Why Does Modern Trek Make Earth Out To Be A "Paradise"?

There are people who volunteer to do menial work NOW, so those are the people who would CHOOSE to do so. They exist in the world we have now, in a post-economic one we would likely see more as it morphed into a hobby.

A failure to understand a persons motivation is not the same as that motivation not existing.

Neither was I, but I find menial work enjoyable at times. I'd have no issue going back to doing it. Sure, I'd complain, but that's human nature too.

Then they'd stop being hobbies and be a calling. Urgh. That I'd hate.

Hobbies are a counter to other aspects of life, when they have nothing to counter they lose meaning to me, so I'd still want to do something physical.

Yes. I'm looking at retiring at 45, I'll have no need to work if all goes to plan (if!) but I still will do to keep myself busy. Ideally I'd like to start my own charity for the homeless and futurology/social think tank, more realistically I'll probably go work in a charity shop a few days a week.

It means I get to meet people, I get to help people and I'm not getting lost up my own delicately scented rectum.

Obviously a range of things you cannot comprehend.

I have done, you just don't seem capable of comprehending it...

Again, you're dead wrong. People already do volunteer for menial tasks.

You're projecting your own motivations onto others, the world is not 7 billion+ Paladins.

People do things for all kinds of reasons - good ones, bad ones, rational ones, irrational ones.

Enough to know there are people who derive some measure of satisfaction out of them.

And people do... You just seem unable/unwilling to accept that.

Again with the NEED. What about the WANT? Some people enjoy doing menial tasks, now you can keep banging on the Caps Lock all you like but we're going to be going around in circles unless you accept that people can actually derive pleasure and satisfaction from such jobs, and that if people are willing to volunteer for such jobs now then it's not such a stretch to see them doing it in a future where the social set-up is so radically different from now.

Again, have you played Minecraft? You build fences, make carpet (and colour it), spend ages digging for diamond so you can go mine obsidian... Doing the equivalent of pouring virtual concrete isn't much less time consuming than doing the actual physical labour.

Yes. Even when dying he preferred working to staying at home despite not needing to.

I'd like to.

I imagine so, barring wars (in which case you'd expect people to join to defend their way of life) mortality rates are going to be quite low (unless you're the focus of a 20th century TV show, which - let us assume - most Federation vessels are not), you've access to lots of shiny toys, the ability to explore and spend time meeting other races and seeing other worlds.

Mars One has had something like a quarter of a million applicants. For a one way trip to Mars on something a lot less shiny and comfy than a warp drive enabled Apple Store.

So unless you want to tell me every applicant hasn't got a secure livlihood, the modern world has just gone and challenged your viewpoint in reality.

I don't see your point? I was highlighting there are many reasons to do something, a point you pole vaulted over!

Again. There are many, many reasons for doing something. That was my point.

There are plenty of reasons, and Ensign Bob may just have wanted to go see the galaxy.

But what if you liked contributing so much, you didn't mind it taking up 30 hours a week? Imagine that, and you'll start to understand why some people would actively enjoy doing the same being a busboy.

Where human motivations are the subject, reason is not always at home.

No, there is no reason you are willing to comprehend. There is a difference between no objective reason and no subjective reason.

complex apprenticeship rules? where do you get the modifier of "complex" from?

see, I'd figure that even three centuries from now, no recipe book in the 'verse is going to teach you the artisanship that goes into good cooking. one of those wax on/wax off things...

I argue the general, you respond with exceptions. I get that SOME people like menial work.

Leaving aside the potential for amazing 24th Century diversions, let's take a little quiz:

1. Your shelter, food, clothing, other necessities, etc. are provided for. You have no material needs. You have nothing but free time. What will you do?

(a) read a book
(b) visit with friends
(c) go for a walk
(d) watch some television
(e) play a videogame
(f) create some art
(g) learn a new skill
(h) take a class
(i) bus tables at a restaurant

What percentage of people, do you suppose, would select (i)?

I think you think I'm claiming it's zero. I'm not. I'm just claiming that it will be a very, very, very small number compared to the other options. And, unless Sisko's is the only restaurant in North America, I think self-motivated busboys are likely to be in short supply...

Obtain a starship and never be seen again.

I'm sorry, the correct answer is "go mop the bathrooms at Starfleet Headquarters for the sheer enjoyment of it."

Yeah...no.

Picture Lonestar's Winnebago, but with a jeep grill, and you're getting much closer.

So did you change your own diapers or did your family have servants?

That said, the presence of the guy polishing the floor in the hall can be seen as a literary constraint. Fans who lack imagination, or the average non-Trek fan seeing the movie, might be put off by a vision of a completely mechanized future. So the guy with the floor polisher adds a human touch to the scene.

Or, if you want to stay in the frame, the fact that Kirk gives him an odd look as they pass (excluding the likelihood that Shatner is an inveterate ham and can't resist putting a little spin on every scene he's in) might mean he's on report and being punished for some infraction (and Kirk's thinking Did I bust him or was it somebody else?). The equivalent of KP, because they no longer need someone to peel potatoes.

One thing I absolutely wouldn't do would be live on Earth. Seems like all the worst shit aims for Earth, and although somebody always manages to save the planet just as the countdown timer rolls down to 0:01, I don't think I could deal with the stress of that happening every week.

I'd probably relocate to somewhere relatively safe, like (the Prime universe version of) Vulcan, or Bajor. Yeah, Bajor. Nobody tries to blow up Bajor every week, and even their religious whackos are worshipping something that actually exists.

Y'all really do think about this shit too much.

You're forgetting that the folks in Trek have a strong ethos of work and self-improvement. Obviously not everyone is cut out to be a Starfleet engineer, but even the less ambitious and less intelligent can find satisfaction contributing to their community as an end to itself. Your supposing that they're working 40 hours per week is an unnecessary assumption, as is the idea that menial tasks are undesirable or looked down upon in a post-economic society. For all we know, those busboys work one shift per week and spend the rest of their time doing what you described.

I fail to see how I'm seeking exceptions? This shit applies to just about any learning process.

Besides, what do any of those choices have to do with people learning under a master restaurateur like Sisko? People want to learn from him in the setting he has. That means working all the positions, just as he likely did. As before, why presume that it's not a waiter bussing his own table in the course of his duties.

When I was apprenticing as a jeweler, I spent a great amount of time doing boring ass shit like polishing and cleaning in between playing with fire and pretty stones. Along with generic menial shit like cleaning the can and making the tea (not with the same water).

That's how craft artisans work

No one signs up to be the jizz mopper for the holodeck, but someone is probably content fixing the automated systems that actually do clean it up.

You really have no regard for anyone not working in an office, do you?

I didn't say people would never do crappy, menial jobs.

I only said they would not do them unless they needed to or unless they were rewarded in some way for doing them. In the case of changing the dirty diapers of one's child, I would say both conditions apply.

Or to put it another way: would changing diapers on other peoples' kids be something you'd want to spend YOUR spare time doing?

Granted, but if we want to argue about what the Star Trek future implies, we can only go by what is on the screen.

It's all BS, anyway. The Star Trek future is not remotely reasonable or even possible. What we see on screen is what works for the story and has little deeper meaning than that. To argue about its flaws and contradictions is to debate about the validity of the completely contrived.

Humans and their society in the REAL 23rd/24th Century will probably be VERY different from us and ours, in the same way we're different from people in the 17th or 18th Centuries...only more so, because technological change is accelerating. At some point--maybe as soon as 100 or 200 years from now--humans and their technology will merge; what comes next will be very difficult for us to comprehend or to relate to. But that doesn't work for drama, so the Star Trek future looks a lot like our present, just with some high-tech goodies.

I suspect that, by the 23rd Century, we will no longer need anyone to mop floors.

You can basically do that NOW.

You know what Star Trek could really use? Confederates. I'm not trolling or even joking. Star Trek could do a whole "secession" story arc. Shit, you'd have it all -- action, morality plays, the whole bit.

What if the post-scarcity age has resulted in an economy where being a busboy pays extremely well?

Isn't that basically what the Maquis arc tried to be, and Firefly succeeded at?

Sort of going off what garamet said, I always figured that the "credits" mentioned on the show were a sort of cashless payment system that people earned through whatever job they had, be it civilian or otherwise, and that people had to "work" to some extent in order to earn those credits. Because not everyone is capable of being a Starfleet officer, scientist, or whatever (and due to the fact that there are only so many "slots" in those fields) that's where the waiters in the Sisko place, the floor moppers and such end up.

I always just took "credits" as being synonymous with "dollars," "pounds," "euros" or whatever. My life is pretty darn close to cashless as it is; outside of going to special events, I mostly only carry it for the sake of vending machines.

I find this type of discussion interesting because a noted writer (might've been Geoffrey Landis) once said during a group discussion in Science Fiction Age that we "spend way too much time on future politics and not enough on future economics" (referring to the world building by science fiction writers).

That's pretty much what I thought we would get from Voyager. What a lost opportunity.

They played it safe on that score, and they really shouldn't have. Pilot episode the two crews have tension, the next one they're happy-lovey. Wasted opportunity.

If there's no scarcity, then wages are irrelevant.

That was aimed more at ecky than at you.

Eh, maybe, but it seems like you're really reaching. Such a system is unnecessary now, it's hard to imagine it would be necessary in the future. And, even supposing you're right, would that be how every human-operated restaurant in the Alpha Quadrant runs? One wonders how many restaurants there could be if all the busboys are future restaurateurs...

That's part of the job.

Sure, but "craft" and "art" are inextricably linked to producing something--in your case, jewelry. An artist might still produce art for his own appreciation, but it seems difficult to see what a busboy gets out of doing his job.

Maybe, but I'm being asked to believe there would still be jizz moppers.

Where'd that come from? I only said--and believe--that almost all people given the choice would choose NOT to do MENIAL labor. How many lottery winners decide to get jobs as janitors or landscapers just to stay busy?

If most people--NOW, when they're paid for it--would rather not spend their lives doing menial labor, I find it very hard to believe that someone in a future economy would CHOOSE to do those kinds of jobs when they didn't have to.

Look at all the menial jobs in the economy and tell me many of the people doing them still would if they were free of the need to do so. While I understand people can be motivated to do even menial work for many reasons, I don't believe that's true of the vast majority.

Irrelevant on Earth maybe. But what if you are trying to hitch a ride offworld? Gonna need some Gold Pressed Latinum for that.

Or maybe they want to go to a frontier colony and there you have to have a skill or job experience?

Or maybe your family has always been gardeners so you want to keep the tradition alive.

Or maybe for the same reason I loved being a waiter, people in the future will as well, but to be a waiter you have to do your time as busboy.

Or maybe like spaceturkey said, it's the requirement of apprenticeship.

Or a hundred other possible reasons.

You need to step outside yourself for a moment and recognize that just b/c money is the end all be all to you or that manual labor terrifies you, that not everyone feels the same way.

You're asking who would do 21st Century jobs in a 23rd Century economy?

What's the exchange rate between a civilization that is post-scarcity and one that uses precious metals as a store of value?

Like busboy?

Yes, that will probably fill 5 or 6 gardening jobs. What do we do about the other several million?

Contrived.

"Today I'm a busboy, but with some effort, I can work my way up to dishwasher!"

None of which are very plausible.

Oh, for cryin' out loud, quit saying that. It's a mis-characterization of what I said, one that you have repeatedly made.

Clearly. There are lots of people out there just dying to realize their potential as janitors and day laborers.

You're missing the point.

The contention has been made--and you seem to hold to it--that there wouldn't be a problem filling menial jobs in a post-scarcity world because there will be plenty of people who want to do them. I claim this is nonsense, that very few would choose to do such jobs if they didn't need to.

As evidence, I give you the people who have such jobs NOW--AND NEED THEM AND GET PAID FOR THEM--yet somehow hate them.

"You know, I used to hate mopping the men's room. I mean there's some really nasty, well, shit in there sometimes. But then the new post-scarcity economy came along. I've got a nice place to live, clothes, food, all the recreation I want. Now, even though I don't have to spend several hours mopping up shit any more, I do. It really gives me an inner satisfaction."

Five thousand wrappages of Cardassian yamok sauce = hundred gross of self-sealing stem bolts = seven tessipates of Bajorian land = five bars of gold-pressed latinum.

Yeah, gotta know the guy can pull his own weight. A little too late to find out he's a lazy bastard after he gets out there. Need solid work experience and references up front.

How do you know 7 million will be needed? How do you know pride of work will only work for 5 or 6?

I want to you think about this conversation in it's entirety and then come back and say it's contrived!

Just b/c it doesn't come back to doesn't mean it is any more contrived than anything else in Star Trek.

Dishwasher is back of house, busboy front of house. Dishwasher goes to broiler, busboy goes to waiter. Have you ever had a non office job?

I want to you think about this conversation in it's entirety and then come back and say non are plausible!

Just b/c they all don't come back to doesn't mean they are any less plausible than anything else in Star Trek.

You aren't arguing that money is the sole motivator for the vast majority of people to work?

Again, 21st Century Jobs, 23rd Century Economy. Step outside yourself man. THINK, don't recite!

No you are missing the point. You are taking 21st Century Jobs and 21st Century Mentality and applying it to a 23rd Century Economy and 23rd Century Mentality.