Capt. Picard "economics of the future are somewhat different"

clips2evoke0 HN recommenders · 2021–2023
217K views · other · evergreen · Uploaded 2013-07-23

A short edited clip from Star Trek: First Contact in which Captain Picard explains that humanity of the future no longer works for money or possessions. Added context frames the second part of the clip.

HN uses it as shorthand for post-scarcity economics, typically as a contrast to money-driven projects like crypto.

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3 comments from Hacker News

@financialize2021 · in “Ask HN: What's a problem you wish someone else would solve already?”

Capitalism. It should have disappeared by now and been replaced with Star Trek type economics ( [VIDEO] ) and yet here we are surrounded by idiots that seek to optimize numbers in databases at the expense of everything else.

@Barrin922021 · in “Web3 is going just great”

Instrumentalizing a show whose essential message was that living in a post-scarcity society is possible and where people pursue their interests genuinely rather than in the name of economic gain to make a case for crypto is so on brand with the actual post we're commenting on you could put it directly on the website Let's just listen to the man himself for a second, while we're talking about star trek and money: [VIDEO]

@tiffanyg2023 · in “The Cluetrain Manifesto”

Very true. Sadly, while "companies" play a very large role, ultimately, it's people. The dynamics are, I think, somewhat interesting. The essential pattern appears like "theme and variations", woven endlessly through human history that I'm familiar with. It has been possible, in brief periods, to imagine that perhaps we had moved past some of it ... grown a bit, on the whole. But, it's really difficult to imagine we might ever reach a sort of "Star Trek: First Contact" ... "economic regime"*. Circumstances continually evolve and even relatively subtle changes in policies and principles and such, at scale, can make a big difference. One key problem is simply that the cohesion and principled behavior and all of that, borne out of challenging times** and the desire to make things better for ones offspring, so easily leads to less purposeful more entitled people who can even end up resentful at what previous generations accomplished, the philosophies they espouse, the plaudits that they have engendered... and purposefully wish to go against that grain. But, to get a bit away from this unintentionally increasingly high-falutin' "jibber jabber" - the phases of commercial internet development adhere to fairly typical (modern) human patterns. First: optimism and practically "free money" ... an initial gold rush, real attempts at building real value ultimately drowning out the charlatans and general gold rush "carnival". Second: a sort of plateau, "professionalization", coalescence, b