ENT - Damaged

[CharlesPhipps]

Eh, they're post-scarcity, not communist.

Many people have difficulty telling the difference.

Most modern and traditional communists would hate the Federation because it is democratic and based on the United Nations.

[clearspira]

Eh, they're post-scarcity, not communist.

Many people have difficulty telling the difference.

Most modern and traditional communists would hate the Federation because it is democratic and based on the United Nations.

I've got a feeling that many modern advocates of democracy wouldn't like the Federation either. We've seen the Federation council in The Voyage Home; its a collection of delegates chosen by their home planets. I would guess therefore that the Federation is like the EU - you vote someone in who votes for the president? And that's the best interpretation. Such a system could easily become Roman.

And there certainly seems to be no political parties - surely such a system would actually break under giving the proletariat too much say. How can one man ever unify the vast array of different alien cultures in order to secure a vote? The Vulcans for example would not be looking for the same traits in a leader as a Tellerite or an Andorian. That guy in the Voyage Home who looks like Terry Pratchett doesn't seem like someone who would be favoured by the bulk of these three races.

United Earth/Federation I think would have to be quite dictatorial in real life. You can't let ''the wrong sort'' in because ''the wrong sort'' might try and change paradise. Which goes back to what I was saying on the other thread (Homeward I think?) about the nature of utopias. They only work as long as everyone is going by the ''Emperors New Clothes'' philosophy of everyone agreeing that it does.

[CharlesPhipps]

I disagree because I think what allows them to function is the fact that it is a very loose alliance. A...federation if you will. Vulcans and Earth select their own leaders and select their own delegates and everyone agrees on some basic principles.

But generally the Federation functions because they don't impose too many laws on what Vulcan can and cannot do but leaves that up to its member states to determine for themselves.

Its a body that functions in diversity not conformity.

The US functions on such a principle after all so we know it works.

[McAvoy]

Eh, they're post-scarcity, not communist.

Many people have difficulty telling the difference.

Most modern and traditional communists would hate the Federation because it is democratic and based on the United Nations.

I've got a feeling that many modern advocates of democracy wouldn't like the Federation either. We've seen the Federation council in The Voyage Home; its a collection of delegates chosen by their home planets. I would guess therefore that the Federation is like the EU - you vote someone in who votes for the president? And that's the best interpretation. Such a system could easily become Roman.

And there certainly seems to be no political parties - surely such a system would actually break under giving the proletariat too much say. How can one man ever unify the vast array of different alien cultures in order to secure a vote? The Vulcans for example would not be looking for the same traits in a leader as a Tellerite or an Andorian. That guy in the Voyage Home who looks like Terry Pratchett doesn't seem like someone who would be favoured by the bulk of these three races.

United Earth/Federation I think would have to be quite dictatorial in real life. You can't let ''the wrong sort'' in because ''the wrong sort'' might try and change paradise. Which goes back to what I was saying on the other thread (Homeward I think?) about the nature of utopias. They only work as long as everyone is going by the ''Emperors New Clothes'' philosophy of everyone agreeing that it does.

We really have no idea of how the Federation works outside member worlds having their representative in the Council. I doubt it's the Council of Memberworld Leaders. That would be like the US state governors sitting in the Senate or Congress.

Do we even know if those representatives actually vote on anything is that something done by others.

There are so many things we don't know because Trek writers never did a true world building exercise on how it all works. Histories, structures, who is who of the memberworlds.

It's as if they made it up on the spot.

[Fianna]

Star Trek was always about being out on the frontier of space. Earth and the highly civilized Federation are where the characters are from, but we're not meant to spend much time there.

[Frustration]

Just as we're never told how the post-scarcity financial ecosystem actually works, both because it's not relevant to the stories Roddenberry wanted to tell and because no one has any idea how that would be possible.

[CharlesPhipps]

Just as we're never told how the post-scarcity financial ecosystem actually works, both because it's not relevant to the stories Roddenberry wanted to tell and because no one has any idea how that would be possible.

We have some ideas now that we are talking about UBI and free medicine/education for all but its still something a lot of people react to viscerally that humans would want to lounge all day in the holodeck instead of working.

Which we know is not the case.

[Beastro]

One of the concepts of TOS is that intractable real-world problems are easy to solve once technology is sufficiently advanced and humanity actually puts its back into solving them.

It's the sort of utopian thinking common to communistic propaganda, that a "heaven on earth" was not only possible but inevitable.

The essence of technology is that is creates problems as much as it solves them.

National borders are irrelevant once material technologies make basic needs trivial to guarantee. That's the implausible part of Star Trek's utopian dream, not the speed. Actual communist societies always had major problems managing basic needs, much less luxuries.

This assumes the economic mindset that people's material needs are all they care about. You'd think with over 20 years since 9/11 people would realize that we hold things dearer than that, but it's something most in the West keep struggling with.

People are not piano keys.

[Frustration]

Oh, people like luxuries, too - and increasing in status because they have things others do not.

But it's remarkable how quickly those concerns vanish when people can't get enough food and clean water.

[CharlesPhipps]

People also turn out to like working and being useful.

They just don't like working trivialities.