What is civlian life like in the Federation?

[Shik]

Shik, I don't want to come off as dismissing your well thought-out take on this. I really do appreciate it, but re: A) Socialist technocracy? No thanks.

re: B) I value recognition and competency, but if I didn't have to do anything to provide for my lifestyle and family, I think I would do nothing. I'm a project manager. I'm a good project manager. But my growth in this field isn't motivated by passion for it. Although it is driven to some degree for an increase in competency, the underlying reason would be financial compensation. Remove that from the equation and I'm off on a tropical island spearfishing and sitting around campfires for the rest of my life. Now, I'm a pretty responsible, driven person. What about the many, many people who aren't responsible or who don't really care about any particular field enough to excel in it to the point of recognition? I think you overestimate the percentage of people who would actually contribute to such a society.

No worries. You might like what I wrote about said "socialist technocracy" (which, again, is rather incorrect but the best way to explain things without going into 43 pages of socioeconomics) but that doesn't means you have to like the idea.

As for the competency, I think what you're failing to to grasp is that in order to be poor, you would have to remove yourself from the community totally & do absolutely NOTHING. Not even ask someone if they'd like a sandwich. When we say we're doing "nothing" we are in fact often doing something; we just tend to place little or no value on it because it doesn't "pay"...except it often does. Maybe not money, but it can pay in other ways. That, I believe, is the key to things. Again, using myself as an example, I choose not to go beyond a certain level of competency in my paying gig. I go laterally & a little above, but not hugely above. But when I sit down to write, I try to be the best writer I can possibly be, & I am always looking to refine that in any way possible. It doesn't pay, though. So...which is better? Slapping out pizzas for drunks (which pays my rent) or writing things that people enjoy (which doesn't)?

 

[BMariner]

Shik, what about the jobs that robots/computers can't yet handle, which must still be handled by humans, but aren't necessarily jobs anybody aspires to be competent at? Let's say it's possible to condition society (in the Federation's case, hundreds of planets populated by innumerable beings) to adopt competency as a primary motivator. I still don't see how we *ever* get from here to there.

So the only way I'm poor is if I don't play ball-- if I don't choose a craft that fits the competency = pay model. But am I really going to be poor? Is that utopian society really going to leave me high and dry? No. It'll string me along and provide for me cradle to grave. That's what socialism does. You don't think there would be enough "poor" (read: those who can't or won't fit the model) to put a dent in this society?

IMO, this path is on more of a trajectory toward a WALL-E type society (fat slobs nursed on floating beds) than one full of trim, hard-working orchard tenders-- let alone stalwart Starfleet officers who risk their lives for the collective.

 

[Melakon]

The civilians on the other hand often are presented more lazily, like the crazy-admirals-of-the-week. The boring-civilian-of-the-week is easily identifiable as a 20th/21st century restaurateur or barber or whatever with less the charming futurism of the starfleeters.

And writers. The Berman era featured a lot of episodes referring to writers, whether it's Starfleet personnel, Bashir's friend Felix, Jake Sisko, Benny Russell and friends, Tom Paris, Barclay, B'Elanna as the Muse for a writer, and even the EMH was writing novels. Some sort of wish fulfillment for the writing staff I guess, praising the value of writers.

 

[Kevman7987]

Shik, what about the jobs that robots/computers can't yet handle, which must still be handled by humans, but aren't necessarily jobs anybody aspires to be competent at? Let's say it's possible to condition society (in the Federation's case, hundreds of planets populated by innumerable beings) to adopt competency as a primary motivator. I still don't see how we *ever* get from here to there.

So the only way I'm poor is if I don't play ball-- if I don't choose a craft that fits the competency = pay model. But am I really going to be poor? Is that utopian society really going to leave me high and dry? No. It'll string me along and provide for me cradle to grave. That's what socialism does. You don't think there would be enough "poor" (read: those who can't or won't fit the model) to put a dent in this society?

IMO, this path is on more of a trajectory toward a WALL-E type society (fat slobs nursed on floating beds) than one full of trim, hard-working orchard tenders-- let alone stalwart Starfleet officers who risk their lives for the collective.

The problem with this thread (and others like it) is that people keep talking about how Federation society would never work because too many people would choose to not work and live off the government instead. The people in Star Trek itself aren't lazy slobs like us.

You all seem to forget that in the future as seen in Trek, everyone in the Federation strives to better themselves or to make enough money to live at a higher level than the government provides as a base. So yes, unless there is a major change in people's base motivations, it can't work; but the Federation exists in a world where people's motivations have changed.

 

[Nightdiamond]

That seems like the ideal way of life, but how realistic would it be is the question.

Would people really volunteer to be maids, butlers or waiters where they might have to deal with obnoxious people?

This the same Trek where it was said that future humans aren't bother by insults or words anymore--then later for we see fistfights, arguments, near fights, and outright brawls because of insults.

Just recently I came to realize that under this particular economic system, humans are virtually helpless if they leave their solar system.

If they don't make or carry money then whenever they enter a system or culture that requires money, they are helpless.

Jake Sisko couldn't do anything that required money on DS9 and he had to beg for Nog's help.

That means humans live in a post scarcity society, have no wants or needs, but are basically economically isolated on earth.

Then again maybe most people on earth hardly ever leave it anyway.

 

[Arpy]

Oh come on that's silly. DS9 had Jake begging Nog because they had an ax to grind against TNG's idealism, but do you really think Roddenberry, Piller, & Co. saw their utopia anything like that? How did everyone on the station ever pay for a drink at Quark's for seven years? Were they all constantly just offscreen begging their Bajoran coworkers for cash? How did Crusher credit that alien silk to her account on "Encounter at Farpoint"? Clearly Federation citizens have means of doing business with money-based economies.

 

[Arpy]

There are no butlers in the Federation. No one is forced to take a job that doesn't make the most of their abilities or otherwise voluntarily occupy them in some way.

Is that too "out there?" Well what about institutions we take for granted but primitive humans would sabotage were they transported to our time? Banks, stock markets, corporations require individuals' trust in abstract systems. Using "money" requires trust if all you know is a barter economy.

Who knows what economic system will one day supplant our current model, but although I doubt the real future will look anything like Trek's, I hope it will be a better one as Trek proposes.

What would a better future look like to you?

 

[T'Girl]

everyone in the Federation strives to better themselves

Everyone wants recognition & competency

Problem I have with this subject when it occasional comes around is sooner or later someone uses that term.
　
Everyone.
　
"If everyone simply does [THIS] then the system I'm describing will work." And not just everyone one on Earth (oh no), it's everyone of the 150 plus species in the Federation, 800 billion to a trillion people, will all (or most) adopt a single life philosophy. And all will do so in a relatively short span of time of decades. TNG doesn't take place multiple thousands of years in the future, and TOS showed numorious examples and clues of a "conventional" economic system, at least what we saw of it.
　
Perhaps for obvious reasons, the show wasn't going to tell a 1960's America audience that the 23rd century was going to be socialist.
　
So any adoption of "everythings free' and "everyone volunteers their efforts" system would have had to of happen in just a few decades, somewhere between TUC and Farpoint. That means that WWIII wouldn't be a contributing factor. Deanna in FC said "Poverty, disease, war, they will all be gone within the next fifty years." The combination of Cochrane's warp drive, interstellar exploration, and the arrival of the Vulcans united Humanity.
　
But not a word of a new economic system, or the adoption of a universal lifestyle.

In FC, after Picard told Lily there was no money in the future, Lily directly asked if people were paid, Picard ducked the question.

While they are well off materially, a post-scarcity economy likely just isn't there.

The Ferengi have replicators and have a recognizible economic system.

The Klingons too have replicators, we saw in "The House of Quark" that their economic system is not too dis-similar to our current one.

The replicator therefor isn't somekind of economic/material panacea.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Oh come on that's silly. DS9 had Jake begging Nog because they had an ax to grind against TNG's idealism, but do you really think Roddenberry, Piller, & Co. saw their utopia anything like that? How did everyone on the station ever pay for a drink at Quark's for seven years? Were they all constantly just offscreen begging their Bajoran coworkers for cash? How did Crusher credit that alien silk to her account on "Encounter at Farpoint"? Clearly Federation citizens have means of doing business with money-based economies.

Yeah it sounds silly, but is it the truth?

Jake himsef said as a human he didn't have money- meaning humans don't earn money, carry money or trade money.

It wasn't just, "I'm just a teenager, I don't have any money", but as a human. And he had jobs before. Had articles and books published.

Nog was Jake's age and even he had the money to do basic things.

I'm not sure, but I think something similar happened to Vash too as far as being able to travel.

Starfleet officers might get an account to do off world things. Some humans might have a job with an alien company like Kassidy Yates.

But Jake is going to go down as the classic example of how humans don't have money, and what happens when a human is in a culture that uses money.

Thanks to the writing it's canon now.

 

[bbjeg]

I assumed most of the human civilians on DS9 were the working class (probably mostly construction workers rebuilding Bajor) but as for Federation members who leave their families at DS9 while heading to battle nearby (like the Odyssey before entering the wormhole) probably have an account tied to their ship.

 

[Arpy]

We really need to start another thread about Trek's contradictions? Maybe he squandered his "exocredits" or whatever and now was wining about having to be an evolved human-being. It's not easy "being a saint." In paradise or abroad. I take that scene with a grain of salt. DS9 also retconned the Mirror Universe not having cloaking devices when the first time we see a Mirror ship it's decloaking, or the Federation outlawing genetic-engineering since Khan when "Unnatural Selection" is about disaster at a Federation genetic-engineering facility.

Come to think of it, even on utopian TNG you had kids throwing tantrums about schoolwork, lying to cover up guilt, being in denial about death, running away from their problems, etc. Adults too were shown unable to get over the deaths of their spouses, being full of themselves, being awkward with others, being jerks, liars, mavericks, ne'er-do-wells ...and that's in the Federation.

 

[bbjeg]

We really need to start another thread about Trek's contradictions? ...

... or the Federation outlawing genetic-engineering since Khan when "Unnatural Selection" is about disaster at a Federation genetic-engineering facility...

Genetic-engineering on humans is outlawed.

 

[Arpy]

We really need to start another thread about Trek's contradictions? ...

... or the Federation outlawing genetic-engineering since Khan when "Unnatural Selection" is about disaster at a Federation genetic-engineering facility...

Genetic-engineering on humans is outlawed.

1) They were humans in "Unnatural Selection".

2) It would be crazy to allow aliens to improve themselves but let your own people stagnate. It's like saying, "Oh, warp speed? Here, U.N., this is for you. The U.S. chooses to putz around between Earth and Mars."

 

[Clark Terrell]

1) They were humans in "Unnatural Selection".

Which makes no sense given the Federation's laws about genetic engineering. I suppose it's possible scientists could get permission to have a single colony on which genetically enhanced children are living, but not likely.

 

[Shik]

everyone in the Federation strives to better themselves

Everyone wants recognition & competency

Problem I have with this subject when it occasional comes around is sooner or later someone uses that term.
　
Everyone.

Speaking on naught but my segment...how many people do you know of that don't want or like to be recognized for their efforts? (Well, yentas, but...) Here's the thing, & I'm going to monologue slightly here on several posts.

The problem here is that we only know of our own culture, so we it is extremely difficult for us to parse one that operates on a fundamentally different ethos. Having read a lot of Quinn & Heinlein, I feel better equipped than most to do so, but even then I find myself listening to Mother Culture at times & walking the company path. We cannot judge 23rd or 24th century Earth or the Federation by our viewpoints, because that data set simply does not apply. It is as radically different to us as tribal life (which, I might add, might actually be closer to the society in question).

Anyone here ever read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress? Recall how bizarre and nearly alien Loonie life seemed to the groundhogs? Yet it worked for them, was evolutionarily stable--because it had to be. Nothing else would have worked. It tested out. Quinn wrote that "if the world is to be saved, it must not be with a change of programs but with a change of vision." This is the crux of the matter here: the vision has changed, radically, fundamentally. This time, however, those who dissent are not exterminated, but free to leave into the infinite vagaries of space to do their own thing, however & wherever that may be.

Yes, there are very recognizable elements in human/Federation daily life. There have to be to successfully tell the story. But at the same time, there also has to be such a divergence from the world we are used to at the ver heart of the organization, because if it were a mere extrapolation of our world, none of it would work, because our world is not viable in the long-term. This is what they mean by "humanity bettering itself". It's not a continuation of this culture's ceaseless task to make people better than human but rather a realization that people are how they are, that there's nothing inherently wrong with them, & that by allowing for that diversity the whole becomes stronger & greater.

Every society has shit jobs, from mucking out shitpots to flensing the blubber to collecting firewood. They have to be done to keep the society functioning, & perhaps that realization is what allows people to do them, even temporarily. It's a mindset of "do this now & I'll advance soon enough to my true skills", or--in the absence of those skills--"this is all I can really do, but it's necessary & useful & I pay into the community thusly."

 

[T'Girl]

Adults too were shown unable to get over the deaths of their spouses, being full of themselves, being awkward with others, being jerks, liars, mavericks, ne'er-do-wells ...and that's in the Federation.

Humans in the 24th century still kill their girlfriend and her new lover, and then commit suicide.

Ahh, evolution.

 

[Arpy]

Adults too were shown unable to get over the deaths of their spouses, being full of themselves, being awkward with others, being jerks, liars, mavericks, ne'er-do-wells ...and that's in the Federation.

Humans in the 24th century still kill their girlfriend and her new lover, and then commit suicide.

Ahh, evolution.

?? So because as we're corruptible we can't lessen its likeliness?

 

[PhoenixClass]

Deanna in FC said "Poverty, disease, war, they will all be gone within the next fifty years." The combination of Cochrane's warp drive, interstellar exploration, and the arrival of the Vulcans united Humanity.
　
But not a word of a new economic system, or the adoption of a universal lifestyle.

One couldn't eliminate poverty, disease and war without a new economic system.

 

[Sindatur]

I don't know about Maids and Butlers (though, I assume it's also true for many of them), but, other Service jobs directly serving the Public, such as Waiters, Cooks, Cashiers, Sales People, etc, there are many who genuinely enjoy their jobs, they enjoy serving the Public, and have no desire to be in another line of work or be in a job with more "responsibility". It's a Socialization for them, and they get satisfaction from Servicing the Public, and would still want to do that job, even if they didn't have to do it to survive.

Not everybody will have the aptitude for The Sciences, The Arts... unless you specifically breed your race to perform specific functions, so, you would still have people with a range of IQs, interests, aptitudes, ambitions...

 

[Nightdiamond]

When I first started watching Trek, I assumed humans eliminated poverty but still traded or used some type of currency (if necessary).

Then came that scene in DS9 and later Picard saying money didn't exist in the 24th. not to mention the replicators.

Isn't it ironic that when they finally do say something about earth's economy, it's so half vague and half weird that it ends up throwing the whole concept into confusion?

There's no money on 24th century earth. But people run businesses.

So now honestly, afterwards I had to assume that when Sisko serves his customers he either 'pretended' to accept money or he just doesn't.

So the scenerio might be like, 'Hi, welcome to our restaurant, here's your menu, here's your seat.

Have you tried our seared scallops that we spent 5 hours painstakingly picking out of the water?

[After eating 3 servings, the customer simply but politely gets up and leaves]

"Ok thank you for eating at Sisko's, please come again."


I mean, it's not a judgement, it's real interesting. But everything is left so vague you can't help but to imagine this scenario.