Federation = Technate?

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2004-04-17 01:53pm

So recently I was discussing on another board the Federation and its communism, and this person asserted that the Federation is a Technate. He described as basically having all the basic tenants of communism except for mandatory work, but I was just confused by this definition. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to google anything meaningful about a technate.

So! The purpose of this thread is twofold:
1. Come up with a working definition of a Technate and its social and economical implications,
2. see if this assertion holds any water (Personally, I don't think it does, but I want to withold dismissal until I get a better idea about what it is).

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-04-17 02:12pm

unless he can provide sources that actually show what a technate is and show how it has any meaningful difference from communism he's talking out his ass.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2004-04-18 05:17pm

I found this site that states what a technate is.

"A Technate is a geographical area Continental in scope, which must be self-contained so as far as resources, energy converters (i.e.: hydro dams) and skilled personal, (one of the links is to a map.) It does NOT use any form of financial accounting (money) but rather energy accounting. People do not need a job to get some `spendable' energy credits.

It is not ruled by _any_ political system of elected people. It's method of social operation is patterned upon (TTSD Technocracy Technological Social Design which was in 2002 renamed Technocracy Technological Continental Design TTCD.)

It is an entirely new SCIENCE BASED method of social operation, which is as H. G. Wells (the time machine) said, "compatible with the modern age in which we live." So check out the links on this single disk before you take a position."

Hope this helps.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-04-18 05:21pm

going by the definition of a technate, star trek doesn't match that at all. as the UFP does have an elected form of government. the fact that this is also much newer than star trek is also another mark against it.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-04-19 12:13am

Cpl Kendall wrote:It is an entirely new SCIENCE BASED method of social operation, which is as H. G. Wells (the time machine) said, "compatible with the modern age in which we live." So check out the links on this single disk before you take a position."

Whenever I hear someone claim that his radical socio-economic model is based on SCIENCE, I get a bad feeling. Especially when he says things like:

I am David F. Ravlin a scientist. I consider myself a happy animal of the human kind. I was born first of three to well-chosen parents, I also got married, and am a proud parent too.

Science and truth.
Strictly speaking to be a scientis one must be objective. and be unable to accept anything on belife or faith. Ergo, getting a scientist to accept a lie is not an easy task. Few, if any, people are more truthfull than a scientist is. After a few moments thought you might realize that we are not truthfull by choice. A real scientist has an ability to see what is actually there.

In music some people take lessons, then create fine music. Others can see music in everything and can play any instrument. They were born that way. In science this also happens. At age four-teen I realized that I was born a scientist.

This really doesn't sound like the matter-of-fact presentation of a typical scientist. Most scientists will state their background rather than giving you this weird rambling.

1337n1nj4 · Post by **1337n1nj4** » 2004-04-19 01:30am

That sounds like it was written by some odd combination of a socially inept 4th grader and a socially inept acid user.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2004-04-19 01:55am

Hehe, "science based", that's funny. I've got an idea for a new science based form of government, everybody! It's called anarchy, and it's based on evolutionary theory. Survival of the fittest baby!

CDiehl · Post by **CDiehl** » 2004-04-20 03:21am

These people just don't live in the real world, do they? I don't know who or what they designed this system to serve, but it sure isn't humans. I'd love to ask them five questions.

1. From where do you imagine the near-limitless energy supply you plan to distribute to the public will be procured?

2. What is your plan in the event not enough people are willing to work voluntarily in order to provide this energy and all the products and services for which it may be exchanged?

3. What is your plan in the event a person manages to use all the energy he is allotted, since each person's energy supply is non-transferrable, and how would you address a person with an idea requiring more energy than he is given?

4. What do you offer in this system to overcome mankind's natural self-interest and ego, since it could only work if these elements were eradicated?

5. Who makes the ultimate decision as to how much energy each person gets, and what prevents that person or group from becoming corrupt with that sort of absolute power?

I don't see a lot of difference between this system and various totalitarian systems, in which a central authority is empowered to dictate all major decisions to the individuals under it. In this system, to control how much energy is assigned to each individual is to decide who lives and who dies, and to set an upper limit on people's aspirations or accomplishments. It seems to me to be almost a given that any nation that adopts this system will collapse into totalitarianism.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-04-20 09:32am

How come every time someone has a GREAT IDEA! for a SCIENTIFICALLY BASED SOCIETY! it involves an all-powerful central authority with total control over the lives of its people, that will somehow act benevolently and not abuse its power despite 10,000 years of human history that says otherwise? A "technate" will be functionally indistinguishable from a Bronze age despotism save the technate will have much better tools for finding enemies of the God-King or General Secretary or President for Life or Fuerher or whatever the hell he's called.

CDiehl · Post by **CDiehl** » 2004-04-20 01:00pm

Red's right. You'd like to think a scientist could think of something more innovative than a tarted-up, high-tech version of the Same Old Thing.

Returning to the original question, I think that both the Federation and the creators of the Technate share a naive belief that crime is caused by poverty, so if people all had some particular amount of stuff (detemined to be "enough"), they'll stop lying, stealing or being violent. Were this true, the wealthy would never lie, cheat, steal, rape or kill. Neither society offers much of an explanation of how they intend to eliminate, or at least blunt, the willful ignorance of another's humanity/personhood that I would contend is the source of criminal behavior, beyond simply providing more stuff to people.

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2004-04-20 04:55pm

Well, I talked to him, and managed to get the following bits of info.

1. A technate is supposed to be a "workless" society. Scientists, engineers, and researchers are the only people who work; the rest is automated. (For this, he cited replicators, even though it's been repeatedly shown that there are numerous things that cannot be replicated). Of course, he didn't account for the military.

2. Energy is metered out in 1/n partitions, where n is the number of people living in the technate. People use energy currency to purchase what they need, and, as we see on the shows, to live a spartan lifestyle. And apparently they vote to determine what products they want to see on the market based upon what they need(again, not what they want) Of course, he didn't explain how millions of years of hardwired instinctual greed and territoriality suddenly vanished in the 70 years between ST6 and TNG, but that's obviously incidental.

To sum it up, he says it's like a communist state economically, but for different reasons than Marx's stated goals.

He did, however, realize that the family and cultural identities remain in the Federation, and thought that was his trump card. Of course, in every communist state ever known, it was found imprudent and unworkable to eliminate the family and cultural identity, but the Federation isn't real, so that rebuttal doesn't count.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-04-20 05:17pm

Alferd Packer wrote:Well, I talked to him, and managed to get the following bits of info.

1. A technate is supposed to be a "workless" society. Scientists, engineers, and researchers are the only people who work; the rest is automated. (For this, he cited replicators, even though it's been repeatedly shown that there are numerous things that cannot be replicated). Of course, he didn't account for the military.

more blatant bullshit on his part. we've been clearly shown that people own restaurants and work as manual labor for cargo ships among other things. There's also assembly at starship yards, that's clearly not automated.

2. Energy is metered out in 1/n partitions, where n is the number of people living in the technate. People use energy currency to purchase what they need, and, as we see on the shows, to live a spartan lifestyle. And apparently they vote to determine what products they want to see on the market based upon what they need(again, not what they want) Of course, he didn't explain how millions of years of hardwired instinctual greed and territoriality suddenly vanished in the 70 years between ST6 and TNG, but that's obviously incidental.

It's clearly been showed that there are those who detest the federation and don't want such a cushy existence in various episodes. One being where o'brien in DS9 was sent to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate to prevent an assassination.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-04-20 07:19pm

Alferd Packer wrote:1. A technate is supposed to be a "workless" society. Scientists, engineers, and researchers are the only people who work; the rest is automated.

He obviously has no experience whatsoever with automation equipment, which requires a little thing called maintenance. Even if you built a completely automated industrial base, you would need a shitload of people to maintain the automation equipment! Unless, of course, you have robots that are as intelligent as people, which opens up a whole new can of worms.

In short, it's just more idiot-wanking. And what the fuck does he think engineers would do without technicians? What would technicians do without operators? How much industrial experience does he have, anyway? Oh wait, let me guess: absolute zero.

Never mind the fact that the few who work will be rather pissed off about supporting the masses who don't work. This society would only function if there were an industrial underclass minority which was ruthlessly oppressed by the leisure class. And that wouldn't last too long, since the smartest people would be in the oppressed class and would have access to all of the equipment they need to fuck over the leisure class.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-04-20 07:45pm

RedImperator wrote:How come every time someone has a GREAT IDEA! for a SCIENTIFICALLY BASED SOCIETY! it involves an all-powerful central authority with total control over the lives of its people, that will somehow act benevolently and not abuse its power despite 10,000 years of human history that says otherwise? A "technate" will be functionally indistinguishable from a Bronze age despotism save the technate will have much better tools for finding enemies of the God-King or General Secretary or President for Life or Fuerher or whatever the hell he's called.

As far as I can tell, it's a conceit of people who think they're a whole lot smarter than everyone else is or will get credit for, while of course not being that intelligent at all. The type of people who'll skim through popular magazines, maybe see some badly written article by journalists with no scientific training about the Higgs boson, and then tell everyone that they know quantum mechanics and impress the dumb people with their terminology. They look at something like government, wonder why it doesn't work perfectly, then decide that if they (with their "super intelligence") ran the show with absolute power, everything would work just peachy. And of course, since it's the new cool thing to say (ever since Marx) you have to call it a "scientifically based society."

I guess if these people were a little smarter, they'd have something to say that wasn't Marx rehashed for the nth time. But if they were a little smarter, they wouldn't be doing it in the first place.

I've just been preaching to the choir, haven't I?

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-04-20 09:08pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Alferd Packer wrote:1. A technate is supposed to be a "workless" society. Scientists, engineers, and researchers are the only people who work; the rest is automated.
He obviously has no experience whatsoever with automation equipment, which requires a little thing called maintenance. Even if you built a completely automated industrial base, you would need a shitload of people to maintain the automation equipment! Unless, of course, you have robots that are as intelligent as people, which opens up a whole new can of worms.

In short, it's just more idiot-wanking. And what the fuck does he think engineers would do without technicians? What would technicians do without operators? How much industrial experience does he have, anyway? Oh wait, let me guess: absolute zero.

Actually, I think he's trying to make it seem like he really made this up himself, while what he is really describing is a heavily roboticized society, akin to Asimov's Spacers. In such a society, the robots would perform their own maintinence, although everyone would still have to work which could be accomplished by farming out things we wouldn't normally think of as work (such as procreation).

CDiehl · Post by **CDiehl** » 2004-04-21 10:15pm

I guess I was right. This really isn't designed for human beings, but for a society of self-sustaining robots, which exists in the creators' minds. It'll work great for them, because they can't complain or rebel, and they feel no self-interest or greed.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-04-21 11:25pm

This is a shit sandwich. "Metering energy" isn't the same thing as quantifying labour value and material value —and without a system to do either (or, necessarily, both), his "scientific" society falls to bits.

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2004-04-22 09:20pm

CDiehl wrote:I guess I was right. This really isn't designed for human beings, but for a society of self-sustaining robots, which exists in the creators' minds. It'll work great for them, because they can't complain or rebel, and they feel no self-interest or greed.

Yah, do you want your son / daughter to live without their teddy bear because it is not energy efficient. Wong is right in stating that people seem to have few toys.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-04-22 09:24pm

It would also result in the death of culture, since there's no room for innovation or creativity.