Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
"Is Starfleet a meritocracy, not in the sense that people's positions and priveleges are assigned by their IQs, but by their accomplishments and efforts?"
This is one slippery slope (slope? a fucking precipice) I'm reeeally hesitant to go down, but... uh... Reginald Barclay v1.0, for all his social ineptitude, could arguably accomplish more with less effort than Julian Bashir v1.0 could have...
Registered: Nov 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Cartmaniac: This is one slippery slope (slope? a fucking precipice)...
Hey! Is that an asian/affirmative-action/meritocracy slam? No, but, like, where I'd hoped these questions might foster spurious and heated (and occasionally dorky) debate over the definition of meritocracy and the qualities and properties which might constitute the delicate balance of an egalitarian (but still free) society, instead the crickets have become deafening.
Big thanks unto you, Simon as I found both links to be very illuminating/thought-provoking. I may wind up reading that Disneyworld book. Banks is very much into himself (with some refreshing acknowledgements of his artifice), but it's still the Culture is a cool idea. People who read are cool.
As to Cartmaniac's comment, I'm not sure I understand your point. My intellect has not been genetically enhanced and 30 years of American TV have done nothing to help this fact. Are you saying that Barclay's remarkable (if inconsistent) engineering capacity earned him the stellar dream-lofted apartment in SF, where Julian's still-impressive (if GMO) medical prowess only earned him the dark and dirty hovel he occupied on a backward out-of-the-way Deep Space Outpost and what does this say about Federation accomplishment/effort valuation?
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
"Maneki Neko," a story by Bruce Sterling, may also be of some interest.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
bX: what I was surreptitiously getting at was, and this is a very PIC thing to say hence my scenic approach to the issue, that IQ and accomplishments go hand in hand more often than not. Bashir's GE spurred his abilities in, well, EVERYTHING, whereas Barclay's were always there but obscured by his diffidence... every meritocracy would inevitably be biased towards, uh, Bay Area residents.
[ June 28, 2003, 04:58 AM: Message edited by: Cartmaniac ]
Registered: Nov 1999
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Well I wouldn't imagine Starfleet would be using anything so crude as IQ as a basis for merit. It might be some ratio of capacity and accomplishment. So that if I've got an IQ of 85 (purely for sake of argument, say) but I've got an uncanny capacity for high-warp field dynamics and so Starfleet's got me working on hyper-optimal nacelle geometry and sets me up in a cushy penthouse apartment in the Marina and keeps me in edible crayons and bunnies (such soft, fluffy bunnies) or whatever else it is that keeps me happy/working. And meanwhile Julian's lesser known (well unknown, really) brother Michael "call me Mike" Bashir (who has also been upgraded) has focused on researching how to make various funghi respond (via coloration or fluorescence) to the moods of those around them. He gets a modest place with a porch in a small town whose name sounds disturbingly like some horrible glandular disease.
And then there's Deke Luc Picard (who stumbled through one of those countless portals that seem to appear from the alternate timeline where Crusher-on-Picard had finally been allowed to run it's course.) And Deke with his mastery over his father's "Inner Light" flute hires an ultra-hip string quartet and an old blind guy named "Cranberry" who can play the harmonica and hoots a lot and together they are all big and cool and play all the big halls and have put out five or so fairly decent albums that nearly everyone enjoys and continues to be downloaded more often than any band Simon has ever truly adored. Where does Deke get to live? What happens when Deke puts out that inevitable 'experimental' album and no one downloads it and rather than chalking it up, he instead he snubs his band-mates, goes all Sting and starts bragging about how eastern mysticism has improved his sex-life and what is worse makes seven more successively more self-indulgent albums which even the hard-core fans are kind of embarassed about having in their PADDs? Does he lose his choice three-story mansion in Old-town New New Orleans?
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
Registered: Sep 2000
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
There can't be a fair system of assigning those beach condos, man. A talent/achievement ratio? Maybe, but what happens when you don't deliver? Do you then have to haul your luxury-bathing ass down to a murky old place in Chinatown or face forceful relocation by SF's Uber-Egalitarian Housing Corporation? It's all skewed.
posted
Since the Federation is supposed to be a utopia, (Or at least utopic. Is that even a word? Utopia-like. Utopia-esque. A really nice place to live, let's say.) however it distributes wealth can be assumed to be at least as fair as your average western post-industrial nation, and surely many times more fair than that. I mean, assuming we take the show at its word.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
So then no one lives in Yakima or Livermore or Tempe or Mogadishu or wherever unless they want to or it's convenient for work or whatever (although without raising the spectre of transporter rations, convenient and commute have ENTIRELY different meanings) And so everything is good and happy and let's say your production is down, they're not going to take away your house and make you move to Mississippi. I mean maybe if you steadfastly refuse to do a single thing, like not just temporarily slacking off, but actively fucking off. But a dip in the inspiration or motivation or whatever just means you don't get that Risan holiday or the massage therapist visits or holodeck sessions or whatever barter you might be wanting.
It's difficult. Trying to think of how this might work without money or credits or whatever. I'm just trying to puzzle it out. It's obviously not all apartment switching. It's a question of motivation. At some point there needs to be day-to-day incentives to become better and more productive members of the society (and possibly punishments for non-contributors.) Otherwise what's to keep people from just fucking-off and replicating fudge sundays, and getting off with holo-pron all day? I mean aside from an over-arching desire for achievement and advancement ingrained in every child's mind since birth and the profound disapproval of your peers.
Could it be as simple as that? Who gets to decide where you live? A housing authority? What keeps them from asigning themselves and their family all the really nice mansions while everyone else gets the crap places? Who gets to decide what clothes you'll have? Which shuttlecraft you'll own? Which movies get made, and which ones don't? Which houses to build? What technology? Restaurants? Concerts? How do they quantify demand? How do they determine what to supply (and to whom)? What makes me get out of bed every morning, even when it's going to be really fucking hot and even though my very hot mate (non-gender specific) has just purchased new and sexy underthings? What makes me get up and go to work, to serve, to bring food to the tables at the restaurant, or to program the robots that wash the windows at the Academy or to fix the transporter? Why would I go do that?
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
Registered: Sep 2000
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
There HAS to be some for of "fee for services" concept,. Perhaps it works like my SSI & state benefits: there's a fixed amount of X allotted to each person based upon their situation. X amount of transported credits, X amount of energy credits, X amount of food credits. These can be spent but once it's gone, it's gone until the next month. Maybe it's a big pot so if you don't eat a lot but need to beam a lot of places, you can skew things that way.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
I get the feeling that this conversation has taken a wrong turn somewhere, but I can't put my finger on where. Anyway.
Some basic facts, as I see them.
1.) Human beings are value-seeking and -laden entities. This is just a complicated way of saying they want things and they want them for reasons, I guess. These values are by and large assigned internally, having been, it seems, internalized via the evolutionary process. Survival is a Good Thing, how do I maximize it? And so on.
2.) Any particular area can only have so much in the way of resources, or, uh, items "pregnant" with value. This is why we find some things more valuable than others.
Neither of these things are likely to change. But within them, values are changing all the time. As the ways in which we interact with value evolves, so do our concepts of value itself.
Money is just one method of tracking the value people assign to things. Its ubiquity is a sign of its usefulness and accuracy. But that's tied to our current social, technological, and economic environment. As our values change, and the way we interact and modify goods changes, we could very well wind up with some "score keeping" system that would seem as weird and convoluted to us today as a trip to First National would to the first people to move into Ur.
My suspicion is that we'll never consider ourselves to have moved "beyond money," because money is just a good word to use for our value-measuring whatsits. But just what that measuring consists of can surely change wildly.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, thought it was time to re-resurrect this thread once again.
Today while at Barnes & Noble I saw the "Star Trek TNG: The Continuing Mission" and was looking at some of the Okudagrams, and granted they walk the line more than they draw it, but I did notice one thing as far as forms of currency used within the Federation, the example being from "The Price" and part of their offer to the Barzans for use of their wormhole.
And I quote:
quote: Key Provisions: Lump sum payment of 1,500,000 Federation credits to be made upon conclusion of agrement, 100,000 credits per Barzanian year thereafter.
So back to the 'credits' theory again...
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Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
In addition to my last post, I found, from "A Piece of the Action" (TOS):
quote: KIRK: I don't want any trouble from the rest of you ... because you'll have to answer to the Federation. We'll be back every year to collect our cut. You figure maybe 40% is enough?
OXMYX: Yeah, I think 40% is sufficient.
--------------------------------------------
SPOCK: But I do have reservations about your solution to the problem of the Iotians.
KIRK: Ah, yes. I understand that. You don't think it's logical to leave a criminal organization in charge?
SPOCK: Highly irregular, to say the least, Captain. I'm also curious as to how you propose to explain to Starfleet Command that a starship will be sent each year to collect our "cut"?
KIRK: A very good question, Mr. Spock. I propose our cut be put into the planetary treasury and used to guide the Iotians into a more ethical system. Despite themselves, they'll be forced to accept conventional responsibilities.
So now, apparently, StarFleet/UFP/Earth has a "planetary treasury"...
-------------------- Hey, it only took 13 years for me to figure out my password...
Registered: Jan 2003
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
No, you fool, he meant the IOTIAN treasury. It's obviously a money-based system, therefore...
Seriously. The leaps & rationalizations are here are verging on Kryptonian in nature & power.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
I'm just listing all financial references from Trek...thats what this whole thread is moreless about. Like how SF has 120,200+ credits invested in Spock....
-------------------- Hey, it only took 13 years for me to figure out my password...
Registered: Jan 2003
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