Quote:
Original post by Stru
In a society with replicators the only currency is power, since everyone needs it to run their replicators. The replicators turn power into everything else, and you can't make power in a replicator (Unless you want to throw all the laws of physics out the window). You could have people use power credits or something. And the bank and power company will be pretty much the one and the same.
I read such an awesome line in a SF book recently, something like "and they're so backwards and primitive that they have such horros as banking, for God's sake!" [smile]
One thing we're not getting about ST citizens, which would fundamentally alter economics: Enlightened self-interest may be anathema to them, being considered neither enlightened nor in an individual's self-interest (as it creates destructive conflict).
If they're a stellar power, they're harvesting energy from suns, which pretty much drives that value down to nil (practically unlimited, near infinite sources). So no power-banks, though if they're antimatter based you might have distribution and processing as leverage sources. But still, if any group that saves up enough to replicate a few thousand solar panels pretty much frees itself from economic constraints.
Star Trek citizens would be subversive by our current scarcity-driven standards for one major reason: In a society where you're no longer valuable because of what you can keep from others (your labor / knowledge / skill), you must then be valuable based on some other factor-- or society must forget about value, and move to some other way of relating. Maybe you're value comes from selflessness, which by good old fashioned Western capitalism is probably downright evil. [lol] Just take open-source and the gift economy as examples.
That's a culture shift I bet few can relate to. [wink]
