[Nepeta]

And no Trek really isn’t about working hard to chase dreams. It’s about a society where technology has solved all the material problems, so now the people get to do whatever they want. Ever wonder what the majority of society does in the Federation? Mostly it seems to be nothing. They have replicators, they don’t need jobs. Sure some of them chase dreams, because they don’t need jobs, nothing much else to do when the replicators provide all.

This works if your understanding of science is limited to technology as a magic black box: wishes in, product out.

It doesn't work that way. It never did. It never will.

Behind everything there are legions of people who make things work. Designers. Engineers. Repair techs. And things do break down.

People have to be trained to do these things.

Just consider the western flush toilet, and all the support it requires--plumbers, waste treatment, microbiologists, heavy construction, ceramic specialists.

I think there will be plenty to do. The Magic Black Box does not exist.

[discostu]

Magic black boxes don’t exist in reality. But they do in Star Trek. The first time in the show the replicators weren’t bottomless pits of plenty was Voyager. Sure things break, but that’s the glory of replicators, you can replicate new parts, heck they probably have big replicators to replicate entire small replicators. According to the tech manual Trek toilets feed into the replicator system, raw material. Of course even if they didn’t, they have phasers that can disintegrate stuff, don’t need plumbing then.

And let’s not even get into the implications of transporters, a magic black box so magical Rodenberry didn’t even want it, but they didn’t have enough money to build a shuttle set.