Real world organisations pushing for Trek-like future

[sljolt]

Hello all, I was recently reading Trekonomics by Manu Saadia, and it's got me thinking again about what real world organisations embody the values of Star Trek. I made a post a few years ago about careers that are comparable to Star Fleet, but after giving it some thought I realised there were a lot of ways to interpret that question. A career that gives the experience, the exploration, etc. might not align with Trek values, for example.

Saadia describes Trek's society as "a mixture of the Red Cross and the MIT faculty club". I think this is a pretty good description, but there's also more to Trek society than altruism and science.

I've made a little list of organisations that embody some area of Trek for me, with some caveats. In no particular order:

• Space agencies -- The most obvious, NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, and other space agencies are worth a mention, but it's also important to remember that these are also partly military organisations in their funding and structure, with all the ethical implications that brings.
• The Planetary Society -- A non-profit founded by Carl Sagan, promoting space science and accessibility to knowledge about space to everyone. The host of Planetary Radio, Mat Kaplan, regularly references Star Trek: TNG. Robert Picardo is even on the Board of Directors.
• Effective Altruism / Future of Humanity Institute / Future of Life Institiute/ 80,000 Hours -- An affiliation of organisations mainly based in Oxford University in the UK and MIT in the US with a focus on how to most effectively target resources at humanity's problems. These groups have a bit too much of a preoccupation with AI, in my opinion, but otherwise really interesting work.
• The World Bank -- I admired a lot of the projects undertaken by the World Bank around the time that Jim Yong Kim was President, but the organisation is heavily political and vary in their aspirations and methods.
• United Nations -- Probably the model used for the Federation, but like the World Bank, subject to politics.
• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists -- A US-based international relations journal with a focus on nuclear weapons and global security.
• European Futures Observatory -- A non-profit research organisation writing on 'futurist' topics.

There's probably way too many NGOs, science faculties, and loose 'futurist' organisations out there to name, but I would be really interested to hear the thoughts of posters here.

What organisations do you think embody Trek values, no matter how large or small? Does anyone know of any organisations explicitly working towards important areas of a Trek-like world, like post-scarcity?

 

[NCC-73515]

HHMI, Max Planck Society, NSF, all kinds of research organizations

 

[ananta]

The Venus Project!

 

[sljolt]

The Venus Project!

I have been reading more about this, and it is an interesting and ambitious project. They are still searching for volunteers in a few areas I think I could really help with (one being data science). Listening to some of Fresco's lectures, I find myself in agreement with some of his points and disagreement with others. I like his perspectives on the collaborative and iterative nature of science and technology -- that individual geniuses and inventors are rare and tend to "stand on the shoulders of giants", while the rest of the work is done by many other people. I disagree with three major points of his, though:

• The first is the idea that democracy is an inherently archaic or undesirable system, when the reality is democracy has been extremely limited throughout history (and still is, in many ways). The Venus Project seems like an extremely "top-down" model for this reason, no matter how well-intentioned it is.
• This ties into the first point, which is that resource management will be entirely under the control of computers. He does say in another video that technology and computers only carry out our will, which is a more reassuring perspective -- what I would question is whether we need a supercomputer to distribute resources more fairly. That seems to be a political rather than a technological problem. Maybe he's implying that beginning to invent the technology will push the political side of things in that direction too?
• Fresco says that virtually everything about a human's psychology is down to environment, to the point where he says there is no such thing as human nature. I don't think this is true, and subscribe more to Noam Chomsky's view that human beings have a very wide scope of possible behaviours depending on our environment, but it is a scope nonetheless. Like everything else belonging to the natural world, we have a scope and limits, but I do understand Fresco's point that taking a baby born in the UK and then raising the child in Japan will cause them to speak Japanese and assimilate Japanese culture.

Overall, though, the project seems fairly sincere. I will probably buy some of the materials and think about volunteering in the future.

In a way it actually reminds me a lot of related projects and utopian ideas. To add to my list, I'd say it's worth checking out Parecon and Practical Utopia by Michael Albert. It seemed like Parecon and the related International Organisation for a Participatory Society (IOPS) were making some waves around 2012. While the blog is still being updated, I don't know the status of the organisation now.

HHMI, Max Planck Society, NSF, all kinds of research organizations

Great suggestions, I hadn't given much thought to non-University, non-profit research organisations like tihs. The Novo Nordisk Foundation might also fit into this category?​

 

[Tenacity]

Trekonomics by Manu Saadia

A disappointing read. Trek has referrence to both money and no money, and I was hoping Saadia would come up with a theory how this could all fit together. No such luck, Saadia simply reject anything that didn't fit into his (her?) narrative. What a waste.

"a mixture of the Red Cross and the MIT faculty club". I think this is a pretty good description

I'd say that while it isn't exactly like any one of these, the federation is a combination of the UN, NATO, Commonwealth of Nation, and various other govermental, trade and military alliances /organizations. Historically militarys have done considerable amounts of exploration and formation of alliaces and treaties. Federation members are more held together through trade, social interaction and the need for a strong military alliance in a dangerious galaxy, than any other aspect.

The exploration and scientific investigations we see are probably a tiny fraction of what the Federation /Starfleet is.

post-scarcity

Never seen this on the show, don't think it's what they have.

The Venus Project

Just another dictatorship, a small number of "leaders" who would organize the vast majority of Human Beings into nothing more than compliant farm animals.

Shut up, don't think, do what you're told.

In return, you'll be housed. medicated and fed.

 

[Nyotarules]

The Eu before the single market?

 

[Tim Thomason]

A disappointing read. Trek has referrence to both money and no money, and I was hoping Saadia would come up with a theory how this could all fit together. No such luck, Saadia simply reject anything that didn't fit into his (her?) narrative. What a waste.

I haven't fully read the book (a bit of a dry read), but I've skimmed a bit and seen him in interviews for the book. He at least acknowledges that the new economic paradigm had to have happened post-replicator, which is the best fit (as opposed to those who say it's a 22nd century innovation or deny the countless TOS references to currencies). Still, you have to assume that metaphors are rampant well into the 24th century, and Star Trek: Picard pretty much topples alot of earlier beliefs with a few of its monetary allusions.

 

[Tenacity]

Still, you have to assume that metaphors are rampant well into the 24th century, and

When it comes to metaphors, I do assume that went Picard tells Sloane that "money doesn't exist" this isn't the full story, and Picard is employing the term money as a metaphor for something else besides money in its entirety. Maybe some aspect of modern money is missing in the future (and this is what Picard is referring to), but in most ways money still provides the same general functions within future society as it does in present day society.

had to have happened post-replicator,

Yet we hear of multiple people on Earth who don't have replicators in the 24th century and it doesn't effect them. Miles Obrein didn't have one In His house growing up, Joe Sisko doesn't in his home /restaurant, Robert Picard doesn't see the need to have one and he lives quite well.

Keiko's family would seem to be the odd ones out in that there was a replicator in their home.

Replicators exist on Earth, but they hardly would seem to be ubiqious. How can they be the basis of the future economy if only a small portion of the population uses them ?