"Federation is communist" article misses the point

[BountyHunterSAx]

I wonder if replicated parts would be more prone to failure than manufacture parts. Replicated materials do have "single bit errors" after all. I would guess that if you serially replicated something, you would probably end up with an unusable version after some of replications, much as photocopies lose resolution if you keep making copies of copies.

If they replicate stuff based on the initial pattern, that shouldn't be the case. It would be more akin to printing copies of that first initial scan.......

Even so, the point about non-manufactured parts being more prone to mechanical failure seems to be right on the mark to me. What is known for sure about the Federation shipyards? Do they replicate their ships?

I made a non-refuted [iirc] point earlier that the transporter re-assembles matter according to a stored pattern in much the same way that a replicator does; albeit at a 'quantum-level of accuracy' that is 'suitable for the human body'. If shipyards are based off of replicators (big if), then might it point to the existence of quantum-level replicators?

-AHMAD

[Patrick Degan]

I wonder if replicated parts would be more prone to failure than manufacture parts. Replicated materials do have "single bit errors" after all. I would guess that if you serially replicated something, you would probably end up with an unusable version after some of replications, much as photocopies lose resolution if you keep making copies of copies.

If they replicate stuff based on the initial pattern, that shouldn't be the case. It would be more akin to printing copies of that first initial scan.......

Even so, the point about non-manufactured parts being more prone to mechanical failure seems to be right on the mark to me. What is known for sure about the Federation shipyards? Do they replicate their ships?

Starships are built, not replicated. We saw this with the holodeck recreation of the Utopia Planetia orbital yards in "Booby Trap".

[K. A. Pital]

But once you've got replicators, able to produce useful "stuff" out of raw materials in a matter of seconds, the notion of scarcity goes out the window, and along with it goes the concept of wealth. There's no need for capitalism anymore, as the profit motive has been rendered obsolete. There's no need for communism anymore, since there's no limited resources to be divided among the people.

Other people have dealt with this silly idea that it's not capitalism or communism, but I'll just add a few cents.

The issue of ownership is the key. Even if we assume that a factory, self-servicing and self-replicating, much like a mechanical organism, has been created, it's either owned by the capitalist, or nationalized.

Those two initial forms of ownership represent the point of divergence for the possible development - either as you say Replicator facilities are rationed - globally (there's nothing wrong with that really, with such a high manfacturing standard rationing doesn't impact the possible quality of life for most of the people), or they're in the hands of the few who just let most of the other people who have become unnecessary for routine manufacturing needs, "go find their own way".

In case the productive capability is so great and important to society, it's quite probable to say that it's almost inevitable that the production would be nationalized and controlled by the government. It's even more strking if said government is decentralized and relatively non-interfering, since that is closer to what communism technically should be. Thus, a communist society is exactly what the Federation is; and more than that, I find it hard to make anything else out of it.

Once replicators (the way they are in ST) are made, their nationalization and subsequent rationing to worlds, cities and starships is just a matter of time IMHO. The Federation is a huge command economy which, due to simplicity of manufacturing, has become lax in economic controls of basic goods. However, I imagine pretty huge financial operations and solutions being made at the top of that command economy for larger tasks, like constructing starship fleets, et cetera.

Mind you, if Trekkies were a little more sane, they'd have to be glad the Federation is a command economy - such economies are easier to mobilize for global tasks such as war - the more administrative control, the easier would a war mobilization go. And given the amount of threats the Federation experiences, it's not exactly a bad trait.

Yes, without enough resources such system can either fall into drastic shortages or revert to capitalism where the distribution would cut off lots of people from the prior accessible benefits of this rationing. But ST does have enough resources apparently.

I just don't get what's the problem with realizing UFP is a rather huge command economy, and even mildly successful at that.

[Darth Wong]

Mind you, another problem that crops up with the Federation Replicator Economy (and one which Trek apologists are loathe to mention) is that the Federation is not uniformly prosperous. Why don't small mining colonies enjoy the same material luxuries as Earth does?

[K. A. Pital]

Costs for running this economy are obviously non-zero. I'm sure, quite probably for it's command economy the UFP employs some form of energy accounting.

Energy accounting would only become meaningless in a space where access to energy is zero-cost in any point of the society's habitat, and energy is infinite. That's not Trek's case.

I'm pretty sure until you get to Culture levels of energy generation, you have to have quite a lot of rationing and regulation of access going around. Even the Culture technically should be somewhat rationing access to it's energy sources, and Trek even moreso since their cost is so much higher.

After all, wasting huge amounts of energy on faraway colonies would be detrimental to other goals of this command economy. I'm also pretty sure that the Federation's Starfleet has broad executive functions and abilities to control economic transactions, that was evident in several episodes.

[Darth Wong]

I just don't get what's the problem with realizing UFP is a rather huge command economy, and even mildly successful at that.

Well, I think people have two problems with it:

1) It implies that humans of the Star Trek future are rather more sheep-like than they are today, which is why they are so happy under such a system, thus allowing it to work. This is pretty clear from onscreen evidence, but Trekkies don't like the idea.

2) Most of the people participating in these online debates are Americans, and for Americans, capitalism=good and everything else=evil. Once again, Trekkies don't like the idea of the UFP not being capitalist, so they insist that it is, despite the absence of, well, capitalism.

[Coalition]

Actually, I don't recall the episode name, but it's one where the Enterprise D encounters the two remaining 'survivors' of some alien attack. Some little house of theirs surrounded by a destroyed colony. The woman survivor is just an illusion and the male turns out to be a super powerful entity of sorts.

Anyhow, in the episode in question, Picard wants to leave the two a small portable replicator system so they can take care of themselves.

This seems to indicate that the Enterprise can readily supply a portable replicator system that doesn't require any serious type of maintenance, since neither of the elder couple professed any technical skill or knowledge whatsoever.

The male is a super-powerful entity. He made the farm, the ship, and killed off the alien race. Why does Picard think a demigod needs a replicator?

[Isolder74]

The male is a super-powerful entity. He made the farm, the ship, and killed off the alien race. Why does Picard think a demigod needs a replicator?

That was before they knew this information.

[Darth Wong]

Actually, I don't recall the episode name, but it's one where the Enterprise D encounters the two remaining 'survivors' of some alien attack. Some little house of theirs surrounded by a destroyed colony. The woman survivor is just an illusion and the male turns out to be a super powerful entity of sorts.

Anyhow, in the episode in question, Picard wants to leave the two a small portable replicator system so they can take care of themselves.

This seems to indicate that the Enterprise can readily supply a portable replicator system that doesn't require any serious type of maintenance, since neither of the elder couple professed any technical skill or knowledge whatsoever.

So if I was trying to help a hermit and I gave him some water, hand tools, and a portable generator, this would imply that all of these things can last forever with no maintenance? Why do these sorts of bizarre non sequiturs always pop up in Star Trek-related threads? Is there something about Star Trek which always leads people to take the most profoundly optimistic interpretation of any given scenario?

If Picard actually said "this will last forever and will never need any maintenance", it would be a bit stronger as evidence, although one would still have to wonder why the fuck we ever see anyone working on replicators, since we do.

[Adrian Laguna]

Why do these sorts of bizarre non sequiturs always pop up in Star Trek-related threads? Is there something about Star Trek which always leads people to take the most profoundly optimistic interpretation of any given scenario?

Is that a rethorical question? Because from what I've seen, ST: The Next Generation is thoroughly caked with a mind-set that would promote that sort of thinking.

[Patrick Degan]

Not only that, but what basis is there for assuming that two lone survivors on a devastated world would be left there for any appreciable length of time? Picard was humouring Kevin Uxbridge's stubbornness by at least providing him and Rishon with useful field appliances to sustain them until they could be persuaded to leave with the Enterprise. That does not point to the existence of totally maintenance-free replicators produced by the Eternity Perpetual Co. (now out of business).

[Darth Onasi]

Not to mention that Picard brings the replicator as an excuse to talk to the Uxbridges some more, after having encountered the alien warship.
Why else would the freaking captain personally deliver a replicator?
And in that very scene he explicitly mentions the replicator has "limited capabilities" which amounted to food, clothing and water for an unspecified period of time.

[Junghalli]

And even if the replicator can meet the needs of two people with relatively little need for repair that doesn't mean replicators in general don't. An industrial replicator will be under a much heavier workload than the few kilograms per day two people would need.

Also Picard has to bring them a replicator and explain what it is, implying it isn't a common home appliance. Would you feel the need to explain to somebody "this is a microwave oven, it can be used to cook or heat your food to any desired temperature..."?

[Isolder74]

And even if the replicator can meet the needs of two people with relatively little need for repair that doesn't mean replicators in general don't. An industrial replicator will be under a much heavier workload than the few kilograms per day two people would need.

Also Picard has to bring them a replicator and explain what it is, implying it isn't a common home appliance. Would you feel the need to explain to somebody "this is a microwave oven, it can be used to cook or heat your food to any desired temperature..."?

If it was being given to someone who had never used or seen one before then yes you would. Microwaves are common parts of homes today but not too long ago they were luxury items. The size different between the microwave my parents have and the one I have is obvious and they have the same wattage rating. Uxbridge was obviously out of the galactic loop so to speak like finding a farmer in Africa who has just gotten electricity to his home and orders a microwave. I'd bet you'd need to show him how to use it.

[Stark]

That again argues against replicator proliferation: the colony would have at least known about replicators, and I'd imagine would have posessed at least a simple one for fabricating parts/food/etc. If they *didn't*, then Picard's gift of a military replicator from the USS White Elephant may have represented a luxury a small colony couldn't have expected by itself.

Or maybe they were Amish, and didn't want to bring replicators.

[BountyHunterSAx]

Let's not forget that it turns out the old guy is yet another somewhat-omnipotent type. While it looks like Picard was humoring him, really he was humoring Picard by accepting a device he clearly had no use for.

-AHMAD

[Darth Onasi]

That again argues against replicator proliferation: the colony would have at least known about replicators, and I'd imagine would have posessed at least a simple one for fabricating parts/food/etc. If they *didn't*, then Picard's gift of a military replicator from the USS White Elephant may have represented a luxury a small colony couldn't have expected by itself.

Or maybe they were Amish, and didn't want to bring replicators.

Well, in "Family", Picard's brother and his wife discuss getting a replicator in the house. But then again that's on Earth. I imagine it's easier to get a fridge in New York than downtown Fuckoffsville, Africa.
Moreover that was an estate.

As for colonies, we see a Maquis colony later on with a food replicator in a public area set up as a sort of self-service cafe.
I'd say it's likely that most of these colonies get by with a handful of central replicators for the population, like you say.

Rishon didn't seem the Amish type anyway - she readily accepted the replicator. Kevin was upset only because he could tell Picard wanted to snoop around, and he was living with the guilt of what he did.

Edit: By the way, I caught an episode of DS9 earlier involving Kira's old resistance comrades refusing to give up soil purifiers to the Bajoran government (don't remember the title).
In the episode, the importance of Bajor growing crops for food and export is stressed, as is the rarity of the soil purifiers.
Given the Federation's heavy involvement there, if replicators were truly magic lamps then why is either an issue? Post-scarcity indeed.

[ExarKun]

I just don't get what's the problem with realizing UFP is a rather huge command economy, and even mildly successful at that.

Well, I think people have two problems with it:

1) It implies that humans of the Star Trek future are rather more sheep-like than they are today, which is why they are so happy under such a system, thus allowing it to work. This is pretty clear from onscreen evidence, but Trekkies don't like the idea.

2) Most of the people participating in these online debates are Americans, and for Americans, capitalism=good and everything else=evil. Once again, Trekkies don't like the idea of the UFP not being capitalist, so they insist that it is, despite the absence of, well, capitalism.

I don't know what they are, but I agree with you that there is no way they're capitalists. No money, no interest, how can they be capitalists? And if they were, they would identify with the enterprenour from the past in "The Neutral Zone" Instead, they had no clue what he was talking about when he mentioned portfolios etc. Some fans just have their trek-tinted specs on

[ExarKun]

I agree that the replicators are probably not well proliferated. Probably due to extreme difficulty of manufacture and enormous energy requirements. A town would have enough energy to supply one replicator besides supply other residences with power. A city or even a continent could power up an industrial one. This seems to fit with what we've seen in the Maquis episode as well as the one where Federations is giving replicators to the Cardassians.

The fact that there is a replicator in every starship room seems to be a luxury, since they can use the power of an M/AM warpcore. Your average Joe on Earth wouldn't have one in his back yard, just like your average Joe today doesn't have a Nuclear reactor from a US Aircraft carrier.

[Junghalli]

Plus replicating everything makes more sense on a starship. Replicators can recycle waste IIRC, so they greatly lighten the burden on Starfleet's logistics train by allowing starships to maintain efficient closed food supplies with a minimum of (performance-reducing) extraneous bulk. They also can manufacture replacement parts, while similarly being less massive than an equivalent array of conventional machine tools. They may take a lot of energy but you've got a starship engine to tap; power isn't a problem.

By contrast on a planet the electricity bill a replicator represents might be more than the cost of an equivalent amount of ordinary food and goods, and space and mass aren't problems so the biggest attraction of a replicator (its compactness) is reduced.

[Darth Wong]

It's easy to underestimate the cost of energy production. Even today, people tend to think that electricity flows into their houses as if by magic. They vigorously oppose construction of new power plants while happily firing up their small army of electronic devices, cooking with their electric stoves, and turning up the stylish halogen lamps in their finely decorated living rooms. They don't even see the disconnect.

[LMSx]

I wonder about Replicators replicating humans. If I remember correctly, Mike's big crossover ST/SW crossover story involved the realization that teleporters were basically vaporizing people and making perfect clones on the other end. The mere concept is interesting- if they can replicate humans, is it common? And if they can't replicate humans, why not? Not being used as ship-building might suggest support for the "low quality Xerox" effect. If you want something big and complicated like a starship to be produced, it might be safer to have humans/robots doing individual assembly and checking/doublechecking rather then setting an industrial replicator to "scan" and "printing" out a 1:1 model.

[Ted C]

I guess it's my turn to go again.

The "refutations" seem to be mostly the same thing, repeated over and over. "Replicators require raw materials, so there's no post-scarcity society thing going on afterall, so you're wrong!"

And extremely valid refutations they are, too. Let's see if you'll actually address them.

Puh-leeze. If you have a Federation that spans a good portion of the galaxy, with hundreds of inhabited worlds, thousands of uninhabited worlds and heaven only knows how many resource-rich asteroids and nebulae, you can find any pretty much any raw material you're looking for.

With a territory some 8000 LY across, yes, the raw materials they need are probably available. That doesn't make gathering them into a labor-free, energy-free process, though.

Yes, you'll need mining equipment--which could simply be a specially-calibrated transporter.

Thank you for the mindless speculation. There is no evidence that transporters can be made to work that way; try again.

Or you could simply scoop up dirt and rocks and have plenty of minerals and organic compounds in raw form.

Scooping up random dirt and rock is good for obtaining common elements that can be used for common items. Getting rare elements for sophisticated electronics is an entirely different prospect.

And if you really do need mining equipment, have the replicator build it.

Assuming your replicator is capable of producing something that large; we've yet to see a replicator capable of making something as large as a tractor. If you replicate parts, then you need labor for assembly. And, of course, if you don't already have mining equipment, then you may not have the raw materials you need to replicate mining equipment.

If you need energy, have the replicator build some solar panels or other device capable of producing energy.

Solar power depends on the close proximity of a suitable star. Industrial processes consume huge quantities of energy. Have you even tried to consider how many square meters of solar panel would be needed to power a typical factory?

With the addition of a few warp-capable freighters (and a few armed escort ships, if necessary,) such a system would become self-sustaining very quickly.

Your warp-capable vessels will require anti-matter fuel in large quantities, and anti-matter is definitely on the "non replicatable" list.

And bringing up Voyager doesn't refute my point in the least; it underscores it. Voyager was an example of unusual circumstances. The crew of Voyager find themselves cut off from their supply lines. They no longer have the virtually unlimited resources that they're used to. They don't have freighters or worlds and asteroids to mine. They don't have industrial equipment. They're a science vessel. And so what do the crew do? They revert back to capitalism. People trading replicator rations for goods and services was mentioned various times in the first couple seasons. Heck, Tom Paris even ran a lottery with them for a while! If that's not "money," then what is?

Voyager is a perfect example of when your "replicators fix everything" economic system would perform best, if they had anything like the limitless capabilities you like to assign to them. Power shortage? Voyager would replicate solar panels and to supply the power to make new fuel. Raw material shortage? Voyager would just beam some over from the nearest planet or asteroid. Equipment shortage? Voyager would just replicate whatever they needed. That scenario obviously doesn't describe the situation on Voyager, so Voyager neatly refutes your "magic replicator economy" argument because the "replicator economy" breaks down so easily in isolation.

[Superman]

Doesn't communism, by its very nature, depend on some type of government propaganda campaign to suppress outside information? It seems that, historically, this has always been the case, so I would wonder if that's an essential component of a communist state.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Doesn't communism, by its very nature, depend on some type of government propaganda campaign to suppress outside information? It seems that, historically, this has always been the case, so I would wonder if that's an essential component of a communist state.

Picard's rampant speeches about the ideals and actions of the Federation have to come from somewhere.