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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fireinthedust" data-source="post: 5596135" data-attributes="member: 51930">...you haven't seen the show "the Colony", have you?  There are tons of people who would love to do just that.  Granted, there's a minimum of stuff you'd want to have with you to get the job done, no inventing the wheel out of stone.  Still, pioneering on Mars?  Ignoring radiation issues or diseases from terra-forming, that would be an adventure in itself.  "fireinthedustingrad" and "fireinthedust-ington DC" have a lovely ring to them.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> I am assuming a star trek-style world.  Picard discusses in the early series with those 20th century frozen people how we gave up on running the world via money.   Granted, that's Earth.  I have yet to come across a discussion of how they made all that stuff work, and cover the human need for power.  Not all races have transporters, or can use them.   I was thinking of Services as the foundation of a new economy, with expertise being a power source.  The issue with this is that, aside from refusing service, or keeping trade secrets a la stonemasons, in a Replicator economy there is the same issue of creating need. I'm arguing that with human nature comes a willingness to subsist at some minimum level.  Without expending wasted effort, what is the most I *have* to do to get, not my objective, but just enough that I'm willing to settle for it.  Some people will want new experiences, or to flee from boredom.  They'll want unique services and experiences.  The rest of us will be fine living day to day on what we've decided to settle for: replicated hamburgers and chocolate... or high-protein no-fat Ice cream! The issue with a Service economy is this, as I see it:  what do you pay experts with?  They have replicators.  what could they possibly need, other than sex and secrets, that they can't replicate?  Other services? Instrumental value vanishes.  Every action is now motivated purely by the intrinsic value of the action itself:  I write a book because I want to write it.  I achieve things because they are worth achieving.  I have kids because I want kids, and there's no reason not to when I can provide for them however they need me to. Yes, I suppose the cost of the technology is an issue.  If it's free, as it seems to be in Star Trek, that's fine.  Keep in mind there's an episode (forgot the title) in STNG where they find a destroyed planet with a small patch of green on its surface and two humans living there in their house.  Picard gives them a replicator unit; I don't remember if it had a plug cord or not.  If we're going Trek, and that gift is reasonable, then the replicator can be assumed to be powered in a way that it could be run potentially forever by two old people on a planet with no other resources than their house.</blockquote>

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