The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek
POSTED BY: citizen
UPDATED: Sunday, June 7, 2026 16:12
VIEWED: 22198
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Thursday, September 28, 2006 12:12 AM (U)
Quote:And the British military is unlike the military of Anglo-Saxon England, so what? Militaries evolve to meet the threat. They always have. And modern militaries today are far more technical and scientific then they have ever been in the past. It is, in fact, quite in keeping with the theme and attitude of Star Trek that Starfleet should be a highly technical military with a strong emphasis in scientific research.
Originally posted by citizen:
If Starfleet is a military it is completely unlike any military today. The main job of militaries today is defence of their parent nation. Starfleets main job is Scientific and Exploration, Defence of the Federation is a secondary role. I'm finding it hard to see Starfleet as a military, at least as a military as we understand it, since militaries today don't spend most of their time exploring the Amazon or trying to find the cure for cancer.
How do you know that Defence is secondary role of Starfleet? Just because Sweden isn't at war doesn't mean their Army thinks Sweden's defence is secondary, but I bet there is an Amy building somewhere in Sweden where scientific research, not war fighting, is the principle endeavour.
As for the degree to which the Starfleet appears to represent a science and exploration, how do you know that this isn’t simply because the Enterprise was charged with exploration? It actually makes perfect sense that, given the conditions assumed in Star Trek, that the military would want to explore and patrol their region of space. You made this comment earlier:
Quote:Citizen, ibid.
Although the implied militarism is about a military star ship, kind of like saying JAG implies America is militarist.
Evidently, you believed that the Enterprise was a military ship and a show about this ship wouldn’t necessarily imply that the Federation is militarist. So by the same argument if the Enterprise, being “a military star ship” charged with exploration, as is its mission statement, doesn’t necessarily imply that Starfleet isn’t a military.
Also it is interesting to note that the website of the TA describes itself as not being separate from the Army. So regardless of whether the TA is or isn’t militia it would seem that even the TA believes they are a military, if in fact, the British Regular Army is a military.
Quote:
The Regular Army is a force of full-time professional soldiers. The TA is a reserve force of civilians who fulfil soldier training and operational support on a part-time basis. The TA is not a separate Army. It is an integral part of the Army’s organisation and is designed to reinforce the Regular Army wherever necessary. [Emphasis mine]
http://www.armyjobs.mod.uk/TerritorialArmy/RegularandTA.htm
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Thursday, September 28, 2006 4:53 PM (U)
Quote:So you agree with me, if Starfleet is a military it's completely unlike the militaries of today, the same as the militias of yesteryear are completely unlike the militaries of today, so why are you still arguing with me on that?
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
And the British military is unlike the military of Anglo-Saxon England, so what? Militaries evolve to meet the threat. They always have. And modern militaries today are far more technical and scientific then they have ever been in the past. It is, in fact, quite in keeping with the theme and attitude of Star Trek that Starfleet should be a highly technical military with a strong emphasis in scientific research.
How do you know that Defence is secondary role of Starfleet? Just because Sweden isn't at war doesn't mean their Army thinks Sweden's defence is secondary, but I bet there is an Amy building somewhere in Sweden where scientific research, not war fighting, is the principle endeavour.
As for the degree to which the Starfleet appears to represent a science and exploration, how do you know that this isn’t simply because the Enterprise was charged with exploration? It actually makes perfect sense that, given the conditions assumed in Star Trek, that the military would want to explore and patrol their region of space.
But how do I know defence is secondary? They spend nearly all their time on other things, nearly all the characters are Scientists or of Scientific backgrounds, and they've said so, on numerous occasions.
Quote:I wasn't aware that I wasn't allowed to come to a different understanding through the course of this discussion. Why are you bothering to say anything if you think it's wrong for me to change my mind?Quote:Citizen, ibid.
Although the implied militarism is about a military star ship, kind of like saying JAG implies America is militarist.
Quote:Many standing armies included militias, that were still militias, this means nothing.Quote:
The Regular Army is a force of full-time professional soldiers. The TA is a reserve force of civilians who fulfil soldier training and operational support on a part-time basis. The TA is not a separate Army. It is an integral part of the Army’s organisation and is designed to reinforce the Regular Army wherever necessary. [Emphasis mine]
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Thursday, September 28, 2006 7:19 PM (U)
Quote:Actually, the best source I know of (a novel that hasn't been contradicted by anything [yet]) suggests that Sulu's father is Vietnamese. His mother is Japanese (she's the one who taught him how to fight --Sulus aren't fighters. . . but his mother is a Tanaka
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:Quote:I think there has actually been some debate over that. Originally, I think he was supposed to be Japanese, but at some time later, it was discovered that the name Sulu actually can’t be pronounced in Japanese. Or so I understand. I really don’t know for sure. What I do know is that Sulu is generally thought to be American now.
Originally posted by Veteran:
I'm not sure what Sulu's nationality was . . .
).Quote:It's also implied that Jake's stories were aimed at a print market. He was likely freelance, selling stories to either the Federation News Service or the Bajoran networks.
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:Not true, we don't see news channels, which would be the only way of expressly getting over the idea of an independent news service, because apparently people don't like watching TV and it's disappeared. I imagine it has something to do with holodecks
We are told that a character is a reporter, but no one ever seems to read the paper or watch the news..
And we did see different ideas of media freedom when DS9 was occupied by the Dominion: Weyoun promised Jake that his work would not be censored, while the Cardassians demanded that it would be (Of course, we know from Garak that a free press is not a Cardassian concept).
In the post-series DS9 novels, we see that Bajor's infonet is as unregulated as our own (Kira posts a forbidden religious text, and is Attainted, but once something hits the infonet it can never be put back in the bottle), though there are attempts to curtail media freedoms, made possible by the fact that Bajor's government is effectively an appendage to the Vedek Assembly.
We never really needed to see people reading the paper (or the morning news downloads to their PADDs), because we were too busy watching the characters make news. (Actually, now that I think about it, we did see hundreds of scenes of people reading PADDs over raktajinos, so they very well could've been reading the morning news. 'Course, they could also have been reading this month's The NEW Adventures of Captain Proton, but whatever.)
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Thursday, September 28, 2006 9:23 PM (U)
The Federation has no money, no capitalism and, by implication, a command economy.
Officially the wonderful thing that allowed the creation of what the Federation claims to be paradise on Earth, was contact between Earth and the outside universe. However the Prime Directive requires that all primitive non-warp capable civilisations be left alone and uncontacted and uninfluenced by the outside universe. Why, if first contact was so good for Earth?
Officially, Starfleet exists to explore, and is armed only for self-defence. It has enough firepower to fight the navies of the other major powers on at least equal, and usually superior terms. Why are Starfleets explorers so unwelcome that they need to be so heavily armed?
Every sizeable ship that calls at DS9 from the Federation is a Starfleet vessel. Private citizens are apparently unable to trade with the outside universe.
Officially the Federation has a free media. But we never see anyone pay any attention to a news report, even when there is a full scale war going on around them. Apparently, the official media is not worth listening to. Quarks bar does not even have so much as a TV showing the football scores, never mind CNN.
Note that Sisko should pay some attention to such stations, partly because they often react faster than the militaries own intelligence, and partly because, as station commander, he would have to know what the stations inhabitants have just heard.
Human nature “changed” when the Federation was set up. Why, did they start adding G-32 Paxilon Hydrochlorate to the air processors?
People in the Federation waste no opportunity to tell people, especially each other, how wonderful, paradisical, and perfect the society is. They say it a lot too often, and we never see any actual evidence to that effect.
And according to “Paradise Lost”, this utopia came within a hairs breadth of being overthrown by a single Admiral. Shouldn’t paradise inspire greater loyalty?
Now, there could be an innocent explanation for perhaps any one of these, but all of them?
Anyone would think that Star Trek was a propaganda show, designed to give the impression that the Federation is a wonderful place, and covering up anything questionable…
Of course, in a sense, it is. The writers were told the Federation is some wonderful post-capitalist paradise, and could not imagine what such a society would look like. So we just get people on the fringes, telling us that Earth really is wonderful really…
PS
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Except it was always maintained that Starfleet was formed for scientific research, and research is what they spend most of their time doing.Quote:I'm not arguing that at all. I'm saying the Federation doesn't have a full time army. You're argument seems to be that if we were to disband the military and in times of war used Civilian planes to move police to the combat zone then all of a sudden that means the Police are all in the military even when they're acting as the Police in peace time and that all civilian planes are really military planes no matter where they're going or who they're taking there.
As I understand your arguments, if the army took over the police and counterintelligence roles, as well as complete control over the economy, the army would cease to be a military organisation. After all, the defense of the country would no longer be its primary role. And you would deny, on that basis, that the resulting society was militarised.
I am attempting to argue (perhaps not entirely clearly) that it does not matter why Starfleet was formed, or what it does when it is not defending the Federation. It clearly controls the vast majority of the mobile firepower of the Federation, and therefore serves the Federation as the functional equivalent of a military, whatever its mission statement.
To reverse your example, suppose the police were abolished, and the Army used to maintain law and order. The Army would now be acting as the police in peace ti
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Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:22 PM (U)
Quote:I see so before the invention of money and capitalism there was only command economies. Nice propaganda and rhetoric, shame it doesn't have any relation to reality.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
The Federation has no money, no capitalism and, by implication, a command economy.
It seems the writers aren't the only people who can't imagine people living their lives in freedom without the motivator of greed, the acquisition of personal wealth.
Quote:Yeah, except the real problem with your example is that Earth wasn't pre-warp at first contact. First contact was attained because of the first Human Warp flight. So first contact for Earth doesn't support you at all there.
Officially the wonderful thing that allowed the creation of what the Federation claims to be paradise on Earth, was contact between Earth and the outside universe. However the Prime Directive requires that all primitive non-warp capable civilisations be left alone and uncontacted and uninfluenced by the outside universe. Why, if first contact was so good for Earth?
So Earth wasn't contacted until after it attained warp drive. By comparison civilisations that were contacted prior to attaining warp drive ended up as vicious gangster regimes and so on. In fact relations between Vulcans and Humans were strained because the Humans thought the Vulcans were holding them back by NOT giving them the advances to warp five drives.
With martial arts as nice as it would be to be able to download all that ability like in the Matrix, if you could do that you'd have all the power and none of the discipline. Every technology has a good and a bad application, and if nothing else is a constant through history its that if something is given rather than earned it usually ends up being mistreated.
Quote:Exploring has always been dangerous, rarely because the explorers are unwelcome invaders from a militaristic nation, so again I fail to see how this supports anything.
Officially, Starfleet exists to explore, and is armed only for self-defence. It has enough firepower to fight the navies of the other major powers on at least equal, and usually superior terms. Why are Starfleets explorers so unwelcome that they need to be so heavily armed?
Quote:All you have to do to disprove this is watch any episode without the blinkers. DS9 is constantly being visited by sizeable vessels, rarely Starfleet ones. I'm afraid the reality is the polar opposite of what you say.
Every sizeable ship that calls at DS9 from the Federation is a Starfleet vessel.
Quote:I've already disproved this, Federation citizens are clearly shown trading with the outside world. Ignoring anything I say that doesn't fit what you think doesn't make you right.
Private citizens are apparently unable to trade with the outside universe.
Quote:Again, I've already indicated that the people read the news, there's overt references to it. I don't feel the need to keep disproving these things simply because you won't listen.
Officially the Federation has a free media. But we never see anyone pay any attention to a news report, even when there is a full scale war going on around them. Apparently, the official media is not worth listening to.
Quote:Hardly surprising considering TV doesn't exist any more. I've seen period dramas where people didn't have CNN on the TV too, I guess that means that the Victorians didn't have a free news service.
Quarks bar does not even have so much as a TV showing the football scores, never mind CNN.
Or it means they don't have TVs, perhaps.
Quote:Actually I'm sure there are scenes of him referring to a civilian media, as I said.
Note that Sisko should pay some attention to such stations, partly because they often react faster than the militaries own intelligence, and partly because, as station commander, he would have to know what the stations inhabitants have just heard.
Quote:
Human nature “changed” when the Federation was set up. Why, did they start ad
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Friday, September 29, 2006 12:22 AM (U)
Quote:I knew that there was some reference to Sulu’s origins on screen, but I couldn’t think of where, so I decided to star rewatching the movies and the first one that I watched, Star Trek IV, I found it. (Must have been some of HK psychic powers.
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
Actually, the best source I know of (a novel that hasn't been contradicted by anything [yet]) suggests that Sulu's father is Vietnamese. His mother is Japanese (she's the one who taught him how to fight --Sulus aren't fighters. . . but his mother is a Tanaka
) Sulu says that he was born in San Francisco.On another note, I found it rather telling that Starfleet headquarters as well as Starfleet Academy is located in San Francisco. I think there is a bit of a cultural nod in the direction of the Academic Left.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Friday, September 29, 2006 2:49 PM (U)
There's also the old joke about how the weird people move west. Europe to the Americas, across the continent to California --if you're too weird for San Francisco, you may be too weird for the planet.
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Friday, September 29, 2006 4:56 PM (U)
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:I see so before the invention of money and capitalism there was only command economies. Nice propaganda and rhetoric, shame it doesn't have any relation to reality.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
The Federation has no money, no capitalism and, by implication, a command economy.
It seems the writers aren't the only people who can't imagine people living their lives in freedom without the motivator of greed, the acquisition of personal wealth.
If you think about it, all societies must contain elements of trade and command economics. To take an example, in a small group of similar people, such as a band of hunter-gathers or, possibly, a small group of farmers, people trade favours. We all do this with friends. But it is always expected that favours will be repaid. Someone who refuses to pay favours back is remembered, and people stop doing him favours.
As the group gets larger or more complicated it becomes harder to keep this system working as it becomes harder to decide whether a favour has been paid back in full. It may be hard to pay the favour back at all. If this is the first time you have met a man, and neither of you expects to see the other again, how can either of you return a favour?
So the trade becomes explicit: you do something for him, and he does something for you. The community has now invented barter. “I’ll give you these dilithium crystals, and you fix my warp core.”
If the community becomes larger or more complicated still, even barter has a problem. If you are an air traffic controller, and you want to buy some bread, what exactly can you give the baker in exchange? Or the guy you need to fix your vacuum cleaner?
So people start to use something that almost everyone will want at some time, and use it as a medium of exchange. It can be anything widely used. Rice, tobacco, gold, even sea shells have all been used.
This is the invention of money, when suddenly it becomes possible to get almost anyone to do you a favour, at almost no notice.
The latest step was the invention of fiat money (dollars, euros etc) which have absolutely no value, except as a medium of exchange.
In a complex society, the elimination of money would make trade almost impossible, because it would be rare for two people to have needs and abilities that matched exactly.
A complex society that lacks money is therefore one in which trade is almost impossible, or unnecessary.
The small group of people must also have elements of a command economy. Some things are done because a more important person, or group of people, or the group as a whole, tells you to. Again, in a bigger and more complex group things will tend to become more formalised, as people try to keep track of what decisions have been made by who about what and who will carry them out.
From this point of view fascism, communism, feudalism, democratic socialism etc are distinguished by who makes the decisions about what for which (declared or undeclared) purpose. And of course, they have different means of selecting the decision making entity or person. (e.g. town council, feudal overlord etc).
If the Federation has no money, internal trade must be unimportant, and by default the Federation must be largely a command economy. Post any alternative you can think of. People could still do favours for friends, and there may be some barter, but if trade with strangers were at all common they would still use money.
Note that all this has nothing to do with the motives “greed”, “altruism” etc, of the people who live in a society. Federation citizens could be perfectly altruistic in an entirely free market society. Those who earned more than average could give the extra money away to those with a below average income. And they could give the government however much money it thought it needed.
We are compelled to pay taxes only because people will not give the government as much money as it wants voluntarily.
Conversely of course, people living in a command economy may be altruist
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Saturday, September 30, 2006 8:14 PM (U)
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:Yeah, except the real problem with your example is that Earth wasn't pre-warp at first contact. First contact was attained because of the first Human Warp flight. So first contact for Earth doesn't support you at all there.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Officially the wonderful thing that allowed the creation of what the Federation claims to be paradise on Earth, was contact between Earth and the outside universe. However the Prime Directive requires that all primitive non-warp capable civilisations be left alone and uncontacted and uninfluenced by the outside universe. Why, if first contact was so good for Earth?
So Earth wasn't contacted until after it attained warp drive. By comparison civilisations that were contacted prior to attaining warp drive ended up as vicious gangster regimes and so on. In fact relations between Vulcans and Humans were strained because the Humans thought the Vulcans were holding them back by NOT giving them the advances to warp five drives.
Earth had possessed warp technology for less than one day at the time of First Contact. I find it hard to see how this development could have made First Contact so much more beneficial to humanity, than it would have been five, or even a hundred, years before.
Quote:
From memory alpha:
Starfleet officers are required to understand that allowing cultures to develop on their own is an important right and therefore must make any sacrifice to protect cultures from contamination, even at the cost of their own lives.
In all, there are 47 sub-orders in the Prime Directive. (VOY: "Infinite Regress")
Originally the Directive was a shield for primitive worlds. If such a world was in danger, Starfleet had been known to order ships to save that world, provided it could be done without violating the Directive (TOS: "The Paradise Syndrome").
The Directive was later amended, prohibiting Starfleet officers from intervening even if it would result in the extinction of an entire species or the end of all life on a planet or star system. By the 24th century the Federation had begun applying the Prime Directive to warp-capable species, refusing to interfere in internal matters such as the Klingon Civil War. (TNG: "Pen Pals", "Homeward", "Redemption, Part I", "Redemption, Part II")
It would appear that the primary purpose of the Prime Directive is to maintain the cultural purity of the worlds in question, and that it is thought better to let a species die than render them impure. I really do not think that that is a very good sign at all.
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:Exploring has always been dangerous, rarely because the explorers are unwelcome invaders from a militaristic nation, so again I fail to see how this supports anything.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Officially, Starfleet exists to explore, and is armed only for self-defence. It has enough firepower to fight the navies of the other major powers on at least equal, and usually superior terms. Why are Starfleets explorers so unwelcome that they need to be so heavily armed?
Because Starfleets explorers apparently require enough firepower to fight a full scale war against another major power. It is as if every expedition in the amazon took an army battalion with them. If you take that much firepower, people will assume that you are invading, and then you probably will have a battle.
Quote:Quote:All you have to do to disprove this is watch any episode without the blinkers. DS9 is constantly being visited by sizeable vessels, rarely Starfleet ones. I'm afraid the reality is the polar opposite of what you say.
Every sizeable ship that calls at DS9 from the Federation is a Starfleet vessel.
All the Starfleet ships have mostly human crews. Every non-starfleet vessel I have seen appeared to have a non-human crew, strongly suggesting that it did not come from the Federation. This was not true in Captain Archer’s day, but that was the time
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Saturday, September 30, 2006 10:58 PM (U)
Quote:It's a milestone. Like Hiroshima and Nagasaki proves we had harnessed the atom and were moving into the atomic age.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Earth had possessed warp technology for less than one day at the time of First Contact.
Quote:So you think aliens turning up in medieval Europe with technology like nuclear weapons, handing them over and saying "go nuts" wouldn't have an adverse reaction?
I find it hard to see how this development could have made First Contact so much more beneficial to humanity, than it would have been five, or even a hundred, years before.
Quote:But the Federation council has decided to not implement the prime directive under certain circumstances. Frankly I find the idea of a law that prevents one captain from beaming down and handing over nuclear weapons to an alien tribal chieftain who could never hope to understand the consequences of using them as a pretty good idea.
It would appear that the primary purpose of the Prime Directive is to maintain the cultural purity of the worlds in question, and that it is thought better to let a species die than render them impure. I really do not think that that is a very good sign at all.
Quote:Actually many times in the series Starfleet ships have been shown to be less powerful than the individual warships of other nations. A Romulan warbird is superior, as is a Vor'Cha Klingon Cruiser, to the Enterprise D, apparently the most powerful ship in starfleet.
Because Starfleets explorers apparently require enough firepower to fight a full scale war against another major power. It is as if every expedition in the amazon took an army battalion with them. If you take that much firepower, people will assume that you are invading, and then you probably will have a battle.
Quote:Actually I think this is one of the circumstances where you can defer to the dictates of television budgets. They can't afford to stock the ships with cool looking aliens. I think that the fact that they mention Starfleet is open to all and show enough Aliens to indicate an alien presence is enough.
All the Starfleet ships have mostly human crews. Every non-starfleet vessel I have seen appeared to have a non-human crew, strongly suggesting that it did not come from the Federation. This was not true in Captain Archer’s day, but that was the time the Federation was created, about 200 years before DS9.
There's no reoccurring Asian characters in Firefly, but say so is enough to accept that America and China merged.
Quote:Not really, my god daughter can't bid in auctions. I can't bid in an auction if they don't accept the currency I carry. I have to exchange it, which in the above episode is exactly what Jake does (I was actually going to bring that episode up myself, thanks). He trades what he does have to get Latinum so that he can bid in the auction. I don't see how that's fundamentally different to going to a Bureau de Change.
If Jake is unable even to buy a baseball card, that strongly suggests that individual Federation citizens do have problems trading with the outside universe. (My claim that it is impossible is admittedly an exaggeration.)
Quote:Interference and trade with cultures of a similar technological level are different things.
Note that all this is consistent with the Federations belief that to interfere with a culture is bad for it. Trade between two cultures would alter both cultures. IIRC we do see Sisko conducting trade negotiations, but that would imply that Starfleet or the Federation Government is trading, not private citizens (and as Sisko is the commander of a space station, trade negotiations cannot make up that much of his duties).
Quote:Can't think of an example off hand, but that's not indicative of anything, we don't see the Daily
Fair enough. Does the media matter though? Is there, for example, any case where freedom of the press requires one thing, and the Federation desires another? And if so, how is the conflict resolved?
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 1:26 PM (U)
To take the least important points first:
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:But the Federation council has decided to not implement the prime directive under certain circumstances. Frankly I find the idea of a law that prevents one captain from beaming down and handing over nuclear weapons to an alien tribal chieftain who could never hope to understand the consequences of using them as a pretty good idea.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
It would appear that the primary purpose of the Prime Directive is to maintain the cultural purity of the worlds in question, and that it is thought better to let a species die than render them impure. I really do not think that that is a very good sign at all.
It is a good idea and is a reason for having export restrictions on munitions. But the Prime Directive also bans any form of contact until the species is warp-capable. Including such ideas as the germ theory of disease, the printing press, and writing. And the milestone of warpdrive has nothing to do with culture, social sophistication etc – we know that from looking at the Klingons, Cardassians etc
Note the TNG episode “Who watches the Watchers”, where it is a disaster when members of a pre-warp race briefly see to people observing them.
Common sense suggests that the Federations desire is to preserve the cultural purity of other races until it is physically impossible to do so. After all, they explicitly give that as the reason.
Quote:Quote:Actually many times in the series Starfleet ships have been shown to be less powerful than the individual warships of other nations. A Romulan warbird is superior, as is a Vor'Cha Klingon Cruiser, to the Enterprise D, apparently the most powerful ship in starfleet.
Because Starfleets explorers apparently require enough firepower to fight a full scale war against another major power. It is as if every expedition in the amazon took an army battalion with them. If you take that much firepower, people will assume that you are invading, and then you probably will have a battle.
At Trafalger Nelsons flagship was the 102 gun Victory. I believe she was the most powerful ship in the British fleet (Admirals led their fleets into battle literally, so she must have been one of the most powerful). The most powerful ship in the Allies fleet was the 136 gun Santissima Trinidad. I gather the French Navy also had ships in the 120 gun range. But no one would have said that Victory was built primarily to explore, just because she was slightly smaller than the most powerful ships in the other major navies..
Compare this with the Endeavour, Beagle, Challenger which certainly were exploratory ships, and needed very little firepower. To be fair, it was possible to argue in TNG that the Federation had a huge technological advantage over the other powers (like the Culture in an Iain M Banks novel). This does not really work for DS9, when the other powers (especially the Dominion!) have to be taken seriously. The writers changed the universe around the Federation, which leaves everything looking a little odd…
Quote:Quote:Actually I think this is one of the circumstances where you can defer to the dictates of television budgets. They can't afford to stock the ships with cool looking aliens. I think that the fact that they mention Starfleet is open to all and show enough Aliens to indicate an alien presence is enough.
All the Starfleet ships have mostly human crews. Every non-starfleet vessel I have seen appeared to have a non-human crew, strongly suggesting that it did not come from the Federation. This was not true in Captain Archer’s day, but that was the time the Federation was created, about 200 years before DS9.
Agreed, but where are the human businessman? The only one we see is (maybe) Cassidy Yates, and she is working for Bajor.
Quote:
Quote:
If Jake is unable even to buy a baseball card, that strongly suggests that individual Federation citizens do have problems trading with
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 2:33 PM (U)
Good to see you back Cavalier.
Quote:I was using Nuclear weapons as an extreme example of perversion of technology.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
It is a good idea and is a reason for having export restrictions on munitions. But the Prime Directive also bans any form of contact until the species is warp-capable. Including such ideas as the germ theory of disease, the printing press, and writing. And the milestone of warpdrive has nothing to do with culture, social sophistication etc – we know that from looking at the Klingons, Cardassians etc
The Milestone of warp drive shows that the culture is the one going out and deciding to meet with other races if they so exist, rather than having that intervention thrust upon them. Its a fundamental difference.
Quote:That supports my point well.
Note the TNG episode “Who watches the Watchers”, where it is a disaster when members of a pre-warp race briefly see to people observing them.
Quote:This isn't equivalent. The HMS Victory has 104 guns (I say has because she's still technically in service with the Royal Navy) where as the largest ship at Trafalgar, and the ship with the most guns in the world at the time was the Spanish Santísima Trinidad with 136. There were two other Spanish ships, the Santa Anna and the Príncipe de Asturias with ~112 guns. But despite their on paper superiority British sailors were better trained and better drilled so could fire more rounds per minute. Thus the HMS Victory in reality out gunned even the Santísima Trinidad.
At Trafalger Nelsons flagship was the 102 gun Victory. I believe she was the most powerful ship in the British fleet (Admirals led their fleets into battle literally, so she must have been one of the most powerful). The most powerful ship in the Allies fleet was the 136 gun Santissima Trinidad. I gather the French Navy also had ships in the 120 gun range. But no one would have said that Victory was built primarily to explore, just because she was slightly smaller than the most powerful ships in the other major navies..
The implication I was arguing against was that Starfleet built the most powerful warships, this is simply not the case. The other major powers put emphasis on fire power, Starfleet does not.
Quote:They weren't exploratory ships, they were smaller warships. A purpose built exploratory ship would be a vessel like HMS Dolphin, a 24 gun Frigate and one of the first vessels to be outfitted with copper sheathing. A ship that lead skirmishes against the French and was the second ship to be outfitted with armour.
Compare this with the Endeavour, Beagle, Challenger which certainly were exploratory ships,
Quote:doesn't argue against "I can't bid in an auction if they don't accept the currency I carry. I have to exchange it, which in the above episode is exactly what Jake does (I was actually going to bring that episode up myself, thanks). He trades what he does have to get Latinum so that he can bid in the auction. I don't see how that's fundamentally different to going to a Bureau de Change.".
The reason Jake gives for not having money is not “I am young”, but “I am human. We don’t have any money”.
Quote:So where do they get all those antiques and things in their quarters. Where do they get things like real alcohol? Steal it?
Money is useful only for trade and accounting, so if Federation citizens have no money it seems safe to conclude that they rarely engage in trade, with each other or anyone else.
Quote:The UK and France went to war a number of times over the 19th century. Both the Battle of Trafalgar and the battle of Waterloo were fought in the 1800s. Following these France was mired in to much internal political strife to fight with anyone else. Likewise there were a number of armed confrontations between the UK and the US but both nations were to busy fighting other people to go
The UK had rather unhappy relations with the US and France throughout the 19th century, but the cold wars stayed cold.
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 2:59 PM (U)
Quote:Actually, the Klingons didn't invent warp drive, they got it from the Hur'q, a warp-capable race who conquered the primitive Klingons and bit off more than they could chew (the Hur'q are extinct now, and the Klingons rule an interstellar Empire with their back-engineered technology). That's why Klingon culture is so odd; they should be just inventing gunpowder about now, but instead they have starships, disruptors, and cloaking devices --the Klingons are an example of what happens when you break the Prime Directive.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
And the milestone of warpdrive has nothing to do with culture, social sophistication etc – we know that from looking at the Klingons, Cardassians etc
There's also evidence that the Hebitians (before they called themselves Cardassians) got their warp drive from the ancient Bajorans. They seem to have had warp technology in the Hebitian age (the Hebitians were artistic, intellectual, and compassionate, much like the modern Bajorans), and there's evidence that Hebitia and Bajor were allies (and even shared the same religion --the Oralian Way seems linked to the Bajoran Prophets), before Hebitia's resources ran out and the "Cardassian Movement" took over. The Hebitian culture collapsed, and the revolution reformed the newly-named "Cardassia" into a military dictatorship, aimed at securing needed recources however they could (i.e., through conquest).
(In Enterprise, a lot of alien writing systems seemed to resemble ancient Bajoran [though Hoshi obviously wouldn't recognize this, I'm going by my own graphic design training --it looks like the Enterprise graphic designers borrowed stuff from DS9 surplus], perhaps implying that cultures in this area of the quadrant were "seeded" by ancient Bajoran starfarers, who would've needed some form of warp drive. . .)
*wanders off on tangent*
-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 3:07 PM (U)
Quote:Didn't the ancient Bajorans use those weird solar sailing ships? That's actually something I could never get my head around, they weren't space age technology, no computers and the sails were controlled by hand winches. So great a 19th century space ship, but how did they get them in to orbit in the first place?
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
(In Enterprise, a lot of alien writing systems seemed to resemble ancient Bajoran [though Hoshi obviously wouldn't recognize this, I'm going by my own graphic design training --it looks like the Enterprise graphic designers borrowed stuff from DS9 surplus], perhaps implying that cultures in this area of the quadrant were "seeded" by ancient Bajoran starfarers, who would've needed some form of warp drive. . .)
*wanders off on tangent*
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 3:35 PM (U)
Quote:This is something most decent people feel intuitively isn't it? I mean bettering themselves? Making life better for future generations? Sounds more like the culture has shifted the emphasis from one basic instinct to another.
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
I think the important point is really Jakes:Quote:
There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.
Star Trek tends to see virtue as loyalty to a higher collective. People are supposed to make life better for their people: humanity, bajorans, romulans etc. The point is not to make people free, but to make them think the right way.
In fact it could be argued this is what Capitalists believe, they just go about it in a round about way.
I’d say that in most systems people move very directly towards bettering themselves.
Its just that in Capitalism it is difficult to better yourself without also bettering your business partners, customers etc. Other systems tend to be based on a logical fallacy, e.g.
1) Socialism requires everyone to be altruistic.
2) Therefore, under socialism, everyone will be altruistic
3) Therefore, under socialism, everything will be great
No one seemed to wonder what would happen if the government bureaucrats did not become altruistic under Socialism. (Not the only problem with Socialism, but certainly a serious one.)
Quote:
From Memory Alpha:
It appears that the Federation economy is built on a model that is neither capitalist or socialist, but something akin to communist model, however precise information is very scarce. The descriptions given by various Federation citizens are as follows:
Kirk told Spock about 20th century Earth: "They're still using money. We need to get some." Later on, while Kirk was having dinner with Gillian Taylor and was unable to pay in the restaurant, Gillian asked sarcastically, "Don't tell me they don't use money in the 23rd century," and Kirk told her "Well, we don't." (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)
Picard tries to explain to Ralph Offenhouse from the 20th century that there would be no need for his law firm any longer: "A lot has changed in three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of 'things'. We have eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions." (TNG: "The Neutral Zone")
When Lily Sloane asked how much the Enterprise-E cost to build, Picard tells her "The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century... The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity." (Star Trek: First Contact)
When Nog suggests that Jake should bid for a baseball card in an auction, Jake says "I'm Human, I don't have any money." Nog replies "It's not my fault that your species decided to abandon currency-based economics in favor of some philosophy of self-enhancement." Jake says "Hey, watch it. There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity." Nog then replies "What does that mean?" Jake responds "It means we don't need money!" (DS9: "In the Cards")
Jake: "(big smile) I sold my first book today. Quark: "Really? How much did you get for it? Jake: "It's just a figure of speech. The Federation News Service is going to publish a book of my stories about life on the station under Dominion rule. But they're not paying me." (DS9: "You Are Cordially Invited...")
Tom Paris says about the significance of Fort Knox: "When the New World Economy took shape in the late 22nd century and money went the way of the dinosaur, Fort Knox was turned into a museum." (VOY: "Dark Frontier")
The point is that if you ask how the Federation economy works, the first thing you get is a lecture on how altruistic everyone in the Federation is.
For comparison, if you had to explain in a few sentences how capitalism worked to a m
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 4:13 PM (U)
Quote:
Originally posted by Cybersnark:Quote:Actually, the Klingons didn't invent warp drive, they got it from the Hur'q, a warp-capable race who conquered the primitive Klingons and bit off more than they could chew (the Hur'q are extinct now, and the Klingons rule an interstellar Empire with their back-engineered technology). That's why Klingon culture is so odd; they should be just inventing gunpowder about now, but instead they have starships, disruptors, and cloaking devices --the Klingons are an example of what happens when you break the Prime Directive.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
And the milestone of warpdrive has nothing to do with culture, social sophistication etc – we know that from looking at the Klingons, Cardassians etc
There's also evidence that the Hebitians (before they called themselves Cardassians) got their warp drive from the ancient Bajorans.
I’m beginning to wonder if anyone but Earth invented warpdrive on their own. If the Vulcans did, what does that say about the Romulans?
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 4:23 PM (U)
Quote:Depends what sort of socialism your talking about. Now current system is perfect though, capitalism collapses in to corporatism, as I'd say it has done or is in the process of doing so in the US.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
1) Socialism requires everyone to be altruistic.
2) Therefore, under socialism, everyone will be altruistic
3) Therefore, under socialism, everything will be great
No one seemed to wonder what would happen if the government bureaucrats did not become altruistic under Socialism. (Not the only problem with Socialism, but certainly a serious one.)
Quote:Because we're living in our culture and it's much harder to see you're own indoctrination than it is too see others.
It is hard not to conclude that the Federation is much more dependent on people thinking the right way than is our own society.
Quote:Ahh but of course it would. In order to make a profit someone else has to make a loss, there's not infinite money, ergo. If we were altruistic the idea of making profit would be abhorrent, as it is by its very nature succeeding on others failure. Making profit is the underpinning nature of modern capitalism.
After all, if everyone on Earth turned into a perfect altruist, it would cause no problems for General Electric, or the people who sell each other things on eBay. Instead of seeing ads which told you how much better off you would be if you bought the advertised product, you would see ads which told you how much better off everyone else would be if you bought the advertised product. Advertisers might well prefer such a world – it would be harder for customers to tell if the product really had made everyone better off (on average), than if it had made the customer better off.
Quote:Of course there's an incentive. If you can tell the customer what they want rather than react to it you're in for making much more profit. Telling people what they want would be the perfect situation for a corporation.
(This is why it is generally a mistake to say that Big Giant Firms want us all to want Evil Thing X: they really do not care what anyone wants, as long as they can figure out some way of selling it to him. Even if they could control our minds, they would have no incentive to.)
Quote:
If advertising was as effective as all that, New Coke and the Ford Edsel would have been a great success, children could be persuaded to eat their vegetables by an ad campaign, no one in the English speaking world would still be smoking, and the War on Drugs would be a complete success.
Which completely ignores several factors:
Their competitors are also marketing and advertising. New Coke fails because Old Coke has better advertising both because it has more money and is better established, branding and word of mouth are both forms of advertising. There is as much in our culture discouraging kids from eating vegetables as encouraging, and I mean that. Look at films and literature, listen to children in the playground, stack that against under funded occasional government ads that say "you should eat vegetables you know" and parents that often just stuff McDonald's down their kids throat to shut them up. Cultural conditioning to hate vegetables starts at a young age and for many continues in to adult life. My Father is the perfect example, he coincidently indoctrinated me against vegetables by his own refusal to eat them. Bizarrely enough part of my rebellious stage was to start liking vegetables, go figure.
Smoking, again our culture has a big plus for smoking that is only NOW beginning to change. I'll remind you that smoking is on the decrease, as culture has changed and advertising less prevalent. I'll also remind you that people won't just stop smoking after they have started, Nicotines addictive. The same can be said of drug taking, it's an accepted part of our culture, albeit underground, it's almost expected that teenagers will try it.
Quote:
The idea that advertising is very powerful seems to be the only thing that advertisin
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 4:56 PM (U)
Quote:
I’m beginning to wonder if anyone but Earth invented warpdrive on their own. If the Vulcans did, what does that say about the Romulans?
They are the same race.
The Romulans are the decendents of Vulcans who left their homeworld at the time of Surak, rejecting his teachings.
Whether they used warp drive or sub-ight ships isn`t entirely clear.
--------------------------------------------------
Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 5:18 PM (U)
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Ahh but of course it would. In order to make a profit someone else has to make a loss, there's not infinite money, ergo.
Why does someone have to make a loss, for me to make a profit?
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 5:29 PM (U)
Quote:I'll ask the opposite question, if someone doesn't have to make a loss for you to make a profit where does the extra money come from?
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Why does someone have to make a loss, for me to make a profit?
Remember we're talking about a finite system, in a finite system resources can move around but not grow, thus for one person to have more of something someone else must end up with less.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 7:12 PM (U)
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:I'll ask the opposite question, if someone doesn't have to make a loss for you to make a profit where does the extra money come from?
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Why does someone have to make a loss, for me to make a profit?
Remember we're talking about a finite system, in a finite system resources can move around but not grow, thus for one person to have more of something someone else must end up with less.
Creating extra money is easy as many central banks have demonstrated. All you need is a printing press…
Creating wealth is harder, but not impossible!
The Earth is not a closed system (solar radiation strikes it, and it rejects waste heat into space). The human economy contains only a small fraction of its energy and land resources, and a negligible fraction of its mineral reserves.
Even if the economy was a closed system it might still be possible to rearrange it to increase the total “wellbeing” (wealth, if you like) of the people in it.
Notice that if this were not true, it would remain impossible to make the average man better off with any social system, capitalism, socialism or something as yet uninvented. The average man is better off now than he was a few hundred years ago (never mind a few thousand), despite the fact that there are so many more people to divide resources between.
And of course, this must be true in the trekverse as well, as the average Federation citizen is supposed to be so well off.
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 7:42 PM (U)
Quote:If you just print more money the money you have is worth less, this is called inflation.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Creating extra money is easy as many central banks have demonstrated. All you need is a printing press…
Quote:So capitalism works by assuming we live in a world of infinite resources. That's interesting isn't it...
Creating wealth is harder, but not impossible!
Quote:But it appears the same is true of capitalism...
Originally posted by Finn Mac Cuhmal:
I think it says something about the Leftist ideals of Marxism and other egalitarian economics that the only way such economics could be seen as feasible is with the assumption of infinite resources.
Quote:The scientific community is at a fair consensus that we are running out of a great deal of mineral wealth. Perhaps they are wrong and the economists who assume the Earth has infinite resources are correct, but I don't think so some how.
The Earth is not a closed system (solar radiation strikes it, and it rejects waste heat into space). The human economy contains only a small fraction of its energy and land resources, and a negligible fraction of its mineral reserves.
Our resources with exception of solar radiation, comes from the Earth, and may only exist for some here. Fossil fuels for instance, the fossilised remains of plant and animal matter. Since the vast majority of the resources our economies require may not exist else where, or are firmly out of our reach we can assume the Earth is a closed system from an economic point of view.
Quote:Indeed, and this is what socialism, not capitalism, aims to do.
Even if the economy was a closed system it might still be possible to rearrange it to increase the total “wellbeing” (wealth, if you like) of the people in it.
Quote:The finite existence of resources is a fact, it is perfectly possible to increase the well being of the average man in a finite resource system, you merely distribute the resources more evenly. People are better off in western nations because the common man has more resources than they once did. However many other nations are in fact worse off, because those extra resources had to come from somewhere.
Notice that if this were not true, it would remain impossible to make the average man better off with any social system, capitalism, socialism or something as yet uninvented. The average man is better off now than he was a few hundred years ago (never mind a few thousand), despite the fact that there are so many more people to divide resources between.
Quote:We've already ascertained that to all intents and purposes with inventions like replicators resources are infinite. However currently we do not have replicators, thus our resources must come from somewhere.
And of course, this must be true in the trekverse as well, as the average Federation citizen is supposed to be so well off.
You see people like Finn earlier denigrate leftist ideals for "requiring" infinite resources in order to function, but fail to mention that the continued existence of Capitalism also requires infinite resources. We have to get more and more and more out of the ground, but those supplies are limited.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Monday, October 9, 2006 4:02 PM (U)
I direct your attention to the plenitude of dilithium mines scattered throughout the Alpha/Beta Quadrants.
By the 24th century (TNG/DS9/Voy --the "present day" of Star Trek) we've seen that dilithium can be "recrystalized" (extending its useful lifespan), but apparently not replicated: the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans, and probably the other governments all run dilithium mines. In fact the Federation's mines currently rely on holographic slave labour (using decommissioned EMHs like Voyager's Doctor). Before them, there were probably paid miners (I can't see the UFP condoning slavery --holograms don't count as "people," but organic and cybernetic life-forms do).
(It should also be noted that the Federation does have "prisons," so there's obviously still a crime problem, despite what Deanna says. We saw bits of the "penal colony on New Zealand in Voyager [Tom Paris was serving time when Janeway recruited him --and we can extrapolate the effect it had on him from that alternate timeline episode, where Harry and Tom were back on Earth, having never signed on to Voyager]. Granted, these prisons seem pretty cushy, and tend to be based more around the idea of rehabilitation and respect for others than the idea of dehumanization and institutionalized brutality in the name of "discipline." It wouldn't surprise me to learn that inmates are allowed to volunteer for low-risk jobs as a way of earning their way back into society --not so much being sentenced to hard labour as being offered a chance to make use of your skills in a productive way.)
There's your collateral wealth: dilithium. I'd also note the Romulan-controlled mines on Remus, and point out that Romulans don't use matter/anti-matter engines, so they obviously don't use dilithium to regulate the reaction. They must be using it for something else --like trade currency. This also explains the need for expansion: need more dilithium, which means you need to explore/claim/conquer more planets. The recrystallization means that dilithium isn't as valuable as it once was, but the fact that it can't be replicated means there is a finite amount (for now, at least).
This might also explain why there don't seem to be any massive trade ships (the commercial vessels we've seen are rarely larger than the Defiant). While you can certainly own your own ship, being able to afford dilithium to run the FTL drives takes a great deal of credits. Perhaps the Federation's capital is mostly involved in paying for Starfleet's engines (and replacing the ships we seem to lose regularly).
Maybe Jake's comment about human = moneyless was less an economic observation than a commentary on the exchange rate of Federation "pesos" versus anyone else's currency.
Inside the Federation, it's not an issue because everyone has 100% buying power (thanks to replicators), but when dealing with folks outside the Federation, there's a huge gap. Who knows, maybe that random Klingon bekk makes twice as much per year as a waiter at Sisko's Creole Kitchen, but the UFP citizen gets everything for the equivalent of 90% off (by Klingon prices). It's not too great for private citizens looking to buy original Klingon manga (or whatever), but on the scale of medium-to-large trade consortiums it works fine: more people buy from Federation merchants, which means disproportional amounts of wealth coming in, which means more buying power against other stellar nations.
Remember when Nog and Jake formed the Noh-Jay Consortium and went into business? It seemed to work fine (before it was mismanaged into the ground, but that wasn't about money per se).
I'd imagine that, as an example, Kassidy Yates owns her own trading company, that provides for care and feeding of her ship and pays the crew's salaries. She likely functions as an independent importer, buying stuff from Federation companies and selling them outside UFP territory (which brings in a good chunk of change, even with competitive prices). She's probably quite wealthy in terms of credits to her name, but it just
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Monday, October 9, 2006 5:46 PM (U)
Quote:I forsee the EMH being classified as some sort of sentient life soon enough, at which point they'll be taken off of 'slave' labour duty. BTW I think slavery is rather a misnomer, since as far as the Federation is concerned the EMH is nothing more than a fancy computer program. I mean my web browser doesn't get a choice over what it can do with it's time, it doesn't get paid and I own it, but it's hardly a slave and I'm not dabbeling in slavery.
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
In fact the Federation's mines currently rely on holographic slave labour (using decommissioned EMHs like Voyager's Doctor). Before them, there were probably paid miners (I can't see the UFP condoning slavery --holograms don't count as "people," but organic and cybernetic life-forms do).
Quote:This is more or less what I've been trying to get at. The fact that because there culture has different priorities to ours doesn't mean ours is better than theres by the virtue of being ours. We have as much social conditioning as the Federation or anyone else, we just can't see it.
It must be noted that all the altruistic qualities that the Federation is based on (kindness, politeness, dignity, respect, responsibility for one's actions, etc) do exist --we Browncoats in particular get to see them in action anytime one of us has a problem. It's just a matter of creating an environment that cultivates them instead of greed, arrogance, and hatred. Nature versus Nurture, but in this case Nurture is serving as a positive force. That's how you cange behaviour, not by drugging the population or by enforcing rule of law, but by rewarding the good people who're already out there, making everyone else want to emulate them, and trying to limit the causes of the problem.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Tuesday, October 10, 2006 8:31 PM (U)
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I'll ask the opposite question, if someone doesn't have to make a loss for you to make a profit where does the extra money come from?
Remember we're talking about a finite system, in a finite system resources can move around but not grow, thus for one person to have more of something someone else must end up with less.
The US has a population of > 250 million. That is more than the entire population of the world few thousand years ago. If a group of people has a fixed total wealth the average wealth per person can only depend upon the number of people in the group. This allows us to deduce one of three things. Either –
a) The average American now, is poorer than the average human being in the Late Stone Age.
b) The US has taken more from the rest of the world, than the rest of the world had to begin with.
c) The total wealth of the world is not fixed in any meaningful sense.
I am going with proposition c). Notice notice that although total wealth can increase it has still always had some finite value at any moment in time – resources have never been infinite, and still would not be if the replicator was invented tomorrow.
Quote:Ahh but of course it would. In order to make a profit someone else has to make a loss, there's not infinite money, ergo. If we were altruistic the idea of making profit would be abhorrent, as it is by its very nature succeeding on others failure. Making profit is the underpinning nature of modern capitalism.
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
B]After all, if everyone on Earth turned into a perfect altruist, it would cause no problems for General Electric, or the people who sell each other things on eBay. Instead of seeing ads which told you how much better off you would be if you bought the advertised product, you would see ads which told you how much better off everyone else would be if you bought the advertised product. Advertisers might well prefer such a world – it would be harder for customers to tell if the product really had made everyone better off (on average), than if it had made the customer better off.
Consider a thought experiment. Badger and Mingo are both trapped on an island. Badger has the only supply of water, Mingo has the only supply of food. Both have more than enough for two. If Badger trades some of his water for some of Mingos food, both of them will survive. Clearly, both of them have profited. No one has lost. Why would this be abhorrent to an altruist?
I presume you earn money somehow. If employing you is to your employers disadvantage, why does he continue to employ you? If being his employee is to your disadvantage, why do you continue to work for him? If you both benefit from this trade of your time for his money, it is difficult to say that all trades disadvantage one party or the other.
Returning to the Star Trek v Firefly point we started with, it occurs to me that the difference between the two is similar to one of the differences between the modern left and right.
Star Trek sees the important issues as being entirely a matter of personal moral virtue. It seems to me that this view is much more common on the left these days (not in Mussolini’s time).
We are given hardly any positive information about how life in the Federation actually works. We are given the negative fact that in the Federation money is vanishingly rare, and that Picard was unable to give an estimate of the cost of the Enterprise-E (in ST: First Contact), from which we may deduce the rarity of trade and the absence of accounting. Almost the only positive information we get is about the generosity, kindness enlightenment etc of all Federation citizens. Usually this information comes from the mouth of a Federation citizen. :tries to find deadpan icon:
What information we do get about how things work suggests that most economic activity is either collectively undertaken (Federation News Service, Earth Cargo Service, Starfleet) or semi-leg
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Tuesday, October 10, 2006 11:06 PM (U)
Holographic slave labor? I thought I had seen it all, but evidently there is still more lunacy in the description of Star Trek Economics. That has to be something from Voyager.
Wealth creation. Yep. A very fundamental concept of economics. In fact, it’s literally Economics 101 where I first heard of it. My economics professors told me, way back in the day, that for every US dollar printed, there will be on average 7 dollars created. That was such a fascinating idea to me back then. I was only in my second or maybe third year of an undergraduate physics degree, and by that time I had had conservation laws drilled into my head, but in economics was where I first studied, in detail, a concept that is not conserved. It was a really exciting class. It almost made me think about going into economics, but the next semester when I took microeconomics, I wasn’t as thrilled with it.
Capitalism is basically built around the concept of wealth creation. The whole point of capitalism is to exploit an economy’s ability to generate wealth, it’s an ingenious concept. However, you don’t need a first world capitalist economy to create wealth. You can go all the way back to the Stone Age. Consider a caveman who chops down some trees and builds a shelter. The shelter is worth more then the trees that were used to create it, ergo the caveman has just created wealth. He has created something more valuable then the some total of its parts. Now fast forward to today in the US, and we chop down trees to make paper, which is more valuable then the trees used to create it; the paper is in turn used to create literature, which is more valuable then the paper used to create it; that literature is then used to operate a company, whether through advertising, training or just generation operations, but in doing so it creates wealth in the company that is more valuable then the literature. When everything is said and done, those simple trees have output threefold in the economy. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people have benefited, gone home with some form of payment. Enormous wealth has been created that did not previously exist.
Man, that’s such a fascinating concept.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Wednesday, October 11, 2006 3:15 PM (U)
Quote:Yep.
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Holographic slave labor? I thought I had seen it all, but evidently there is still more lunacy in the description of Star Trek Economics. That has to be something from Voyager.
The first generation of Emergency Medical Holograms (like Voyager's Doctor) were discontinued, but instead of just deleting them, whoever operates the Federation's dilithium mines bought the programs and set up holo-emitters throughout the mine (presumeably, the emitters are mobile enough to be moved). Presto: instant cheap labour.
Despite the Doctor's efforts, at the time of Voyager's return, holograms still aren't considered "life." However, the Doc's holo-novel is circulating among the miners, potentially stirring up a revolt (one of them was seen describing it as "inflammatory").
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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Sunday, October 15, 2006 1:13 PM (U)
Quote:No, technology to extract resources has improved. You are equating that with infinite resources, incorrectly. Resources are now running out, Capitalism requires those resources to expand indefinably, the supply of resources can only expand indefinably if they are infinite. Perpetual growth is the very core of capitalism, and perpetual growth requires perpetual resource.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
The US has a population of > 250 million. That is more than the entire population of the world few thousand years ago. If a group of people has a fixed total wealth the average wealth per person can only depend upon the number of people in the group. This allows us to deduce one of three things. Either –
a) The average American now, is poorer than the average human being in the Late Stone Age.
b) The US has taken more from the rest of the world, than the rest of the world had to begin with.
c) The total wealth of the world is not fixed in any meaningful sense.
I am going with proposition c). Notice notice that although total wealth can increase it has still always had some finite value at any moment in time – resources have never been infinite, and still would not be if the replicator was invented tomorrow.
You're option C is fallacious because it implies that although we only have finite resources at any one time resources here on Earth are infinite.
Quote:Maybe you can explain what that has to do with the Capitalist idea of profit?
Consider a thought experiment. Badger and Mingo are both trapped on an island. Badger has the only supply of water, Mingo has the only supply of food. Both have more than enough for two. If Badger trades some of his water for some of Mingos food, both of them will survive. Clearly, both of them have profited. No one has lost. Why would this be abhorrent to an altruist?
In fact by Capitalisms standards no one has profited. There's no possibility of growth for either operation because there's no profit, they are just breaking even. In a business sense what they've done is made back exactly their outgoings, sure they've 'profited' by virtue of their business not going bankrupt, but they haven't profited in the Capitalist sense, I.e. getting more money out than they put in.
So let's try another thought experiment. There is a fixed amount of credits in the world. We use money to represent these credits, but if you print twice the amount of money what happens is where $1 would have bought you eight credits yesterday will buy you four today.
Now you have a business making stamps for FOX that say CANCELLED (a very profitable business obviously). Your total outlay amounts to 5000 credits, and your total income amounts to 6000 credits. Where did the extra 1000 credits come from?
They came from FOX. But if FOX made their own stamps it would cost them 5000 credits instead of 6000, so FOX is losing out 1000 credits.
Quote:I work for the British military, I don't think they make all that much money out of my work.
I presume you earn money somehow. If employing you is to your employers disadvantage, why does he continue to employ you? If being his employee is to your disadvantage, why do you continue to work for him? If you both benefit from this trade of your time for his money, it is difficult to say that all trades disadvantage one party or the other.
However, something can be advantageous to both parties in comparison to their alternatives while still disadvantaging one party.
An area that has experienced a natural disaster, there's no food anywhere so I pack up my cupboards and generously sell a can a beans for the low low price of a $100 a throw. We've all profited from the deal, the people I sold to get a can of beans so they don't starve, and I get $100 for a 50c can of beans.
Quote:
Returning to the Star Trek v Firefly point we started with, it occurs to me that the difference between the two is similar to one of the differences between the modern left and right.
Star Trek sees the important issues as being ent
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Tuesday, October 17, 2006 7:50 PM (U)
Important point first:
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I always get the impression that the typical Federation citizen – and the person who conceived Star Trek – had Citizens opinion of trade.
And what is, exactly, my opinion of trade?
I believed that you disapproved of it, based upon earlier statements of yours, particularly:
If we were altruistic the idea of making profit would be abhorrent, as it is by its very nature succeeding on others failure.
I also believed that other readers would come to the same conclusion.
If I was wrong, have misled anybody, or have given offence, I apologise. It really was not my attention to do any of those.
On to the rest.
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:No, technology to extract resources has improved. You are equating that with infinite resources, incorrectly. Resources are now running out, Capitalism requires those resources to expand indefinably, the supply of resources can only expand indefinably if they are infinite. Perpetual growth is the very core of capitalism, and perpetual growth requires perpetual resource.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
The US has a population of > 250 million. That is more than the entire population of the world few thousand years ago. If a group of people has a fixed total wealth the average wealth per person can only depend upon the number of people in the group. This allows us to deduce one of three things. Either –
a) The average American now, is poorer than the average human being in the Late Stone Age.
b) The US has taken more from the rest of the world, than the rest of the world had to begin with.
c) The total wealth of the world is not fixed in any meaningful sense.
I am going with proposition c). Notice notice that although total wealth can increase it has still always had some finite value at any moment in time – resources have never been infinite, and still would not be if the replicator was invented tomorrow.
You're option C is fallacious because it implies that although we only have finite resources at any one time resources here on Earth are infinite.
In reverse order:
To say something does not have a fixed value does not imply it is infinite. My height has changed in the past and may change in the future, this statement does not imply that my height is infinite.
If my option C is fallacious, the total wealth of the world must be fixed, and one of my other options true. Which?
Trade rather than growth is generally described as the essence of Capitalism. Promoters of rival systems rarely proclaim the alternative to growth (stagnation or decline) as their goals.
This planet is 12,756 km across, and has a mass of 5.98 x 10^24 kg. So far as mineral resources are concerned, our mines are scratches in the surface, which have removed some material from the richest ore reserves closest to the surface at the most accessible locations (that we know of). This has been true ever since mining was invented, as the riches, most easily accessible known reserves have always been mined first.
So far as energy resources are concerned, there are several decades of conventional oil reserves left, several times that amount of oil (heavy oil, oil shale etc), centuries of coal reserves, millennia of uranium, not to mention solar, wind etc.
The assertion that resources are "running out" therefore strikes me as being dubious.
If technology to extract resources has improved, as you say and I agree, does that not increase available resources and help make people richer? How does this square with your earlier statement that:
Remember we're talking about a finite system, in a finite system resources can move around but not grow, thus for one person to have more of something someone else must end up with less.
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:
Consider a thought experiment. Badger and Mingo are both trapped on an island. Badger has the only supply of water, Mingo has the only supply of food. Both have mo
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Tuesday, October 14, 2025 3:38 AM (U)
Jonathan Frakes Hates One Racist Star Trek: TNG Episode So Much He Tried to Get It Banned
https://fandomwire.com/jonathan-frakes-hates-one-racist-star-trek-tng-
episode-so-much-he-tried-to-get-it-banned/
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Tuesday, October 14, 2025 4:00 AM (U)
Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:
The occasional swear word isn't proof of cultural integration. And going from this world where the US is 240,000,000 people in a population of 6,300,000,000 to the future worlds of Star Trek and Firefly where 85%+ of all the people we meet are American.
That was only 19 years ago.
Those were the days...
Now we're 330 Million with at least 60 Million of them not belonging here on a planet that easily reached over 8 Billion people during the height of the fake Covid pandemic.
Nearly 20% of the people on the planet today were not part of that number only 19 years ago, and just like inflation, that number only continues to climb exponentially.
We're going to have to have a serious talk about overpopulation before our governments just start culling the herd themselves.
Beware of Covid 20. I think that's going to be the REAL one.
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For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2025 5:51 AM (U)
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Just found this article while looking for something else.
The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek, and the Firefly the Anti Trek:
http://friesian.com/trek.htm
Obviously written by a die hard free market capitalist, but interesting nonetheless.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
Fascists treat individuals with a combination of authoritarian control, suppression of opposition, and a cult of leadership. They often mobilize the populace against internal enemies and systematically delegitimize dissent. Fascist regimes typically subjugate liberal institutions to the leader and use corporate interests in conjunction with state coercion. This feedback loop creates a system where legal erosion empowers repression, and repression normalizes extra-legal intimidation.
You've got it backwards moron. The crew of Serenity were fleeing Fascists. In Star Trek, Data was found to be a sentient being.
T
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Tuesday, October 14, 2025 7:07 AM (U)
You don't understand the meaning of the word Fascist, Ted, therefore you don't get to have an opinion on this matter.
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For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.
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Wednesday, October 15, 2025 4:52 AM (U)
Hey everybody, look, it's stupid, i.e. Gilligan.
T
"Shuttlepod One" | Ep. 49 - with Rick Berman and Brannon Braga
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Wednesday, October 15, 2025 5:11 AM (U)
Whatever you say, Nazi Ted.
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For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.
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Friday, October 17, 2025 8:00 PM (U)
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You don't understand the meaning of the word Fascist, Ted, therefore you don't get to have an opinion on this matter.
Fascists treat individuals with a combination of authoritarian control, suppression of opposition, and a cult of leadership. They often mobilize the populace against internal enemies and systematically delegitimize dissent. Fascist regimes typically subjugate liberal institutions to the leader and use corporate interestsre legal erosion empowers repression, and repression normalizes extra-legal intim in conjunction with state coercion. This feedback loop creates a system wheidation.
In other words, Trump and MAGA. It's why you tried to become a jack-booted ICE agent. So you could kick and stomp people for fun. I've posted an example below. I've got a million of them.
T
Nothing Christian about Mike "Little" Johnson defending Cory Mills.
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Saturday, October 18, 2025 3:49 AM (U)
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You don't understand the meaning of the word Fascist, Ted, therefore you don't get to have an opinion on this matter.
Is there actually a Fascist at this site, if so point him out. Hey, we agree.
T
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Sunday, November 23, 2025 7:11 PM (U)
a franchise beaten down by other scifi?
5 must read space operas
propaganda?
Trek Warriors Arrogance. Gowron: The Mindest of the Klingon Empire
Gene Roddenberry The Dark Side of Star Trek's Creator
How Star Trek Deals With Assassination & Murder In Gene Roddenberry's Sci-Fi Universe
Predictions for the Future
Planet Cities?
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Sunday, June 7, 2026 4:11 PM (U)
Trek tries to go aliens 40K
while 40K Warhammer remained close to its roots?
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Sunday, June 7, 2026 4:12 PM (U)
Horror Specialist Bloober Team Is Releasing A New Star Trek Game On Switch 2
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2026/06/horror-specialist-bloober-te
am-is-releasing-a-new-star-trek-game-on-switch-2
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