The Economics of Star Trek and Scarce Scarcity

Mistermeaner

zagubov wrote: »

Weight for weight, your body's releasing energy at a far greater rate than the sun.

Time to unveil project matrix then I think

Perelandra

Mistermeaner wrote: »

Time to unveil project matrix then I think

It was started some time ago.


Haven't you worked that out yet?

princeofpounds

Weight for weight, your body's releasing energy at a far greater rate than the sun.

There is quite an interesting theory that the rise of low entropy structures, like suns and worlds and life, is actually encouraged by the fact that the creation of those low entropy structures actually encourages the pace of the overall increase in entropy in the universe.


Alas it's a bit beyond me.

Cornucopia

I always thought it was a missed opportunity not to connect up all that gym equipment to power generators.

Unfortunately, though, the original article is conceptually and economically flawed in several respects. It seems like the author has taken the depiction of the "Star Trek" system on-screen as an indication of its possibility from an ecological, economic, societal and psychological standpoint, when in fact, there are issues in all of those areas:-

- From an ecological standpoint, there will always be limits (or more accurately constraints) on the availability of resources. Depending on the nature of the renewable energy solution(s), one of the constraints in developed countries may be suitable land on which to build it. Other shortages exist in natural minerals, such that gold, for example, to manufacture electronic components, will always come at a price.

- One of the purposes of economics is to moderate shortage of resources through a Demand-Supply-Price relationship. Different things over time can form the focus of that last, expensive component of a product or service. If that component is no longer energy, it will be something else.

- As a society, we have not shown ourselves to be particularly altruistic. Indeed, many, many right-wing thinkers have bemoaned the fact of taxation, ignorant of the broader view in which the resources of the country belong to all its residents, and money is merely a proxy to enable easy division of the spoils. Either way, people want to hang on to "their" money, hard-won as it often is.

- Psychologically, we seem to have a need to do useful work. We also rebel against "busy work", things that are made up to occupy our time. In the Star Trek world, things like ambition and challenge in work are generally glossed over, but they will be real forces in a real environment. How does JL Picard get the role as Captain? What qualifications does he have, and how did he get them? Do we need a quasi-military hierarchy to select him from his peers and appoint him Captain? Is the best person for the job one who is motivated by status, or the cleaner, more basic financial incentive that a Captain gets paid more than a First Officer? How is Troi's status recognised as an important figure, but with a potentially completely different set of skills? Money can be used to bridge that gap in a way that pure status may not readily do.

More broadly, I sometimes despair at those who fantasize about distant planets and future worlds. It seems so pointless when there are serious problems here and now, and those problems are not just of life-changing proportions, but endemic (at least for the foreseeable future).

Mistermeaner

your signature

Cornucopia

Mistermeaner wrote: »

your signature

I suppose in this context it should be: We are all in the Gutter, but some of us know better than to bother howling at the stars.

cepheus

Generali wrote: »

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-03/star-trek-economy-and-life-after-the-dismal-science

Well worth a read as if we can get renewable energy right, a lack of scarcity is a very real prospect.

Read

The Zero cost marginal society by Jeremy Rifkin

In The Zero Marginal Cost Society, Jeremy Rifkin describes how the emerging Internet of Things is speeding us to an era of nearly free goods and services, precipitating the meteoric rise of a global Collaborative Commons and the eclipse of capitalism.

http://www.thezeromarginalcostsociety.com/


and Paul Mason's new book

Vast numbers of people are changing their behaviour, discovering new forms of ownership, lending and doing business that are distinct from, and contrary to, the current system of state-backed corporate capitalism.

http://www.penguin.co.uk/books/postcapitalism/9781846147388/#qXKRKtW8bO1wFfoX.99

cepheus

zagubov wrote: »

Weight for weight, your body's releasing energy at a far greater rate than the sun.

What a fascinating fact, difficult to believe.

Sun's rate of energy release 3.86×10^26 watts

mass 1.989×10^30 kg

~5000 kg per watt about four to five magnitudes greater

It must be the mass to surface area which provides this effect.

However, being slightly pedantic the Sun gives off far more, since our energy out is balanced by our chemical energy in. The Sun has to live of what it received 6 billion years ago. I'm afraid for Matrix lovers biological mechanisms aren't as efficient at generating energy per unit mass than fusion.

With regard to the earlier poster, the second law of thermodynamics is no speculative theory, overall entropy always increases for any closed system (such as the universe). It's regarded by physicists as being just as fundamental than the first law the conservation of energy.

Getting slightly back on track, this is the area required to power Germany's, EU25, and all the worlds electricity consumption if covered with photovoltaics

CLAPTON

the sun produces a lot of energy from a very small proportion of its mass

so dividing a large number (heat generated by a small amount of its mass) but then divided by the sun' whole mass gives a smallish number

human beings produce a small amount of heat but from all their mass
so the result of a small number being divided by a small number seems to work out to give a bigger number than for the sun.

no contradiction there.

of course, he human being replenishes its energy supply every day
whereas the sun can only last another 5,000, 000,000 years of there abouts

Sapphire

Mistermeaner wrote: »

Agree with Michaels and others - human nature is to be competitive and as the average or median standard improves some will always strive to rise above.

Inequality is a vital part of competition and happiness is generally derived from one's perceived position relative to others.

You can't switch capitalism off at a certain point when someone judges we collectively have enough and revert to communism.

Yes. Just what I was thinking. Competitiveness is within our mammalian DNA. In all creatures, striving to 'better oneself' – generally by achieving power in one way or another, and spreading one's genes as much as possible – seems to be the key aim of existence. Achieving things (especially by working hard for them) and 'climbing a ladder' in different ways is what gives humans satisfaction. I don't think achieving more/equal wealth for everyone will result in a utopian society, where everyone is equal and happily lives together. If we had nothing to strive for, we would be very unhappy as a species.

There's also the matter of overpopulation if humans continue to breed the way they are doing, made ever worse with advances in medicines, etc. There's a limit to how many people our planet can accommodate without war and strife, and destruction of the environment. :cool: