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in the star trek universe, does a federation starship captain...

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mmntech said:
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Which begs the question. What incentives do non-commissioned crewmen have to do their jobs? Someone has to vacuum the carpets. What about the lowly redshirt? Every mission is a potential suicide one. What does he get out of it? It's not like they're saving up for a spot at Starfleet academy. Education is free and their entry standards can't be that high. Come on, they let Will Wheaton in!
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It's an interesting prospect. What happens when all of your basic needs are satisfied by pushing a button?
Food, water, beer, clothing.
Holodecks...yeah, anything.
Time to go find playgrounds on other planets, I guess.



What about society at large? In the Star Wars universe for example, robots do most of the menial and dangerous tasks. While robots exist in the Federation, they're not very common. Aside from Data and his derivatives, they're barely mentioned. In the movies, ship building is shown to be done by human laborers. Plus there's the groundskeeper guy at the Academy. So obviously humans are still doing these types of jobs. Without compensation, why do they do it? I doubt most people would willingly spend their life trimming hedges and unclogging toilets for the man. Especially when there are better alternatives.
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I didn't like that either. There were very few machines shown doing things. Hell, they still had a helmsman flying the ship. That computer should have been more intelligent and capable than the entire crew combined. But I guess that alienates the audience. "Yes, this computer is smarter than you, because your brain is small and can't be upgraded. Sucks, huh?"
Too much of that stuff is done for the audience. (Or for the sake of the effects budget.) An android that's hyper-intelligent, yet wants to be human, and have emotions? Uh huh. The fun part is, that entire plot point could have been evaporated early on by a simple little firmware update that was kept in a futuristic MicroSD card. 😀

There's a robot now that can fold a towel by using a vision system and two arms. It takes it about 20 minutes because of all the image processing it needs to do, but it can do it. We have cars that can drive themselves.
I would hope that robotic technology will advance just a little bit in 300 years.



Which brings me to some scary implications of the Trek universe. Perhaps these people are being forced to do menial tasks. Maybe it's like Futurama and they're all given pre-determined careers. If they don't perform their jobs, they might be imprisoned.
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I believe the expression was something like "Then you'll be fired. Out of a cannon, into the Sun." 😎
 
the federation is a structured hierchy, much like the military. People mop the floors because they are commanded to.
 
sao123 said:
the federation is a structured hierchy, much like the military. People mop the floors because they are commanded to.
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That works for Starfleet, where young, low-ranking crewmen simply follow orders while working their way up to the higher ranks. They have an incentive to mop the floors.

But in civilian life, where you can basically pick any career you want within your abilities, who would choose to be the janitor?
 
They have money, I think they even earn money (credits). While the replicators can make you anything you want (except Gold Pressed Latinum), it can't make unique, one of a kind items. Picard has a collection of artifacts, and I doubt you can just go to a shop and grab everything you want. And when dealing with non Federation cultures, there has to be a way of exchanging currencies. We see Starfleet personell in DS9 buying things on the pomanade.
Basically, I think the Federatation provides the basic needs, you still get paid so you can purchase the wants.
Much like today, I think a lot of the jobs are done out of passion for something, IE software engineer, building things with your hands. Art, music. The more menial jobs, Janitor, waiter, ect, are probably filled by those with less than average IQ's or motivation. They most likely do it so they can keep their replicator privilidges.
 
Credits is Money. Trying to explain otherwise seems fruitless to me. The whole system never seems to be very well explained, but I think it probably goes along the line of a type of Basic Universal Welfare system that provides all the basic needs. On top of that there is a Credit system that provides incentive to Work, but those Credits are only needed for Luxury type Goods/Services.
 
IN the Federation... People could just sit their ass at home and troll anandtech all day long.. huh?

They get healthcare and housing all entirely free?
 
Star trek universe is all wrong, nobody would ever do anything besides have sex with holograms and eat replicator chocolate cake all day every day :awe:
 
Maximilian said:
Star trek universe is all wrong, nobody would ever do anything besides have sex with holograms and eat replicator chocolate cake all day every day :awe:
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That must be what 99% of them do. The Federation of Planets is composed of over a 100 different races. Yet one race like the Romulans are considered a dangerous threat. Must be because 99% of the Federation's population are useless, while 99% of the Romulan population is ambitious.
 
the star trek universe couldn't happen. there are only so many cool job openings. with no currency and how lazy some are i hate to see the slums.
 
SillyOReilly said:
I'd bet those do nothing people aren't on starships.
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Stuff still needs to be done back on Earth. That's what I'm getting at. How could such a society function. Knowing Human nature, I'd think most of us would end up like the crew of the Wall E space ship. Fat, lazy.
 
Well I checked with the National Registry of Starship Captains, and yes they are paid the same. The difference is that he gets a better cabin with an upgraded food dispenser and he also gets to bang all the personnel under him.
 
mmntech said:
Stuff still needs to be done back on Earth. That's what I'm getting at. How could such a society function. Knowing Human nature, I'd think most of us would end up like the crew of the Wall E space ship. Fat, lazy.
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Even with the US obesity out of control since we don't have to hunt and gather, and high calorie food can be found cheap doesn't mean we're all going to become fat sloths.
 
Star Trek is the future!

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Everything is owned by The Federation, comrade!
 
Of course money exists in Trek. Even in TNG. In the very first episode Dr. Crusher is all like "I love the cloth, I'll take the whole bolt! Charge to Doctor Crusher." or something to that effect. With that said, most of the jobs appear to be held because they want them. The groundskeeper in San Fran looks like he gets to share a close relationship with and share advise and wisdom to the best and brightest future leaders of the Federation. He hears a lot and influences a lot in his own way, carving a worthwhile job out of it.

Most menial work at this point is trusted to holograms. The doctor the EMH1 was based on lamented that his emh model was so loathed for it's bed side manner that now all the holograms with his face are seen cleaning up the Federations sludge on star ships.
 
AstroManLuca said:
Yeah I was going to say, you don't actually see a lot of menial workers.

Sure, there are people in higher and lower positions, but think about it - if you remove the incentive of money and tell people they can do whatever they want, some people will naturally prefer to stick to the lower ranking jobs anyway. Not everyone wants to be in a leadership position.

You'd also think that in a society where there is no shortage of the basic necessities (a communist utopia where there is free food and shelter for all) there would be a lot of people who just slack off and do nothing. But I remember one year early in college when I didn't have a job and was living with my parents, and I just went stir crazy without anything to do. Eventually I started volunteering while still looking for work. So while there are probably a few people who don't contribute anything to society, my guess is that most do.

It also seems structured in such a way that many things are privileges. So while it is possible to beam yourself to all parts of the world, if you're just a non-contributing leech they probably won't let you.

The whole point of Star Trek was Gene Roddenberry's idea that in the future, humans would be more evolved and rational than they are now. On the very first episode of Next Generation, Q dresses up as a 50s army general and Picard tells him that humans were barbaric back then and have changed. Whether that's a realistic possibility is up for debate, but it is science fiction after all.
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It's called the free rider problem. It's why communism doesn't work
 
FrysAssociate said:
It's called the free rider problem. It's why communism doesn't work
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I don't think humans are naturally lazy, people have no problem working hard towards something they are passionate about and fully invested in. It's when they are coerced into doing a job that they hate will begin to despise any notion of productive work and become 'lazy.' In today's time, I think people's passions get buried under years of subjecting to the 9-5 grind, and it would take some time to rediscover what you loved doing before then.

Sitting around the house becoming a fat slob would be a miserable existence while people are out wandering the stars and pushing the limits of science. Even today, I don't see how people can accept sitting around doing nothing. There is so much to do, see, and learn.
 
sandorski said:
Credits is Money. Trying to explain otherwise seems fruitless to me. The whole system never seems to be very well explained, but I think it probably goes along the line of a type of Basic Universal Welfare system that provides all the basic needs. On top of that there is a Credit system that provides incentive to Work, but those Credits are only needed for Luxury type Goods/Services.
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But if there are limited numbers of credits for limited resources that are given out for doing harder or more in-demand jobs this still doesn't mean that you have money. Money needs to be something that can be stored AND transferred; no longer are bankers going to prey on human desire for things NOW but instead everyone will only be able to utilize the resources that they have earned.
 
Maximilian said:
Star trek universe is all wrong, nobody would ever do anything besides have sex with holograms and eat replicator chocolate cake all day every day :awe:
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Some.. with a genetic or social propensity toward such behavior... hookers and blow all day long every day; but within a generation that group would die out and those left would have learned to control themselves.

also, without the social-pressures to conform to a monetary system, people would be less likely to need such escapists means of dealing with shitty lives.

waggy said:
the star trek universe couldn't happen. there are only so many cool job openings. with no currency and how lazy some are i hate to see the slums.
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there's nothing to steal and no reason to kill. Those that want for anything will die a eugenic death of holo-hookers and blow.
 
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