The No Currency Thing On Earth

The precise dialog was:

As Gillian and Kirk leave the restaurant:

So that is what has to be interpreted. Note that this is less than two decades after money was often mentioned in TOS and TAS.

Kirk's words could be interpreted as meaning that 20th century Earth still uses coins, paper money, and credit cards, while the 23rd century uses some form of electronic money transactions.

Perhaps the true money less society didn't appear until the era of Picard.

 

Yes, but it's vague enough that he could just be referring to cash.

 

Yes. In TOS, there was a reference or two to Chekhov earning his pay for the week, but that could be purely a figure of speech. Credits were mentioned a few times, but could be purely for extras, luxury goods, rather than for food, housing, medical care, and other necessities.

 

What doesn't have to be interpreted?

No. From VOY "Dark Frontier":

JANEWAY: So what we have here in two simple words is, Fort Knox.
TUVOK: Captain?
JANEWAY: Tom, translate?
PARIS: Fort Knox. The largest repository of gold bullion in Earth's history. Over fifty metric tons worth over nine trillion U.S. dollars.
JANEWAY: Keep going.
PARIS: Well, er, when the new world economy took shape in the late twenty second century and money went the way of the dinosaur, Fort Knox was turned into a museum. ​

http://www.chakoteya.net/Voyager/517.htm

Money is not a component of the economy on Earth by the end of the 22nd century.

Again, DS9 "In the Cards" squares the circle (i.e., solves the difficult problem). Even in Picard's era, money is still used in the Federation, but money is not needed on Earth by the dawn of the 23rd century, and the New World Economy functions without money in any way shape or form.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/New_World_Economy

No. See above.

 

The problem with the Ferengi trying to break into Fort Knox, is that Quark later says, in Who Mourns for Mourn, that gold is valueless.

 

What about souvenirs acquired while breaking into a place that's considered impenetrable by Hew-mons?

 

And yet in the Next Gen episode, The Last Outpost, a ferengi refers to gold as a 'valuable metal'

From http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/107.htm
LETEK: Proof of their barbarism. They adorn themselves with gold, a despicable use of a valuable metal. And they shamelessly clothe their females.

Does that imply that the value of gold has tanked in between The Last Outpost and Who Mourn For Morn?

 

It's kind of hard to come back from dying in a fire.

 

Man, we've got dermal regenerators (for skin, muscle and tissue), synthetic and genuine blood (for transfusion), donors and artificial organs (hearts, lungs, etc) and mental stimulators for brain death. To say nothing of nanoprobes, super blood, eugenics (see Bashir, Chakotay, those kids in Unnatural Selection).

Kirk voice: "Death... The ultimate enemy of man. Has been conquered!"

 

My read is that gold (real unreplicated gold) is valuable, but it pales in comparison to a equal measure of latinum.

That what Quark was talking about when he discover he "only" had gold containers, with no latinum inside.

It would be like you thought you had (modern day) gold coins, but then found out they were actually silver,

 

Latinum is unreplicateable, whereas we know that gold is (because as the last outpost shows, it’s on all he communicators.)
The Ferengi May not have been able to replicate gold as of the Last Outpost.

 

I believe in an early season episode of DS9, Quark was trying to make a deal and the person said all he had was gold or something to that extend. Quark remarked, gold was good. Later, Quark has a break down when he is given a box of gold bars but there's no latinum inside. There he called it useless.

We can assume the market/commerce changed between early DS9 and later DS9.

 

That was in Little Green Men: before replication, gold would be good, no?

 

Gold was good in the twentieth century.
Maybe it’s only use later is wrapping latinum.

 

Gracias.

I should've just checked the Memory Alpha wikia. I was about to mention Cardassians playing for gold at Quarks. That was in Emissary on DS9. There were a few instances on TNG where gold was still considered a valuable currency.

Surprising that Fort Knox became a museum. According to Tom Paris on season 5 of Voyager "Dark Frontier".

But this is the Federation. Where money has been rendered obsolete. I do wonder how the Starfleet officers and enlistmen can afford to go into Quarks. He only accepts strips, slips and bars of gold pressed latinum. Drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), food, gambling and holo-suites. Starfleet officers aren't paid a wage by the Federation, as far as we know. I doubt very much they would be paid in latinum.

I'm now curious how the commie Federation does dealings with the capitalist Ferengi alliance. As well as other alien species that haven't abandoned money like Earth has.

 

Gold is a dense metal, it might be more expensive to replicate.

Also natural gold could be more valuable than replicated gold. Just as today manufactured diamonds are less valuable than natural diamonds.

 

We are already off the Gold standard, we only keep the reserve around for mostly emotional reasons, it makes people feel secure knowing it's there, and to not freak everybody else out by selling it off. If currency becomes completely digital that's just of a good reason to turn Ft. Knox into a museum as not having money at all.

 

This makes human society look really weird. I think the problem is that no one ever created a stable background story for humans and how their economy works. Seems like writers from time to time would just throw in vague statements about either no money use or vague money use if the story required it.

You'll see extreme examples like humans committing crime, working 'menial' style jobs, dangerous jobs and busy, time consuming businesses, which seems normal for a society that uses money.

Then you get the statements from the characters themselves that humans don't use money, or need money anymore. Money doesn't even exist. There is no need or want anymore. So now that makes the humans who do that look really odd. According to the show there is no need for humans to ever commit crime for money, do risky dangerous jobs, or risk going to prison for doing something illegal for money.

Kassidy Yates, Vash, Henry Mudd, Tom Paris, their motives make no sense if money no longer exist for humans in the 24th century. They even had a human in the Orion Syndicate.

 

The guilty party is named Gene Roddenberry.

 

It's not only for emotional reasons. While there is no gold standard anymore, if there were a run on the dollar, one way the Fed could defend it would be with the gold supply.

People who majored in economics in college tend not to become science fiction writers.