Posted by
David Van Edema on Friday, May 29, 2009 6:39:34 AM
At a recent Star Trek convention held in NYC last week, hard core fans of the series, or "Trekkies", wistfully told reporters of how they wished that their lives were more like that of the popular series.
One fan, Rebecca Brandt, commented that "We are at a very dark time right now. We have to get to the Star Trek point. We're not there yet. We need replicators (futuristic machines that could "recycle" almost anything into something else, usually food). We need to solve world hunger and solve disease".
Another fan, 42 year old Wayne Palesado, lamented of how he wished that there was no need for an economy.
"In this future where there is no economics, there is only striving to be what you want to be. When there is no money, how far you want to go in life is up to you."
Ok, time to wake up now.
Yes, times are tough today. They aren't as tough as they were back in the Great Depression, or even in the more recent Carter years, despite what the media or Democrats would have you believe, but we're definitely not at our peak. However, wishing to live in an alternate reality is not going to help us out of this.
I'm betting that most of those Trekkies were
Obama voters. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if
Obama himself was a Star Trek fan. After all, much of the Star Trek universe is similar to his idea of a perfect society.
In the Star Trek universe, there is neither wealth, nor poverty (there is no currency, after all. Everything is obtained through some form of bartering). No one is "better" than anyone else, and we're all on equal footing. Our entire planet is "united" under one government, one leader. As a result, no countries are at war with each other. No one wants more than they absolutely need. They have clean, non-polluting energy sources, such as "dilithium crystals", which powers much of their equipment, most notably starships. Fossil fuels are a thing of the past.
The perfect, utopian socialist paradise.
I'd like to ask Mr. Palesado just how much drive would he really have to "go as far as he'd want to" if there was no economic incentive to do so? What exactly
would be his incentive? If no one is allowed to be better than anyone else, than what would the point be to push himself to his limit?
Here's something that I've never seen in the Star Trek series... what happens if someone decides to excel at his talents, and wants something in return for it? What if he offers something no one else has? What if he becomes better at something than anyone else? Is he rewarded for his talents, or is he punished for daring to be "better" at something? Is he held back in some manner so as to not ruin the "equal footing" of his fellow citizens?
Don't misunderstand. I don't hate the Star Trek series. I'm no Trekkie, but I've followed the series from watching the old reruns of the 1960's as a kid, to the latest movie release a couple of weeks ago (it's actually very good, and I highly recommend you see it yourself). However, there's a difference between watching a fictional series out of entertainment, even if it does get overly preachy... and modeling your ideals after one. Just because it works in a fictional setting, doesn't mean that it will apply in real world situations.
In the Star Trek series, they've already supposedly conquered all of our current problems. The interesting thing is that the series never really explains
how they conquered them. It's just assumed that they already have.
Maybe we should work on how we're actually going to do that in the real world, rather than just modeling our future on the assumption that we will.
Resources:
Can We Live Long and Prosper? Trekkers Hope So. Samantha Gross, AP 5/21/09