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Has Star Trek even a currency? It always feels like a socialist/communist thing to me. You cannot compare the world's biggest seller of advertisement space wit

Has Star Trek even a currency? It always feels like a socialist/communist thing to me. You cannot compare the world's biggest seller of advertisement space with the ST universe. The motivation's aren't aligned: Google/Alphabet want to make sales based on my information. I agree that I found these oh so clever AI fantasies interesting in my youth, still do to a degree. But I always pictured the data being held inaccessible to humans in general ("Where's my wife right now?") and not in the hands of a golden few with no oversight.

eternalban 10y ago
Star Trek's world seems to be a 'utopia' of scientific-military governance. Most of the key players have a military rank, wear color coded uniforms, and appear to be under 24/7 surveillance (which is OK since this is a very nice and progressive scientific-military goverment and you know War On <scary-alien-specie> and all that. :)
- r00fus 10y ago
  Most of Star Trek is aboard starships and stations - I wouldn't imagine that leaves much for privacy. Plus, most folks think ST is where hippies took over. Center of Federation is in San Francisco...
- darklajid 10y ago
  Given the "War On $species" thing, "War On Romulan Ale" might work as well? Remember kids: Don't intoxicate yourself with substances we do not condone. :)
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  Was the society under constant surveillance? or just the part of society the show highlighted?
  - pmoriarty 10y ago
    I don't remember seeing any Star Trek episodes that showed people under surveillance in their private quarters or in bathrooms. The public areas which were under surveillance on Star Trek tended to be only on military ships and star bases. I don't remember seeing much surveillance in public areas on planets. There certainly wasn't the sense that everyone was under surveillance on every street and in every shop, unlike most people in major metropolitan areas on Earth today. Nor was there anything on Star Trek like the ever-present spy satellites that can see in great detail anywhere on Earth today. For the public areas which could be observed through cameras on Star Trek, the surveillance seemed mild compared to today because of Star Trek's lack of massive computers and artificial intelligence analysing what is seen for anomalies, using facial recognition, constantly recording everything and having those recordings instantly available for playback, sophisticated search, and computer analysis. The reading and viewing habits of Star Trek denizens weren't recorded and analysed, unlike those of many people on Earth. Their positions weren't tracked wherever they went, unlike those of many people on Earth. The so-called "24/7 surveillance" of Star Trek was very limited and even quaint compared to what we live under on Earth today.
tjl 10y ago
In the original show there wasn't a currency but in order to have aliens who exhibit avarice and the worst part of capitalism they had to include a currency (latinum, I think it was called).
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > In the original show there wasn't a currency Incorrect, in the original series, there was a currency ("credits") that was explicitly referenced several times; it was also referenced in at least one, and possibly more, early TNG episodes. Sometime in the TNG era, Roddenberry laid down an edict that money, including the "credits" that had been repeatedly referenced previously, did not exist in the federation, and so they weren't mentioned again.
  - pjlegato 10y ago
    Currency was later re-introduced to enable the Ferengi race to be portrayed as greedy merchants.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Currency was later re-introduced to enable the Ferengi race to be portrayed as greedy merchants. I don't think that's really accurate; the Ferengi were portrated as greedy merchants focused on profit starting fairly early in TNG without direct reference to currency (gold -- not the later "gold-pressed latinum" -- was mentioned, IIRC, as an item of interest, but not in any context which implied it was used as currency); I think gold-pressed latinum as introduced as a currency in DS9 because DS9's role as commerce hub was central to the theme of the series, and having currency just made telling stories about that a lot more convenient.
- softrock 10y ago
  It wasn't a currency in the same way that gold isn't a currency. Latinum is supposed to be a substance which cannot be replicated unlike most things so it's valued by, as you say, the avaricious.
DavidHm 10y ago
Nope, it's a post-scarcity economy.
- joe563323 10y ago
  Many articles say that. Do you have a source .
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  Post-scarcity in some ways, perhaps. In many other ways, they're not. Star Trek still had merchants who sold various wares. That would not be profitable if nothing was scarce. They still had planets that lacked necessary medicine, requiring The Enterprise or some other ship to go on mercy missions to deliver the meds. The Star Trek universe had pleasure planets which had highly desirable things that other planets did not. There was clearly a shortage of starships and crew, as The Enterprise explored alone and not in a fleet, and couldn't just create a hundred others to help it when it was attacked by some alien enemy. The Enterprise couldn't even use their on-ship replicators to make themselves some dilithium crystals (fuel) when they ran low.

eternalban 10y ago

Star Trek's world seems to be a 'utopia' of scientific-military governance. Most of the key players have a military rank, wear color coded uniforms, and appear to be under 24/7 surveillance (which is OK since this is a very nice and progressive scientific-military goverment and you know War On <scary-alien-specie> and all that. :)

r00fus 10y ago
Most of Star Trek is aboard starships and stations - I wouldn't imagine that leaves much for privacy. Plus, most folks think ST is where hippies took over. Center of Federation is in San Francisco...
darklajid 10y ago
Given the "War On $species" thing, "War On Romulan Ale" might work as well? Remember kids: Don't intoxicate yourself with substances we do not condone. :)
CaptSpify 10y ago
Was the society under constant surveillance? or just the part of society the show highlighted?
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  I don't remember seeing any Star Trek episodes that showed people under surveillance in their private quarters or in bathrooms. The public areas which were under surveillance on Star Trek tended to be only on military ships and star bases. I don't remember seeing much surveillance in public areas on planets. There certainly wasn't the sense that everyone was under surveillance on every street and in every shop, unlike most people in major metropolitan areas on Earth today. Nor was there anything on Star Trek like the ever-present spy satellites that can see in great detail anywhere on Earth today. For the public areas which could be observed through cameras on Star Trek, the surveillance seemed mild compared to today because of Star Trek's lack of massive computers and artificial intelligence analysing what is seen for anomalies, using facial recognition, constantly recording everything and having those recordings instantly available for playback, sophisticated search, and computer analysis. The reading and viewing habits of Star Trek denizens weren't recorded and analysed, unlike those of many people on Earth. Their positions weren't tracked wherever they went, unlike those of many people on Earth. The so-called "24/7 surveillance" of Star Trek was very limited and even quaint compared to what we live under on Earth today.

tjl 10y ago

In the original show there wasn't a currency but in order to have aliens who exhibit avarice and the worst part of capitalism they had to include a currency (latinum, I think it was called).

dragonwriter 10y ago
> In the original show there wasn't a currency Incorrect, in the original series, there was a currency ("credits") that was explicitly referenced several times; it was also referenced in at least one, and possibly more, early TNG episodes. Sometime in the TNG era, Roddenberry laid down an edict that money, including the "credits" that had been repeatedly referenced previously, did not exist in the federation, and so they weren't mentioned again.
- pjlegato 10y ago
  Currency was later re-introduced to enable the Ferengi race to be portrayed as greedy merchants.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Currency was later re-introduced to enable the Ferengi race to be portrayed as greedy merchants. I don't think that's really accurate; the Ferengi were portrated as greedy merchants focused on profit starting fairly early in TNG without direct reference to currency (gold -- not the later "gold-pressed latinum" -- was mentioned, IIRC, as an item of interest, but not in any context which implied it was used as currency); I think gold-pressed latinum as introduced as a currency in DS9 because DS9's role as commerce hub was central to the theme of the series, and having currency just made telling stories about that a lot more convenient.
softrock 10y ago
It wasn't a currency in the same way that gold isn't a currency. Latinum is supposed to be a substance which cannot be replicated unlike most things so it's valued by, as you say, the avaricious.

DavidHm 10y ago

Nope, it's a post-scarcity economy.

joe563323 10y ago
Many articles say that. Do you have a source .
pmoriarty 10y ago
Post-scarcity in some ways, perhaps. In many other ways, they're not. Star Trek still had merchants who sold various wares. That would not be profitable if nothing was scarce. They still had planets that lacked necessary medicine, requiring The Enterprise or some other ship to go on mercy missions to deliver the meds. The Star Trek universe had pleasure planets which had highly desirable things that other planets did not. There was clearly a shortage of starships and crew, as The Enterprise explored alone and not in a fleet, and couldn't just create a hundred others to help it when it was attacked by some alien enemy. The Enterprise couldn't even use their on-ship replicators to make themselves some dilithium crystals (fuel) when they ran low.