexually aroused, wanted pleasure/release and they got it.
The pregnancy that ensued was a byproduct.
Back then (before contemporary knowledge and understanding), it was more of an impulse that combined itself with sex ... and even then it wasn't existent in EVERY human being on the planet.

Today, you have all kinds of families wanting to 'extend the family name' ... or simply want grandkids.
Young people are impressionable and are exposed to these 'values' at a young age, and a lot of them cave in even when they don't want to.
Pressure, parental control, some guilt, time, influent people ... throw it all into the mix and most people won't know the difference between 'natural' and a 'simple construct of society'.

But of course I think I'm dwelling into off-topic with that.

 

[Timo]

I'd still argue that sterile couples, homosexuals and conscientious abstainers are insufficient as a population control measure, as they would represent, well, ZERO percent of the child-bearing potential of the planet.

That is, even though humans have relatively few offspring as compared to, say, flies, the number is still high enough that population won't be controlled by the number of children born. It will still be controlled by the number of children that survive. And that figure is quite a bit lower than the childbirth figure and wouldn't be altered much even if one tenth of the population suddenly decided never to have kids. Serious population control would have to affect the childbirth rates of half the mankind to be effective.

Today, that half still has a biological and intellectual urge to bear as many children as they possibly can. If treknological breakthroughs remove the intellectual need (machines replace sons as the primary means of economic sustenance), we could still be facing Gideon unless the biological urge were controlled somehow.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Timo said:
I'd still argue that sterile couples, homosexuals and conscientious abstainers are insufficient as a population control measure, as they would represent, well, ZERO percent of the child-bearing potential of the planet.

"Birth control cannot be left voluntarily to the reason of the individual. As mentioned by Garrett Hardin, this would lead to a genetic self-elimination of reason." - Extracted from page 175 of Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence - CETI, edited by Carl Sagan (MIT Press, 1973).

TGT