The Star Trek universe is sometimes described as “post-scarcity,” meaning that energy is limitless, all disease and poverty has been eliminated, and there is no need for money.
I’ve seen all the ST movies and nearly all the different TV series. They’re (mostly) enjoyable and explore fun topics. But post-scarcity? Hogwash.
Thermodynamic laws are what they are. Using energy always creates entropy as waste heat. Even the alchemists of old, pursuing endless gold, understood that the only thing in the universe with infinite supply is human ambition and pride. Therefore, no future society will ever be post-scarcity. Unequal distributions are simply a fact. This creates the need for markets (resources, their collection and allocation) and a means to measure value in a market — money.
As Scott Adams of “Dilbert” fame wrote, the future will not be like Star Trek because humans will be in it. Despite Gene Rodenberry’s fantasy about the Star Trek future, all the best plots revolved around greed, ambition, good vs. evil, and…scarcity of things like time, dilithium crystals, hybrid wheat, and medicines. The only good episode that featured abundance was “The Trouble with Tribbles” and even that one had a Klingon spy!
Leadership must always operate amidst scarcity of something you value. Cultivating “if only I had” fantasies wastes precious time – instead, cultivate a powerful imagination of solutions that fit with your scarcity. Alternatively, what does your competitor (or enemy) lack that can be exploited for strategic advantage? An enormous fraction of behavior is predictable if you can associate it with scarcity.
