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Dunno what kind of economic model we'd need if we had star trek -level replication technology.
We could just explore, try to learn new interesting things, and have campy holodeck adventures with Mark Twain.
I don't think the current rich people would approve. But screw'em if we have replicators
The economy would crash and millions of people would starve. I wish I were kidding. We humans are really fucking dumb.
Ultimately I plan on subscribing to the Mark Twain VR OnlyFans on my Meta headset. It'll be $20/mo for the ad supported tier. The ads will be directly loaded into my neural link so I can't look away.
That sounds cute until some rich asshole sets up his own anti-matter reactor to run their own holodecks with content and filters removed. I'm thinking he sets it up on a remote asteroid and invites his other rich asshole friends. Except he secretly records them and uses it to set up a blackmail network.
He'd probably have to have some weird alien name like, Kah-Epstein.
I always thought the "you wouldn't download a car" ads were based on an assumption that star trek replicator technology would be evil (with the public argument that it would put people out of jobs and the real reason being it would be harder to base a wealth-based hierarchy and system of middlemen on).
The original ad was "you wouldn't steal a car," literally claiming that downloading a movie is morally equivalent to carjacking.
From the people who brought us private sex islands, in both underage and cult varieties. Fucking hate Hollywood dictating morality to everyone else.
Ah, yeah, it might have been the implication that they were equivalent that got me thinking that rather than them using "download" instead of "steal".
They also lost me with the sappy ads about the crews that don't make millions from the movies, as if the studios would even be able to produce movies without paying crews (and weren't already doing everything they could to reduce that expense).
Especially when I knew that it was the studios' fault theatres had to gouge people on snacks because those greedy fucks wanted all of the ticket sales money, despite theatres requiring money to run and maintain.
And don't get me started on Hollywood accounting and how it was used to claim Return of the Jedi made 0 profit to fuck over the actor behind one of the most iconic roles in film (who wanted royalties instead of a set pay but made the mistake of believing they were negotiating with him in good faith and weren't just fucking vultures).
At this rate, replicators will be in a subscription model.
Not if I invent them first. FREE SHIT FOR EVERYONE! I like chaos.
We'd probably need a very similar model.
Replicators don't replaces services, just goods. Most people aren't willing to render services for free.
The replicators also use enormous amounts of energy. They're basically nukes in reverse. They "solve" this problem with anti-matter but the anti-matter reaction seems to require trilithium. And as we know from several episodes, trilithium is definitely not an unlimited resources.
The economy might not involve anyone hand-making widgets but there would be a lot of economics around acquiring, processing and distributing trilithium.
Well shoot. I hadn't even included the problem that latinum can't be replicated.
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I'm wondering what the limiting factor would be in my day to day lives.
I want a burrito, easy, I want 10 burritos, still easy. 100? A bit concerning, but sure? Five, Hundred, burritos? Getting alarming
I tell the replicator to manufacture a billion burritos and society as we know it grinds to a halt.
I know where you’re going with this and it is 100% what our internet famous generations would do today. In the era of “will it smash”, we test “will it crash”, all for views. The key thing about this movie though, it was after war and we humans were tired of fighting for scraps. So one would hope we wouldn’t need to see if our replicator will make 100 burritos because “why do you need them?”.
The economic model would have to be based on energy supply.
But assuming the replicators were perfect to the atomic level; making the parts for power generation would be easy. But the fuel would still have to be found / collected / mined.
Assuming that fusion is the most common type of energy generation; hydrogen fusion would probably be the dominant form of energy generation. Hydrogen collection would be a huge industry, but it also could be fully automated.
While the economic model may not be noticed by the majority; it would still be there.
Need? None, really. It's like when you get to the North Pole, the entire concept of "north" breaks down. It would be the same with post-scarcity. Or should be, except...
Have? Completely up to the whims of whoever controls the technology. Which... takes a look at the planet will be whoever is left standing once the nut jobs wipe out everyone that they hate. "Computer, ICBM, nuclear."