Food replicator produce.

[Tenacity]

Doesn't seem likely if the Federation has a non currency based economy.

Certainly possible, personally I almost never use physical currency anymore, mostly debt card transfers.

it's more efficient to simply store the tools you need rather than have to try and make them when you need them.

I think something similar with say dishes. After use (if not damaged in some way) a dish would be stripped of anything on it, basically sterilized, and simply stored somewhere. Moving it around by transporter would far more energy efficient than creating a new dish each time one is needed.

Aboard a vessel like a shuttle this might not work owing to the lack of storage space.

It's easier to replicate a chunk of stock protein shaped like a chicken wing and glazed with a really convincing artificial chicken-flavoring than it is to replicate an actual chicken wing.

A few good examples of not down to the molecular level capacity would be Picard's heart, Neelix's lungs, and those things that the Romulan needed in The Neutral Zone.

The chicken wing you referred to isn't biological bone and muscle.

 

[locutus101]

Certainly possible, personally I almost never use physical currency anymore, mostly debt card transfers.....

I am not talking about physical currency but about currency without qualification whatsoever.

 

[Deks]

Nahh, there are too many examples of money use inside the Federation to believe that Picard's puzzling claim of no money is anything more than just another one of his brain farts.Really? The Federation gave five to the Cardassians.

It doesn't make sense that money would be used in such a society as a whole at all. What's the point when you are capable of generating abundance on demand (which btw we are doing in real life as is)?
The only conceivable reason for it is control of the population along with lack of exposure to relevant general education, critical thinking and problem solving (which is what's happening in reality), but this doesn't seem to be the case in the Federation.

It would be extremely stupid to restrict access to basic necessities and other things via 'money' which is intrinsically useless (that a person needs to justify their right for existence, especially when they had 0 say in being created by their parents in the first place) - especially when we DON'T have too many examples of monetary use inside the Federation.

We have far more examples of trade and exactly 1 appearance of Federation credits (TNG first episode) - but the Bandi were not part of the Federation and didn't really seem to have anything noteworthy in terms of technology apart from an abundance of geothermal energy (which Earth and basically any M class planet would have in massive abundance - and it begs a question, why did the Federation make an exception in their case? Probably because the planet is on the very edge of Federation space and would allow for easy support for exploration ships).

Risa could be an exception due to it being a resort (open to everyone) where species from different parts of the Alpha Quadrant gather (especially when most other species outside the Federation do NOT use money). It is apparently designated a Federation planet, but do we know the details behind it?

Besides, medical care, food, accommodations, etc... none of these things are ever being paid for.
Starfleet certainly gives it all away for free on all exploratory missions.

As for 'Bank of Bolias'... we were not told that Bolians use money. Banks are also used as storage facilities of various items that are considered 'valuable'.
The Federation doesn't use money as such... certain planets that are part of the Federation might use it for easier commerce with species from outside the Federation, and probably only for specific things.

More likely Bajor only got two because they're really expensive for the Federation to obtain. And maybe that was the maximum number the Federation could lay their hand on with that years budget.

No... the Bajorans only had 1 planet.
The Cardassian Union on the other hand was an organization comprised of multiple planets (with bigger infrastructure and needs than 1 planet).
5 industrial replicators would have likely been enough for Cardassians given that they already have an infrastructure in place on other worlds that could partially help... 5 industrial grade replicators were a gift to let them know the Federation is a friend willing to help.
Bajor got 2 industrial replicators - for a civilization that only had 1 planet, that would have been HUGE (especially in comparison to the Cardassians that had, what, dozens of planets?).

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

No... the Bajorans only had 1 planet.
The Cardassian Union on the other hand was an organization comprised of multiple planets (with bigger infrastructure and needs than 1 planet).
5 industrial replicators would have likely been enough for Cardassians given that they already have an infrastructure in place on other worlds that could partially help... 5 industrial grade replicators were a gift to let them know the Federation is a friend willing to help.
Bajor got 2 industrial replicators - for a civilization that only had 1 planet, that would have been HUGE (especially in comparison to the Cardassians that had, what, dozens of planets?).

While it doesn't undermine your point, the Cardassians received twelve CFI replicators rather than five.

 

[locutus101]

While it doesn't undermine your point, the Cardassians received twelve CFI replicators rather than five.

Yes, Kira hated that.

 

[Tenacity]

What's the point when you are capable of generating abundance on demand (which btw we are doing in real life as is)?

But that's making the unsupported assumption that they're capable of doing this. While they obviously have a reasonable production capacity, "generating abundance on demand" is never seen.

which btw we are doing in real life as is

Today? No, what abundance we do produce is the result of effort, and not "on demand."

It would be extremely stupid to restrict access to basic necessities and other things via 'money'

Not a restriction, money is instead a means of acquiring your wants and needs. Without money, how would Janeway ever have purchased that lamp?

Bandi ... and it begs a question, why did the Federation make an exception in their case?

The Bandi built (supposedly) a starbase which they were going to negotiate the use of, meaning Starfleet would not have to build one themselves in the general area.

... certain planets that are part of the Federation might use it for easier commerce with species from outside the Federation

Money would also be use in trade and commerce between Federation members and commerce on member planets.

Risa could be an exception due to it being a resort (open to everyone) where species from different parts of the Alpha Quadrant gather

Surely all Federation planets are open to interstellar visitors and have their share of tourism.

Also, Risa being a Federation member world, wouldn't they therefor have the same abundance as Earth? So why charge anyone for access to their "wares?" Because they have so much abundance.

However, if Risa has no such abundance, and thing aren't free to all, and they (like the rest of the Federation) have a market economy that requires money, then Picard having to pay money for his little sex statue makes perfect sense.

As for 'Bank of Bolias'... we were not told that Bolians use money. Banks are also used as storage facilities of various items that are considered 'valuable'.

A banks most standard meaning is a financial institution. If the writers meant a storage facility, why not use that term?

 

[Deks]

But that's making the unsupported assumption that they're capable of doing this. While they obviously have a reasonable production capacity, "generating abundance on demand" is never seen.

Replicators for example generate basically everything on demand in the 24th century.
Other automated technologies (not necessarily including replicators) can do the same.
Starships have produced a number of things on demand to suit the mission at hand when they needed it.

[quote[
Today? No, what abundance we do produce is the result of effort, and not "on demand."
[/quote]

Food, housing, technology, etc. All of it is produced in massive abundance as a direct result of most of the production being AUTOMATED.
And the world is increasingly automating faster than exponentially more and more.
Food is produced in enough quantities to provide between 12 and 17 billion people annually... 40% of the produce is discarded merely because of 'aesthetics' (otherwise, they are edible).

In the USA alone, there's roughly 6 times the empty homes than there are homeless people.

Technology like cars is overproduced and a monstrously high amount of brand new cars is going to landfills, never to be driven at all. They are occupying the size of hundreds/thousands of football fields... airport sized 'graveyards'.
High end laptps are also overproduced and then majority of them (that work btw) are thrown into the landfill for the simple reason that companies want to keep prices artificially high.

Manufacturing costs of everything is at such a low level that it is a criminal offense that regular people need to buy hundreds to thousands of times more for an item.

Not a restriction, money is instead a means of acquiring your wants and needs. Without money, how would Janeway ever have purchased that lamp?The Bandi built (supposedly) a starbase which they were going to negotiate the use of, meaning Starfleet would not have to build one themselves in the general area.Money would also be use in trade and commerce between Federation members and commerce on member planets.Surely all Federation planets are open to interstellar visitors and have their share of tourism.

Money is entirely made up that has no intrinsic basis in the natural world. Humans made it up as a method of rationing scarce resources in any given area, and it was more convenient than trade.

We've seen a few individuals in the Federation who engaged in currency based exchange of goods and services.
Also, it was Tuvok who got the meditation lamp and not Janeway. They got it from a Vulcan master who apparently doubled the price when he saw they were SF officers.
We've seen individuals belonging to species of Federation members engage in monetary based transactions... that does NOT indicate however that the Federation as a whole uses a monetary based system. It could easily mean that monetary transactions are usually useless in the Federation, but some people prefer to engage in them when they travel outside the Federation and when they return, they are a direct link to other species economies - with which the Federation likes to have good relations with... so they likely authorize some monetary transactions in order to encourage good relations out of respect for those other cultures.

Also, Risa being a Federation member world, wouldn't they therefor have the same abundance as Earth? So why charge anyone for access to their "wares?" Because they have so much abundance.

They would have the same abundance... it would be ridiculous to think they wouldn't considering the type of society the Federation is.
Different writers created a whole mess because their knowledge of post-scarcity economics is rooted in nothing. They were basing those aspects in things that were known to them.
Evidently, they had 0 concept of automation and how you can produce abundance even without replicators - DS9 in particular was a main culprit behind this thinking seeing how it introduced religion as well - DS9 is also one of my least interesting Trek's... it was actually ok in the start, in line with other Trek shows, but then it progressively degenerated into modern day set in space type of thing.

Alternatively, and since we know little of Federation economic model, it might be possible that certain items on some Federation worlds are not allowed to be replicated out of tradition... and we've seen that many Federation cultures have ridiculous and outdated 'rituals' and traditions that actually beg the question on how they managed to become a Type I civilization, let alone Type II.
We've only seen a fraction of the Federation members... and out of that fraction, a few individuals decided to engage in monetary based transactions.
Big whoop... the Federation is an open society... it probably won't prohibit monetary transactions for those who want to engage in them, but that still doesn't mean they would be part of the main economic system throughout the Federation.

However, if Risa has no such abundance, and thing aren't free to all, and they (like the rest of the Federation) have a market economy that requires money, then Picard having to pay money for his little sex statue makes perfect sense.A banks most standard meaning is a financial institution. If the writers meant a storage facility, why not use that term?

If that is so, then why isn't there ANY reference to Picard paying for accommodations, food and other basic necessities?
The sex statue could easily enough be considered a 'traditional item' (which it was btw).

As for the bank and not using a term 'storage facility'... any particular reason?
It could easily be due to the Bolians using that specific term out of tradition and nothing else.
Others in the Federation are usually respectful to each other and their traditions (SF officers certainly are in most cases trained to do so as part of their First Contact duties) so the term could have stuck.

There might be some planets in the Federation that might have retained a limited use of monetary based economies for some things... but on a larger scale, this wouldn't jive in a society like the Federation.

Monetary based economy is an outdated and ridiculous model that is actually incompatible with our own science and technology in the real world - the only real reason people cling to it is because they were brainwashed into thinking that nothing else would work - all the while the monetary system is eating itself out of existence right now due to massive automation.

If you disagree, then I encourage you to educate yourself about automation, 3d printers, computer algorithms, and how human behavior is generated as a direct product of cultural upbringing and environment (hint, genetics have little to do with it).

 

[Crazy Eddie]

A few good examples of not down to the molecular level capacity would be Picard's heart, Neelix's lungs, and those things that the Romulan needed in The Neutral Zone.

The chicken wing you referred to isn't biological bone and muscle.

Exactly. A replicator could make convincing fascimiliies of these things, more than likely, but they'd be just that: imitations, little better than models. The 3D printing analogy is apt here: you can't 3D print an ACTUAL chicken leg, just a chunk of processed meat shaped like a chicken leg that is also (sort of) edible. Basically, an edible sculpture.

At times when the genuine substance is actually required, the replicator simply will not due. Human beings can eat imitation crab meat, imitation cheese and soy-based margarine pretty much forever, but a situation where you need certain chemical reactions to happen just the right way, the replicators are useless.

 

[Tenacity]

If you disagree

I do, however YMMV.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Replicators for example generate basically everything on demand in the 24th century.

Not exactly true. Replicators actually appear to be automated dispensaries for products that are already available, from whatever source they're drawing from. Even in the most unrealistically utopian vision of how these things work, the product is "paid for" by someone, just not the actual consumer. You can almost think of Earth and by extension Starfleet as a "single payer economy" where the government (and Starfleet) pays for everything and everyone contributes to the total with whatever they can whenever they can, each according to his gifts, communist utopia style.

But that only seems to work for Earth, which many a Starfleet officer has loudly pointed out; it's not the case in the colonies, on Bajor, on Cardassia (even at its economic peak) or anywhere else that hasn't quite solved all of its internal resource problems. Even Ferengi -- who are obsessed with money to the point of religious fanaticism -- still use and understand replicators; theirs being a laissez-fair society pretty much rules out any attempt to BAN replicators in the first place, so that right there tells you that replicator technology doesn't eliminate scarcity, nor is it a replacement for the normal means of production.

The biggest hole in this theory is the existence of farmers and "farming colonies" like the one Worf grew up on. There literally no reason for agriculture to still be a thing -- let alone on a massive scale -- if replicators could do the same job. Even the Chateau Picard Vineyard would be a massive and inexcusable waste of resources in that case.

Food, housing, technology, etc. All of it is produced in massive abundance as a direct result of most of the production being AUTOMATED.

But not "on demand." That's not how mass production works. It's also not cheap, even WITH reliance on automation.

In the USA alone, there's roughly 6 times the empty homes than there are homeless people.

Which is because, among other reasons, homeless people cannot afford to buy homes. If the government simply bought all those homes and GAVE them to homeless people, no one would be homeless. That still requires the builders of homes to be compensated somehow, and it still requires those who obtain the raw materials for those builders to also be compensated for their work. In a centralized economy, the government acts as everyone's personal shopper, buying and selling and negotiating prices with producers of everything so that nobody needs to ever worry about money.

"You made stuff, good! Now you can have stuff, also good! Don't worry about the actual trade balance between you and the guy down the street, just make sure you have what you need and if be reasonable with your luxuries!"

Other planets don't have it so lucky. Scarcity still exists in most places. Earth just isn't one of them.

Money is entirely made up that has no intrinsic basis in the natural world.

Not true. Classically, money is a portable indicator of a quantity of goods. In the earliest use of money, a specific coin was equivalent to a specific and constant quantity of grain from a communal storage facility; you could always trade coins for food from the grainery, or you could produce grain and get some coins in exchange. You could then trade coins for things that were NOT food if, for example, at a particular time you needed a sword more than you needed a sack of grain. The important difference is, a sack of coins is generally easier to transport and trade than an equivalent sack of grain.

IOW, money came about as a way of simplifying the barter system and making trade more efficient. It has no intrinsic value, true, but its value is based on the goods it is intended to stand for. If you live in a society that has such abundance that it doesn't really matter whether or not someone is consuming more than they put in, you don't really NEED money anyway. But on a galactic scale, dealing with interplanetary trade, this is not really the case, so planets and governments still use money to regulate exchanges and so do individuals trading in the interplanetary market.

If that is so, then why isn't there ANY reference to Picard paying for accommodations, food and other basic necessities?

Because Picard is from Earth and works for Starfleet. Earth and/or Starfleet pays for everything.

Crusher did this in "Encounter at Farpoint." She basically purchased the cloth from the Bandi merchant and billed it to Starfleet itself.

 

[Jedman67]

The way replicators are depicted is that they replicate - i.e. create an exact duplicate - of the item(s) in question.
That it could synthesize virtually any object (with some limitations) as long as the replicating computer has access to that items molecular pattern.

 

[locutus101]

The way replicators are depicted is that they replicate - i.e. create an exact duplicate - of the item(s) in question.
That it could synthesize virtually any object (with some limitations) as long as the replicating computer has access to that items molecular pattern.

Yes, that's pretty much the way I understood it.

 

[Jedman67]

Granted, the technology was not depicted so consistently between TNG, DS9 and VOY, but that's bound to happen in a TV show with 21 seasons between them.
There was a conversation between Janeway and Chakotay after he her a pocket watch for her birthday (Year of Hell), she instructed him to recycle it back into the replicator as it "represents a meal, a hypospray, or a pair of boots. It could mean the difference between life and death one day."
If all the replicator was doing was essentially transporting equipment from existing stores, or creating replicas of stuff, this wouldn't make sense at all.

 

[locutus101]

Granted, the technology was not depicted so consistently between TNG, DS9 and VOY, but that's bound to happen in a TV show with 21 seasons between them.
There was a conversation between Janeway and Chakotay after he her a pocket watch for her birthday (Year of Hell), she instructed him to recycle it back into the replicator as it "represents a meal, a hypospray, or a pair of boots. It could mean the difference between life and death one day."
If all the replicator was doing was essentially transporting equipment from existing stores, or creating replicas of stuff, this wouldn't make sense at all.

I don't think it's ever said but I wonder if they can recycle things that have not been initially replicated.

BTW, if the watch is only worth a meal then it's not such a great gift.

 

[Mytran]

Janeway's whole statement doesn't make sense though: If they are really able to economically recycle a pocket watch into a meal or a pair of boots, then that broken wall panel over there could be made into several meals or whole med kit with change to spare.
In fact, they shouldn't have any repair issues or energy problems at all!

Personally, I think the fatigue was probably just getting to her

 

[locutus101]

Janeway's whole statement doesn't make sense though: If they are really able to economically recycle a pocket watch into a meal or a pair of boots, then that broken wall panel over there could be made into several meals or whole med kit with change to spare.
In fact, they shouldn't have any repair issues or energy problems at all!

Personally, I think the fatigue was probably just getting to her

That's one way of explaining it.

 

[Tenacity]

Crusher did this in "Encounter at Farpoint." She basically purchased the cloth from the Bandi merchant and billed it to Starfleet itself

Problem there is she told the merchant to bill it to her account, which seems to indicate that Crusher has a personal monetary account.

nor is it a replacement for the normal means of production.

They continue to have mining.

There literally no reason for agriculture to still be a thing -- let alone on a massive scale -- if replicators could do the same job.

This could mean that growing food has some advantage over replicating it, this might be a matter of cost. It's made clear that replicators consume a lot of power, if cultivating, harvesting, transporting, and preparing food is less expensive, less energy consuming than replicating a similar meal, this would be a reason to continue to have agriculture.

There was a conversation between Janeway and Chakotay after he her a pocket watch for her birthday

I think that had a lot to do with the ship being on "short rations" and one senior officer was giving another a replicated gift (even though it was replicated before the emergency). Janeway didn't think it looked right.

 

[locutus101]

I don't get why they need to eat these awful rations. Can't they recycle them and replicate good food in their stead?

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

IIRC, ration packs are usually used when replicators are either unavailable or power/resource limitations mean that it makes more sense to divert the power to repair efforts etc. So "recycling them and replicating good food in their stead" either isn't possible or isn't practical.

 

[locutus101]

IIRC, ration packs are usually used when replicators are either unavailable or power/resource limitations mean that it makes more sense to divert the power to repair efforts etc. So "recycling them and replicating good food in their stead" either isn't possible or isn't practical.

Or the writers that we all know to be limitless geniuses never thought of that in the first place.