DS:9 "Extreme Measures"

[ScreamingDoom]

So because the Federation is still taking in raw resources there is scarcity... wut? You do realize it is possible to still be taking in more resources and not have any shortages right?

First: scarcity does not mean a shortage of something. Scarcity merely refers to a limited resource. That resource can be limited by access or amount or any number of other factors, but it does not mean that said resource is necessarily short. Functionally, in a market economy, shortages only occur in very specific instances: when the demand curve is more of a line (everyone requires a certain amount of food to even continue functioning, for instance), when there is a sudden disruption in the economy (such as a natural disaster), or through government intervention (as in the case of price freezes, subsidies, or patent encumbrance). Most of the time, all that happens is that the price of a good or service increases until supply equals demand. There's not a shortage, but there is scarcity.

Secondly, why would there even need to be any mines if they can just make things out of thin air? That seems an awful lot of trouble to go in order to... what? What's the purpose of mines and mineral extraction if you don't do anything with them? Is it just a hobby? A hobby that is apparently important enough to require the attentions of the flagship of the Federation? Maybe the Enterprise should divert to make sure there is enough pasta for the Great Macaroni Art Exhibition on Kindergarden 8.

It just means supply is meeting the demand, the fact that said supply needs replenishing doesn't change that as long as the first part holds true.

Then that means that there is a scarcity of minerals. Again, there would be no need for mining at all if there wasn't any scarcity.

[CareerKnight]

Honestly it seems like you are defining scarcity so broadly as to render it meaningless as a descriptor.

[Naldiin]

Honestly it seems like you are defining scarcity so broadly as to render it meaningless as a descriptor.

Actually, he's using scarcity correctly, from an economic perspective. Non-scarce goods are things like air - something that already exists in sufficient abundance that generally no effort needs to be expended to extract it.

A good is scarce when there are trade-offs for its consumption. In the case of minerals - the machines, people, expertise and energy that goes into mining minerals *could* be used for something else. Those miners could have been painters, or musicians, or historians, or make youtube videos. All of that stuff is 'scarce' - those resources could have been used for another purpose. As a result, you can never have the full amount of musicians, painters, historians, miners, or youtube videos as you might want.

The problem then in constructing a post-scarcity economy is often not scarcity of materials, but scarcity of labor. And Labor is absolutely scarce in Star Trek - we see Star Fleet grasping for qualified captains and scientists on more than one occasion.

And if your response is, "that renders a post-scarcity economy impossible" - yes, that's the point. The fundamental point of scarcity as a concept in economics is to point out that scarcity is functionally impossible to overcome. Improvements in production and technology will merely transfer resources to the production of *new* scarce goods.

Moreover, a post-scarcity society would be radically different from our own. Not 'star trek' different. For a society to be truly post-scarcity, you would need to have a situation where everyone could obtain infinite amounts of everything they wanted - including things like personal servants, curated art, hand-crafted luxuries, etc. Even if you achieved such a system (perhaps via AI-slavery?), scarcity would be reintroduced the moment someone invented something new - their knew knowledge would instantly be scarce in an economic sense.

Star Trek's economic model is deeply broken and never functioned - enjoying the show requires being willing to overlook that fact and pretend. "Post-Scarcity" is a fan's fig leaf to cover the series' badly broken economics, and not a very good one at that.

[CrypticMirror]

I think there is definitely layers between 21stC economics and the Q. Post practical scarcity. If you are post 99% scarcity, which certainly seems to be the case for a lot of Star Trek, then the post scarcity economy works for most people. If you have to go to extremes and edges to find scarcity then while it might technically not be post scarcity, it is good enough for most people.

We've certainly seen Trek evolving in that direction. From the Archer era, which is basically only a couple of steps away from being us, through the increasing enlightenment of the Kirk era which certainly showed the conflict of resources versus requirements and how to balance them against each other, to the TNG replicators era which can supply just about anything. DS9 didn't really scale that back, but basically only added some weaselstuff for special cases like antiquities, and for places where replicators were not completely commonplace. For practical day-to-day living, it is close enough to post scarcity that you could go through your life not needing to know the difference.

The need, the drive, the absolute hunger, to see it as broken. I truly do not understand that, and I do not think I want to

[Madner Kami]

I think there is definitely layers between 21stC economics and the Q. Post practical scarcity. If you are post 99% scarcity, which certainly seems to be the case for a lot of Star Trek, then the post scarcity economy works for most people. If you have to go to extremes and edges to find scarcity then while it might technically not be post scarcity, it is good enough for most people.

We've certainly seen Trek evolving in that direction. From the Archer era, which is basically only a couple of steps away from being us, through the increasing enlightenment of the Kirk era which certainly showed the conflict of resources versus requirements and how to balance them against each other, to the TNG replicators era which can supply just about anything. DS9 didn't really scale that back, but basically only added some weaselstuff for special cases like antiquities, and for places where replicators were not completely commonplace. For practical day-to-day living, it is close enough to post scarcity that you could go through your life not needing to know the difference.

The need, the drive, the absolute hunger, to see it as broken. I truly do not understand that, and I do not think I want to

One needs only to look at Tasha Yar's homeplanet or the existence of commerce-based crime (smuggling for example) within the boundaries of the Federation, to instantly see "post-scarcity" as a farce. "Replicators not being common-place" is nonsense in a post-scarcity society, because every single replicator is able to multiply itself with little to no effort, so to elimintate scarcity on a place like Bajor, bring one replicator there, start replicating replicator-parts and game over. Wierd how the Federation doesn't manage to do that, isn't it?
This is not "need or drive or absolute hunger" (serously?) to see the Federation's economic system as broken. The flaw is obvious to the observer with no effort or want whatsover. Rather, I am bewildered about people defending post-scarcity when there's blatantly still scarcity.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Um, how do you KNOW a replicator can make more replicators? They can make a lot of things, but nothing we have seen established replicators as von-neuman machines, especially because anything with self-replicating capacity has a distressing tendency to mutate into the Monster of the Week.

[CareerKnight]

One needs only to look at Tasha Yar's homeplanet or the existence of commerce-based crime (smuggling for example) within the boundaries of the Federation, to instantly see "post-scarcity" as a farce.

I still don't know how Tasha had the backstory she did considering Gene's vision on humans in his universe at that point. It seems like it was some idea he came up with shortly after TOS that he hung on to even while his vision shifted more and more to the point its existence caused problems within the universe.

[Admiral X]

Yeah, her background just doesn't make sense in light of the Federation and how it's presented on the show. Though the idea they abandoned a colony to complete anarchy is hilarious in a very dark way considering the response to the Maquis. I also couldn't help but notice none of the antagonists really ever raked the Federation over the coals over this failed colony, not even Q when Picard is at his smuggest.

[Beastro]

Replicators need to have some restrains put on them, in much the same way Superman's powers got dialed back.

Without them things become both silly and very very dark. Imagine the Dominion War with replicators just pumping out stuff, the only limit being manpower to use the weapons they produce, or building large enough ones to replicate entire warships.

As for Tasha's world, however it fits in, there needs to be more of that in ST even if they're lost colonies of humans rediscovered, like the cloning colony in TNG, if only to add more of a sense of history to the universe.

[Admiral X]

I rather liked the idea from some of the early DS9 novels that replicators can create matter but not energy, as in they could create a phaser, but the phaser would be dead.