In Star Trek's future on earth, could you just be lazy all day if you wanted to?

Let's say you were someone living on earth in that time, and you were just really lazy and didn't want to do anything. Since you don't need money for anything, and you get everything for free, could you just lay around all day and hang out in a holodeck doing whatever?

I know there would be a lot of people who would want to pursue their creative and scientific endeavors on earth and a good number would want to join starfleet to explore the galaxy, but I can imagine there would also be a large amount of people who just don't wanna do anything at all and would be perfectly happy just being lazy all day. Would the rest of society frown upon those people for not contributing anything?

 

Does it matter? We simply don't know enough about the Earth government, one way or the other. For all we know, they could send folks who have nothing to do off to clean highways or some other menial task for eight hours a day.

I imagine the Communist utopia isn't as utopian as some folks imagine it to be.

 

Well it matters to me in the sense that I was wondering how society actually works in the 24th century (or even the 23rd) in Star Trek, hehe. I really can't wrap my mind on how a society without money can actually work well. I mean, how does the Federation government work without the folks in charge being corrupt and turning the whole earth into a massive police state?

 

We have no real clue. Not something that was ever really touched on.

 

I hope the Picard series shows a lot of civilian life on earth. In the latest Short Treks episode (which takes place in Picard's time), they showed an elementary school on earth that was pretty much exactly the same as a modern day elementary school. I found that interesting and kind of weird because I thought by that time the modern day concept of "going to school" would be outdated and they'd have new ways for kids to learn. Hell, the current educational system in our present day is really outdated and needs some huge changes. I figured that by the 24th century, all kids on earth would be homeschooled but also be in virtual, holographic classrooms with other kids doing the same thing from their own homes (so that way they would still be able to interact with other kids and not grow up without any social skills).

 

The Federation government leaves those kind of decisions up to the individual member (planetary or multi-planetary body). Some, like Vulcan and Bolarus, still have an active monetary policy. United Earth explicitly does not (and explicitly does in some episodes, but that's a whole thing).

I always felt that Star Trek 2009 showed us that the UE was on the verge of being a police state. The police monitor actions from space, refer to people as "Citizen," and protect their identity behind large, almost robotic facemasks. In other episodes or media, we learn that the murder rate is approximately 0, which on a planet of billions is just mind-boggingly improbable. Almost Japanese-level of twisting statistics and hiding facts in your favor.

We just learned that the WSA school in San Francisco practice some kind of social credit system of demerits and humiliation in their academic studies. Is this a private school based on the Vulcan model, or a sign of what to expect when the children enter the "real world"? I suspect that Picard may give us a little more insight in the day-to-day lives of Citizens.

 

That robot cop in Star Trek 2009 always creeped me out. I mean damn, they looked like they were meant to instill fear in the average citizen rather than making them feel safe. Who the hell wants to live in a society where they are afraid of the people that are supposed to protect them?

 

I'm always drawn to work on weekends and holidays, cause I simply get bored and restless at home, and there always comes a point when I've watched and read everything I want to, had enough of Netflix, and have seen everything there is to see in my town.

 

I’m pretty sure that laziness would result in regular appointments with a counselor under the assumption that everyone can be a contributing member of society if only their dreams were discovered and nurtured.

 

Machines more or less do all their work and it'd be easy to modify them for cross-functionality. What's left to do? How much does federation education cost to retrain? Actually, machines don't do it all - otherwise you wouldn't have a thousand stellar cartographers, helmsmen, and others. Those seem stable.

 

Certainly there will be enough relief work to do for lazy people. There are many crises in the galaxy that leave people in need of help: building shelters, getting foodstuff and medical supplies, talking to people who suffered terrible fates...
And in the future you are not limited to just one job, it is easier to change your career..... But you must want it. There will always be lazy people who want to be prosperous without any contribution to their wealth.

 

There's alot of kooky, unpredictable stuff in Star Trek's eldritch horror-filled space. Given the Enterprise operated with only a few old crewmembers in Star Trek III, I figure that proves that 98% of the 1000 crew in the 2360s was just given busy work so they don't wind up like Bruce Mars' Leonard Nimoy.

Also, machines in Star Trek are nerfed. Today, we have top scientists trying to figure out how to advance artificial intelligence. In Star Trek-land, due to incidents in the 2250s and 2260s, scientists are constantly trying to limit the extent of artificial intelligence. They don't want machines thinking for themselves, because that just brings complications.

 

Didn't Scotty rig some automated circuits? (and exposition revealed a skeleton crew cannot handle the ship if battle (or malfunction) conditions occur.)

Very nerfed. But that could be explored, though I'd hope the easiest obvious answers don't need an episode to discuss and I'm not yet confident on the current scriptwriters to do a decent job with it either. Heck, even the legendary DC Fontana camped it up in 1968...

 

Theoretically, I'm sure one could get away with being lazy and lounging around for a living in Gene's Utopia. There's probably propaganda to combat this, convince people they want to work their asses off for no money or compensation of any kind. This may even go so far as the lazy being shunned and ostracized by their neighbours, but they'd face no official consequence or reprimand from the government.

 

I could live with it.

 

I believe that in st utopia, you have a basic living class.. As in that they do nothing, so you have basic apartments etc. But to move ahead in that society it's based on achievement. Take admiral Kirk's apartment in st2 .. It's?probably in a Starfleet complex that only admirals and above get to live in.. And it's more luxurious than a basic pad.
But there is a credit / monitary system in there to buy stuff from other worlds.
So not a full communist society ( which would never work) but a socialist one with a very large social system.

 

Heck, has it ever been confirmed on screen that Federation citizens have a right to even vote?

 

I'm pretty sure holodecks are still a pretty limited resource, what with how much power they require (and according to TNG their novelty) and also that people seem willing to pay for Quark to let them use his.

Aside from that limitation, though, in Voyager's "Non Sequitur" alt-Paris did seem to spend all his time just relaxing and enjoying himself, probably to the disapproval of others, at least those in Starfleet, but there was no force used against that, no compelling something else.

 

Well, we know that society is transformed more profoundly than we can imagine. No-one is interested in acquiring wealth any more (at least not to the point that it's a driving force in their lives) if we take the words of Picard at face value. I don't see how that incredible transformation of humanity could realistically happen, but assuming that it did, it probably also would mean that people would perceive many other issues very differently from today too - perhaps even in ways we cannot imagine.

So perhaps laziness it is frowned upon and combated with propaganda, as some suggest here. Then again, perhaps there simply is a non-judgemental attitude about it: "if they want to be lazy, let them. There's more than enough for everybody anyway." (Of course, given the level of technology, there probably would be far less need for personnel even aboard starships than the amount we actually see, and so it would be in all sections of society).

The next sentence Picard says is "We work to better ourselves ...and the rest of humanity." It would be interesting to know who the we exactly are. Is it: 'we the human species', or is it "we of Starfleet"?

 

I can admit I'm lazy and wouldn't want to work nearly every day if it wasn't necessary.

But, I could try musical stuff. People still like metal music in the future? I've been playing guitar for about 20 years, sometimes more, more often less but creating music is fun. That might be my thing on 24th century Earth.

 

Yes, you could, and yes, you’d be judged negatively for it.