You will be absolutely uninterested in conspicuous consumption. Imagine yourself growing up in a society where there is never any want or need or financial insecurity of any sort. “They are consistent with the economic circumstances in which they live. In The Next Generation you have these incredible machines that will make anything for you on the spot and on demand-the replicators-and in a way the replicator is a metaphor for universal automation the way it is described in Asimov’s robot stories.” And that is something you see throughout Star Trek, much more so in The Next Generation than in the original series. The robots will liberate us, and so Asimov is trying to figure out a world where human labor is no longer necessary for survival. “In 1941 he publishes his first story about robots and his great idea and insight is that the robots are not going to be our enemies or our doom as a society, the way robots were usually portrayed, as Frankensteins. And check out some highlights from the discussion below. Listen to our complete interview with Manu Saadia in Episode 205 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). “This is something that has to be dealt with on a political level, and we have to face that.” “This is not something that will be solved by more gizmos or more iPhones,” Saadia says. If we’re not careful we could end up like the greedy Ferengi, who charge money for the use of their replicators rather than making them available to everyone. “If we decide as a society to make more of these crucial things available to all as public goods, we’re probably going to be well on our way to improving the condition of everybody on Earth,” he says.īut he also warns that technology alone won’t create a post-scarcity future. He points to technologies like GPS and the internet as models for how we can set ourselves on the path to a Star Trek future. “What is not abundant in Star Trek’s universe is the captain’s chair.” “What really makes sense in the Star Trek universe and Star Trek society is to compete for reputation,” he says. In such a world the only way to gain status would be by cultivating talent and intellect.
Saadia is fascinated by the idea of a society in which material wealth has become so abundant that possessing it no longer holds any appeal. “You have Captain Picard saying, ‘We’ve overcome hunger and greed, and we’re no longer interested in the accumulation of things.'” “It’s made clear and emphasized several times in the course of the show that the Federation does not have money,” Saadia says in Episode 205 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.
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