The Orville Season Two - Thoughts?

Jester David · Feb 20, 2019

Umbran said:
That doesn't mean anything, since we don't actually know what warping space entails. Maybe the outright power output needed to warp space is small, and the trick is what you do with that power.

In Trek we know, since they had entire books devoted to the in-world science. I can pull out my Next Generation Technical Manual and tell you the exact power output of the Enterprise-D's Warp Reactor.

Orville… less so. But the show seems much more interested in the characters than delving that deep into the pseudo-physics rabbit hole.
But it stands to reason "infinite power" is likely a key element of building to a post-scarcity economy.

Umbran said:
How many of the "crap jobs" are in doing things to manually produce the stuff that is now free? You have machines to do heavy labor. Computers to do boring record keeping. Why would you keep going to some crap job when there is no need for humans (or any sentient being) to do crap jobs?

There are entire industries that largely exist because the government subsidizes them to avoid people losing their jobs.
The US overproduces ridiculous amounts of milk and wastes gallons and then packs it inefficiently letting the majority spoil before it can be consumed just to keep the dairy farmers working,

Umbran said:
Which is to say, yes, there's not a whole lot of need for "wealth" in the current way we think of it. Most humans can spend their time in intellectual and artistic pursuits (like Sisko's father, who has a restaurant - he's a food artist). And, there's a big question as to whether you'd need anyone to *pay* for those intellectual and artistic products, because... well, the artist doesn't *need* anything.

Money is a concept based in scarcity. In a post-scarcity world, there's not a lot of call for it.

Right.
Theoretically, the restaurant owner just works because they love cooking. And people show up and order whatever they want and it's free.
People do what makes them happy. And while some people probably waste a few years doing nothing, that gets old and they move on to challenging themselves or finding their passion.

Nutation said:
Some things will always be scarce - prime real estate, original art, honorific titles.

True. But in a Star Trek universe where you can "beam" across the globe to work, prime real estate matters less. You can live in San Diego, pop over to Paris for breakfast before work in London, then zip off for lunch in Moscow.
Less so in the Orville show. But with simple shuttles able of travelling interstellar and breaking atmo, commuting between cities shouldn't be as bad.

Nutation said:
Even now, I can get free water, paper, flu shots, and various other goods that have a marginal cost to the provider of nearly zero. But, money is now and probably will be the most efficient way to distribute scarcities, assuming that individual differences in preference are to be respected.
On a small scale, barter or trading favors works. Across the whole Union, not really.

Kinda.
The catch being, you need the "currency" for big transactions. But those are irregular. The small, daily stuff is free. You don't need it for daily life, and so there's no reason to amass currency. And once you have the big things (a house, a title, a decent amount of art) what else do you need?
The value of currency over bartering is that it's easier for regular mundane transactions. The kind that are now free. So you can handle those rare occasional transactions with a barter.
Without regular use of currency, it cease to have value or importance. It becomes devalued.

But this is putting a lot more thought into the economics of a fantasy world, for a show unconcerned with economics and focused on life in a spaceship and not said fantasy world.

Umbran · Feb 20, 2019

Jester David said:
In Trek we know, since they had entire books devoted to the in-world science. I can pull out my Next Generation Technical Manual and tell you the exact power output of the Enterprise-D's Warp Reactor.

Yeah, I have a copy of that, and could look it up if I wanted. That book was written by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda - who are great guys, excellent with artistic design, but not physicists or engineers. That number is nice for the book, but I do not believe it was considered for its overall ramifications and implications to the society and economics at large. I wouldn't hold them to that, if I were you. It isn't fair to them.

Or, if you want, I can go look it up, and run some numbers on it. What do you figure the chances are that it is either far too large or small to make sense?

The catch being, you need the "currency" for big transactions. But those are irregular. The small, daily stuff is free. You don't need it for daily life, and so there's no reason to amass currency. And once you have the big things (a house, a title, a decent amount of art) what else do you need?
The value of currency over bartering is that it's easier for regular mundane transactions. The kind that are now free. So you can handle those rare occasional transactions with a barter.

More the point - how often, even today, are huge amounts of raw cash value exchanged? How often are large exchanges done in terms of stocks/options/futures, or rights and licenses, or contract terms? Basically, on the large scale, don't we often get back to barter anyway?

Ryujin · Feb 20, 2019

I don't know if it's been mentioned elsewhere but, in the ST:TOS episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", the cost of a tribble was mentioned in "credits" on a Star Fleet station.

Umbran · Feb 20, 2019

Ryujin said:
I don't know if it's been mentioned elsewhere but, in the ST:TOS episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", the cost of a tribble was mentioned in "credits" on a Star Fleet station.

Yes, and on Deep Space 9, the Ferengi were still in pursuit of latinum. Not everyone the Federation deals with has eschewed currency. Cyrano Jones was not exactly a shining example of the Federation's internal economics, y'know.

Ryujin · Feb 20, 2019

Umbran said:
Yes, and on Deep Space 9, the Ferengi were still in pursuit of latinum. Not everyone the Federation deals with has eschewed currency. Cyrano Jones was not exactly a shining example of the Federation's internal economics, y'know.

The price was quoted back, with profit margin, by the bartender on the Federation station

*EDIT* I would posit that the Federation had some sort of basic general income structure, giving all citizens a living and some comforts without the necessity of gainful employment, then topped it up with "credits" for discretionary purchases beyond that based on their duties.

Umbran · Feb 20, 2019

Ryujin said:
The price was quoted back, with profit margin, by the bartender on the Federation station

"Deep Space Station K7" was operating on the edge of the Federation. That bartender was dealing with Jones, Klingons, and goodness knows who else that were not Federation citizens.

Using this as an example of economics in the Federation is kind of like using the Old West shootout at high noon as an example of criminal justice in the US in the 1880s. Not typical.

*EDIT* I would posit that the Federation had some sort of basic general income structure, giving all citizens a living and some comforts without the necessity of gainful employment, then topped it up with "credits" for discretionary purchases beyond that based on their duties.

Alternatively, people on a starship or station at the border are given some accommodations when interacting with other cultures, to make things easier. You check a phaser out of the armory, and you get a few credits from the Quartermaster before going ashore, so to speak.

Deset Gled · Feb 20, 2019

Umbran said:
Alternatively, people on a starship or station at the border are given some accommodations when interacting with other cultures, to make things easier. You check a phaser out of the armory, and you get a few credits from the Quartermaster before going ashore, so to speak.

There's a TNG episode where Worf barters with an alien for information about his father (Birthright). The specifically talk about the "price" of the information. IIRC, they never go into specifics about exactly what the price is, which was probably the writer's way of avoiding the question of how economics work in ST.

The important take away, though, is that Worf clearly had access to a significant amount of some form of currency. And it had to have been more than just walkin' 'round money, because it's enough for the alien to fly Worf into Romulan space and back. There's no way the alien was doing that for the price of a weekend's worth of synthehol.

Dannyalcatraz · Feb 21, 2019

“Price” only implies something of value, not necessarily money. Information springs to mind. In other fiction, personal favors were the medium of exchange favored by the protagonist.

Ryujin · Feb 21, 2019

This thought exercise is pretty interesting. I think that, essentially, he works his way around to something very much like my "basic income" comment. There was a pilot programme operating in Ontario, Canada experimenting with the concept, until a conservative government was elected and canned it, for purely ideological reasons.

https://medium.com/@RickWebb/the-economics-of-star-trek-29bab88d50

Orius · Feb 21, 2019

Deset Gled said:
I generally disliked Riker romance on TNG, but these have been working for me. Hopefully they won't get stale.

Like you said, Riker "romance". Nothing compelling there unless it's named Deanna Troi, and then YMMV (and Riker and Troi were just Decker and Ilia recycled from TMP anyway).

Umbran said:
Yes, and on Deep Space 9, the Ferengi were still in pursuit of latinum. Not everyone the Federation deals with has eschewed currency. Cyrano Jones was not exactly a shining example of the Federation's internal economics, y'know.

Cyrano Jones wasn't exactly a great businessman either. Just look at his tribble scheme: peddle a creature that reproduces at a ridiculously explosive rate as a pet. He thinks that because they breed so fast he can keep lots in stock and profit on volume. But then he gives one away to Uhura as free advertising, apparently not realizing that the supply will very rapidly outpace demand. The Ferengi would run circles around him.