Posted on 08/19/2012 3:56:19 PM PDT by EveningStar
Sorry to all you Star Trek fans out there. I may be the only science fiction fan in the universe that really hates his guts. He stands in the annals of history with Karl Marx as one of the most vile perpetrators of socialism and communism this planet has ever known. I call him the used philosophy salesman…. and he was good at that job, one of the best.
Today is the anniversary of his birth and I have been constantly reminded of this all morning. Tributes everywhere I look to the man who turned the brains of a generation of science fiction fans to utter mush. If only he had passed on ten years earlier. We would never have had to put up with the inane techno-babble ramblings and neo-communist preaching of the Next Generation.
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many science fiction writers entered that genre to create fictionalized versions of “a better world” or “a better humanity”, and “science” and invention were tools - fictional tools, they could apply to “make it possible”.
Poul Anderson seldom did.
He did present many different worlds and many different forms of human society, but, if my recollections are correct, he was usaully realistic and did not try to portray some kind of Utopia - there were imperfect and bad human societies and imperfect and bad intelligent beings and non-human societies on other worlds, and good ones of both kinds. What we call “human nature” (natural ability to be either good or bad) seemed to be universal in his works.
With unlimited energy at zero cost, and replicators to provide all physical needs, there is no need for capitalism.
Everyone could have Monet's Water Lillie's in their living room. And the Hope Diamond as the gift for your 3rd anniversary.
The only thing of importance would be land. Like Picard's family vineyard. Or your beach front villa.
Property remains in Star Trek. So communism isn't there.
Trek studiously avoided the bad implications of replicators and holodecks. But it’s there if you’re willing to read between the lines. They have replicators that provide for all basic needs, and a HUGE military finding new planets for their civilians to colonize. Sure they sell it as everybody being “free to grow to their potential” but the reality is there.
It wouldn’t even work then. There is still a work requirement even with anti-matter energy. Still, a good place to get the guys in the red shirts.
I think it winds up much more like Judge Dredd. Lots of people mostly bored getting into trouble, and law enforcement goes back to a very “old school” approach a lot more willing to kill people because there’s too damn many of them anyway. Because once you no longer have need for these people with “baseline” providing jobs you run out of need for a lot of people period.
And watch out, this world isn’t as far away as we think. If 3D printers have even half the capabilities people want them to have we take a huge step on this path.
Still, that doesn't solve all scarcity. Some people still own restaurants and mountain cabins and lavish beachfront homes. Not everybody can. Sure, maybe you can use holograms to simulate the effect, but somebody still gets the real thing. The Picards own real vineyards in La Barre, France. What happens if somebody else decides they want those vineyards?
Production values aren’t everything. I liked ‘Space Patrol’ in the ‘50s.
Ivan - you are living up to your name. How do you know inertia exists within a Warp field? How do you know any of the physics that exists within a Warp field since it’s all a product of Rodenberry’s brain?
On a car, you dampen inertia with a shock absorber.
“Apparently there was some regulation that specified the ensign in the red shirt always had to take the risk. “
Good point! Actually, those guys seem to drop like flies and there were no special ceremonies etc. for them, but when someone ‘important’ died it was a big deal. So much for equality.
PING!!
Everybody knew that the Klingons were the soviets and they were the bad guys. Then there’s the episode where the Yangs and the Comms were fighting it out. We knew who the good guys were. And my hat is off to anyone who could get that many beautiful women to wear such skimpy outfits.
Enterprise is underrated, IMO. Especially the latter years.
Yeah, in that type of economy the thing that would be invented would be the replicator.
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