all we know is that they don’t use money, except when they do. The writing is sort of fuzzy on the matter, which results (regardless of the intention) in an economy that doesn’t actually seem that different to our modern day in practice
At most they use credits, which at least according to this guy, are at most a peripheral, 3rd party currency, or at least a currency the federation uses for external trade, and that's what makes most sense to me. Why would the average person care about federation credits when they're only used on border systems at most, and your home replicator can make you pretty much anything you'd ever want? To a person living in such a world, for all practical purposes there is no such thing as money in the federation.
There’s no money, but people still own businesses and talk about buying stuff, which allows for the economic system to fade into a sort of forgettable background space.
They never seem to talk about buying stuff unless it is out on the frontier, exchanging with foreign entities, etc. It also doesn't seem like businesses in star trek (at least the above board, earthlike ones) aren't anywhere near today's businesses. To me, it seems that they are treated as family businesses, with limited "employee" count, and with each "customer" getting their service/food/item for free, within reasonable limits. It's like going over to your family's house for dinner. You don't pay, you're family and they will happily feed you (within reason). And it seems that businesses treat everyone like that.
There is no stock market, profit motive, costs of running a business. It's all done out of the goodness of people's hearts.
I will say, part of that ignorance, apathy, and laziness is an intentional part of our existing society. You can't spend the time to research every single product you ever buy, because many are stuck working several job, basically everyone is juggling their work, family, and social life.
A couple months back, I tried putting some effort into finding a printer that had all of the qualifications I wanted.
usb printing, no network needed
laser
color
not a brand that will fuck you over (looking at you HP)
within a reasonable budget of $300-$400
And such a product just doesn't exist. Brother comes close, but the market straight up isn't producing good things. So at the end of the day all I can do is either get shafted at the local print store, or suck it up and get an inferior product.
But going back to the OP, it's so much worse with cars because we have a car-centric society. You NEED a car in this place to have a normal life. Our cities and transportation have been intentionally designed to fuck over everyone not in a car.
So there is inelastic demand. The manufacturers can do whatever the fuck they want and get away with it.
As always, citizens united was a disaster for our country. Or at least, it was a disaster before, and citizens united turbo fucked an already terrible problem.
Enshitification isn't solved by voting with your dollar. If it did, the printer market wouldn't be the shit show that it is. You can't vote for the good if all the manufacturers mutually agree to only produce shit. Only regulation will keep them in line.
(inb4 "brother is better", I am aware that brother printers are generally better, but they are far from good.)
Polling is bullshit, but to the degree that it isn't, it isn't looking great. This isn't some guarantee that Trump will lose. The boomers that vote republican do so EVERY election. The people who vote against them aren't so reliable in comparison.
You don’t understand anything and I ain’t on a laptop to school you. Gimmie a few hours til I get home and I’ll teach you a the best I can, if you care to learn
Thanks for being civil. Coming in with condescension really shows how smart you are.
You can't fix it with open source. All it takes is one guy making a fork and removing the safeguards because they believe in free speech or something. You can't have safeguards against misuse of a tool in an open source environment.
I agree that closed source AI is bad. But open source doesn't magically solve the problem.
The difference is that 9/11 was able to be channeled into xenophobia. The same can't really happen with school shootings. The 40k mindset of hate being a valuable and limited resource hits way too close to home.
People have been trying to circumvent chatGPT's filters, they'll do the exact same with open source AI. But it'll be worse because it's open source, so any built in feature to prevent abuse could just get removed then recompiled by whoever.
And that's all even assuming there ever ends up being open source AI.
It might be a similar line of though as the Goa'uld weaponry from SG-1. They aren't meant for accuracy or range. They use weapons of terror that create an absolute massacre when they do by chance hit.
The Ferengi, and especially of that particular group were Ferengi pirates of some sort, probably wouldn't be above such tactics.
But also it was very clearly not a well thought out episode, so I'm absolutely applying meaning where there is none.
I think if you need to be payed to be loyal to Starfleet/The Federation, that kinda is a deal breaker given the philosophy of personal growth and societal enrichment.
Complete tangent, it's probably not too hard to get around the limits of a replicator if they prohibit or limit alcohol. Presumably you could have it create all the supplies needed for fermentation and make your own batch.
It would take a bit, but you'd have as much as you'd ever want.
Overall seems to give a good picture how Treconomics, but I think he is wrong a in a few ways. The first being private property. There is definitely personal property, but no private property as "business" like the Sisko Family Restaurant and Picard's vineyard aren't charging anything from what we can tell. They operate like their customers are family, and you're visiting them to eat/drink with/etc and then go home.
The second is his labeling of The Federation as a technically capitalist society. I don't think that's the case, as corporations don't seem to exist aside from the ones that are owned and operated outside of Federation space. There are family "business", but they don't have stocks or a stock market. And because the "businesses" that do exist don't charge or make profit, I don't think it can be considered capitalist.
And they are indeed credited to and debited from each citizen’s “account.” However, the average citizen doesn’t even notice it, though the government does, and again, it is not measured in currency units — definitely not Federation Credits.
I think this idea of each Federation citizen having a welfare account is probably wrong. I think it's more likely that it's just assumed that you won't abuse the replicators/transporters, with a set limit of how much of something a user can use it.
So you can maybe replicate only a handful of basketballs a day, a couple hundred hotdogs, etc. But there is an inbuilt limit to the machine and electricity provided to your home. But it's not an account.
Sure, I agree that there is absolutely somebody/some governing body controlling and tracking energy use. But again, no personal account.
As for the rest of what he said there, I am pretty much in full agreement.
You're missing my point. I am saying that the "free market shall decide" is enough justification to boycott them, regardless of how long ago they were doing shitty things.
At most they use credits, which at least according to this guy, are at most a peripheral, 3rd party currency, or at least a currency the federation uses for external trade, and that's what makes most sense to me. Why would the average person care about federation credits when they're only used on border systems at most, and your home replicator can make you pretty much anything you'd ever want? To a person living in such a world, for all practical purposes there is no such thing as money in the federation.
They never seem to talk about buying stuff unless it is out on the frontier, exchanging with foreign entities, etc. It also doesn't seem like businesses in star trek (at least the above board, earthlike ones) aren't anywhere near today's businesses. To me, it seems that they are treated as family businesses, with limited "employee" count, and with each "customer" getting their service/food/item for free, within reasonable limits. It's like going over to your family's house for dinner. You don't pay, you're family and they will happily feed you (within reason). And it seems that businesses treat everyone like that.
There is no stock market, profit motive, costs of running a business. It's all done out of the goodness of people's hearts.