quote:

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Talonus stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
Throw in games and politics, and it covers all dicussions on EC.

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Bush sucks....

at Counterstrike.

quote:

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Maradon! got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
Uyulala is h0t.

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*rolls eyes*

Uyulala

quote:

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Trillee came out of the closet to say:
Liam Neeson!

Have you know love for his greatness??

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He was Qui-Gon.

quote:

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So quoth Uyulala:
*rolls eyes*

Uyulala

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You're complaining about that? (Well, kinda complaining) Lesage got called ugly by Mort and someone said she looked like a dude. Besides, look how many comments Lemmy gets...from straight guys no less.

quote:

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Drysart had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
He was Qui-Gon.

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Aahh but before he was a Jedi.. he wore a sexy kilt!

quote:

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Vallo was naked while typing this:
You're complaining about that? (Well, kinda complaining) Lesage got called ugly by Mort and someone said she looked like a dude. Besides, look how many comments Lemmy gets...from straight guys no less.

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True. I'm just not used to being called hot. I have been called cute but only a few times.

Uyulala

quote:

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Pvednes put down Tada! magazine long enough to type:
It's a Technate, not a communist state.

Let's see...is the populace of the Federation more or less uneducated?

Is everyone working hard in the fields for an equitable, but poor living, or is everyone living comfortably off the infinite abundance provided by industrial replicators?

Is there such thing as a family in the Federation?

Is Jean-Luc Picard French?

---

Let's take a look at the Communist Manifesto, specifically the criteria for establishing a communist state.

Abolition of property rights - fully implemented in the Federation. Picard and Troi always boast that no one wants or needs to accumulate wealth, but they never say why. Greed and territoriality is built into our genetic hardcoding; through education and conditioning, it is possible to mitigate this instinct, but there should remain some greedy people. Not so in the Federation, according Picard and Troi. So which is more plausible? That the Federation uses brainwashing techniques to placate its citizens, or that wealth accumulation is simply illegal, as Marx advocated? Moreover, where's the money? It's proudly touted by numerous characters that money isn't needed, yet the Federation still has credits, which don't seem to translate well into latinum. Hmmm, poor liquidity...sure sounds like rubels to me.

Moreover, when was the last time you heared someone talking about buying or selling something within the TNG-era Federation? Everyone seems content to live a spartan lifestyle, and in "The Neutral Zone," when the guy on the cryo-ship asked about his portfolio, Picard had no understanding of the concept! You can't invest at all in the TNG Federation--another trait of communism.

State seizure of transportation - fully implemented. In every shot of Earth, we see little to no traffic. Why is that? Where are all the personal spacecraft? Every Federation ship is state-owned. You might to tempted to argue that personal spacecraft are prohibitively expensive, but Quark owned to personal shuttle capable of going from DS9 to Earth. And he was just a restaraunt owner. Big Brother is watching you; since all transport is Federation owned, all citizens have no recourse but to use the state-owned ships to get anywhere. How many times do we hear "I've booked passage to xxxx" compared to "I'm going to take my ship xxxxx," hmmm?

State seizure of communication - fully implemented. The entire subspace relay network is owned by the Federation. Not once do we hear of a competing network in the private sector. In one DS9 episode, the Federation was easily able to manage a complete media blackout during an attempted coup, something which is flat-out impossible with privately owned media.

Elimination of religion and traditional families - half implemented. You hit one point properly; there are still families in the Federation. But where's the religion? TOS Enterprise had a chapel, but TNG seems to have snuffed out all forms of religion. Hell, in a Voyager episode, the doctor portrayed a priest and didn't mention Jesus or God once! How the frig do you do that? But, hippie New Age mysticism seems to have taken root. Pleasure planets like Risa nicely illustrate Marx's idea of free love taken form in the Federation.

Also, the education seems wholly state-run. There are no private academies or such mentioned in TNG, DS9, or VOY. This one's harder to tell, because it's possible that children can be home-schooled.

State seizure of industry - well on its way to fully implemented. We've never seen agriculture, so we can make no claims about that, but manufacturing is as clear as a bell. When was the last time you saw anything other than a Federation logo on a product or structure, civilian or military? When was the last time you heard mention of any corporation with the Federation? When did a private company submit a bid for a government contract? Sure, Ezri Dax's parents had a mining company, but it was on a non-Federation world! What a shocker. Worst of all, there's no patent office! Anything any scientist discovers or invents instantly enters the public domain. No royalties to be collected, no fees for using someone else's invention. No trademarks, no copyrights; IP has been eliminated. If you think of it, the Federation owns it.

Citizens are forced to work - probably fully implemented. Everyone gets a comfortable lifestyle, sure, but when have we ever seen a beach bum? And don't try the whole "we want to work!" stuff. Lazyness is an inherent human trait, a throwback to our days as primates. Animals don't build nests just because they want to, they do it because they have to. Again, we fall back to the question of brainwashing vs. it being illegal not to work? I submit that the latter is true.

In addition to Marx's stated goals of communism, there are other side-effects which we've seen in every communist state ever formed, including the Federation:

The biggest is Military gains increased influence - totally true. How many captains in the Navy can you name? Picard is one of the most famous faces in the Federation, so are Janeway and Sisko. A Starfleet admiral nearly took control of the Federation, and only another Starfleet officer(Sisko) stopped him. When Julian Bashir's parents were tried for violating the genetic engineering laws, they were sentenced by a judge wearing a Starfleet uniform! How influential must the military be to be able to try and sentence civilians?

The biggest problem the Federation suffers from is "Have your cake and eat it too" Syndrome. They constantly spout rhetoric of cherishing individual freedoms, and yet every citizen is ground under the heel of a massive government. Sorry, life doesn't work like that; you can't have big government and individual freedoms. Morever, we never see anyone testing the limits of their assumed freedoms. Trillions of citizens lead quiet, spartan lifestyles. No one amasses huge personal arsenals, they never covet wealth, they never hop star systems in their personal vehicles, they never produce offensive art, never publish rebellious propaganda.

Personal freedom and big government act directly against each other. Give people freedom, and they'll abuse it. Give the government power, and they'll abuse it. You simply cannot have both. The Federation is fits the communist mold quite well. Too well, for my tastes.

Karnaj fucked around with this message on 04-04-2004 at 01:07 AM.

Xyrra fucked around with this message on 04-04-2004 at 01:05 AM.

It's gonna be months before I can watch without thinking about that.

Damn you. >

You suck.

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Ares was listening to Cher while typing:
Prositution helps to spread STD's. Other than that deadly fact, I agree.

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I live in a state where prostitution is (partly) legal. And you'll still be arrested if you stand on the street corner offering a ten dollar blowjob to every guy that walks past.

Legal prostitution isn't the kind you see on TV and in the movies. It's not some ugly, toothless crack head standing on a street corner sucking dick for her next fix. It is done in liscensed places of business and is well regulated by the government, including weekly mandatory STD tests.

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Faelynn LeAndris wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
OH AND SMOKING POT SUPPORTS TERRORISM! THE COMMERCIALS TOLD ME SO!

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That propaganda commercial made me laugh alot, since you're likely supporting some 24 year old with a hydroponics lab in his basement, than a terrorist a third of the planet away.

My take is that money isnt needed to survive, but money can do good stuff for you.

Transportation

Transporter technology is government owned since the workings of it are a very military useful thing.

Private ships are rather expensive.

Of course all federation ships are state owned, the federation is a state, so its stuff is state owned.

Every shot of earth Ive seen that is close enouph to see ships is over a federation base in san fran or wherever they are housed, I submit that they dont allow just anyone to fly over the base, because bombs suck:/

Communication I know next to nothing about this.

Religion and family

Of course there is religion still. The difference in the federation between the united states is they managed to seperate church and state so as to not mess with it. Each race has the religions of themselves. Having the federation even TOUCH religion would ruin them. Also, not mentioning religion means you dont lose ratings by saying sisko is a catholic and pissing people off, or saying that janeway is a buddist and pissing people off.

They have family, duh.

Seeing as how the show has been centered entirely around the military, it is entirely possible and quite likely that there has never been a reason for us to know about a private school. Home school seems plausible.

Agriculture

Picards father owns a vineyard.

We dont really see much of the private sector in star trek. We see more aliens and blowing shit up.

Citizens are forced to work

We seem to see earth in the 1990's more often than earth in modern day so I cant really tell about that, Perhaps with the advent of a society with less waste a beach bum cant survive anymore. No trash cans?

It wouldnt be illegal not to work, if what you say about the federation wanting to keep a good spin on things a law like that would not work.

Increased military influence

Julian bashere is a part of the federation military, of course a military judge is approriate. Also, the federation isnt as purely military as the united states military is, they are all about defense, but the US doesnt have families and stuff on board, they arent charged with not killing if at all possible(shields help a liiiittle with that)

An increasingly strong military is needed in an era where your planet can be killed in a day.

I find your post to be lacking in facts and inserting baseless speculations in lieu of evidence and posted solely to confuse.

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Karnaj said this about your mom:
Let's take a look at the Communist Manifesto, specifically the criteria for establishing a communist state.

Abolition of property rights - fully implemented in the Federation. Picard and Troi always boast that no one wants or needs to accumulate wealth, but they never say why. Greed and territoriality is built into our genetic hardcoding; through education and conditioning, it is possible to mitigate this instinct, but there should remain some greedy people. Not so in the Federation, according Picard and Troi. So which is more plausible? That the Federation uses brainwashing techniques to placate its citizens, or that wealth accumulation is simply illegal, as Marx advocated? Moreover, where's the money? It's proudly touted by numerous characters that money isn't needed, yet the Federation still has credits, which don't seem to translate well into latinum. Hmmm, poor liquidity...sure sounds like rubels to me.

Moreover, when was the last time you heared someone talking about buying or selling something within the TNG-era Federation? Everyone seems content to live a spartan lifestyle, and in "The Neutral Zone," when the guy on the cryo-ship asked about his portfolio, Picard had no understanding of the concept! You can't invest at all in the TNG Federation--another trait of communism.

---

As I said, the Federation is a Technate, not a communist state. A Technate, fairly much according to the ideas of the Technocrats under Howard Scott, as a future society, in fact, although quite a bit bastardized. A high energy society such as a Technate has abandoned the price system completely, replacing this with energy accounting. In a Technate, all citizens are provided with 1/n of the productive power of the Technate at any one time. (n is the number of citizens.) All such manufactured goods and services have no monetary value as such, instead their 'value' is the energy it took to manufacture and transport it. The practical upshot is everyone has a sort of "credit card" that never runs out, and doesn't need to be paid back. The citizens of the Federation don't have a card, but there is mention of credits, so one would assume the transaction occurs whenever someone uses the replicator. Central economic planning is a big theme in the Federation, anyway.

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State seizure of transportation - fully implemented. In every shot of Earth, we see little to no traffic. Why is that? Where are all the personal spacecraft? Every Federation ship is state-owned. You might to tempted to argue that personal spacecraft are prohibitively expensive, but Quark owned to personal shuttle capable of going from DS9 to Earth. And he was just a restaraunt owner. Big Brother is watching you; since all transport is Federation owned, all citizens have no recourse but to use the state-owned ships to get anywhere. How many times do we hear "I've booked passage to xxxx" compared to "I'm going to take my ship xxxxx," hmmm?

---

On the relatively few times we've seen the surface of the Earth in Star Trek, there have been sort of hovery cars about. I have no idea who owns them, it wasn't particularily explored. In a Technate or a communist state, the Technate or the State owns all transportation, but for different reasons. The Technate is about efficiency foremost, and private transport is not particularily efficient. The communist State on the other hand is all about egalitarianism gone wrong. As for starships, well, do you own a private jet?

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State seizure of communication - fully implemented. The entire subspace relay network is owned by the Federation. Not once do we hear of a competing network in the private sector. In one DS9 episode, the Federation was easily able to manage a complete media blackout during an attempted coup, something which is flat-out impossible with privately owned media.

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Once again, a communist state and a Technate have state-owned communications. Then again, so does Britain.

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Elimination of religion and traditional families - half implemented. You hit one point properly; there are still families in the Federation. But where's the religion? TOS Enterprise had a chapel, but TNG seems to have snuffed out all forms of religion. Hell, in a Voyager episode, the doctor portrayed a priest and didn't mention Jesus or God once! How the frig do you do that? But, hippie New Age mysticism seems to have taken root. Pleasure planets like Risa nicely illustrate Marx's idea of free love taken form in the Federation.

Also, the education seems wholly state-run. There are no private academies or such mentioned in TNG, DS9, or VOY. This one's harder to tell, because it's possible that children can be home-schooled.

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Communist or not, religion is one thing I wouldn't mind see vanishing. Just a social thing I suppose. In any case, the Federation has made NO attempt at stamping out the family, something that they would have done right at the beginning of the Federation were they communists.

Education is provided free to all citizens, in a Technate, which is also owned by the Technate.

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State seizure of industry - well on its way to fully implemented. We've never seen agriculture, so we can make no claims about that, but manufacturing is as clear as a bell. When was the last time you saw anything other than a Federation logo on a product or structure, civilian or military? When was the last time you heard mention of any corporation with the Federation? When did a private company submit a bid for a government contract? Sure, Ezri Dax's parents had a mining company, but it was on a non-Federation world! What a shocker. Worst of all, there's no patent office! Anything any scientist discovers or invents instantly enters the public domain. No royalties to be collected, no fees for using someone else's invention. No trademarks, no copyrights; IP has been eliminated. If you think of it, the Federation owns it.

---

We have seen some agriculture, actually. Picard's family owns a vineyard, which his family defends with all their Frenchness. Sisko's dad owns a restaurant on Earth. And we have seen that whatever a scientist discovers goes directly to the public domain, although that scientists' name has been attached in every case shown.

In a Technate, all manufacturing is automated, production keyed to what items people have "voted" for in the previous 24h period. The Federation and their industral replicators meet the criteria pretty well. The machinery for this industry is also owned by the Technate.

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Citizens are forced to work - probably fully implemented. Everyone gets a comfortable lifestyle, sure, but when have we ever seen a beach bum? And don't try the whole "we want to work!" stuff. Lazyness is an inherent human trait, a throwback to our days as primates. Animals don't build nests just because they want to, they do it because they have to. Again, we fall back to the question of brainwashing vs. it being illegal not to work? I submit that the latter is true.

---

We've seen no evidence at all of anyone being forced to work, except for people who want to, who seem to join the Federation or start a little resturaunt or vineyard to keep their culture alive. A Technate is a "workless society". And once again, with industrial replicators running to keep everyone a high standard of living, who needs to work?

Doctors who become doctors do so to heal the sick, rather than for any huge amount of money, even in our society, heh, just ask my parents if they do it for the money and they'll look at you bug-eyed.

Another aspect according to Marx in the Manifesto that the Federation doesn't do, is the elimination of cultural identity. Picard is a Frenchman, and Chakotay is Cherokee: an endangered culture as it is. If the Federation were trying to stamp out cultural identity how would the Cherokee have survived?

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In addition to Marx's stated goals of communism, there are other side-effects which we've seen in every communist state ever formed, including the Federation:

The biggest is Military gains increased influence - totally true. How many captains in the Navy can you name? Picard is one of the most famous faces in the Federation, so are Janeway and Sisko. A Starfleet admiral nearly took control of the Federation, and only another Starfleet officer(Sisko) stopped him. When Julian Bashir's parents were tried for violating the genetic engineering laws, they were sentenced by a judge wearing a Starfleet uniform! How influential must the military be to be able to try and sentence civilians?

---

The military does have an extraordinary amount of power in the Federation. This isn't a characteristic of a Technate, and is a characteristic of communist regimes, but Starfleet sure does make for good soap operas in space, no?

quote:

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The biggest problem the Federation suffers from is "Have your cake and eat it too" Syndrome. They constantly spout rhetoric of cherishing individual freedoms, and yet every citizen is ground under the heel of a massive government. Sorry, life doesn't work like that; you can't have big government and individual freedoms. Morever, we never see anyone testing the limits of their assumed freedoms. Trillions of citizens lead quiet, spartan lifestyles. No one amasses huge personal arsenals, they never covet wealth, they never hop star systems in their personal vehicles, they never produce offensive art, never publish rebellious propaganda.

Personal freedom and big government act directly against each other. Give people freedom, and they'll abuse it. Give the government power, and they'll abuse it. You simply cannot have both. The Federation is fits the communist mold quite well. Too well, for my tastes.

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I just disagree there. I say it's a Technate. Plus, who knows about the offensive art? Though I have noticed that no-one listens to anything but classical music.

Pvednes fucked around with this message on 04-04-2004 at 08:30 AM.

Meh.

Of course the military is going to be stronger, the weakest explosive they have against other ships is like a dozen nukes at least.

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Gikk had this to say about Knight Rider:
Tasha was sad.

I saw the episode where the blob killed her last week.

(((((((((((

---

That episode was strange to watch at the time, first time in Trek they just up and killed a main character straight out of nowehere.

quote:

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Karnaj had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
Let's take a look at the Communist Manifesto, specifically the criteria for establishing a communist state.

Abolition of property rights - fully implemented in the Federation. Picard and Troi always boast that no one wants or needs to accumulate wealth, but they never say why. Greed and territoriality is built into our genetic hardcoding; through education and conditioning, it is possible to mitigate this instinct, but there should remain some greedy people. Not so in the Federation, according Picard and Troi. So which is more plausible? That the Federation uses brainwashing techniques to placate its citizens, or that wealth accumulation is simply illegal, as Marx advocated? Moreover, where's the money? It's proudly touted by numerous characters that money isn't needed, yet the Federation still has credits, which don't seem to translate well into latinum. Hmmm, poor liquidity...sure sounds like rubels to me.

Moreover, when was the last time you heared someone talking about buying or selling something within the TNG-era Federation? Everyone seems content to live a spartan lifestyle, and in "The Neutral Zone," when the guy on the cryo-ship asked about his portfolio, Picard had no understanding of the concept! You can't invest at all in the TNG Federation--another trait of communism.

State seizure of transportation - fully implemented. In every shot of Earth, we see little to no traffic. Why is that? Where are all the personal spacecraft? Every Federation ship is state-owned. You might to tempted to argue that personal spacecraft are prohibitively expensive, but Quark owned to personal shuttle capable of going from DS9 to Earth. And he was just a restaraunt owner. Big Brother is watching you; since all transport is Federation owned, all citizens have no recourse but to use the state-owned ships to get anywhere. How many times do we hear "I've booked passage to xxxx" compared to "I'm going to take my ship xxxxx," hmmm?

State seizure of communication - fully implemented. The entire subspace relay network is owned by the Federation. Not once do we hear of a competing network in the private sector. In one DS9 episode, the Federation was easily able to manage a complete media blackout during an attempted coup, something which is flat-out impossible with privately owned media.

Elimination of religion and traditional families - half implemented. You hit one point properly; there are still families in the Federation. But where's the religion? TOS Enterprise had a chapel, but TNG seems to have snuffed out all forms of religion. Hell, in a Voyager episode, the doctor portrayed a priest and didn't mention Jesus or God once! How the frig do you do that? But, hippie New Age mysticism seems to have taken root. Pleasure planets like Risa nicely illustrate Marx's idea of free love taken form in the Federation.

Also, the education seems wholly state-run. There are no private academies or such mentioned in TNG, DS9, or VOY. This one's harder to tell, because it's possible that children can be home-schooled.

State seizure of industry - well on its way to fully implemented. We've never seen agriculture, so we can make no claims about that, but manufacturing is as clear as a bell. When was the last time you saw anything other than a Federation logo on a product or structure, civilian or military? When was the last time you heard mention of any corporation with the Federation? When did a private company submit a bid for a government contract? Sure, Ezri Dax's parents had a mining company, but it was on a non-Federation world! What a shocker. Worst of all, there's no patent office! Anything any scientist discovers or invents instantly enters the public domain. No royalties to be collected, no fees for using someone else's invention. No trademarks, no copyrights; IP has been eliminated. If you think of it, the Federation owns it.

Citizens are forced to work - probably fully implemented. Everyone gets a comfortable lifestyle, sure, but when have we ever seen a beach bum? And don't try the whole "we want to work!" stuff. Lazyness is an inherent human trait, a throwback to our days as primates. Animals don't build nests just because they want to, they do it because they have to. Again, we fall back to the question of brainwashing vs. it being illegal not to work? I submit that the latter is true.

In addition to Marx's stated goals of communism, there are other side-effects which we've seen in every communist state ever formed, including the Federation:

The biggest is Military gains increased influence - totally true. How many captains in the Navy can you name? Picard is one of the most famous faces in the Federation, so are Janeway and Sisko. A Starfleet admiral nearly took control of the Federation, and only another Starfleet officer(Sisko) stopped him. When Julian Bashir's parents were tried for violating the genetic engineering laws, they were sentenced by a judge wearing a Starfleet uniform! How influential must the military be to be able to try and sentence civilians?

The biggest problem the Federation suffers from is "Have your cake and eat it too" Syndrome. They constantly spout rhetoric of cherishing individual freedoms, and yet every citizen is ground under the heel of a massive government. Sorry, life doesn't work like that; you can't have big government and individual freedoms. Morever, we never see anyone testing the limits of their assumed freedoms. Trillions of citizens lead quiet, spartan lifestyles. No one amasses huge personal arsenals, they never covet wealth, they never hop star systems in their personal vehicles, they never produce offensive art, never publish rebellious propaganda.

Personal freedom and big government act directly against each other. Give people freedom, and they'll abuse it. Give the government power, and they'll abuse it. You simply cannot have both. The Federation is fits the communist mold quite well. Too well, for my tastes.

---

The basic premise of TNG is that a majority people have advanced beyond traits such as greed, laziness or territoriality. If you put people as we have them today into the TNG setting it would fail in excatly the ways you describe.

On the transportation issue I'd guess that every single civillian using antimatter based drives wouldn't be too great an idea, learning to handle one of those things would probably be a massive hassle as well since you'd have to know how to fly it manually in an emergency, navigate through space and make basic repairs. Think of it as learning to fly your own airplane vs. booking a flight on one owned by someone else, also larger ships tend to be faster, thus it's probably less efficient to use your own little shuttle when you don't have to anyway. Also we see quite a few freighter captains that seem to own their ships during the course of the series.

The property issue is solved by replicators, what would people amass? Jewelry? Replicate it. Computers? Replicate them. Land? Move to some rim colony and have half a planet to yourself.

Religion isn't rooted out, you hear many characters express some sort of religious belief throughout the series, it only seems to have turned into something personal that you keep to yourself, probably due to the massive amount of religions in the Federation that would probably clash in various ways if taken into public. How would you get anything done if at any given time half your crew were off duty due to some religious holiday?

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How.... Drysart.... uughhhhhh:
He was Qui-Gon.

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Lesley Neelson would've been better. Or however you spell his name, I forget.

Legalizing Prostitution? Sure, as long as it's always as Snoota said: weekly STD testing, regulated by the government. I'm not happy with the crackwhore on the corner bit, but the only thing you can do about that is NOTHING. *shrugs* If that's what women feel like doing, go ahead, but there's always a better place, and they don't HAVE to be on the streets.

Gay Marriage: Go Canada. Legal here, I'm all for it.

Alcohol Vs. Pot: Having done both (both seperately and together,) I can say that a) one toke will not get you high, b) Being High is like being drunk, but makes you LESS sick, and c) Alcohol has horrid after effects (i.e. puking, hangovers.) Pot will just make you laugh, and then make you tired.

Of course, everyone reacts differently to a) different amounts, and b) some people get drunk faster than others, some people can get stupid-drunk off of one beer (I've seen it happen ) Pot actually is less dangerous than Alcohol, health wise. (sometimes) becasue you run the risk of damaging your liver, getting alcohol poisoning, and getting constant headaches (hangoveromglol)

Star Trek: I do not watch the trek.

anyways, that's jsut me imho.

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Elvish Crack Piper still thinks SARS jokes are topical, as evidenced by:
I find your post to be lacking in facts and inserting baseless speculations in lieu of evidence and posted solely to confuse.

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What the fuck are you talking about? I cited numerous different episodes, whereas YOU didn't cite one! You barely cited common knowledge.

Of the restaurant and vineyard, I will say this: in communist states, people could own houses and businesses which they operated. The state simply makes sure that everything you produce is confiscated, so that you cannot build wealth. And you can't sell it, either, because the state still technically owns it. Picard calls the Enterprise "my ship" even though Starfleet owns it. Similarly, the Picards and Mr. Sisko are allowed to operated their respective places, but they couldn't sell them if they wanted to.

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Julian bashere is a part of the federation military, of course a military judge is approriate.

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His parents, who were civilians, were tried and sentenced by a military judge, not him.

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Pvednes says this, I say that:
On the relatively few times we've seen the surface of the Earth in Star Trek, there have been sort of hovery cars about. I have no idea who owns them, it wasn't particularily explored. In a Technate or a communist state, the Technate or the State owns all transportation, but for different reasons. The Technate is about efficiency foremost, and private transport is not particularily efficient. The communist State on the other hand is all about egalitarianism gone wrong. As for starships, well, do you own a private jet?

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Quark's a mere restaurant owner. He easily afforded a ship capable of travelling from DS9 to Earth. The analogy is incorrect; no one owns a ship because private ownnership of them is illegal.

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We have seen some agriculture, actually. Picard's family owns a vineyard, which his family defends with all their Frenchness. Sisko's dad owns a restaurant on Earth. And we have seen that whatever a scientist discovers goes directly to the public domain, although that scientists' name has been attached in every case shown.

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They still can't make money off it, which, like everything else about the Federation, points to a stifling communist state. Intellectual Property does not exist in the Federation.

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We've seen no evidence at all of anyone being forced to work, except for people who want to, who seem to join the Federation or start a little resturaunt or vineyard to keep their culture alive. A Technate is a "workless society". And once again, with industrial replicators running to keep everyone a high standard of living, who needs to work?

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Rrrright, and everyone's just happy as a pig in shit to work hard for no pay? Like I said, laziness is an inherent human trait. We don't do something unless we want to, or unless we have to. It's far more likely that everyone's simply forced to work than millions of years of genetic hardcoding is somehow abbrograted in the next 400 years.

There are many, many, many products which can't be replicated. Antimatter, for example. Certain parts which are either exceedingly complex or exotic. Starships. Food can only be converted from raw food stock into meals, so you still need to grow the food. Manufacturing is still very much needed.

Moreover, when Nog and Jake Sisko are talking about the Federation, Jake spouts off "We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity" like a zombie! When pressed, he can't even tell Nog what that statement means! He just mutters something about it meaning that he doesn't need money.

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Doctors who become doctors do so to heal the sick, rather than for any huge amount of money, even in our society, heh, just ask my parents if they do it for the money and they'll look at you bug-eyed.

Another aspect according to Marx in the Manifesto that the Federation doesn't do, is the elimination of cultural identity. Picard is a Frenchman, and Chakotay is Cherokee: an endangered culture as it is. If the Federation were trying to stamp out cultural identity how would the Cherokee have survived?

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OK, you've provided one counter-example. You've only got...well, how many different types of jobs exist? Hmmm.

Point on the culture thing. They haven't stamped that out, yet.

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The military does have an extraordinary amount of power in the Federation. This isn't a characteristic of a Technate, and is a characteristic of communist regimes, but Starfleet sure does make for good soap operas in space, no?

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Right, so, your point is that a Technate and a communist state share just about every one of Marx's stated goals of communism, and the Federation exhibits most, but not all of these traits? And the one trait I mentioned(there are actually more) where the two diverge, it comes up communist. Come on. The Federation is communist.

But it's important to note that it wasn't always communist! The TOS-era Federation was a free market (Kirk talked about pay to Spock in one episode, and in ST6 Scotty bought a boat), but it seems at some time between the two, the communist revolution occured.

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Mod says this, I say that:
The basic premise of TNG is that a majority people have advanced beyond traits such as greed, laziness or territoriality. If you put people as we have them today into the TNG setting it would fail in excatly the ways you describe.

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Right, and we're supposed to believe that 12-15 generations is enough time for some of humanity's most basic insticts to simply vanish?

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On the transportation issue I'd guess that every single civillian using antimatter based drives wouldn't be too great an idea, learning to handle one of those things would probably be a massive hassle as well since you'd have to know how to fly it manually in an emergency, navigate through space and make basic repairs. Think of it as learning to fly your own airplane vs. booking a flight on one owned by someone else, also larger ships tend to be faster, thus it's probably less efficient to use your own little shuttle when you don't have to anyway. Also we see quite a few freighter captains that seem to own their ships during the course of the series.

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People learn how to fly planes (like single-engine Cessnas) all the time. Moreover, no wealthy citizen can own a larger starship anyway, becuase wealth-building is illegal in the Federation!

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The property issue is solved by replicators, what would people amass? Jewelry? Replicate it. Computers? Replicate them. Land? Move to some rim colony and have half a planet to yourself.

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There are many, many substances and objects which can't be replicated. Latinum, some sort of precious metal, is one. Antimatter is another. There are plenty of things to covet, and even if there weren't, you could still have electronic currency, akin to a credit card. Earned wages would be credited to an account which you could then debit and spend. However, we don't see that once.

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Religion isn't rooted out, you hear many characters express some sort of religious belief throughout the series, it only seems to have turned into something personal that you keep to yourself, probably due to the massive amount of religions in the Federation that would probably clash in various ways if taken into public. How would you get anything done if at any given time half your crew were off duty due to some religious holiday?

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Except those people are almost never human, and when they are, it's some wacky new-age thing like Chakotay and his dream quests. Oh, and every alien world has exactly one kooky home-grown religion. I guess aliens aren't as creative as us humans.

Nietzche wins; in the TNG-era Federation, God is dead. The Federation doesn't dictate policy from religious beliefs anymore.

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Karnaj stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
Let's take a look at the Communist Manifesto, specifically the criteria for establishing a communist state.

Abolition of property rights - fully implemented in the Federation. Picard and Troi always boast that no one wants or needs to accumulate wealth,

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Moreover, when was the last time you heared someone talking about buying or selling something within the TNG-era Federation?

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State seizure of transportation - fully implemented. In every shot of Earth, we see little to no traffic. Why is that?

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Where are all the personal spacecraft? Every Federation ship is state-owned. You might to tempted to argue that personal spacecraft are prohibitively expensive, but Quark owned to personal shuttle capable of going from DS9 to Earth.

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for most people they are unessecry you get free transportaton to most places via transporters or fed ships. anyone who wanted a personal craft could have one but how many people know how to maintain one? lets not forget in the series you saw a very small veiw of the entire fed system they cant show everythig due to time limits on the program and the expense.

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State seizure of communication - fully implemented. The entire subspace relay network is owned by the Federation. Not once do we hear of a competing network in the private sector.

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again whose gonna maintaine it? people dont volonteer their time to do such things, and once or twice I heard mention of a reporter. as to your DS9 example rember it was in the furthers region of fed space until the Bajorans asked the feds to take over the station and the discovery of the wormhole no one ever went there.

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State seizure of industry - well on its way to fully implemented. We've never seen agriculture,

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what about the picard winery in france? its agriculte they make wine. also its mention after picard is recovered from the borg that he is offered the chance to raise a section of the ocean floor for agriculture reasons and its a private sector concern thats doing it, as they mention he would have to leave starfleet
[/QUOTE]

Somthor fucked around with this message on 04-04-2004 at 12:07 PM.

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Ares painfully thought these words up:
Me bitching about my nazi art school?

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Godwin sez:
THIS THREAD IS OEVAR!

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Right, and we're supposed to believe that 12-15 generations is enough time for some of humanity's most basic insticts to simply vanish?

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It's not realistic at all, but it's the premise the show operates under, thus allowing the Federation to exist in the way it does without being an opressive entity. If you're trying to argue that what we see of the Federation wouldn't work if we threw the current population of earth into a world with replicators and starships, you're right, it wouldn't, or if it would it would have to be the most hellish oppressotopia imaginable. As a picture of what a near-future space-faring human society might realistically look like I think B5 works out fairly well.

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People learn how to fly planes (like single-engine Cessnas) all the time. Moreover, no wealthy citizen can own a larger starship anyway, becuase wealth-building is illegal in the Federation!

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Interstellar transport seems to be something that is readily available to everyone, thus there is no need for people to own their own ships, especially since most people still seem to remain on their home planets instead of travelling space constantly.

The damage one could do with a misshandeled anti-matter reactor is much bigger than that one could inflict with a Cessna, you wouldn't want a city wiped out because someone drove their shuttle into the ground, warp technology seems to be rather tricky still since we see that equipment fail on occasion when maintained by hundreds of engineers. It also seems that people do in fact leave the Federation to earn wealth in other societies and even have their own starships, Cassidy Yates for example.

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There are many, many substances and objects which can't be replicated. Latinum, some sort of precious metal, is one. Antimatter is another. There are plenty of things to covet, and even if there weren't, you could still have electronic currency, akin to a credit card. Earned wages would be credited to an account which you could then debit and spend. However, we don't see that once.

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The problem is not the lack of a currency but the lack of a need for one. Again, we operate under the assumption that people have stopped hoarding things solely for the purpose of having them and practically there isn't much need for currency in a place where all practical material goods are available in plenty and anything we would consider intellectual property is in the public domain.

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Except those people are almost never human, and when they are, it's some wacky new-age thing like Chakotay and his dream quests. Oh, and every alien world has exactly one kooky home-grown religion. I guess aliens aren't as creative as us humans.

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I think it's a good guess that traditional organized religions that base themselves on men being the chosen of god, made in his image, the literal interpretation of a book as the word of god etc wouldn't come out with a huge following after contact with thousands of different alien species.

Mod fucked around with this message on 04-04-2004 at 12:35 PM.

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Aw, geez, I have Mod all over myself!
It's not realistic at all, but it's the premise the show operates under, thus allowing the Federation to exist in the way it does without being an opressive entity. If you're trying to argue that what we see of the Federation wouldn't work if we threw the current population of earth into a world with replicators and starships, you're right, it wouldn't, or if it would it would have to be the most hellish oppressotopia imaginable. As a picture of what a near-future space-faring human society might realistically look like I think B5 works out fairly well.

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The point is that the Federation humans are us. 12 generations may make a hell of a lot of difference philosophically and technologically speaking, but the few traits all humans share is inherent laziness, greed, and territoriality. We evolved that way; it's what we are. There are only three ways of abbrogating such tendendencies: compensatory incentive for not being lazy(paid for work), education and conditioning(brainwashing), and threat of punishment(making it illegal not to work). It cannot be 'bred out' of us, because every human has those instincts hardwired. It's one of the few natural things remaining in our society.

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Interstellar transport seems to be something that is readily available to everyone, thus there is no need for people to own their own ships, especially since most people still seem to remain on their home planets instead of travelling space constantly.

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It's readily available, sure, if you want to take the 24th century equivalent of a bus. People don't seem to leave home because it's prohibitively difficult. The state owns all transportation, so freedom of movement can easily be restricted.

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The damage one could do with a misshandeled anti-matter reactor is much bigger than that one could inflict with a Cessna, you wouldn't want a city wiped out because someone drove their shuttle into the ground, warp technology seems to be rather tricky still since we see that equipment fail on occasion when maintained by hundreds of engineers. It also seems that people do in fact leave the Federation to earn wealth in other societies and even have their own starships, Cassidy Yates for example.

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The reason warp cores seem to fail all the time is because we always see Starfleet in dangerous situations. The average Joe going to see his grandma on Rigel VII would not be prone to run into any trouble. But he can't, because property rights have been abolished in the Federation.

Cassidy Yates, if you'll recall, was sent to a re-orientation center after it was discovered she was supplying the Maquis. She is a prime example of the thriving black market which is present in all communist states, and the risk one runs trying to build wealth in them.

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The problem is not the lack of a currency but the lack of a need for one. Again, we operate under the assumption that people have stopped hoarding things solely for the purpose of having them and practically there isn't much need for currency in a place where all practical material goods are available in plenty and anything we would consider intellectual property is in the public domain.

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That's a pretty crappy assumption. It's highly unlikely that through natural means the basest human instincts will vanish in the next 400 years. We are told that in TNG they have; what we are not told is how. So again, we have two options: brainwashing, or making it illegal to build wealth. The latter is much, much more plausible than brainwashing trillions of people.

Moreover, it's a crappy future. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a place where anything I invent is instantly available to anyone who wants it. Why the hell would I want to work? Oh, that's right, it's illegal for me not to work! Oh, those clever commies.

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I think it's a good guess that traditional organized religions that base themselves on men being the chosen of god, made in his image, the literal interpretation of a book as the word of god etc wouldn't come out with a huge following after contact with thousands of different alien species.

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I reiterate: God is dead in TNG. This presents a quandary: since people have always been and will always be terrified of dying, comforting superstitions have always existed to explain what happens in the hereafter. Why then, is it such a rarity for humans to be religious? Could it be, dare I say...illegal to openly claim a belief in God? We must recall that the counter-example, Chakotay, was part of the Maquis, and that Voyager was 70,000 light years from home. It's doubtful that Janeway would've bothered to throw him in the brig for talking about his spirit animal.

In communist states, underground churches thrive. The same might well be true in the Federation, although we never see one. Religion might be equated to moving one's bowels: something to be done in private, and never to be discussed with anyone else.

Quark is -not- a simple restaurant owner.

He's a Ferengi. By definition, Feregni are money-grubbing. With the many many deals he went through in DSV, he could -quite-easily have won a ship - ships are nothing compared to bars of pressed latinum.

His reasturant is also a gamblng parlor - which supports the fact that -other- individuals have money, as well.

Also, almost EVERY TIME they zoom somewhere like San Fransisco, there are small ships the size of shuttles scooting around. Now, everyone doesn't own a ship the size of the enterprise - why? It would be cost prhibitive to build your own - there are people who have, however - not every ship they go on and mention in deep space is military. If you look at it as it would take you -months- to 'drive' around the world (taking sleeping into account) Wouldn't you just book passage on a jet?

Yes, it seems that everyone has little putter around shuttles - but in the same way you don't have a private jet, not everyone has a starship that is fast enough to make interstellar travel worth it - which brings up the money issue. If there was no wealth or money, then -EVERYONE- would have a starship. Which they don't. Which means there must be some form of currency, and way to save money.

Thirdly, you say all starships are miltitaristic. I call foul.

The show revolves around Starfleet - the military aspect. They would have no reason to show you the commercial side of things. However: you say how you hear all these poeple saying they have 'booked passage to Rigel VII' - where do you suppose they've booked passage? Military ships certainly wouldn't have the time - and I'm sure people like Quark would gladly take someone with them if they would pay a latinum bar or two.

People get so damn uptight about stuff.

(oopsies..I spell gud, uhuh. PS - Drys, lurve the new edit text )

Caela fucked around with this message on 04-04-2004 at 02:22 PM.

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The point is that the Federation humans are us. 12 generations may make a hell of a lot of difference philosophically and technologically speaking, but the few traits all humans share is inherent laziness, greed, and territoriality. We evolved that way; it's what we are. There are only three ways of abbrogating such tendendencies: compensatory incentive for not being lazy(paid for work), education and conditioning(brainwashing), and threat of punishment(making it illegal not to work). It cannot be 'bred out' of us, because every human has those instincts hardwired. It's one of the few natural things remaining in our society.

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Yes, and the show was made with the assumption that those had in fact changed, you are right getting rid of those traits will be difficult and perhaps impossible, the same holds true for FTL travel, yet Star Trek works under the assumption that FTL travel is possible in a rather comfortable way. Without those assumptions it breaks down as a show about Wizards would break down without the assumption that magic exists.

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It's readily available, sure, if you want to take the 24th century equivalent of a bus. People don't seem to leave home because it's prohibitively difficult. The state owns all transportation, so freedom of movement can easily be restricted.

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Yes, if the government wanted to I imagine they could lock down transportation pretty easily, then again since they would be the only military force in the region they could do that anyway, even with private ownership of transports. It also never seemed too difficult to get somewhere in Star Trek to me, characters would mention gettin a flight on some transport as something trivial.

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The reason warp cores seem to fail all the time is because we always see Starfleet in dangerous situations. The average Joe going to see his grandma on Rigel VII would not be prone to run into any trouble. But he can't, because property rights have been abolished in the Federation.

Cassidy Yates, if you'll recall, was sent to a re-orientation center after it was discovered she was supplying the Maquis. She is a prime example of the thriving black market which is present in all communist states, and the risk one runs trying to build wealth in them.

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I know about the whole Maquis thing, I just took her as an example of someone who owned her own starship. Also arming a group of insurgents wouldn't be taken kindly to by any government, many would have someone doing that put to death for treason.

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That's a pretty crappy assumption. It's highly unlikely that through natural means the basest human instincts will vanish in the next 400 years. We are told that in TNG they have; what we are not told is how. So again, we have two options: brainwashing, or making it illegal to build wealth. The latter is much, much more plausible than brainwashing trillions of people.

Moreover, it's a crappy future. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a place where anything I invent is instantly available to anyone who wants it. Why the hell would I want to work? Oh, that's right, it's illegal for me not to work! Oh, those clever commies.

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That's things we never see discussed on the actual show, but citizens of the federation don't usually appear somehow massively oppressed, military presence on the streets in the DS9 two-parter where that one admiral tried to stage a coup was regarded as something unusual, if they were trying to keep an entire population oppressed against it's will one would think it would be something the people would be used to by now.

Perhaps some great enlightenment happened along the way that caused people to massively reduce the percieved value of property? Maybe human behavior is vastly different when faced with a state in which material goods are of no concern, who knows? It's not like we had a massive amount of people who never had to care about food, shelter, clothing etc to study.

As for it being a crappy future, depends on your point of view I guess, I'd personally like to have the ability to do what I'd enjoy doing instead of doing what I think will have the least chance of leaving me unemployed, even if it meant that doing so would not confer me any extra benefits beyond what I'd have anyway.

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I reiterate: God is dead in TNG. This presents a quandary: since people have always been and will always be terrified of dying, comforting superstitions have always existed to explain what happens in the hereafter. Why then, is it such a rarity for humans to be religious? Could it be, dare I say...illegal to openly claim a belief in God? We must recall that the counter-example, Chakotay, was part of the Maquis, and that Voyager was 70,000 light years from home. It's doubtful that Janeway would've bothered to throw him in the brig for talking about his spirit animal.

In communist states, underground churches thrive. The same might well be true in the Federation, although we never see one. Religion might be equated to moving one's bowels: something to be done in private, and never to be discussed with anyone else.

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TNG-202, Picard explaining to some alien entitiy about human beliefs concerning death:

"Some see it as a changing into an indestructable form, forever unchanging, they believe that the purpose of the entire universe is to then maintain that form in an earthlike garden which will give delights and pleasure for all eternety. On the other hand there are those that hold to the idea of our blinking into nothingness, that all of our experiences and hopes and dremes were merely a dellusion."

So at least some people still believe in some form of afterlife, even though a god is not mentioned.

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Gikk probably says this to all the girls:
Several of the points you press are wrong.

Military ships certainly wouldn't have the time - and I'm sure people like Quark would gladly take someone with them if they would pay a latinum bar or two.

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If they are basing it off of current day military... I beg to differ.

The aircraft I service take passengers plenty of times, as long as the passenger is going where the plane is going. In other words, if the plane is going to England, and I want to go to England, I could hop the bird.

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Azakias had this to say about Tron:
If they are basing it off of current day military... I beg to differ.

The aircraft I service take passengers plenty of times, as long as the passenger is going where the plane is going. In other words, if the plane is going to England, and I want to go to England, I could hop the bird.

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DO they take civvies?

And I was meaning regular routes - I wouldn't think there would be enough geenral room to get all of the popele who want to go from, say, Earth to say.. Vulcan that there would have to be a regular transport ship - not just a few people hitching a ride on a military vehical.

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Gikk wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
DO they take civvies?

And I was meaning regular routes - I wouldn't think there would be enough geenral room to get all of the popele who want to go from, say, Earth to say.. Vulcan that there would have to be a regular transport ship - not just a few people hitching a ride on a military vehical.

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I Really wouldn't put Starfleet in the same aspect as our miltary, rember they not on have the starfleet personal onboard, but their familys. So it is quit possible that the starfleet ships are used as passenger ships. Plus from what I have seen, you don't need a large ship, those little runabouts seen in DS9 were intersteller.

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Gikk got served! Gikk got served!
Several of the points you press are wrong.

Quark is -not- a simple restaurant owner.

He's a Ferengi. By definition, Feregni are money-grubbing. With the many many deals he went through in DSV, he could -quite-easily have won a ship - ships are nothing compared to bars of pressed latinum.

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He's an entrepeneur, that's all. Ferengi are not part of the Federation, and decidedly not communist.

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His reasturant is also a gamblng parlor - which supports the fact that -other- individuals have money, as well.

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Other individuals outside the Federation, sure. Even when Starfleet officers gamble, they use latinum, rather than Federation credits. Money exists in communist regimes; it is a means of quantifying work and has poor liquidity. Do you ever remember anyone trying to buy anything with rubels(rubles?) outside the Soviet Union?

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Also, almost EVERY TIME they zoom somewhere like San Fransisco, there are small ships the size of shuttles scooting around. Now, everyone doesn't own a ship the size of the enterprise - why? It would be cost prhibitive to build your own - there are people who have, however - not every ship they go on and mention in deep space is military. If you look at it as it would take you -months- to 'drive' around the world (taking sleeping into account) Wouldn't you just book passage on a jet?

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Sure, but if I had to scoot over to Mars or Jupiter to go to work, I'd rather take my personal shuttle than have to bother with getting on a transport that's heading out that way. But we never see such traffic; in fact, the shuttles we do see buzzing around are all Federation-designed. This implies no private manuafacturers of vehicles, which implies state ownership of industry.

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Yes, it seems that everyone has little putter around shuttles - but in the same way you don't have a private jet, not everyone has a starship that is fast enough to make interstellar travel worth it - which brings up the money issue. If there was no wealth or money, then -EVERYONE- would have a starship. Which they don't. Which means there must be some form of currency, and way to save money.

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No, the shuttles we see are all Federation shuttles, and obviously state-owned. That civilians might be able to operate them (a Starfleet operator is more probable) does not imply ownership. Moreover, I challenge you to count the instances of Federation citizens saying "I've booked passage on a ship to xxxxx" rather than "I'm taking my personal ship to xxxxx". Quark's ship proves that there exists interstellar craft affordable and manageable by single individuals, so why don't we see similar models in operation by Federation citizens, if it's possible to build wealth? Because wealth-building is impossible, and in all likelyhood, illegal.

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Thirdly, you say all starships are miltitaristic. I call foul.

The show revolves around Starfleet - the military aspect. They would have no reason to show you the commercial side of things. However: you say how you hear all these poeple saying they have 'booked passage to Rigel VII' - where do you suppose they've booked passage? Military ships certainly wouldn't have the time - and I'm sure people like Quark would gladly take someone with them if they would pay a latinum bar or two.

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Just because transport and freighter ships are operated by Federation civilians does not meant they are privately owned. In fact, in light of the overwhelming evidence to support the thesis that the Federation is communist (including Gene Roddenberry's own Marxist political leanings), it seems rather silly to argue for the existence of free market within the TNG-era Federation. Well, the whole argument is silly. But yes.

Karnaj fucked around with this message on 04-04-2004 at 03:26 PM.

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Led got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
Yes indeedy. Atomic wedgies for all!

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We need lockers Led, for the shoving in of, and locking in of, until the day ends.

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So quoth Faelynn LeAndris:
Nerds.

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No, to be bickeing about star trek makes you Super Nerds, Nerds so geeky that other nerds avoid you

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Verily, Azizza doth proclaim:

Gay sex while not natural does not harm individuals.

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Sure it's natural. It's a hole. I mean I'm sure blowjobs could sufice.. but from what I'm told, the pressure on the prostrate feels really good for guys...

Ich) Anyone who says pot is better than alcohol is a dirty swine. Pot has not been around for quite as long as alcohol, so older is better, see?

Ni) Gay sex is weird.

San) I hate Star Trek.

Kanpai) I have consulted the spirits, and their infinite wisdom tells me that Drysart is a fag. ROAFkFFLFLFLSFGLFLFLFLF JUDGE SMILEY ARRGGHGHGSHGSH

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This insanity brought to you by Mr. Parcelan:
Ok ok ok ok since everyone ruined my conversation

Ich) Anyone who says pot is better than alcohol is a dirty swine. Pot has not been around for quite as long as alcohol, so older is better, see?

Ni) Gay sex is weird.

San) I hate Star Trek.

Kanpai) I have consulted the spirits, and their infinite wisdom tells me that Drysart is a fag.

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Ichi) o rly

Ni) If you think about it, Leviticus 18:22 is only insisting that you don't have it with a man in the same way that you have it with a woman.

San) But you're the captain.

Kanpai) Were they British spirits?