Quote from: jeff37923;318345You are just pissed off that JJ Abrams came along and does Star Trek better than the original creator.

Where the bloody hell did you get THAT idea from???


I loved the Abrams movie!!

Saw it three times, would love to see it again before hits DVD.

 If you paid attention 2 months ago - I based an RPG scenario on it.

To me J.J. Abrams went back to "Original Gene-ster" (OG TREK)
The movie plays like the best moments from the pilot ewpiosdes and 1st season

If you're gonna criticize me , Jeff - at least have your facts straight on what I liked or didn't like.

The new movie revived my interest in original TREK enough that I now have all three seasons of the Enhanced/improved DVDs. I see a LOT of the Abrams movie spirit in the first season of classic ST.


- Ed C.

Quote from: jibbajibba;318341I mean no one actively wants the starving millions and unfair distribution of resources we just accept it as a result of the result of the fact that resource pool is limited and the more sucessful nations/indivdiuals will therefore grab more of the stuff.

It is accepted because people realize that no one central authority has all the answers. It just doesn't work in the long term and only leads to various forms of tyranny. This is applies to monopolists that rise out of unrestrained capitalism as well.

The most efficient way to get everybody what they want in adequate quantities is the free market operating under the rule of law.

Quote from: jibbajibba;318341I mean no one actively wants the starving millions and unfair distribution of resources we just accept it as a result of the result of the fact that resource pool is limited and the more sucessful nations/indivdiuals will therefore grab more of the stuff.

Next time gas hits $3 a gallon, see how people feel about fair distribution of resources.

Or try to get people to donate to the 'help the starving in ratfuck, Third world'.

Everyone agrees fair is nice, until it costs them money, comfort, or convienence. Then the self-interest kicks in.

Everyone knows that much of the produce in the USA is cheap because its grown using Third World immigrants doing back-breaking labor under unhealthy conditions for next to nothing in wages; a lot of what is imported is raised by slave labor (just attended a class on Human trafficking-got lots of useless facts). The First world clothing industry is kept going by slave labor in Third World nations, and has been for decades, a well-known fact.

Indifference & self-interest: major factors in politics and business.

Quote from: estar;318350The most efficient way to get everybody what they want in adequate quantities is the free market operating under the rule of law.

Actually the most efficent way would be to reduce the world population by half.

Fact is, there isn't enough to go around while maintaining First World lifestyles.

Quote from: Koltar;318347Where the bloody hell did you get THAT idea from???


I loved the Abrams movie!!

Saw it three times, would love to see it again before hits DVD.

 If you paid attention 2 months ago - I based an RPG scenario on it.

To me J.J. Abrams went back to "Original Gene-ster" (OG TREK)
The movie plays like the best moments from the pilot ewpiosdes and 1st season

If you're gonna criticize me , Jeff - at least have your facts straight on what I liked or didn't like.

The new movie revived my interest in original TREK enough that I now have all three seasons of the Enhanced/improved DVDs. I see a LOT of the Abrams movie spirit in the first season of classic ST.


- Ed C.

You have a very selective memory, then. The most common Roddenberry plot hook was for the crew to go into deep space and find God with hilarity ensuing.

Which doesn't sound anything like the JJ Abrams Star Trek movie.

As an interesting side note, one of the reasons why the new Battlestar Galactica was so good is that Ron Moore was so disenchanted by his experience with the Star Trek franchise that he vowed that the old tired Roddenberry tropes would not be seen in any science fiction show he ever worked on again.

Quote from: Koltar;318344Its NEXT GEN -era ...24th Century STAR TREK where they went too far into saying there was no money.

So yeah, there was a background premise shift.

When you can make any thing about of matter with the right software and a heap of  CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen). It changes things.

I am not arguing your point about Roddenberry changing his mind. I agree with that.

But you have to think about what happens to a society when there is little or no scarcity. Not  just in basic goods but in complex items as well. The rare examples in our history (pacific islanders mostly) suggest it would a gift based economy. Where a person wealth is determined mostly by how much they give.

Quote from: estar;318354When you can make any thing about of matter with the right software and a heap of  CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen). It changes things.

It does change things, but you still need the energy to rework or create that matter. The energy supply then becomes the basis for the economy.

Quote from: OneTinSoldier;318352Actually the most efficent way would be to reduce the world population by half.

Fact is, there isn't enough to go around while maintaining First World lifestyles.

No the best way is to invent a replicator that can convert practically free energy into anything you can think of from food to warp drives (including of course other replicators).
I mean we are taking about a game right and not about like real life or something.

Oh as an aside I actually think that overpopulation is something of a red herring. In 1860 A visiting Dutch administrator (who's name escapes me) said that Java was vastly over populated and was unable to support its current population of 50 million. Java now supports 200 million people and arguable the worst off are no worse off than they were in 1860 and the average standard of living has risen massively. Areas with very low population densities are acually far worse of than areas with higher population densities (Holland has a much better standard of living than Niger for example).
The truth of the matter is that Capitalism and the free market is very wasteful of resources when those resourses have no current market value. Similarly it is even worse at the backend with the handling of waste. The fact that it costs more to repair a 10 year old car that has been in an auto-wreck than it costs to buy a 'new' 5 year old car is indicative of this and the result is heaps of car wrecks full of purified raw materials that get left to rust into the ground whilst we spend millions, and lots more resurces digging up and processing more of them and don't get me started on TVs or computers.
We could drive cars that did 80mpg and were made from 95% recycled materials and it not affect our standard of living at all. In fact it will happen eventually
But again I digress ...

REPLICATORS thats the answer
(wonder why no fantasy author has taken the Utopian TREK type world and ported it over to a Fantasy world....)

Quote from: estar;318354When you can make any thing about of matter with the right software and a heap of  CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen). It changes things.

I am not arguing your point about Roddenberry changing his mind. I agree with that.

But you have to think about what happens to a society when there is little or no scarcity. Not  just in basic goods but in complex items as well. The rare examples in our history (pacific islanders mostly) suggest it would a gift based economy. Where a person wealth is determined mostly by how much they give.

Hmm gift reciprosity and the ecomonics of profundity. We will be quoting Maus and Malinowski next.

Quote from: jibbajibba;318361No the best way is to invent a replicator that can convert practically free energy into anything you can think of from food to warp drives (including of course other replicators).
I mean we are taking about a game right and not about like real life or something.

REPLICATORS thats the answer
(wonder why no fantasy author has taken the Utopian TREK type world and ported it over to a Fantasy world....)

TANSTAAFL.

Quote from: jeff37923;318355It does change things, but you still need the energy to rework or create that matter. The energy supply then becomes the basis for the economy.

Well they got that taken of in TNG, fusion, dilithum, antimatter. TNG has both unlimited energy and material goods. It simply doesn't have scarcity within the Federation. The only effective limits are on those things that can't be fabricated or require large groups of people to act in concert like building and running a starship.

Still if you have to wonder if the show truly follows from the premises. If society is that affluent there would thousands of people just building starships for the hell of it and going "out there". Must drive the surrounding races crazy. Probably the real reason for Starfleet's existence is to act as a sponge to soak up all the space crazies.

Quote from: estar;318367Well they got that taken of in TNG, fusion, dilithum, antimatter. TNG has both unlimited energy and material goods. It simply doesn't have scarcity within the Federation. The only effective limits are on those things that can't be fabricated or require large groups of people to act in concert like building and running a starship.

Still if you have to wonder if the show truly follows from the premises. If society is that affluent there would thousands of people just building starships for the hell of it and going "out there". Must drive the surrounding races crazy. Probably the real reason for Starfleet's existence is to act as a sponge to soak up all the space crazies.

I thought they were on Trilithium now?
And the space ship thing may not be that big a deal. With a totally affluent society 95% of them are likely to just sit on their arses and eat or run round in their holo-suites. The other 5% will probably spread out or join Star Fleet even if its just to meet green chicks and shoot mooks.

Quote from: jibbajibba;318375I thought they were on Trilithium now?
And the space ship thing may not be that big a deal. With a totally affluent society 95% of them are likely to just sit on their arses and eat or run round in their holo-suites. The other 5% will probably spread out or join Star Fleet even if its just to meet green chicks and shoot mooks.

Yes and supposed Earth has billion people on it even just a 100 million. That helluva green chicks being hit on and mooks being shot.

Quote from: jibbajibba;318361No the best way is to invent a replicator that can convert practically free energy into anything you can think of from food to warp drives (including of course other replicators).
I mean we are taking about a game right and not about like real life or something.

Oh as an aside I actually think that overpopulation is something of a red herring. In 1860 A visiting Dutch administrator (who's name escapes me) said that Java was vastly over populated and was unable to support its current population of 50 million. Java now supports 200 million people and arguable the worst off are no worse off than they were in 1860 and the average standard of living has risen massively. Areas with very low population densities are acually far worse of than areas with higher population densities (Holland has a much better standard of living than Niger for example).
The truth of the matter is that Capitalism and the free market is very wasteful of resources when those resourses have no current market value. Similarly it is even worse at the backend with the handling of waste. The fact that it costs more to repair a 10 year old car that has been in an auto-wreck than it costs to buy a 'new' 5 year old car is indicative of this and the result is heaps of car wrecks full of purified raw materials that get left to rust into the ground whilst we spend millions, and lots more resurces digging up and processing more of them and don't get me started on TVs or computers.
We could drive cars that did 80mpg and were made from 95% recycled materials and it not affect our standard of living at all. In fact it will happen eventually
But again I digress ...

REPLICATORS thats the answer
(wonder why no fantasy author has taken the Utopian TREK type world and ported it over to a Fantasy world....)

Yes, if only we had a magic way...

In the meantime, over-population in sub-Sahara Africa, central Africia, & the Horn continues to cost hundreds of thousands of lives & social dissolution.

Holland has a stable political environment and a developed infrastructure. Comparing it to Niger is like saying cows don't need water to breath, so fish do not either.

And your recycled car would cost about 150% of what cars cost today. The reason we do not recycle in bulk is that re-processing metal is just as expensive  (or more, in the case of painted or laminated) as ore, and gathering ore is easier and cheaper than sorting, gradeing, moving existing scrap, with the growing exception of copper.

Infrastructure and transport are what consumese resources. Consumer goods are just the feel-good issues. The energy demands of a city of 50k in a first world state are staggering. Power for climate control and life-support, fuel to move essential services (police and fire service have fuel as their #2 budget item, salary is #1), plus maintenance equipment-you could build the entire world production of consumer vehicles for less resources than it takes to run just the USA' cities.

And since in the last quarter-century the first world states have seen the transition to a majority of the population living in urban areas, every rise in population brings a corresponding rise in infrastructure.

Futz around with consumer goods, and you will accomplish zip. You want to effect the consumption of resources, start with a low-resource was of bulk transport, and the transmission of energy and communications. Solar panels, nuke plants, and wind farms (which are huge out where I live) are fine and good, but moving the juice still consumes more metal than the private auto industry.

Quote from: estar;318367Well they got that taken of in TNG, fusion, dilithum, antimatter. TNG has both unlimited energy and material goods. It simply doesn't have scarcity within the Federation. The only effective limits are on those things that can't be fabricated or require large groups of people to act in concert like building and running a starship.

Still if you have to wonder if the show truly follows from the premises. If society is that affluent there would thousands of people just building starships for the hell of it and going "out there". Must drive the surrounding races crazy. Probably the real reason for Starfleet's existence is to act as a sponge to soak up all the space crazies.

Hmmm, if both matter and energy are freely available, then what about labor? In this case, intellectual labor? Someone has to create the designs used to replicate everything. Some will be better than others, so you have an economy based upon the scarcity of intellectual property creators.

I can see where that would appeal to Trekkies.