Subj : Re: Most memorable modern
To   : Arelor
From : Boraxman
Date : Thu May 15 2025 08:08 am

-=> Arelor wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

Ar> @MSGID: <[email protected]>
Ar> @REPLY: <[email protected]>
Ar>   Re: Re: Most memorable modern
Ar>   By: poindexter FORTRAN to Boraxman
Ar> on Fri May 09 2025 06:49 am

> They never really show what it's like to be a civilian in a Star Trek
> universe. Some books discuss it, but they're not canon. Imagine a world
> where power no longer requires the exploitation of resources or people -
> you could set up a matter/antimatter reactor and power a city without
> waste products. How would that change economies when there's no more
> scarcity? Want a diamond? With enough energy, you could turn charcoal
> briquets into a necklace. Need to create fresh water? Done, no more
> territorial conflicts over a brackish river border. Food? Done. take a
> CHON matrix and turn it into whatever food you want.
>
> The part they do talk about in Star Trek is that abandoning accumulating
> wealth allows people to free their time to work for the betterment of
> mankind.

Ar> Something that these shows fail to address when they deal with "post
Ar> scarcity" economies is that removing scarcity of natural resources and
Ar> manufactured goods does not actually cause the end of scarcity.

Ar> See, in a world in which you can manufacture anything at zero cost, you
Ar> still need manpower to fight the Klingons. Humans still need time to be
Ar> "manufactured". Good luck putting your unlimited arsenal to use with a
Ar> limited number of capable officers and soldiers.

Ar> It gets better: I might be filthy rich (because "somebody" produces all
Ar> the stuff I want at zero cost) except I might be a short, ugly fuck
Ar> with no charisma. Since human females are in a limited supply that
Ar> means I don't get a girlfriend, no emotional support nor nothing,
Ar> therefore I end up blowing my brains out with a blaster because I am
Ar> lonely and the next day they find my corpse laying on a mound of gold
Ar> and diamonds and other no-cost stuff. Heck, in a material post-
Ar> scarcity scenario loneliness would get really bad because at that point
Ar> you can't rent a hooker nor possess material wealth to talk about
Ar> because everybody is on the same footing.

Look at the housing shortage in the Western world.  Australia has some of the
highest housing prices in the world, despite being the continent with the
lowest
population density outsite of Antarctica.  We're not exactly short on materials
either.  More than enough space, more than enough materials, and we have more
people in Australia than at any time in human history, so labour shortage
doesn't cut it.  Yet we're still short.

Poor government and management is everything.  In fact, I think its deliberate.

Star Trek is idealistic, overly idealistic.  In reality, we neither have the
capacity nor motivation to make it work.  In the Star Trek future, humanity is
emmiserated, and resigned to stuffing their faces to an early death in an
ecologically destroyed, overcrowded hell-scape.


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