Headscratchers / Star Trek Deep Space Nine S 03 E 22 Explorers

• This episode reveals that Earth has "transporter credits" that someone can "use up" by using transporters too often. The series has established that Earth is a post-scarcity, cashless society, but transporters need to be regulated by an allowance? What if Sisko wanted to use the transporter more often than he had credits for? Could he exchange goods or services with someone who has a surplus? Is this not the beginnings of a currency?
  • The episode is a lot more ambiguous about "transporter credits", in that it doesn't say if it is a restriction on regular citizens, or Starfleet Cadets. Given that a month's worth of credit is used up by a week's worth of daily commuting, it seems more like the latter. A month's worth trips used up by a week's worth of commuting would be an unreasonable restriction on normal citizenry's ability to get around.
    • I'm not seeing why only cadets would be rationed on certain resources while civilian citizens have unrestricted access to those same resources. Sisko's use of the transporter would have been just as much of a drain on the Federation's resources whether or not he was a cadet in the process.
    • It isn't about being a drain on resources, but a cadet in training would have limitations on their privileges as part of training. It would be part of their professional development and training regime.
    • That seems like an arbitrary and pointless restriction. I've never seen it implied anywhere that Starfleet training takes that kind of approach.
    • It's not arbitrary and pointless. Starfleet cadets are training to join a quasi-military organization where they expect to be away from home for very long periods of time. It makes sense that the Academy would want to keep cadets on campus so they can remain focused and develop bonds with their peers and mentors instead of going home to mom & pop and the comforting home surroundings every day. (And remember that Starfleet places a huge priority on developing the psychological strength that officers need to make life-or-death decisions—see the Kobayashi Maru, Wesley getting a secret test of his worst fear, and the post-Academy bridge officer's test. Unrestricted access to home would hamper that.)
  • I don't know the official lore on this, but I think it requires an agreed definition of "post-scarcity". To me, post-scarcity means that everyone's needs (food, clothing, shelter) and some reasonable nice-to-haves (education, entertainment, work for those who want to work, hobby supplies) are all taken care of. It doesn't mean that the resources are truly unlimited, nor that people are allowed to engage in conspicuous or flagrantly wasteful consumption. Would you complain if you were rationed to eat up to 20 pounds of any food you want per day? You'd only use a fraction of that.
    • But Sisko clearly wanted to use the transporter more than he was rationed for, so it's easy to see that many people in the Federation might have their own specific items or services that they would want to consume more of than they are rationed for, which would essentially create a market for those items. Thinking about it, the best answer might be that there is nothing in place preventing this from occurring. We're just supposed to assume that Federation society is so enlightened that it simply doesn't occur. Sisko overcame the irrational homesickness that caused his overuse of transporter credits, so other citizens who want to exceed their rations also simply decide to cut back of their own accord.
    • That isn't post scarcity, that is a scarcity economics mindset adopting a forced-scarcity environment to maintain a pro-scarcity ideology. That is literally the thing that TNG says we've moved beyond, scarcity for scarcity's sake.
    • I'm not following this.