Fair enough, but how often would that be? Would it be automated repairs? Replicate the replicator, for instance. I just think that once you introduce something like the replicator and limitless energy from fusion/anti-matter reactions, 21st century economics will no longer apply. I do not know how it would work, but simply getting a job and making money and spending money will no longer work. The only thing money would be for would be to buy land and things that you cannot replicate, which would not be much. People would have to change drastically, of course, because that kind of power, if thrown on modern man, would be disastrous. We have not grown up yet to be able to handle that kind of easy living. I personally think that as things become more and more modern, more automated, the human population will dive. We are already seeing it in the West, where the population is getting very old, very fast and they are not being replaced.
I don't think it necessarily runs counter to human nature. So I guess we have a fundamental disagreement on humanity.
beats me though the systems on the enterprise are constantly having issues. I agree. hell I'm not sure I'd do anything with myself but sit around and watch tv if I had life handed to me like that. I certainly see it with almost every child of rich clients. A economy like star trek would collapse on itself within multiple generations.
this ignores that greed and power are about relative wealth, relative status etc. Any silliness that assumes those away is the dumbest crap imaginable. Any politicians selling that idiocy should be laughed off the earth. Jealousy, greed and power are the drivers of the need for defense and protection and borders and beatings.
Orwell said it best: "They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it."
Why? Because it hasn't been done before? It will be challenging, and perhaps it isn't doable. But to not aim for that change and strive for it is damning us as a species, imho.
Humanity can change without Big Brother controlling them. And this is not pie in the sky thinking, and I believe if it is possible, it will be damn hard. And perhaps we destroy ourselves before we can make our changes. But we cannot continue on the road we are on now as a species.
seems like working within the confines of human nature is a much better way to get results rather than trying to change it.
Do you think we can survive as a species on this tiny planet if we do not outgrow war and nationalism? Honest question.
We will outgrow nationalism. It's a recent phenomenon, anyway. I'm concerned about what will replace that concept as the sense of belonging or identifying with something drives most human nature.