Yeah, honestly, this exact thought process about how maybe someday things could be a lot better than now / more like in the UFP in Star Trek has been the one thing keeping me from completely...
Yeah, honestly, this exact thought process about how maybe someday things could be a lot better than now / more like in the UFP in Star Trek has been the one thing keeping me from completely losing my shit over the last decade or so.
For the US I am pessimistic about the short term, but optimistic about the medium and long term. We have everything we need to significantly improve our quality of life, it's just being...
For the US I am pessimistic about the short term, but optimistic about the medium and long term. We have everything we need to significantly improve our quality of life, it's just being mis-allocated. The people have the ability to demand better and once they stand together they'll find that power addictive. TBH if LLMs ruin the social Internet I see that as a huge avenue to improvement. Too much online socialization has harmed the world.
I'm not going to watch a 48 minute video on this, that's just too much. I have to say I'm a bit shocked by the topic though. I'm a big Star Trek fan, seen at least 650 episodes, most of them...
I'm not going to watch a 48 minute video on this, that's just too much.
I have to say I'm a bit shocked by the topic though.
I'm a big Star Trek fan, seen at least 650 episodes, most of them twice, some more. And the optimism and utopia is one of my favorite things about it (though it certainly isn't the only part of "trek politics" and imo some western socialists willfully ignore other parts of the ideology of Trek, but that's for a different discussion).
That said, in my opinion one of the core features of Trek is that it's not "political" in the sense that it never explores actual policies. It does not explore how we're supposed to reach that utopia, how it works on the inside, how specifically is it governed, what is regulated and how etc. It says nothing about the things that are actually important!
I agree with its humanism and simple philosophical questions, but trying to follow it in terms of politics seems like a terrible idea because it usually doesn't actually provide any solutions.
48 minutes is basically the length of an episode of Star Trek, so if you can do 650 of those you can probably do this too. She does address what you’re asking about and then attempts to...
48 minutes is basically the length of an episode of Star Trek, so if you can do 650 of those you can probably do this too. She does address what you’re asking about and then attempts to extrapolate from what we see in the shows to what the politics of that world might look like.
The difference is that I had reasonable expectations that I was going to enjoy Star Trek, whereas I find "internet leftist" discourse to usually be terrible, and it's not because I'm against...
48 minutes is basically the length of an episode of Star Trek, so if you can do 650 of those you can probably do this too.
The difference is that I had reasonable expectations that I was going to enjoy Star Trek, whereas I find "internet leftist" discourse to usually be terrible, and it's not because I'm against leftist policies in general (I love our socialized healthcare and higher education) but precisely because "modern lefttists" tend to really suck at planning actual policies and thinking through their consequences. So my expectations here are very low, but due to the relation to Trek my interest is not entirely zero.
I watched the whole video, and I found it pretty light on specifics on systems. One specific suggestion is a multi-layered delegate democracy, but right before explaining the idea, she claims that...
I watched the whole video, and I found it pretty light on specifics on systems.
One specific suggestion is a multi-layered delegate democracy, but right before explaining the idea, she claims that the electoral college is not democratic. The type of system she describes has even more layers of delegates before reaching the top, so wouldn't that be even less democratic?
As far as motivation, I feel like the analysis is not in agreement with history or current events. There's a ton of selection bias for those who are involved in Starfleet, because only those who are most motivated to do science and exploration would join. Then we have the focus on the main characters, which has bias towards the most motivated and exceptional among this already-motivated bunch, the top 1% of the top 1%. So, we already know that some percent of the population are inherently motivated to do cool stuff, and some smaller percent are hyper motivated, but what about the majority who aren't? This is what I found a bit more realistic about The Player of Games by Banks, where most of the post-scarcity population just plays games, takes drugs, and socializes all day, while a smaller proportion are out having adventures and pushing boundaries. This is the only "Culture" book I've read, so sorry if I've misrepresented it as a whole.
I also think that the idea that people would do jobs that advance society is not that well rooted in reality. History shows that we haven't been very good at predicting what kinds of work technology will be able to automate in the future. Current AI models are showing us that in the near future we're more likely to automate the kinds of thinking jobs that people find fulfilling and less likely to automate the menial jobs that people don't like doing. While it's true that we do have enough food and enough space for everyone, we don't necessarily live in such a post-scarcity world that people don't have have to do shitty jobs. We also currently have plenty of room for jobs that pay well, require technical knowledge, and work towards the advancement of humanity, and most people aren't educating themselves for those now, so why would they in a future where working harder doesn't buy you a significantly better lifestyle?
I have a similar perspective, but unfortunately I cant help but sit through a 40 minute video anyway just to prove to myself that Im not closeminded. I would say this video is very much on brand...
I have a similar perspective, but unfortunately I cant help but sit through a 40 minute video anyway just to prove to myself that Im not closeminded.
I would say this video is very much on brand for internet style leftist dialogue. If you are into that kind of thing youll likely enjoy the video, but I wouldnt say you will be surprised by anything in it.
As someone that's seen all of Star Trek minus most of the fan made series. Star Trek is political af. It may not come out with a specific bill in legalize, but it does in fact explore specific...
As someone that's seen all of Star Trek minus most of the fan made series. Star Trek is political af. It may not come out with a specific bill in legalize, but it does in fact explore specific policies thinly couched as plot narrative. Most good Sci-Fi is a political statement hidden behind alien make up. It's why the newer versions of Star Trek flop, when you remove the political commentary and the supporting ethical exploration, you might have phasers and star ships but you don't have Star Trek. Star Trek is meant to be a little uncomfortable if you're paying close attention, calling out current political and social issues through the juxtaposition of an alien world.
I can't really agree with this specifically, not on a level that's anywhere near useful for reality, but I was focusing mostly on the big issues like currency, real estate, redistribution, system...
It may not come out with a specific bill in legalize, but it does in fact explore specific policies thinly couched as plot narrative.
I can't really agree with this specifically, not on a level that's anywhere near useful for reality, but I was focusing mostly on the big issues like currency, real estate, redistribution, system of government... The core things that also contain rather large contradictions within the Trek world.
Note: I haven't watched the video yet but I can comment about what I've seen in Star Trek. Some version of socialism is frequently presented as normal in the Star Trek universe. This would be...
Note: I haven't watched the video yet but I can comment about what I've seen in Star Trek.
Some version of socialism is frequently presented as normal in the Star Trek universe. This would be considered highly political in the US today.
There's a specific episode of TNG called The Neutral Zone where the Enterprise finds some cryogenically frozen people who need to be taught about a post-scarcity society and how money doesn't matter etc.
The thing that is highly political about it is that in the post-scarcity society, everyone benefits, unlike in our contemporary world where it's considered fine that there are both trillionaires and starving people.
I dont think there is any doubt that it is political, thats not the issue per se. My personal preference in descending order would be: Something political in an interesting and nuanced way...
I dont think there is any doubt that it is political, thats not the issue per se.
My personal preference in descending order would be:
Something political in an interesting and nuanced way
Something not political at all
Something political in a vapid way
Im not saying star trek is vapid, but each episode of star trek is about a different thing, which may or may not be an interesting science fiction idea. Its not purely one big discourse on utopian society.
When looking at it as a blueprint for society it is somewhat sparse on information, because we follow star fleet, so you dont really get much of a look into whats going on on the Earth. If you watch the show and think it would suck to live in that world and have to follow orders and die on missions as a redshirt, someone will respond by saying you wouldnt be doing that, you would be on Earth living great happy perfect lives.
Thats kind of boring and preachy sounding to me for a topic of discussion. Its like "boy who cried wolf" level storytelling, where all you are told is that humanity abandoned money and capitalism and apparently it worked out great so the moral is that we should abandon capitalism.
A show that would be more interesting politically would be something like a court procedural set in the star trek universe, where you see how people navigate the system when things go wrong and conflicts arise, without being in some special class like a starfleet officer.
I think that's the reason Deep Space Nine resonated with me and a lot of other people. It kind of deconstructs a lot of the lore in a way and drills down into the implications of a society as it's...
I think that's the reason Deep Space Nine resonated with me and a lot of other people. It kind of deconstructs a lot of the lore in a way and drills down into the implications of a society as it's depicted in the other Star Trek shows.
One of the most iconic episodes, and my all time favorite is The Seige of AR-558, in the midst of brutal combat attrition, Quark lays down this gem:
Let me tell you something about humans, nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time, and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people will become as nasty and violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes. You know I'm right, don't you?
It's Quark basically saying to the audience that maybe all that stuff Jean-Luc Picard said about how humans are better now and there's no such thing as crime or greed or racism anymore because humanity has fundementally evolved might be kind of bullshit. Maybe it's just because technology and military power have given humanity unprecedented peace and abundance in the 24th century, and if you take those things away, humans go back to their fundemental base instincts just like everyone else.
That may or may not be the case in the universe of the show, but it does kind of feel grounded and like an admission that the roadmap for how to get to the federation that the show lays out is kind of nonsensical.
A real political policy has to deal with real people with real desires, resource constraints and conflicts, not perfectly behaved unselfish enterprise bridge crews with access to magical machines that can do anything.
But, as a contradiction, there are multiple times in TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY where "federation credits" are referenced in relation to buying and selling things. It's clear there's some form of...
But, as a contradiction, there are multiple times in TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY where "federation credits" are referenced in relation to buying and selling things. It's clear there's some form of currency. It's not clear how you actually get that currency and what exactly it's used for. I think that's what @V17 was referring to.
It's one thing to just say "we don't have money" and then constantly contradict that. It's another to actually demonstrate how a society without money would plausibly work.
Star Trek does the former a lot more than the latter.
She talks about this in the video, it appears that the credit system is for use when needing to trade or work with (or appease) other planets and organizations that rely on currency, such as the...
But, as a contradiction, there are multiple times in TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY where "federation credits" are referenced in relation to buying and selling things. It's clear there's some form of currency. It's not clear how you actually get that currency and what exactly it's used for. I think that's what @V17 was referring to.
She talks about this in the video, it appears that the credit system is for use when needing to trade or work with (or appease) other planets and organizations that rely on currency, such as the ferengi.
Even if that's the case (there have been examples of people in Star Trek spending money within the federation too), you'd need there to be some way to earn federation credits. They have value in...
Even if that's the case (there have been examples of people in Star Trek spending money within the federation too), you'd need there to be some way to earn federation credits. They have value in some way, which means people are willing to do things they wouldn't otherwise do in exchange for them. Their existence at all basically implies a full economy, which isn't actually expanded on.
Many early states without internal currencies used bullion or some other form of value transfer to engage in external trading without currency being used internally. The existence of currency may...
Many early states without internal currencies used bullion or some other form of value transfer to engage in external trading without currency being used internally. The existence of currency may imply but does not enforce a full currency-based internal economy.
This is an interesting point and I don't know if I agree or not. Basically you say that even just presenting a very theoretical goal can be political if a large portion of society disagrees with...
Some version of socialism is frequently presented as normal in the Star Trek universe. This would be considered highly political in the US today.
This is an interesting point and I don't know if I agree or not. Basically you say that even just presenting a very theoretical goal can be political if a large portion of society disagrees with that goal by default. The fact that this happens seems to be true for your example.
But my issue still exists: if you want to reach the goal, you need an actual plan on how to get there and how it's supposed to work legally, economically, and how would the specific policies affect how society works. Convincing people that some policy is worth pursuing is hard, but the really hard part and the actual real problem, especially with ambitious trek-like policies, is still always the implementation. Especially with socialism that we've seen fail in various ways over and over (unless we count common social democratic welfare state-like policies). And Trek gives us nothing there.
The thing that is highly political about it is that in the post-scarcity society, everyone benefits, unlike in our contemporary world where it's considered fine that there are both trillionaires and starving people.
But again, this tells us nothing about politics. I mean, I love this about Trek, and I think it can be inspirational on an individual level, but it's inspirational in terms of shaping your own behavior and outlooks based on it, not in terms of what policies to enact beyond maybe to raise tax progression in this case - but that's not an idea you got from Star Trek. Also post-scarcity society is one of the most fantastical aspects of Trek, so operating with that isn't particularly useful either.
Wasn't Academy notoriously political? I.e. put more weight into that than interesting plotlines and characters?
It's why the newer versions of Star Trek flop, when you remove the political commentary and the supporting ethical exploration, you might have phasers and star ships but you don't have Star Trek.
Wasn't Academy notoriously political? I.e. put more weight into that than interesting plotlines and characters?
That is about what I mean, yes. The latter is unenforcable with policies (it's an "if everyone would just" type of solution, which is not a solution at all) and the former is something nobody has...
That is about what I mean, yes. The latter is unenforcable with policies (it's an "if everyone would just" type of solution, which is not a solution at all) and the former is something nobody has any idea how to reach without the world completely crumbling, unless we get free energy and energy-matter converters. Plus this is only a part for what Trek shows, it also shows that Earth is at least partially ruled by a military organisation, and that private ownership/inequality obviously has some specifics, like Picard's family owning a big farm.
Not only did they own a big farm, Robert Picard had farmhands working for him. If you could do anything in the world, have anything you wanted, and had zero obligation to have a job, is there even...
private ownership/inequality obviously has some specifics, like Picard's family owning a big farm.
Not only did they own a big farm, Robert Picard had farmhands working for him.
If you could do anything in the world, have anything you wanted, and had zero obligation to have a job, is there even a modicum of a chance that you'd sign up to pick grapes in the middle of a field during summertime in France all day? On someone else's land???
Spouse is semi-retired and he's so excited about wine that he works in a winery's tasting room, picks up part time coverage at a wine shop, and volunteer teaches about wine. I garden for fun,...
Spouse is semi-retired and he's so excited about wine that he works in a winery's tasting room, picks up part time coverage at a wine shop, and volunteer teaches about wine. I garden for fun, share some of the wine nerdery, and would definitely volunteer for vineyard tending and harvest tasks (if I didn't have a day job and my joints were up to it). Different people have different interests.
I just had a conversation with someone who talked about how much they loved bartending because of the interactions and how fun it is to make something people like. They work a professional job in...
I just had a conversation with someone who talked about how much they loved bartending because of the interactions and how fun it is to make something people like. They work a professional job in higher ed, but if they didn't have to to live they'd definitely be doing some service industry work because it brings them joy.
lives for and loves bartending for the interactions works a professional job in "higher" education so cool that you got to meet guinan - did they give you any advice?
I just had a conversation with someone who talked about how much they loved bartending because of the interactions and how fun it is to make something people like.
lives for and loves bartending for the interactions
works a professional job in "higher" education
so cool that you got to meet guinan - did they give you any advice?
A. I haven't watched Picard, so I can't speak to the workday, but is it canon that they were putting in long shifts? B. That sounds like hard work, but is also kind of a prestige task? You had a...
A. I haven't watched Picard, so I can't speak to the workday, but is it canon that they were putting in long shifts?
B. That sounds like hard work, but is also kind of a prestige task? You had a part in making something by hand. The slow way. My wife turns a fleece basically off the sheep into clothing by hand for fun. If people had infinite free time, I could see some of them signing up to farm. Also, being the farmhand rather than the farmer means not having to make any of the decisions. Some people are into that, and often those people go into management anyway because it pays better.
Without the profit motive to push them out of the blue collar jobs and with the social cache that it bring, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that some people would choose to work on a farm.
Very ironically I had seen this about two weeks ago and last week I used it as an example to a communist friend of mine as to how to create messaging that could make people support socialist...
Very ironically I had seen this about two weeks ago and last week I used it as an example to a communist friend of mine as to how to create messaging that could make people support socialist causes.
Unfortunately he’s still waiting for the people to spontaneously revolt against capitalism-imperialism, a term that precisely zero non-academics understand.
I have not yet watched the video (and thus no clue if it was mentioned), but..... Star Trek timeline only came about because they nuked themselves to hell for 27 years, wiped 30% of the...
I have not yet watched the video (and thus no clue if it was mentioned), but.....
We also missed the Irish reunification target date, IIRC, or are close to missing it since it was supposed to be 2026ish. (The ish not because it is undefined in lore but rather my own memory).
We also missed the Irish reunification target date, IIRC, or are close to missing it since it was supposed to be 2026ish.
(The ish not because it is undefined in lore but rather my own memory).
Perhaps a Q for folks that think this way, but I've seen a bunch of people online push back against solarpunk because it's "just an aesthetic" and glosses over the details of how it'd actually...
Perhaps a Q for folks that think this way, but I've seen a bunch of people online push back against solarpunk because it's "just an aesthetic" and glosses over the details of how it'd actually work. Does aspiring to a Star Trek-esque post-scarcity utopia feel more realistic in some way? Since I haven't seen nearly any critique going against it.
Maybe, because it's explicitly marketed as fiction, it's less offensive? I'm curious how one could market the notion of being less pessimistic -- if not optimistic -- about the future without rubbing people the wrong way, as with solarpunk.
I'd say the opposite really. I'll admit that I know almost nothing about solarpunk and have never read a solarpunk story. I have seen a ton of Star Trek though, and am a huge fan. From what I've...
Exemplary
Does aspiring to a Star Trek-esque post-scarcity utopia feel more realistic in some way?
I'd say the opposite really. I'll admit that I know almost nothing about solarpunk and have never read a solarpunk story. I have seen a ton of Star Trek though, and am a huge fan. From what I've seen of solarpunk, it just involves equitable distribution of resources and living sustainable using technology. Pretty doable.
Star Trek, on the other hand, is pretty much entirely nonsensical and contradictory when it comes to how their society works.
The post scarcity nature of their society hinges on the magical technology that is the replicator. It's so beyond our technological capabilities that it's basically just a magical spell. I think warp drives are probably more realistic.
Basically, the replicator makes it so no one ever has to worry about material needs because the replactor can make anything. Except... It can't. There are a bunch of random stuff replicators can't make.
They can't make living things, they can't make dilithium (the crystals that enable warp travel), they cant make a liquid called lattinum which gets used as currency by a lot of races. It doesn't seem like they can replicate starships either for some reason, because we see ships being painstakingly built piece by piece, like we build large ships today.
In theory, the Federation has no money, because everyone has what they need whenever they want it. I think the writers eventually may have realize that they painted themselves in a corner, because sometimes they just ignore that fact and have characters mention things like "federation credits", because there are things like energy use or trade with alien species that require a form of currency.
The fact that credits exist sort of implies that some way to earn credits must also exist, along with an economy and so on.
There's a lot of detail missing, despite there being something approaching a thousand episodes of star trek and well over a dozen movies. For instance, if you want to have a beachfront house in Los Angeles, but someone else does too, how does that get resolved?
What do most people actually do all day? We see the crew of starships on the show, and they're mostly working their asses off, far away from their loved ones and families, and dying, or coming close to it constantly. People die, or experience fates worse than death a lot in Star Trek. In theory, they're doing this on a completely voluntary basis, without being paid at all. Like... Why?
Is life in all of the federation so painfully boring that facing likely death and isolation is a better option? If people are doing it for excitement, what about all of the tens of thousands of support staff that are scrubbing the plasma exhaust manifolds of starships or whatever (a real task which has to apparently be manually done).
It's also shown that replicators use energy, and a lot of it, because they're creating matter from energy. E=MC2 is very unfavorable towards the E side of the equation, so you need to basically extend the energy of a nuclear bomb to have your morning coffee. This is pretty wasteful and monumentally dangerous, but ignoring that, it's not actually unlimited. The energy has to be rationed in some way. You can't just have someone replicating full sized castles all day and using up the energy output of the sun to do it. How does that get decided?
None of this stuff is covered in Star Trek, so using it as a guide is kinda like the classic communist blueprint of "revolution, then something something something, dictatorship of the proletariat and utopia!"
It describes a fictional world which on paper is great (if you ignore the constant threats of all life on earth/the galaxy/the universe spontaneously ceasing to exist/being slaughtered by warlike aliens/being assimilated into grotesque zombie hiveminds/having their pasts rewritten. It doesn't show a roadmap of how to get there, or even if such a world is possible, or even desirable. It's a TV show written by people with wildly varying skill at writing realistic worlds.
Star trek is absolutely just a huge media empire. It is a fictional setting created to explore societal and philosophical issues without the baggage that comes from a more grounded setting. If it...
Star trek is absolutely just a huge media empire. It is a fictional setting created to explore societal and philosophical issues without the baggage that comes from a more grounded setting. If it seems fantastical, I think it is by design. As you also say, there have also been countless writers and creative directors over the years that have different visions, so there also isn't a cohesive and singular message.
I think a lot of the tech is "hand-wave-ium". As the story goes teleporters were created because there wasn't time or money to make a shuttle. I think the idea is that the story being told is paramount, and the tech fills in the gap to make that possible. Universal translators, replicators, warp drive, teleporters, latinum : whatever is needed. I still think there are some poignant ideas that transcend the setting. I personally don't think the stories would benefit from deep dives into the logistics of moving resources around for advanced 3d printers, instead of just saying replicators.
I am also reminded of Arthur C Clarke's quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I think quibbling on the magical properties of technology from the distant future is ultimately unproductive. It is interesting to look at how people in the 1800s thought we would be living today, versus where we wound up. Technology will likely move in ways we cannot predict. Since tech will ultimately end up as "magic" to us anyways, there is no real benefit to trying to explain it away.
I think any story is going to have unbelievable elements to it. Perhaps you are more comfortable with those elements in solarpunk because the technology is more familiar. In my opinion the hard problems for star trek are the same ones you say are attainable for solarpunk. "Equitable distribution of resources and living sustainable using technology." These are some of the hardest problems that humanity has faced.
As a species we do not know how to live sustainably. We use irreplaceable resources and always seem to desire more for less. Once we have that stockpile of endlessly replaceable resources how do we split it up? Whether we get it through super advance "magic" tech or more near future extrapolation, who gets it. This is the really hard part. The part that I think the original video is missing, and a point you touched on too. If two people want something, something that cannot be duplicated, how do we as a society choose who gets it.
No matter the setting, I still think it is nice to image a future where people work together. Can we actually ever get there?
Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying any of that to disparage Star Trek. I love Star Trek. I love it for what it is though. An interesting, semi cohesive setting in which to tell interesting and...
Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying any of that to disparage Star Trek. I love Star Trek. I love it for what it is though. An interesting, semi cohesive setting in which to tell interesting and entertaining stories. Maybe an inspiring bit of media that shows the virtues of cooperation and scientific discovery over conflict and ignorance.
It's not a roadmap for how to build a society though. It's a Sci Fi tv franchise. We can come up with better ideas by postulating theories, modeling things, studying history and testing ideas, instead of watching TV.
I think we are more or less on the same page. I don't think star trek is less coherent than solarpunk. All fictional settings will hand way away the parts they don't have answers too. The...
I think we are more or less on the same page. I don't think star trek is less coherent than solarpunk. All fictional settings will hand way away the parts they don't have answers too. The technological problems are usually not the hard part though, it's people.
If people are what is really slowing things down, then inspiration is really important. The actors will often speak about conventions. There are doctors, scientists, engineers, film makers etc because of star trek. These are the people who will trudge through the hard work of making society better because they were inspired.
If you ONLY watch tv there are problems, but stories are very human. From the first time we sat around a fire imagining a place where our bellies were full, and our families safe. Stories are at their best when they inspire us to do great things.
I'm not sure if there's much solarpunk fiction? Moreso my take -- as an outsider -- is that it's a rallying cry for people to dream about a world beyond the crippling despair which grips us daily....
I'm not sure if there's much solarpunk fiction? Moreso my take -- as an outsider -- is that it's a rallying cry for people to dream about a world beyond the crippling despair which grips us daily. Skyscrapers overgrown by climbing plants, greenery blanketing viaducts, and solar panels above lush fields overlooking abandoned natural gas turbines.
Far and away, though, the most I read about it is from people decrying those thoughts as unrealistic. There's a youtube urbanist (who I refuse to direct more views towards) who authored a "takedown" of the genre, in favour of their preferred "more realistic and therefore better" vision. It rather bothered me since I feel that the same genre of human has been parroting the aphorism "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism (source)" for ages, which is brutally ironic in context.
I suppose I was hoping to find someone who was against the solarpunk movement (?), but receptive to a Star Trek-esque utopia, as they seem broadly comparable delta some trappings of their respective fictive universes (substitute magically absent factories for replicators, for instance), however the comment section of the linked video isn't overflowing with people saying the presenter is an idealistic fool (or at least, it wasn't when I first checked).
More broadly, for context into my line of questioning: I'm simply awful at communicating with or understanding people, so interrogating discrepancies like these helps me suss out better ways of reaching people who're in a different headspace than I (e.g. to some, it seems more effective to reframe climate change amelioration projects as a moral responsibility to future generations, or as a fiscally conservative/risk averse reaction to world markets). This seemed like a particularly large gap so it seemed ripe for discussion.
Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers (a Duology of Psalm for the Wildbuilt and Prayer for the Crown Shy) is something I typically see described as solar punk, and I've definitely seen other fiction!...
Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers (a Duology of Psalm for the Wildbuilt and Prayer for the Crown Shy) is something I typically see described as solar punk, and I've definitely seen other fiction! Not sure if there's any other definition I'm missing here though.
Answer in a spoiler box below, since I genuinely want this man to be forgotten off the internet. Alan Fisher. He should've stuck to trains, but decided to have opinions on other subjects.
Answer in a spoiler box below, since I genuinely want this man to be forgotten off the internet.
Alan Fisher. He should've stuck to trains, but decided to have opinions on other subjects.
Hes a train focused youtuber, I think he got popular around the time hyperloop was being talked about alot, but its kind of a niche topic so its not surprising if he didnt pop up on your algorithm.
Hes a train focused youtuber, I think he got popular around the time hyperloop was being talked about alot, but its kind of a niche topic so its not surprising if he didnt pop up on your algorithm.
I'll allow the concession that if you have transporter technology, replicators are a reasonable extension of that technology. The limitations are writers' balonium for plot complication...
I'll allow the concession that if you have transporter technology, replicators are a reasonable extension of that technology. The limitations are writers' balonium for plot complication manufacture (or apparently sensible legal safety limitations to avoid collapsing economies, plague creation, duplicating living things without respect for rights, etc.).
The answer to the "beachfront house" (or other highly desirable location) problem is the holoroom. The features that make living in one location preferable to another are mainly psychological, and a near-perfect simulation should meet those needs.
So here's my theory on why the "explore strange new worlds" people are needed - novelty value. It's not that Star Trek society people at large are so incapable of deriving their own meanings in life. But there's always going to be a significant number who require more stimulus. As a matter of basic rights, a just society can't simply medicate them into complacency without consent. There are also status seekers because Maslow, and even a janitor on the Enterprise gets to signal they're superior at something.
So they get turned loose on the Galaxy, with their energy budget (as you say, even pure energy at 100% conversion efficiency has limits, and recycling matter is certain to have some losses) subsidized by providing live entertainment for the stay-at-homes, bringing back new replicator templates, and generally being the yeast which keeps society from stagnating.
I dont think its a matter of being more realistic, its just a different cultivated audience. In the case of solarpunk, that kind if pushback comes because the name contains the word "punk", which...
I dont think its a matter of being more realistic, its just a different cultivated audience.
In the case of solarpunk, that kind if pushback comes because the name contains the word "punk", which attracted a certain kind of demographic thats enamored with rebelling against society. The people who complain most about solarpunk being too much aesthetic are in fact the solarpunk community themselves, because they want the community to be as explicitly centered around anticapitalism as possible. They being the main drivers of conversation around solarpunk, this results in a persistent critique online of it being too aesthetic focused.
On the other hand, what does the name Star Trek attract? People who are into stars? People who are into treks? Well being into space is more of a wondrous experience. If you came to the show to see futuristic space stuff, youll get exactly what you came for.
But for sure there are going to be sociopolitical types who complain about star trek being unrealistic too.
One of the big problems with a post-scarcity future is that there are some things which really are scarce. Like land. Lots of people want to live in New York City but there's only so much density...
One of the big problems with a post-scarcity future is that there are some things which really are scarce. Like land. Lots of people want to live in New York City but there's only so much density you can build until the only remaining options are not in New York but New Jersey.
In the United States, probably more money has been made through the appreciation of real estate than in any other way. What are the long-term consequences if an increasing percentage of savings and wealth, as it now seems, is used to inflate the prices of already existing assets - real estate and stocks - instead of creating new production and innovation?
Erik S. Reinert and Arno Mong Daastøl, Production Capitalism vs. Financial Capitalism (1998)
There is still a lot we could do to increase density in New York until we hit that point. Post-artificial-scarcity is a much more tangible goal. We could reconstruct New York City (5 boroughs) into a mega-structure apartment building: 303 square miles / 8.3 billion people * 150 sq ft per person = 147 floors (if we used the full Tri-State Metro Area we would only need 10 stories, around the same as Kowloon Walled City).
Very quickly this megastructure would stop looking like New York City--and that is the main problem. It seems like there is a certain threshold that would be crossed which would turn NYC into something that is no longer NYC. Building replica cities could go a long way... but there are still many people who would be frustrated to not be able to live in the original NYC: without money, how do we decide who gets to live there?
edit:
The ParPolity participatory democracy thing led me on a pretty interesting web binge:
Assuming post-scarcity, as it becomes less and less like current NYC, the people who want to live in it as it is now would move to somewhere more like what they want, until a new equilibrium is...
Assuming post-scarcity, as it becomes less and less like current NYC, the people who want to live in it as it is now would move to somewhere more like what they want, until a new equilibrium is found. It's not like it's a unique good, it just has a confluence of appealing features.
I think "assuming post scarcity" is doing a lot of work here. There have always been places that are more desirable places to live than others. Better culture, more food options, more storied...
I think "assuming post scarcity" is doing a lot of work here.
There have always been places that are more desirable places to live than others. Better culture, more food options, more storied history, more movies set there, whatever the reason, lots of people really really want to live in New York.
If there are other places whose main draw is "sorta like New York but less expensive", that basically implies that New York is still more desirable.
It doesn't have to be New York though. In 1000 years, maybe Kansas City becomes the new hot spot where all of the interactive holographic movies are set and everyone wants to live there. You have the same problem ultimately. Even though we have matter replicators that can create gold flaked wagyu beef in 2 seconds, there's only one Kansas City and it has limited space. Not everyone that wants to live in Kansas City can live there without the whole reason for it being unique and desirable going away. So how do you decide who gets to live there and who doesn't?
That's the problem that every economic system is trying to solve, "post scarcity" or not.
Of course "assuming post-scarcity" is doing a lot of work here. I and the person I responded to were both talking about that context. It's silly to enter a consensual conversation between two...
Of course "assuming post-scarcity" is doing a lot of work here. I and the person I responded to were both talking about that context. It's silly to enter a consensual conversation between two other people and take issue with their mutually accepted basis for the conversation.
I'm not taking issue with it, I'm implying that there are wildly different interpretations of what post scarcity actually means. The most common definition is just that people's basic needs like...
I'm not taking issue with it, I'm implying that there are wildly different interpretations of what post scarcity actually means. The most common definition is just that people's basic needs like housing, food, and healthcare are taken care of to a degree that it's no longer a concern. Operating under that definition, it doesn't seem to me that New York would significantly change in character or desirability.
Like yeah, you don't need money to have your government issued 3 meals a day of basic food, or live in a basic apartment somewhere, but you won't have access to world class restaurants serving authentic cuisine from everyone on earth like you do in New York City. There are a lot of reasons why people choose to live in New York City, and only a few of them are related to requiring their basic needs to be met. New york is a great place to both earn and spend money, and people like having and spending money even when they have their basic needs met.
However, if you're operating under a stronger definition of post scarcity, something more akin to "anything a person could want is freely available to everyone", then New York, and life as we know if would be unconceivably different.
More to the point, Star Trek depicts life under the first definition of post scarcity, not the second. We don't see people tooling around in their own personal starship enterprises, and we see lots of people working normal, boring jobs like waiters or freighter captains, conceivably because they get compensated for it some way. Not everyone has access to a house in downtown San Francisco next to Starfleet academy.
A universe where the second definition of post scarcity would require things that we consider impossible in our conception of reality, like multiple people existing in the same place at the same time to solve that inherit problem of real estate being scarce.
I'd argue that the main reason why Star Trek's federation is so different than real life doesn't actually have to do with the technology that enables the first definition of post scarcity, it's the fact that pretty much all humans simultaneously and universally decided to stop being greedy and selfish some time during the 22nd century, which strikes me as far less realistic than replicators.
Skyscrapers are how you deal with limited land, and there are more places in New York City that could be built up like Long Island City. I don’t really get the appeal of New York City as it is, so...
Skyscrapers are how you deal with limited land, and there are more places in New York City that could be built up like Long Island City.
I don’t really get the appeal of New York City as it is, so I don't see why anyone would want to replicate it. I do think that other cities should be building more housing.
Yeah, honestly, this exact thought process about how maybe someday things could be a lot better than now / more like in the UFP in Star Trek has been the one thing keeping me from completely losing my shit over the last decade or so.
For the US I am pessimistic about the short term, but optimistic about the medium and long term. We have everything we need to significantly improve our quality of life, it's just being mis-allocated. The people have the ability to demand better and once they stand together they'll find that power addictive. TBH if LLMs ruin the social Internet I see that as a huge avenue to improvement. Too much online socialization has harmed the world.
I'm not going to watch a 48 minute video on this, that's just too much.
I have to say I'm a bit shocked by the topic though.
I'm a big Star Trek fan, seen at least 650 episodes, most of them twice, some more. And the optimism and utopia is one of my favorite things about it (though it certainly isn't the only part of "trek politics" and imo some western socialists willfully ignore other parts of the ideology of Trek, but that's for a different discussion).
That said, in my opinion one of the core features of Trek is that it's not "political" in the sense that it never explores actual policies. It does not explore how we're supposed to reach that utopia, how it works on the inside, how specifically is it governed, what is regulated and how etc. It says nothing about the things that are actually important!
I agree with its humanism and simple philosophical questions, but trying to follow it in terms of politics seems like a terrible idea because it usually doesn't actually provide any solutions.
Does the video disprove this in a reasonable way?
48 minutes is basically the length of an episode of Star Trek, so if you can do 650 of those you can probably do this too. She does address what you’re asking about and then attempts to extrapolate from what we see in the shows to what the politics of that world might look like.
The difference is that I had reasonable expectations that I was going to enjoy Star Trek, whereas I find "internet leftist" discourse to usually be terrible, and it's not because I'm against leftist policies in general (I love our socialized healthcare and higher education) but precisely because "modern lefttists" tend to really suck at planning actual policies and thinking through their consequences. So my expectations here are very low, but due to the relation to Trek my interest is not entirely zero.
I watched the whole video, and I found it pretty light on specifics on systems.
One specific suggestion is a multi-layered delegate democracy, but right before explaining the idea, she claims that the electoral college is not democratic. The type of system she describes has even more layers of delegates before reaching the top, so wouldn't that be even less democratic?
As far as motivation, I feel like the analysis is not in agreement with history or current events. There's a ton of selection bias for those who are involved in Starfleet, because only those who are most motivated to do science and exploration would join. Then we have the focus on the main characters, which has bias towards the most motivated and exceptional among this already-motivated bunch, the top 1% of the top 1%. So, we already know that some percent of the population are inherently motivated to do cool stuff, and some smaller percent are hyper motivated, but what about the majority who aren't? This is what I found a bit more realistic about The Player of Games by Banks, where most of the post-scarcity population just plays games, takes drugs, and socializes all day, while a smaller proportion are out having adventures and pushing boundaries. This is the only "Culture" book I've read, so sorry if I've misrepresented it as a whole.
I also think that the idea that people would do jobs that advance society is not that well rooted in reality. History shows that we haven't been very good at predicting what kinds of work technology will be able to automate in the future. Current AI models are showing us that in the near future we're more likely to automate the kinds of thinking jobs that people find fulfilling and less likely to automate the menial jobs that people don't like doing. While it's true that we do have enough food and enough space for everyone, we don't necessarily live in such a post-scarcity world that people don't have have to do shitty jobs. We also currently have plenty of room for jobs that pay well, require technical knowledge, and work towards the advancement of humanity, and most people aren't educating themselves for those now, so why would they in a future where working harder doesn't buy you a significantly better lifestyle?
I have a similar perspective, but unfortunately I cant help but sit through a 40 minute video anyway just to prove to myself that Im not closeminded.
I would say this video is very much on brand for internet style leftist dialogue. If you are into that kind of thing youll likely enjoy the video, but I wouldnt say you will be surprised by anything in it.
As someone that's seen all of Star Trek minus most of the fan made series. Star Trek is political af. It may not come out with a specific bill in legalize, but it does in fact explore specific policies thinly couched as plot narrative. Most good Sci-Fi is a political statement hidden behind alien make up. It's why the newer versions of Star Trek flop, when you remove the political commentary and the supporting ethical exploration, you might have phasers and star ships but you don't have Star Trek. Star Trek is meant to be a little uncomfortable if you're paying close attention, calling out current political and social issues through the juxtaposition of an alien world.
I can't really agree with this specifically, not on a level that's anywhere near useful for reality, but I was focusing mostly on the big issues like currency, real estate, redistribution, system of government... The core things that also contain rather large contradictions within the Trek world.
Note: I haven't watched the video yet but I can comment about what I've seen in Star Trek.
Some version of socialism is frequently presented as normal in the Star Trek universe. This would be considered highly political in the US today.
There's a specific episode of TNG called The Neutral Zone where the Enterprise finds some cryogenically frozen people who need to be taught about a post-scarcity society and how money doesn't matter etc.
The thing that is highly political about it is that in the post-scarcity society, everyone benefits, unlike in our contemporary world where it's considered fine that there are both trillionaires and starving people.
I dont think there is any doubt that it is political, thats not the issue per se.
My personal preference in descending order would be:
Something political in an interesting and nuanced way
Something not political at all
Something political in a vapid way
Im not saying star trek is vapid, but each episode of star trek is about a different thing, which may or may not be an interesting science fiction idea. Its not purely one big discourse on utopian society.
When looking at it as a blueprint for society it is somewhat sparse on information, because we follow star fleet, so you dont really get much of a look into whats going on on the Earth. If you watch the show and think it would suck to live in that world and have to follow orders and die on missions as a redshirt, someone will respond by saying you wouldnt be doing that, you would be on Earth living great happy perfect lives.
Thats kind of boring and preachy sounding to me for a topic of discussion. Its like "boy who cried wolf" level storytelling, where all you are told is that humanity abandoned money and capitalism and apparently it worked out great so the moral is that we should abandon capitalism.
A show that would be more interesting politically would be something like a court procedural set in the star trek universe, where you see how people navigate the system when things go wrong and conflicts arise, without being in some special class like a starfleet officer.
I think that's the reason Deep Space Nine resonated with me and a lot of other people. It kind of deconstructs a lot of the lore in a way and drills down into the implications of a society as it's depicted in the other Star Trek shows.
One of the most iconic episodes, and my all time favorite is The Seige of AR-558, in the midst of brutal combat attrition, Quark lays down this gem:
It's Quark basically saying to the audience that maybe all that stuff Jean-Luc Picard said about how humans are better now and there's no such thing as crime or greed or racism anymore because humanity has fundementally evolved might be kind of bullshit. Maybe it's just because technology and military power have given humanity unprecedented peace and abundance in the 24th century, and if you take those things away, humans go back to their fundemental base instincts just like everyone else.
That may or may not be the case in the universe of the show, but it does kind of feel grounded and like an admission that the roadmap for how to get to the federation that the show lays out is kind of nonsensical.
A real political policy has to deal with real people with real desires, resource constraints and conflicts, not perfectly behaved unselfish enterprise bridge crews with access to magical machines that can do anything.
But, as a contradiction, there are multiple times in TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY where "federation credits" are referenced in relation to buying and selling things. It's clear there's some form of currency. It's not clear how you actually get that currency and what exactly it's used for. I think that's what @V17 was referring to.
It's one thing to just say "we don't have money" and then constantly contradict that. It's another to actually demonstrate how a society without money would plausibly work.
Star Trek does the former a lot more than the latter.
She talks about this in the video, it appears that the credit system is for use when needing to trade or work with (or appease) other planets and organizations that rely on currency, such as the ferengi.
Even if that's the case (there have been examples of people in Star Trek spending money within the federation too), you'd need there to be some way to earn federation credits. They have value in some way, which means people are willing to do things they wouldn't otherwise do in exchange for them. Their existence at all basically implies a full economy, which isn't actually expanded on.
Many early states without internal currencies used bullion or some other form of value transfer to engage in external trading without currency being used internally. The existence of currency may imply but does not enforce a full currency-based internal economy.
This is an interesting point and I don't know if I agree or not. Basically you say that even just presenting a very theoretical goal can be political if a large portion of society disagrees with that goal by default. The fact that this happens seems to be true for your example.
But my issue still exists: if you want to reach the goal, you need an actual plan on how to get there and how it's supposed to work legally, economically, and how would the specific policies affect how society works. Convincing people that some policy is worth pursuing is hard, but the really hard part and the actual real problem, especially with ambitious trek-like policies, is still always the implementation. Especially with socialism that we've seen fail in various ways over and over (unless we count common social democratic welfare state-like policies). And Trek gives us nothing there.
But again, this tells us nothing about politics. I mean, I love this about Trek, and I think it can be inspirational on an individual level, but it's inspirational in terms of shaping your own behavior and outlooks based on it, not in terms of what policies to enact beyond maybe to raise tax progression in this case - but that's not an idea you got from Star Trek. Also post-scarcity society is one of the most fantastical aspects of Trek, so operating with that isn't particularly useful either.
Wasn't Academy notoriously political? I.e. put more weight into that than interesting plotlines and characters?
They didnt say Star Trek isnt political, they said it isnt "political".
Star Trek does state that the Federation doesn't use money and people work purely to better themselves and others.
That is about what I mean, yes. The latter is unenforcable with policies (it's an "if everyone would just" type of solution, which is not a solution at all) and the former is something nobody has any idea how to reach without the world completely crumbling, unless we get free energy and energy-matter converters. Plus this is only a part for what Trek shows, it also shows that Earth is at least partially ruled by a military organisation, and that private ownership/inequality obviously has some specifics, like Picard's family owning a big farm.
Not only did they own a big farm, Robert Picard had farmhands working for him.
If you could do anything in the world, have anything you wanted, and had zero obligation to have a job, is there even a modicum of a chance that you'd sign up to pick grapes in the middle of a field during summertime in France all day? On someone else's land???
Spouse is semi-retired and he's so excited about wine that he works in a winery's tasting room, picks up part time coverage at a wine shop, and volunteer teaches about wine. I garden for fun, share some of the wine nerdery, and would definitely volunteer for vineyard tending and harvest tasks (if I didn't have a day job and my joints were up to it). Different people have different interests.
I just had a conversation with someone who talked about how much they loved bartending because of the interactions and how fun it is to make something people like. They work a professional job in higher ed, but if they didn't have to to live they'd definitely be doing some service industry work because it brings them joy.
so cool that you got to meet guinan - did they give you any advice?
Not just a job in higher ed, a social worky job in higher ed.
So yes, very close.
We gave each other advice though ;)
A. I haven't watched Picard, so I can't speak to the workday, but is it canon that they were putting in long shifts?
B. That sounds like hard work, but is also kind of a prestige task? You had a part in making something by hand. The slow way. My wife turns a fleece basically off the sheep into clothing by hand for fun. If people had infinite free time, I could see some of them signing up to farm. Also, being the farmhand rather than the farmer means not having to make any of the decisions. Some people are into that, and often those people go into management anyway because it pays better.
Without the profit motive to push them out of the blue collar jobs and with the social cache that it bring, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that some people would choose to work on a farm.
Very ironically I had seen this about two weeks ago and last week I used it as an example to a communist friend of mine as to how to create messaging that could make people support socialist causes.
Unfortunately he’s still waiting for the people to spontaneously revolt against capitalism-imperialism, a term that precisely zero non-academics understand.
I have not yet watched the video (and thus no clue if it was mentioned), but.....
Star Trek timeline only came about because they nuked themselves to hell for 27 years, wiped 30% of the population, and most of all civilization was in shambles before they resolved to do better..
Funnily enough starting in 2026. Add 'early Trek' to the dystopia pile.
It was very recently that we hit the mark for the.Bell Riots in SF from DS9
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bell_Riots
We also missed the Irish reunification target date, IIRC, or are close to missing it since it was supposed to be 2026ish.
(The ish not because it is undefined in lore but rather my own memory).
2024 (I had to look it up!)
Damn. I remember social media posts about it as though it was more recent.
Time flies when the world is burning or something
Perhaps a Q for folks that think this way, but I've seen a bunch of people online push back against solarpunk because it's "just an aesthetic" and glosses over the details of how it'd actually work. Does aspiring to a Star Trek-esque post-scarcity utopia feel more realistic in some way? Since I haven't seen nearly any critique going against it.
Maybe, because it's explicitly marketed as fiction, it's less offensive? I'm curious how one could market the notion of being less pessimistic -- if not optimistic -- about the future without rubbing people the wrong way, as with solarpunk.
I'd say the opposite really. I'll admit that I know almost nothing about solarpunk and have never read a solarpunk story. I have seen a ton of Star Trek though, and am a huge fan. From what I've seen of solarpunk, it just involves equitable distribution of resources and living sustainable using technology. Pretty doable.
Star Trek, on the other hand, is pretty much entirely nonsensical and contradictory when it comes to how their society works.
The post scarcity nature of their society hinges on the magical technology that is the replicator. It's so beyond our technological capabilities that it's basically just a magical spell. I think warp drives are probably more realistic.
Basically, the replicator makes it so no one ever has to worry about material needs because the replactor can make anything. Except... It can't. There are a bunch of random stuff replicators can't make.
They can't make living things, they can't make dilithium (the crystals that enable warp travel), they cant make a liquid called lattinum which gets used as currency by a lot of races. It doesn't seem like they can replicate starships either for some reason, because we see ships being painstakingly built piece by piece, like we build large ships today.
In theory, the Federation has no money, because everyone has what they need whenever they want it. I think the writers eventually may have realize that they painted themselves in a corner, because sometimes they just ignore that fact and have characters mention things like "federation credits", because there are things like energy use or trade with alien species that require a form of currency.
The fact that credits exist sort of implies that some way to earn credits must also exist, along with an economy and so on.
There's a lot of detail missing, despite there being something approaching a thousand episodes of star trek and well over a dozen movies. For instance, if you want to have a beachfront house in Los Angeles, but someone else does too, how does that get resolved?
What do most people actually do all day? We see the crew of starships on the show, and they're mostly working their asses off, far away from their loved ones and families, and dying, or coming close to it constantly. People die, or experience fates worse than death a lot in Star Trek. In theory, they're doing this on a completely voluntary basis, without being paid at all. Like... Why?
Is life in all of the federation so painfully boring that facing likely death and isolation is a better option? If people are doing it for excitement, what about all of the tens of thousands of support staff that are scrubbing the plasma exhaust manifolds of starships or whatever (a real task which has to apparently be manually done).
It's also shown that replicators use energy, and a lot of it, because they're creating matter from energy. E=MC2 is very unfavorable towards the E side of the equation, so you need to basically extend the energy of a nuclear bomb to have your morning coffee. This is pretty wasteful and monumentally dangerous, but ignoring that, it's not actually unlimited. The energy has to be rationed in some way. You can't just have someone replicating full sized castles all day and using up the energy output of the sun to do it. How does that get decided?
None of this stuff is covered in Star Trek, so using it as a guide is kinda like the classic communist blueprint of "revolution, then something something something, dictatorship of the proletariat and utopia!"
It describes a fictional world which on paper is great (if you ignore the constant threats of all life on earth/the galaxy/the universe spontaneously ceasing to exist/being slaughtered by warlike aliens/being assimilated into grotesque zombie hiveminds/having their pasts rewritten. It doesn't show a roadmap of how to get there, or even if such a world is possible, or even desirable. It's a TV show written by people with wildly varying skill at writing realistic worlds.
Star trek is absolutely just a huge media empire. It is a fictional setting created to explore societal and philosophical issues without the baggage that comes from a more grounded setting. If it seems fantastical, I think it is by design. As you also say, there have also been countless writers and creative directors over the years that have different visions, so there also isn't a cohesive and singular message.
I think a lot of the tech is "hand-wave-ium". As the story goes teleporters were created because there wasn't time or money to make a shuttle. I think the idea is that the story being told is paramount, and the tech fills in the gap to make that possible. Universal translators, replicators, warp drive, teleporters, latinum : whatever is needed. I still think there are some poignant ideas that transcend the setting. I personally don't think the stories would benefit from deep dives into the logistics of moving resources around for advanced 3d printers, instead of just saying replicators.
I am also reminded of Arthur C Clarke's quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I think quibbling on the magical properties of technology from the distant future is ultimately unproductive. It is interesting to look at how people in the 1800s thought we would be living today, versus where we wound up. Technology will likely move in ways we cannot predict. Since tech will ultimately end up as "magic" to us anyways, there is no real benefit to trying to explain it away.
I think any story is going to have unbelievable elements to it. Perhaps you are more comfortable with those elements in solarpunk because the technology is more familiar. In my opinion the hard problems for star trek are the same ones you say are attainable for solarpunk. "Equitable distribution of resources and living sustainable using technology." These are some of the hardest problems that humanity has faced.
As a species we do not know how to live sustainably. We use irreplaceable resources and always seem to desire more for less. Once we have that stockpile of endlessly replaceable resources how do we split it up? Whether we get it through super advance "magic" tech or more near future extrapolation, who gets it. This is the really hard part. The part that I think the original video is missing, and a point you touched on too. If two people want something, something that cannot be duplicated, how do we as a society choose who gets it.
No matter the setting, I still think it is nice to image a future where people work together. Can we actually ever get there?
Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying any of that to disparage Star Trek. I love Star Trek. I love it for what it is though. An interesting, semi cohesive setting in which to tell interesting and entertaining stories. Maybe an inspiring bit of media that shows the virtues of cooperation and scientific discovery over conflict and ignorance.
It's not a roadmap for how to build a society though. It's a Sci Fi tv franchise. We can come up with better ideas by postulating theories, modeling things, studying history and testing ideas, instead of watching TV.
I think we are more or less on the same page. I don't think star trek is less coherent than solarpunk. All fictional settings will hand way away the parts they don't have answers too. The technological problems are usually not the hard part though, it's people.
If people are what is really slowing things down, then inspiration is really important. The actors will often speak about conventions. There are doctors, scientists, engineers, film makers etc because of star trek. These are the people who will trudge through the hard work of making society better because they were inspired.
If you ONLY watch tv there are problems, but stories are very human. From the first time we sat around a fire imagining a place where our bellies were full, and our families safe. Stories are at their best when they inspire us to do great things.
I'm not sure if there's much solarpunk fiction? Moreso my take -- as an outsider -- is that it's a rallying cry for people to dream about a world beyond the crippling despair which grips us daily. Skyscrapers overgrown by climbing plants, greenery blanketing viaducts, and solar panels above lush fields overlooking abandoned natural gas turbines.
Far and away, though, the most I read about it is from people decrying those thoughts as unrealistic. There's a youtube urbanist (who I refuse to direct more views towards) who authored a "takedown" of the genre, in favour of their preferred "more realistic and therefore better" vision. It rather bothered me since I feel that the same genre of human has been parroting the aphorism "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism (source)" for ages, which is brutally ironic in context.
I suppose I was hoping to find someone who was against the solarpunk movement (?), but receptive to a Star Trek-esque utopia, as they seem broadly comparable delta some trappings of their respective fictive universes (substitute magically absent factories for replicators, for instance), however the comment section of the linked video isn't overflowing with people saying the presenter is an idealistic fool (or at least, it wasn't when I first checked).
More broadly, for context into my line of questioning: I'm simply awful at communicating with or understanding people, so interrogating discrepancies like these helps me suss out better ways of reaching people who're in a different headspace than I (e.g. to some, it seems more effective to reframe climate change amelioration projects as a moral responsibility to future generations, or as a fiscally conservative/risk averse reaction to world markets). This seemed like a particularly large gap so it seemed ripe for discussion.
Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers (a Duology of Psalm for the Wildbuilt and Prayer for the Crown Shy) is something I typically see described as solar punk, and I've definitely seen other fiction! Not sure if there's any other definition I'm missing here though.
Huh, and it won a Hugo too -- added to my reading list, thank you!
Yeah I think all her work is great but that one makes me really feel things
Is it the orange guy?
Answer in a spoiler box below, since I genuinely want this man to be forgotten off the internet.
Somehow I don’t think I’ve seen a single one of their videos.
Hes a train focused youtuber, I think he got popular around the time hyperloop was being talked about alot, but its kind of a niche topic so its not surprising if he didnt pop up on your algorithm.
I like trains and urbanism though, that’s the funny thing.
I'll allow the concession that if you have transporter technology, replicators are a reasonable extension of that technology. The limitations are writers' balonium for plot complication manufacture (or apparently sensible legal safety limitations to avoid collapsing economies, plague creation, duplicating living things without respect for rights, etc.).
The answer to the "beachfront house" (or other highly desirable location) problem is the holoroom. The features that make living in one location preferable to another are mainly psychological, and a near-perfect simulation should meet those needs.
So here's my theory on why the "explore strange new worlds" people are needed - novelty value. It's not that Star Trek society people at large are so incapable of deriving their own meanings in life. But there's always going to be a significant number who require more stimulus. As a matter of basic rights, a just society can't simply medicate them into complacency without consent. There are also status seekers because Maslow, and even a janitor on the Enterprise gets to signal they're superior at something.
So they get turned loose on the Galaxy, with their energy budget (as you say, even pure energy at 100% conversion efficiency has limits, and recycling matter is certain to have some losses) subsidized by providing live entertainment for the stay-at-homes, bringing back new replicator templates, and generally being the yeast which keeps society from stagnating.
I dont think its a matter of being more realistic, its just a different cultivated audience.
In the case of solarpunk, that kind if pushback comes because the name contains the word "punk", which attracted a certain kind of demographic thats enamored with rebelling against society. The people who complain most about solarpunk being too much aesthetic are in fact the solarpunk community themselves, because they want the community to be as explicitly centered around anticapitalism as possible. They being the main drivers of conversation around solarpunk, this results in a persistent critique online of it being too aesthetic focused.
On the other hand, what does the name Star Trek attract? People who are into stars? People who are into treks? Well being into space is more of a wondrous experience. If you came to the show to see futuristic space stuff, youll get exactly what you came for.
But for sure there are going to be sociopolitical types who complain about star trek being unrealistic too.
One of the big problems with a post-scarcity future is that there are some things which really are scarce. Like land. Lots of people want to live in New York City but there's only so much density you can build until the only remaining options are not in New York but New Jersey.
There is still a lot we could do to increase density in New York until we hit that point. Post-artificial-scarcity is a much more tangible goal. We could reconstruct New York City (5 boroughs) into a mega-structure apartment building: 303 square miles / 8.3 billion people * 150 sq ft per person = 147 floors (if we used the full Tri-State Metro Area we would only need 10 stories, around the same as Kowloon Walled City).
Very quickly this megastructure would stop looking like New York City--and that is the main problem. It seems like there is a certain threshold that would be crossed which would turn NYC into something that is no longer NYC. Building replica cities could go a long way... but there are still many people who would be frustrated to not be able to live in the original NYC: without money, how do we decide who gets to live there?
edit:
The ParPolity participatory democracy thing led me on a pretty interesting web binge:
Assuming post-scarcity, as it becomes less and less like current NYC, the people who want to live in it as it is now would move to somewhere more like what they want, until a new equilibrium is found. It's not like it's a unique good, it just has a confluence of appealing features.
I think "assuming post scarcity" is doing a lot of work here.
There have always been places that are more desirable places to live than others. Better culture, more food options, more storied history, more movies set there, whatever the reason, lots of people really really want to live in New York.
If there are other places whose main draw is "sorta like New York but less expensive", that basically implies that New York is still more desirable.
It doesn't have to be New York though. In 1000 years, maybe Kansas City becomes the new hot spot where all of the interactive holographic movies are set and everyone wants to live there. You have the same problem ultimately. Even though we have matter replicators that can create gold flaked wagyu beef in 2 seconds, there's only one Kansas City and it has limited space. Not everyone that wants to live in Kansas City can live there without the whole reason for it being unique and desirable going away. So how do you decide who gets to live there and who doesn't?
That's the problem that every economic system is trying to solve, "post scarcity" or not.
Of course "assuming post-scarcity" is doing a lot of work here. I and the person I responded to were both talking about that context. It's silly to enter a consensual conversation between two other people and take issue with their mutually accepted basis for the conversation.
I'm not taking issue with it, I'm implying that there are wildly different interpretations of what post scarcity actually means. The most common definition is just that people's basic needs like housing, food, and healthcare are taken care of to a degree that it's no longer a concern. Operating under that definition, it doesn't seem to me that New York would significantly change in character or desirability.
Like yeah, you don't need money to have your government issued 3 meals a day of basic food, or live in a basic apartment somewhere, but you won't have access to world class restaurants serving authentic cuisine from everyone on earth like you do in New York City. There are a lot of reasons why people choose to live in New York City, and only a few of them are related to requiring their basic needs to be met. New york is a great place to both earn and spend money, and people like having and spending money even when they have their basic needs met.
However, if you're operating under a stronger definition of post scarcity, something more akin to "anything a person could want is freely available to everyone", then New York, and life as we know if would be unconceivably different.
More to the point, Star Trek depicts life under the first definition of post scarcity, not the second. We don't see people tooling around in their own personal starship enterprises, and we see lots of people working normal, boring jobs like waiters or freighter captains, conceivably because they get compensated for it some way. Not everyone has access to a house in downtown San Francisco next to Starfleet academy.
A universe where the second definition of post scarcity would require things that we consider impossible in our conception of reality, like multiple people existing in the same place at the same time to solve that inherit problem of real estate being scarce.
I'd argue that the main reason why Star Trek's federation is so different than real life doesn't actually have to do with the technology that enables the first definition of post scarcity, it's the fact that pretty much all humans simultaneously and universally decided to stop being greedy and selfish some time during the 22nd century, which strikes me as far less realistic than replicators.
Skyscrapers are how you deal with limited land, and there are more places in New York City that could be built up like Long Island City.
I don’t really get the appeal of New York City as it is, so I don't see why anyone would want to replicate it. I do think that other cities should be building more housing.
It’s 8:30pm and I’m sitting in my 37 degrees Celsius bedroom. Coolest it’ll be overnight (outside) is 31. I’m not hopeful.
the video title should have used a semicolon!!!