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
THANK YOU.
Bazingas have said this to me for decades and it usually involves the magic of asteroid mining: "POST SCARCITY is just around the corner (with no other socioeconomic changes) as soon as E-L-O-N starts asteroid mining!"
Even if/when that becomes economically viable, in the present system that just means more trash everywhere and more pollution from material sources beyond the single planet that it used to all come from. The damage that capitalism would do to the planet and life as we know it would be out of this world. :kelly:
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?
Basically the entire liberal discourse around it.