I spent, oh, say, 30 seconds trying to think of something witty to add to it, but considering I haven't written anything witty in over a year of blogging, I couldn't. So I present the top 10 things to get creeped out/hate about Star Trek.
Update: I never could understand why the folks in the Federation got rid of money. Did they get rid of voluntary exchange too? Is the Federation just one big autarky party? How in the heck do they get stuff done and who decides what is to get done?
HT to Prof Palmer.
I always figured that the replicator solved the problem of scarcity. I mean, the ability to rearrange matter at the molecular level does render money somewhat less necessary.
The real question is whether access to a replicator is regulated by the Federation.
Chew on that one for a while.
Posted by: William Polley | January 16, 2006 at 11:00 AM
I love Bill's question.
It sounds like a classic monopoly problem with zero marginal costs (not unlike much of what we teach in intro to sports economics!).
But then suppose there are two, three, or more replicators with zero marginal costs. We can quickly see the Cournot, etc. models evolving.
In fact, if there were more than one replicator, competition would induce the owner of at least one to use it to produce at least one more replicator, thus increasing the supply, until the price of everything dropped to zero.
But if there were only one replicator, whoever owned it would have a VERY strong incentive to maintain the monopoly.
Posted by: EclectEcon | January 16, 2006 at 02:02 PM
btw, I got the original link from Newmark's Door.
Posted by: EclectEcon | January 16, 2006 at 06:53 PM
One of George O. Smith's "Venus Equilateral" classic stories touched on the consequences of replicator technology a long time before Star Trek. And it's interesting to look back and see how much science fiction writer Mack Reynolds (now pretty much forgotten, I think, but once one of the most popular authors in the SF magazines) got right about economic arrangements. But did the Federation really get rid of money? Remember all those episodes of various series in which bars of gold-pressed latinum were used as a medium of exchange? Perhaps it couldn't be replicated, or perhaps even Hollywood scriptwriters eventually twigged to the problems (at least from the dramatist's point of view) of a moneyless society.
Posted by: Brian Ferguson | January 17, 2006 at 08:23 AM
In one of the Star Trek movies (I think it's the 4th installment, but memory may not serve correctly and time certainly does not allow research on this topic at this time) they talk about how they no longer use money.
Posted by: Phil Miller | January 17, 2006 at 08:57 AM
I think they mentioned it on TV, too, in a Next Generation episode when they picked up some 20th Century space travellers. The idea was to show how much more enlightened the future was.
Posted by: Brian Ferguson | January 17, 2006 at 01:57 PM
Brian,
That was my take on the comment too: we, here in the 21st-and-a-half century are so much more enlightened than you cro-magnon capitalist people. So one wonders how they solved the problem of scarcity - was it the replicator????? HMMMMMMM.
Posted by: Phil Miller | January 17, 2006 at 02:13 PM