There are somethings which can be duplicated infinitely (like food) and somethings which cannot be (like apartments with views of the Golden Gate Bridge.) A post-scarcity society deals with the first, not the second.
As for why people work, why is their a string quartet on the Enterprise D? They have access to every recording there is. Why was their a traveling Shakespeare company in TOS? They had the equivalent of DVDs of many productions. People like to act and play, and people like to watch and listen.
In the first TOS season they visit a colony where the people live simply and farm, and I am pretty sure they were all there to get away from the hustle and bustle of life in the Federation. Others, like the miners on the planet with the Horta, want to get rich to, I suppose, afford that San Francisco view. It kind of makes sense, though it never gets explained very well.
Heh. How did they handle The [EMH] Doctor?
Did Janeway say “H’okay, I say he’s alive now.”, and everyone else shrug and say “yeah, whatever.”? The process did not seem all that planned, and it’s unclear to me.
The computer on the ships of the TNG+ era were given the ability to do things in case the crew was incapacitated, right? (The episode 11001001(?) the ship was evacuated, and the computer was made to undock the ship from spacedock, and get it underway at warp when they thought it was going to have a core breach.) I guess they felt Commander Data would be no more of a risk than letting the ship’s computer run things.
The EMH becoming sentient, and gaining recognition as a being with rights, was definitely unplanned. Like just about every other extension of rights to a person or group previously not thought to have them, it was three steps forward and two steps back.
The Ship’s Computer on the Enterprise-D in TNG had a very sophisticated programmable autopilot, but (other than one very silly episode in which it essentially gave birth) was not sentient.
That’s very probably the book I meant. Hard to remember every title of everything Trek 
i’m surprised non of the replies is about the Holodeck. is this a premium technology or something?
It really shouldn’t be, but it is treated as such. In Deep Space Nine, people are willing to pay for it, and on starships the usage time is always limited. The only other place we ever see one onscreen that I recall is in a research station, and, even then, it’s only used by Barclay. (Though Dr. Zimmerman’s [creator of the EMH] entire lab seems to double as a holodeck as well.)
I do recall that it was a novelty onwhen we first see it the Enterprise D from Next Generation, so perhaps they just hadn’t had widespread deployment by the time we left that universe. But, still, we spend 14 years in that timeframe, and so many things are automated that you’d think they’d be more ubiquitous.
i guess it must be a conspiracy to artificially maintain the supply of bartenders.
In the episode where Sisko visits his dad’s restaurant (in New Orleans, IIRC?) he mentions using up all his student transporter credits while at the academy, to go home for his dad’s food. So it looks like there’s definitely a money system there.
Maybe nobody trusts Riker with any cash. There’s one in every party - would spend all the group’s money on wenches and blow.
While you you have replicators to replicate things, wouldn’t you still need people to fix things? And of course, fix the replicators?
There will always be a need for politicians and lawyers of course 
Mind you, there’s always a human desire for authenticity too. It might be that while they can get anything they want through replicators, they will still have a special desire for novelties, hand-made products (none of that replicated crap, this was factory made!), and home-made food.
Acting and theatre would still be popular. And historians no doubt will continue their arguments.
I think the fundamental change is that people are freer to do what they choose. That doesn’t mean they necessarily just bum around - although I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the human population does that, and are space-chavs - but for others they can conduct their own experiments in science (such as discovering new medicines by tinkering with the operation of their replicator). Oh, and writing novels.
Well then, why don’t we save on resources and wire up everyone’s brain and plug them into a box that feeds them nutrient-dense and metabolically efficient gruel directly to their digestive tract and carries away bodily wastes, and the wire in their head is connected to a vast computer that tells them they’re living on a cool starship, or are zipping around beautiful, exotic worlds in transporters buying and consuming the most expensive and delicious delicacies in the galaxy?
Would that really make a difference to the people experiencing it, assuming that the input into their brains exactly replicated actual experience? I can see being dissatisfied with a hum-drum, boring virtual world like the one in the Matrix, but a utopia like the Federation? Let me see…my quality of life would take a nosedive because I’m suddenly dumped into the real world, where I have to WORK to survive, when I could be living in a society with almost no scarcity, and basically do anything I want…which should I choose?
This was Kirk’s problem back in the TOS days, too. There are probably 1000 planets where the word for “Satan” is “Kirk”, because the population once lived in a utopia where there was no violence or conflict, but that was destroyed by the Kirk.
The problem with this is that people have, repeatedly, at length, over and over, proven that they will not do what they’re told just for some good feelings. They want something concrete. Given a choice, a lot of people will do something they think useful or interesting, but it’s not at all useful for an organization or a . TO motivate big groups, you either have to (a) use only a very small portion of their time and energy and offer substantial social rewards, or (b) have big material rewards in order to get them to pony up more of their time.
I can easily see some people going off to be colonists in a post-scarcity society. But they’d do it because they want land, control over theitr own lives and options, and generally freedom to give the finger to the Federation-Is-Mother-and-Father-ism in TNG.
This is one area where TNG went way wrong. It was a stupid decision, never made sense, and contradicted itself numerous times. It was not a successful portrayal of a post-scarcity society, probably because none of the writers(or Roddenberry) sat down and decided what they wanted. Of course, Roddenberry was known for being somewhat self-deceptive in other matters, such as his insistance that heavily armed warships with military ranks who regularly took part in military actions… were not part of military.
They were the militia, and their right to keep and bear armed starships was guaranteed in the 2nd Article of Federation.
The Federation Amalgamated Barbers & Hairdressers Union must be very powerful, too: Mot | Memory Alpha | Fandom
My memory’s pulling a 404 on me there, but I can check with a more obsessed than me nerd friend
But that does remind me that in DS9 the Ferengi used gold pressed latinum as currency, so there definitely is money around the Trek universe
There is money in the ST universe. Bones tries to hire a ship to take him to the Genesis planet in ST III. Kirk in several TOS episodes says, “You’ve earned your pay this week, Mr. Scott.”
Replicators didn’t exist in TOS, they got their food from a hole in the wall, but it was a food synthesizer, so you can’t argue that TOS was post-scarcity.
Not that replicators even suggest post-scarcity when they do exist. A replicator is a mini-factory, but it requires raw materials and energy. Those aren’t free. Maybe a federation person has enough of an energy allowance to keep the lights on all night, but that doesn’t mean he can simply replicate anything he wants forever. Can a Federation Citizen run his replicator all day producing ingots of raw material that he throws into the ocean? I assume not.
Also, replicators become less efficient the larger the object they make. So a normal person can’t just run off a space shuttle. He’d have to do it in small chunks and assemble it himself.
I assume that a federation citizen has by virtue of birth the right to food, shelter, medicine and whatever physical objects can be created by reasonable replicator use. Anything beyond that is probably based on ability to pay. Kirk has a condo overlooking the SF bay because he’s a full Admiral and has money to upgrade the shitty apartment he has by right of citizenship.
We have discussed this in other threads but Starfleet has three responsibilities in the Federation: Military, Exploration and Scientific Research. Each is of equal importance. I think it is tough for people to get because nothing currently exists that is anything like it.
And rather distinctly recall many, perhaps most, posters weren’t impressed with that argument. Perhaps because the military component was by far the most important, with other duties being used only when there wasn’t a war on.
Much of the no-money notion of the ST universe is based on the statements of Jean-Luc Picard, in both the series and the “First Contact” film. It’s contradicted so much by so much else that it’s reasonable, not even a fanwank, to presume that maybe Picard is simply arrogant and dismissive of the notion of money. He’s privileged and money might not matter to him.
There’s no such thing as post-scarcity; you always want something more. The allocation of resources MUST be determined by some kind of price structure; as has been pointed out, there’s obvious limits on the number of starships the Federation has, or view of San Francisco Bay, or the services of unusually talented individuals. The people of the Federation may be insanely rich by our standards, but that simply allows them to reach for things higher up on Maslow’s heirarchy - that’s the part of Picard’s stock money speech that actually makes sense. The comparison to climbing Everest is apt; people probably join Starfleet not to make college payments or save up for a house, but simply because the idea of exploring the galaxy and kicking Romulan ass is fifty-three different kinds of awesome. Christ, wouldn’t YOU sign up?
Consider how life in an industrialized country today compares to the life led by almost all the humans who have ever lived. By the standards of most people who have ever lived, I personally live in a post-scarcity society. Sure, I use money, but in any practical sense I don’t need any of the things people have spent most of history scrambling to get. I have enough food, clothing and shelter for myself and my child several lifetimes over by any general standard. The overwhelming majority of people would look at my middle class lifestyle as being one of incomprehensible opulence and would wonder how on earth I could possibly want more. And yet I do. I’d like to be richer. I’d love to live in a bigger house with more stuff, and not have to do a regular job so I could travel and do other fun things.
Well, the people in the Federation are like that to us. They’re super duper rich, but they still want more. Maybe waiters work just eight hours a week just because they’d get bored if they didn’t do busywork at least now and then.
I don’t think that’s accurate. The vast majority of episodes feature an initial scientific, exploration or diplomatic mission. Guns end up being used because this is an action-drama about spaceships.