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I'm ~50/50 divided on whether humanity will reach some post-scarcity, Star Trek like utopia. In harmony with nature, and the interests of society-at-large as #1

I'm ~50/50 divided on whether humanity will reach some post-scarcity, Star Trek like utopia. In harmony with nature, and the interests of society-at-large as #1 motivation for most people. Or that greed & selfishness will prevail and we lay this planet to waste, possibly removing our species in the process. Stories like this strengthen my belief in the former. More, plz!

epistasis 2y ago
In Star Trek, there's still scarcity of Galaxy Class Starships, as well as great scarcity of commisions for captains of Galaxy Class Starships. Once one thing becomes abundant, other things start to feel more scarce. Where I live in California, we have an abundance of food, wealth, and materials for building homes. What is scarce is permission to actually build. Which sends housing prices through the roof, which then causes labor prices to go through the roof, which makes building itself more expensive. The politics will always be challenging, and I think most examples in the real world point to the politics of distribution to be more challenging than the act of production.
- NegativeLatency 2y ago
  I would love to see a Star Trek doing more with the Maquis, just seems like such an interesting change from the regular "people on a ship" The Lower Decks is really enjoyable too, funny to see the bureaucratic elements of Star Fleet joked about.
- fbdab103 2y ago
  I thought Star Fleet actually wanted to limit the number of circulating Galaxy Class ships so as to not appear like they were maintaining a war fleet. They kept disassembled spares in case they needed to ramp up their forces.
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  It was made clear in Star Trek that even big picture stuff such as the entirety of Starfleet is more or less something humanity does to pass the time. > The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. > We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity. In other words, they do it because they want to, not because they need to. No doubt they've got endless replicators on Earth. There is no economy, anything you want or need is just replicated into existence. There is an abundance of goods, virtually infinite supply, thus no need to economize. In Star Trek humanity is a galaxy spanning civilization so even land isn't scarce. Incredibly, they don't even seem to have artificial scarcity in the form of copyright since numerous episodes show characters freely copying works and data from their computers. Absolutely utopic. Social standing remains scarce. Obviously some people will be captains of the Enterprise while the vast majority will not. That will probably always be true. It ultimately matters little though. A humanity that can just replicate goods into existence has absolutely evolved beyond silly things like capitalism and communism. This is a humanity that is fully liberated from toil, a humanity that is free to enjoy themselves and to pursue their dreams. In that utopic setting, we watch the exploits of the humans who just happened to choose to explore the galaxy, in the startship enterprise. They pursue their dream with inexhaustible curiosity and incorruptible integrity, precisely because they have no other concerns.
  - jamiek88 2y ago
    Sigh. That sounds wonderful.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  DS9 did many things, including making Starfleet more believable as galactic power. Instead of the "everything is awesome, everything always works, there's plenty of everything" bullshit of ST:TNG, we see a Starfleet that has plenty...for the stuff it cares about. And under the veneer, it's also got its fair share of incompetence, bureaucracy, and turf wars/pissing contests - as would be expected from a massive organization. Starfleet doesn't care about some podunk space station in a former warzone above a planet full of religious zealots...even after it sports a wormhole.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago
> In harmony with nature, What does that even mean? I mean nature did do the transition from methane to oxygen which was pretty intense. And the K-T extinction was natural. And the glaciers and ice ages were natural. And humans are natural.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  It means we stop destroying it as we continue our endless expansion in pursuit of greater wealth.
- lukan 2y ago
  I guess you know what was meant. Keeping the complex ecological circles at least somewhat intact and alive. And unlike glaciers humans do have some options about what they do.
NegativeLatency 2y ago
For anyone else who feels similarly the genre "solarpunk" and specifically one of my favorite authors, Becky Chambers are worth checking out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Psalm_for_the_Wild-Built https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Psalm_for_the_Wild-Built
- peddling-brink 2y ago
  Good writer. I enjoyed The long way to a small angry planet. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Way_to_a_Small,_Angry_Planet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Way_to_a_Small,_Ang...
binary132 2y ago
As basically every world religion has observed, human beings are plagued by pathological behaviors by our nature, as beautiful and enlightened as it can also be. Without a drastic shift in how we approach that problem, I would bet my life on that pathology continuing unabated, if not deepening.
- snarf21 2y ago
  Yeah, one only need look at the multi-billionaires focused on growing their wealth instead of solving the many easily solvable problems of humanity like clean water and starvation.
  - binary132 2y ago
    I think everyone struggles with sin. The wealthy are (mostly) just uniquely empowered and visible. But most people off the street would probably behave about the same if they had the same power. That said, sociopaths probably are particularly well-equipped to become very wealthy.
  - sawyna 2y ago
    I guess it's mostly a matter of what framework the society put in place. We incentivise economical achievements, optimisations, tech. The common theme is making wealth. As long as that's the case, you can't expect these problems to be solved. Humanity/societal frameworks have to start incentivising the right problems. These so called billionaires have become billionaires because the society and economy are set up that way and they got good at this economical game.
    - binary132 2y ago
      I mean, do we really need to assume a preconfigured basis in order for wealth and power to be “incentivized”? They’re pretty self-incentivizing and built into human societies. On the other hand, I think you’d have to figure out some pretty radical rules and enforcement strategies to decouple the incentives from wealth and power. That presumably would require both wealth and power. Seems internally inconsistent.
krapp 2y ago
If your utopia requires changing the laws of physics or human nature, as Star Trek's society would, then it can't happen. Maybe we can get a lot closer than we are now (I hope so) but the part where people evolve beyond their "base instincts and vices" and choose to work as though they lived in a capitalist society, just without caring about personal gain, is a fantasy.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
I wish it weren't so but I think the chances are more like 20/80 (harmony/greed) :/
ThinkBeat 2y ago
Humanity doesn't change. The feathers, semantics and raison d'être shifts. The US is post scarcity when it comes to food already, Yet many people go hungry. Not because they have to, but because our society deems that they need to. Someday maybe someone will decide that everyone needs to have [enough] but not more. Eh someone already did. At the end it is always "Four legs good, two legs better"
all2 2y ago
> Or that greed & selfishness will prevail and we lay this planet to waste, possibly removing our species in the process. I have an answer to that you will probably not like.

epistasis 2y ago

In Star Trek, there's still scarcity of Galaxy Class Starships, as well as great scarcity of commisions for captains of Galaxy Class Starships. Once one thing becomes abundant, other things start to feel more scarce. Where I live in California, we have an abundance of food, wealth, and materials for building homes. What is scarce is permission to actually build. Which sends housing prices through the roof, which then causes labor prices to go through the roof, which makes building itself more expensive. The politics will always be challenging, and I think most examples in the real world point to the politics of distribution to be more challenging than the act of production.

NegativeLatency 2y ago
I would love to see a Star Trek doing more with the Maquis, just seems like such an interesting change from the regular "people on a ship" The Lower Decks is really enjoyable too, funny to see the bureaucratic elements of Star Fleet joked about.
fbdab103 2y ago
I thought Star Fleet actually wanted to limit the number of circulating Galaxy Class ships so as to not appear like they were maintaining a war fleet. They kept disassembled spares in case they needed to ramp up their forces.
matheusmoreira 2y ago
It was made clear in Star Trek that even big picture stuff such as the entirety of Starfleet is more or less something humanity does to pass the time. > The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. > We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity. In other words, they do it because they want to, not because they need to. No doubt they've got endless replicators on Earth. There is no economy, anything you want or need is just replicated into existence. There is an abundance of goods, virtually infinite supply, thus no need to economize. In Star Trek humanity is a galaxy spanning civilization so even land isn't scarce. Incredibly, they don't even seem to have artificial scarcity in the form of copyright since numerous episodes show characters freely copying works and data from their computers. Absolutely utopic. Social standing remains scarce. Obviously some people will be captains of the Enterprise while the vast majority will not. That will probably always be true. It ultimately matters little though. A humanity that can just replicate goods into existence has absolutely evolved beyond silly things like capitalism and communism. This is a humanity that is fully liberated from toil, a humanity that is free to enjoy themselves and to pursue their dreams. In that utopic setting, we watch the exploits of the humans who just happened to choose to explore the galaxy, in the startship enterprise. They pursue their dream with inexhaustible curiosity and incorruptible integrity, precisely because they have no other concerns.
- jamiek88 2y ago
  Sigh. That sounds wonderful.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
DS9 did many things, including making Starfleet more believable as galactic power. Instead of the "everything is awesome, everything always works, there's plenty of everything" bullshit of ST:TNG, we see a Starfleet that has plenty...for the stuff it cares about. And under the veneer, it's also got its fair share of incompetence, bureaucracy, and turf wars/pissing contests - as would be expected from a massive organization. Starfleet doesn't care about some podunk space station in a former warzone above a planet full of religious zealots...even after it sports a wormhole.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago

> In harmony with nature, What does that even mean? I mean nature did do the transition from methane to oxygen which was pretty intense. And the K-T extinction was natural. And the glaciers and ice ages were natural. And humans are natural.

insane_dreamer 2y ago
It means we stop destroying it as we continue our endless expansion in pursuit of greater wealth.
lukan 2y ago
I guess you know what was meant. Keeping the complex ecological circles at least somewhat intact and alive. And unlike glaciers humans do have some options about what they do.

NegativeLatency 2y ago

For anyone else who feels similarly the genre "solarpunk" and specifically one of my favorite authors, Becky Chambers are worth checking out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Psalm_for_the_Wild-Built https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Psalm_for_the_Wild-Built

peddling-brink 2y ago
Good writer. I enjoyed The long way to a small angry planet. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Way_to_a_Small,_Angry_Planet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Way_to_a_Small,_Ang...

binary132 2y ago

As basically every world religion has observed, human beings are plagued by pathological behaviors by our nature, as beautiful and enlightened as it can also be. Without a drastic shift in how we approach that problem, I would bet my life on that pathology continuing unabated, if not deepening.

snarf21 2y ago
Yeah, one only need look at the multi-billionaires focused on growing their wealth instead of solving the many easily solvable problems of humanity like clean water and starvation.
- binary132 2y ago
  I think everyone struggles with sin. The wealthy are (mostly) just uniquely empowered and visible. But most people off the street would probably behave about the same if they had the same power. That said, sociopaths probably are particularly well-equipped to become very wealthy.
- sawyna 2y ago
  I guess it's mostly a matter of what framework the society put in place. We incentivise economical achievements, optimisations, tech. The common theme is making wealth. As long as that's the case, you can't expect these problems to be solved. Humanity/societal frameworks have to start incentivising the right problems. These so called billionaires have become billionaires because the society and economy are set up that way and they got good at this economical game.
  - binary132 2y ago
    I mean, do we really need to assume a preconfigured basis in order for wealth and power to be “incentivized”? They’re pretty self-incentivizing and built into human societies. On the other hand, I think you’d have to figure out some pretty radical rules and enforcement strategies to decouple the incentives from wealth and power. That presumably would require both wealth and power. Seems internally inconsistent.

krapp 2y ago

If your utopia requires changing the laws of physics or human nature, as Star Trek's society would, then it can't happen. Maybe we can get a lot closer than we are now (I hope so) but the part where people evolve beyond their "base instincts and vices" and choose to work as though they lived in a capitalist society, just without caring about personal gain, is a fantasy.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

I wish it weren't so but I think the chances are more like 20/80 (harmony/greed) :/

ThinkBeat 2y ago

Humanity doesn't change. The feathers, semantics and raison d'être shifts. The US is post scarcity when it comes to food already, Yet many people go hungry. Not because they have to, but because our society deems that they need to. Someday maybe someone will decide that everyone needs to have [enough] but not more. Eh someone already did. At the end it is always "Four legs good, two legs better"

all2 2y ago

> Or that greed & selfishness will prevail and we lay this planet to waste, possibly removing our species in the process. I have an answer to that you will probably not like.