yeah I said it and I'm tired of hearing the Federation adopted a moneyless society because they can simply replicate anything they need.
Humanity didn't eliminate widespread poverty because of replicators, because they already did that before replicators were used on Earth. In fact, Earth had already been united before any human had ever seen a replicator.
Case in point:
ENT, Episode 2x04, "Dead Stop" - Takes place in April of 2152 (important). The NX-01 Enterprise and her crew encounter an automated ship repair station. One room has a food replicator, which the Enterprise crew is unfamiliar with. Commander Tucker tells it to make pan fried catfish. It does, but Captain Archer is uneasy and says he'll stick with chefs. Vulcan science officer T'Pol has seen replicators before on Tarkalean ships, but she regards them as a rare novelty.
TNG, Episode 7x08, "Attached" - Takes place in 2370. This episode begins with Dr. Crusher and Captain Picard eating breakfast in his quarters because they're both very adorable. The two are discussing a recent application to the Federation, a planet which doesn't have a fully unified world government. Three-quarters of the planet wishes to join, but the remainder are xenophobic. Dr. Crusher asks the rhetorical question of what might have happened if Australia hadn't joined United Earth in 2150
Earth had already eliminated poverty, eliminated war, and unified under a world government 2 years before any human had seen a replicator and 150 years before replicators were regularly used on starships.
I win
Cool, meanwhile we're on track to eliminate work while increasing poverty
Characters in Star Trek do work, but they do cool things like explore space and invent teleporters
p sure in the Federation you can choose to just do nothing if you want, but most people choose to do something anyway as a result of social pressure/desire for meaning. The "rich" people in Federation society are people who've been promoted a bunch of times, gotten a ton of certifications, and built up a lot of social cache.
if 24th century Star Trek technology fell out of the sky tomorrow, it would be immediately cannibalized and used to exploit people even more.
The existence of the mirror universe and the Terran Empire should be proof positive that it's not simply technology alone that gives the Federation its qualities. Marx and Engels believed the technology of the 1860s was sufficient to maintain socialism, so why shouldn't we believe the same?
“POST SCARCITY is just around the corner (with no other socioeconomic changes) as soon as
E-L-O-N starts asteroid miningwe invent fusion and energy becomes practically free!”Basically the entire liberal discourse around it.
i like star trek because captain kirk cool and spock like me
You are freaking me out. I just had this exact thought earlier today. Only my thought was just "oh shit wait a minute in TOS they had no money or class and they had world peace and everything but they didn't have replicators." I had just mentally assumed replicators were a big part of eliminating scarcity before but didn't actually put all that together until earlier.
Love hearing nerds try and argue how Star Trek is actually capitalist. They lean on things like how Starfleet officers "buy" other people drinks as if nominal monetary amount to cover space treats is "capitalism". Or how Picard owns a chateau as if home ownership isn't a thing in AES states anyway. That's literally all they got.
ST: Picard introduced the idea that actually drugs and poverty do exist on Earth, but like most Trek fans I'm going to ignore that and focus on things like the episode where they unfreeze the pre-unification businessman and Picard tells him that his investments don't exist anymore because they don't use money.
It's actually unclear if TOS had replicators or not. The writers never seemed to agree. Episode 3x05, the one where a bunch of evil children take over the Enterprise, seems to have Nurse Chapel use a food replicator to make ice cream. Kirk also seems to use a replicator in the "Trouble with Tribbles" episode, but it's referred to as a "food processor." Some episodes have the crew refer to chefs or cooks, there are also mentions of "food storage."
Well then ST: Discovery came along. Turns out they did have replicators in the TOS era, but they were limited in their output and were specialized in their use. Some could only make clothing, some could only make food, like that. It's valid to completely ignore Discovery though because the only good parts take place in the 3100s.
The writers are often bad about presenting the lack of money too, like that line in Generations that Kirk sold his house, or that Scotty bought a boat. Federation credits exist except when they sometimes don't. Roddenberry at least was adamant the future has no money and I can't recall a single instance of a human depicted as a private business owner.
