Open Source Today, Startrek Tomorow

[megahertza]

If your a treky fan like my self you may know what i'm talking about. But for the rest of ya, stick with me.

All the ships built by the federation didn't cost anything. Thats because theres no money in the future. Everyone works together to improve their selves. This got me thinking, could open source, GPL, Linux and so on be the start of start trek.

If the Ideas and theory behind Open source could be taken and used on things other then software. For say Medical research. Drug companies could band together and focus on medicine and curing illness rather then making money.

Natually Microsoft are the BORG.

What ya think.

[NXArmada]

I like the idea. Well it ever happen maybe, well it happen now no...to much greed.

Im a Trek fan my self and I like the idea.

[Sheinar]

Drug companies could band together and focus on medicine and curing illness rather then making money.
Haha, I'd like to see someone suggest that to drug companies. They'd probably end up in stitches from laughter.

[DGTL_Magician]

If your a treky fan like my self you may know what i'm talking about. But for the rest of ya, stick with me.

All the ships built by the federation didn't cost anything. Thats because theres no money in the future. Everyone works together to improve their selves. This got me thinking, could open source, GPL, Linux and so on be the start of start trek.

If the Ideas and theory behind Open source could be taken and used on things other then software. For say Medical research. Drug companies could band together and focus on medicine and curing illness rather then making money.

Natually Microsoft are the BORG.

What ya think.
They tried that,it was called communism.

[Stormy Eyes]

I know a world without money seems inviting, but has it occurred to you to ask why we use money in the first place? Unlike in Star Trek, physical resources are scarce in the real world.

[mips]

If your a treky fan like my self you may know what i'm talking about. But for the rest of ya, stick with me.

All the ships built by the federation didn't cost anything. Thats because theres no money in the future. Everyone works together to improve their selves. This got me thinking, could open source, GPL, Linux and so on be the start of start trek.

If the Ideas and theory behind Open source could be taken and used on things other then software. For say Medical research. Drug companies could band together and focus on medicine and curing illness rather then making money.

Natually Microsoft are the BORG.

What ya think.

I think you must wake up and smell the coffee. This will never work as far as i'm concerned and I would hate to be part of such a 'utopia'. It borders on the fringes of communisn never mind socialism. I can still handle socialism but you can keep your utopia to yourself.

[nocturn]

I know a world without money seems inviting, but has it occurred to you to ask why we use money in the first place? Unlike in Star Trek, physical resources are scarce in the real world.

I actually do agree. In the beginning, money was very sensible to use and it only got perverted later on.

Things that I see that cause many of the current problems is that money grows by itself thanks to cumulative interests. What I also disagree on is making money from nothing (stock markets, speculations etc) as well as inflation.

This is what you see in Local Trading systems like LETS and Timebank again, the return to the original meaning of money.

[megahertza]

They tried that,it was called communism.

I don't think its communism because communism still ran on money. Anyway communism worked fairly well to exstent but it did have its downsides. It did turn russia into a GIANT, Fueld the cold war. Turned china into a industrial giant. unfortunetly it does become corrupted and represive.

[tribaal]

Drug companies could band together and focus on medicine and curing illness rather then making money.

Join the movement (http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/) ;)

- trib'

[OffHand]

I don't think its communism because communism still ran on money. Anyway communism worked fairly well to exstent but it did have its downsides. It did turn russia into a GIANT, Fueld the cold war. Turned china into a industrial giant. unfortunetly it does become corrupted and represive.
Communism failed because you can only form society to a certain extend.
Communists thought/think they can shape society in any form.

[Kernel Sanders]

If your a treky fan like my self you may know what i'm talking about. But for the rest of ya, stick with me.

All the ships built by the federation didn't cost anything. Thats because theres no money in the future. Everyone works together to improve their selves. This got me thinking, could open source, GPL, Linux and so on be the start of start trek.

If the Ideas and theory behind Open source could be taken and used on things other then software. For say Medical research. Drug companies could band together and focus on medicine and curing illness rather then making money.

Natually Microsoft are the BORG.

What ya think.


I cant see how such a society can ever occur?

Say I want a 2 million $ apartment in New York, I have to save up and pay for it, and the price tag means that there isnt too much competition.

Take away money, and who gets it?

Would farmers still work hard 365 days a year to provide food for us for nothing?

You get the idea...... like it or not, money makes the world go around.

John :)

[megahertza]

Join the movement

Thats the way tribaal

[nocturn]

They tried that,it was called communism.

Not really. The implementation that was done lacked any form of personal freedom. This is hugely different from the model the OP was proposing.

I do agree that it is somewhat utopian, but I'm very sure some middle form would work a lot better than the current system.

[nocturn]

Would farmers still work hard 365 days a year to provide food for us for nothing?

That's partly true and highlights one of the biggest flaws in the current system.
That farmer produces hours of labour and physical items in the form of food and earns a certain amount of credit on this (let's say 10000 units).

The perversion of the current system is that a really rich guy can just lay back and watch 100000 units come in, yet this amount is not representing anything physical or even a service to anyone (but himself).

On wall street, people make money of money every day without doing anything tangible for it.

[MetalMusicAddict]

Unlike in Star Trek, physical resources are scarce in the real world.
Not for me. I have a replicator. :) Its how I make my Benjamins beotch! WHAT!


http://tobetheman.com/wp-content/paulwall_close.jpg

[Kvark]

I don't know how things will work in the future but I think it is easy to see that today's economical system doesn't work as it should so something needs to be changed. The purpose of an economical system is to allocate the scarce resources to where they are the most needed. Our economical system works for some things. If there is enough need for choloclate icecream then some resources will be used to create a supply of chocolate icecream to match the need. But our current system fails to allocate the needed resources to law enforcement, healthcare and many other areas so the government has to exort taxes to manually put the resources where they are needed. On top of that the economy would blow up if interest rates and other control numbers where not manually carefully adusted to balance the economy. There wouldn't be any need for manual resource allocation by the government if the economical system itself worked as it should and sent resources to the areas that need them in the first place.

I don't know if that made any sence, to put it in other words... Today's economy is like a network of pipes where water flows to the places that need it but some buildings don't have any pressure so the govermnet has to manually take buckets of water out of the system and manually carry the water buckets to those buildings. And on top of that the dam would burst if the water reservoir was not manually monitored and managed all the time.

[matthinckley]

Free stuff is great, but we can't get to the star trek world until the replicator is developed, which won't come until the transporter is developed, which is a while away, if even possible.

However I did read an article a while back in Popular Science that some scientist, somewhere has the ability to manipulate single atoms. This is a big step towards transportation, that is the way it worked in the Star Trek universe. All we need now is a way to move multiple atoms simultaneously, considering speed, trajectory, acceleration, etc.. and a way to scan all the atoms in an object.

All a transporter does is rearrange the atoms of the object being transported into air, and then rearrange the air where the object is being transported to into the object.

All a replicator does is rearrange the atoms in the air into whatever you want.

What would happen if a device was invented that could turn air into anything you wanted? even complex items? 'Tea, earl grey, hot' or howabout a 12 oz steak cooked medium with steaming mashed potatoes..

Very thought provoking indeed....

[Stormy Eyes]

All a replicator does is rearrange the atoms in the air into whatever you want.

A replicator would have to do more than that. It would have to do transmutation as well, since air is mostly nitrogen. That's likely to cost a metric assload of energy, so replicators are quite a ways away.

[helpme]

All the ships built by the federation didn't cost anything. Thats because theres no money in the future. Everyone works together to improve their selves. This got me thinking, could open source, GPL, Linux and so on be the start of start trek.

You are missing something here. Free software is not about getting rid of money.