RE: Star Trek Is Pretty Much North Korea In Space
I think you've missed the ultimate significance of the replicator for their economy. It's true that Star Trek is a kind of space communism, while North Korea is very obviously an earth-bound communism.
so far so good.
What you're missing, though, is the fundamental difference between the two: Star Trek has universal abundance, while North Korea is poor as shit. (I'll premise this by saying that I know the original series only a bit; my view of Star Trek is MUCH more about The Next Generation series.)
In economics the factor of "value" is rendered the same. Having nothing vs having everything.
If replicators provide whatever people want or need at any given moment, then what you have is universal abundance. Supply and demand become meaningless because scarcity is effectively gone.
There is always value about something. Replicators provide food and some stuff..not the trillions of other forms of value that seemed to be non-existent in Star-trek.
In that situation, material objects themselves would have far less significance than they do now. Socio-economic class would disappear; there would be no reason to accumulate more material wealth than others, because in theory everyone could just replicate whatever they want. There's no need to have a big house, expensive clothing (nothing would have prices!), fancy food--except in so far as you wanted to have more space in your house, clothing that had certain use or aesthetic qualities, or food with certain flavors or nutritional value. And yes, if you have replicators to do all your work for you, then there is no need to work--or, at least, there's no need for a wage labor market, since there is no scarcity of labor that can be met by trading material objects or exchange value for people's time. There's no incentive to work, and no incentive to employ people.
Wrong. You can assign value to your expertise. E.g be a better scientist. That is eradicated though in Star Trek. Value is not only about material things but mostly about ideas. This is like economics 101.
If we accept that premise of the Star Trek universe, then we also need to adjust our expectations and view of things like what humans actually do with their time. What would be meaningful, desirable, "good" in a universe with abundance?
Holodecks? games? masturbation? anything really.
Well, it would be whatever people chose to do at any given moment. Since replicators don't appear capable of making the complex decisions and value judgments required for space exploration, interstellar diplomacy, or art (notice how any chance they get to show leisure time, people are painting, or doing other forms of creative activity?), then humans are free to pursue those. Indeed, it is the pursuit of knowledge itself, or of artistic achievement, or interpersonal relationships that seem to drive human activity in this universe--and that makes perfect sense. If people no longer need to work for wages or basic material survival, then why not set up institutions to allow people to pursue personal happiness and social harmony? What reason could there be for NOT doing that?
Nobody said that there is no reasoin for doing that. the point is that it was value under a militaristic regime (which you comfortably avoid) and that there was no value in people's ability other than moving ranks in the military.
This, though, is why you're totally wrong about the comparison to North Korea. It's true enough that money is not particularly important in either the Star Trek universe or the North Korean economy. But while Star Trek has solved the problem of scarcity, North Korea manifestly has NOT.
irrelevant. what matters is the social system. Hence why they end up both being militaristic and extremely tribal (same uniforms, code of behaviour, aspirations to join the military ..etc) This is how real value get translated at the end. the path..is rather irrelevant if the end result is the exact same.
So the motivations, nature, and effects of doing without a market economy are about as different as you can possibly get. I agree that there's a superficial similarity, but all it is is superficial.
nah. the similarity is on the identical level due to they political and economics implications.
Let me acknowledge that there's a fundamental contradiction, or perhaps a misrepresentation or ambiguity, in how the Star Trek universe's economy works. On the one hand, you have replicators, which apparently provide universal abundance. On the other hand, everywhere you go, you see commerce, and various kinds of work: farming, mining, and the like. These ARE contradictory, because if every society has replicators, then in theory each society would have all the things it could possibly want, and there would be no scarcities of items to create demand. Certainly there'd be no reason to transport goods from one planet to another, since replicators in each place could just produce whatever you wanted. So, the Star Trek economy is an awkward mixture of things that make sense and things that don't.
suposedly it takes great amounts of energy to replicate things and on earth they could not "afford" to do it. Also some minerals could not be replicated. anws. that's irrelevant since we are talking about the political and economic system that was obviously global socialism - hence the title of the post.
Finally, you dropped some casual anti-semitism in your post: "the Ferengi, the space Jews, were greedy and only cared about money." You moan at the end about people believing "the meme," whatever that's supposed to mean; the meme of Jews as uniquely money-grubbing is one of the oldest memes of European society. So you've apparently bought that one. And, since casual anti-semitism is based on bullshit, you can take that and shove it up your ass. Don't be a prick needlessly.
it was a funny remark. chillax. Don't be so politically correct. this is not the college so you can get laid .
Anything else? Try harder in the next comment. Maybe do a group thingy with lexiconical. lol
Reading over the whole, multi-part exchange between you and @lexiconical, I think it comes down to you starting from a series of premises that are wrong--and that are, as was noted elsewhere, deeply ideological. You seem to think that any society without money is communist, and all communist societies are totalitarian. If those are true, then sure, North Korea and Star Trek are basically the same.
Neither of those is really true though. In the first case, your inability or refusal to distinguish between the terrestrial, resource-poor communism of North Korea and the nearly-infinite-abundance of Star Trek's space communism is clear from your view that societies with almost nothing are functionally the same as societies with almost anything. This ignores the real human impact: people in North Korea are super unhappy, and under a deeply repressive regime that both regularly deploys coercion on its own citizens and must aggressively bombard them with propaganda to maintain a minimum level of consent. The people in the Star Trek universe, while hardly without problems, do not seem to live under the heel of a repressive regime--with the exception of the officers and crew of a naval vessel, which is, as I'll note again below, neither all of the people of the Star Trek world nor even that unusual, since the peculiar conditions of naval vessels mean that hierarchical, disciplinary systems of command and control are necessary.
In the second case, you seem incapable of imagining that the world of Star Trek is NOT a militaristic, totalitarian dystopia--as evidenced by your total refusal to acknowledge the evidence @lexiconical provided that not all people are in the military, that the state does not literally control all economic activity, that non-monetary value exists outside the systems of rank in Starfleet. You seem to think that the life of people on the Enterprise is literally the ONLY way that people in Star Trek live. And while it's true that the show is about a naval vessel, which does have a military, disciplinary hierarchy, and does assign value based on service and obedience to the state, it's also manifestly true that not everyone in the Star Trek universe is in Starfleet. This is what I meant by there being some superficial similarities, but those similarities being, well, superficial; the economic, political, social, and cultural worlds of North Korea and Star Trek seem to be far more different than they are alike.
Now, you can say that Star Trek is unrealistic--but I don't think anyone will argue that a science fiction story with magical technology that eliminates human want is realistic. The question then is more a matter of the value judgments we place on such a fictional world.
So, in short, I reject your interpretation of Star Trek on both ideological and empirical grounds.
Communism. Definition: a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.
Totalitarian definition: relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.
The global federation council controls all resources under a militaristic scheme. The civilians have their duties and all contribute based on their needs. They are ranked under the entire militaristic scheme. There is no property.
definitions matter. Don't try to play around. You can reject it all you want but it is what it is.
You don't know that. The western media tell you that. Also in Star trek it was pretty evident plenty of times that people on earth were pretty bored and all tried to get on the "exploration" thing but the only way was by excellency and then through the military. Exploration was the only true value and it was a resource that it was extremely limited.
not everyone in NK is military either. They all fall UNDER the military though much like in Star Wars. We saw plenty of times civilians accepting orders from the military. Same thing.
exact. same. you just refuse to accept it because of some personal reason.
"You don't know that. The western media tell you that."
I'll respond to the rest of your post later, but this merits immediate attention. If you're going to say that we don't actually know what North Korea is like, then what's the point of comparing it to Star Trek? Or, do you have inside scoop on North Korea or something?
I mean, man, if you're going to be like "North Korea is fake news," then what are we even talking about here?
I know the general political system which is apparent. You refer to specifics such as people happiness which has been known to be manipulated both ways. E.g USA posting videos about sad individuals only and NK posting happy pictures only. Both NK and USA though agree about the underlying system and don't hide it.
Use some critical thinking please.
If the only thing that you know about North Korea is the "general political system," then how can you make comparisons to Star Trek on anything more specific than that, the "general political system"? This is what I meant earlier when I suggested that you have picked some real but superficial similarities, and are focusing on those to the exclusion of everything else.
So without more specific evidence, the ideology is really doing the heavy lifting here, you know?
I was actually extremely generic in regards to my comparison. Please point where I refer to specifics.
My whole argument has been that your comparison is far too general, that you've picked some superficial similarities and then extrapolated from those to the implications that your ideological positioning recommends. As @lexiconical and I have both argued, when you get to the finer grained details, your comparison breaks down. So when you say "Yeah, I was totally being super general, I don't have any details," I totally agree that that's true, but that also makes your argument pretty weak. I mean, if all we have are "extremely generic," "general political situation" comparisons, in which you quite proudly refuse to discuss specifics, then what are you really able to say? You said quite clearly above, when I pushed you for a more detailed, more nuanced comparison, that they were "exact. same." You are waaaaaaaayyyyyy overstating this argument. You're making claims that you just don't really have evidence for. You've refused to acknowledge that we can know any specifics about North Korea, and you deflect or disregard any empirical challenges to your assessment of the Star Trek universe. So you have nothing here except the most general comparison--which I get is sufficient for you, but that's because your ideological positions can do the heavy lifting here, filling in all the blanks that you refuse to fill with empirical evidence. Since I do not share your ideological positions, I find your argument superficial. I'm glad that by proudly touting your disregard of details, you've confirmed that.
I brought you exact definitions from dictionaries and you still try to find a new angle? Just admit defeat already :)
Military + exploration + defense go hand in hand in Star Trek. Everyone falls under the military.
Except from the exploration part..everything else is the same in NK.