Watching Enterprise

[conuly]

They're getting their ship repaired at this magical automated repair station that fixes things and bodies up perfectly in less than two days, when it would've taken months the conventional way. And all they're asking for is some warp plasma... oh, and the least useful member of the crew, that being Travis Mayweather, for his brain to help run the station.

(They don't know about that last part, obviously.)

Yes, they find the twist and are duly shocked and horrified, but that twist just raises so many questions, like "who created this?" and "why?" and "okay, so they clearly knew people would object to having their crewmembers used in this fashion, natch, which is why they just take instead of asking and seek to hide the evidence, so why not design the ship with a more conventional computer core?" and "no, seriously, why?"

These questions will neither be asked or answered in the course of the episode.

**********

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Comments

[siderea]

Yes, they find the twist and are duly shocked and horrified, but that twist just raises so many questions, like "who created this?" and "why?" and "okay, so they clearly knew people would object to having their crewmembers used in this fashion, natch, which is why they just take instead of asking and seek to hide the evidence, so why not design the ship with a more conventional computer core?" and "no, seriously, why?"

I blame capitalism.

[conuly]

Normally I would too, and we both know Rodenberry would be all over that, but that doesn't make sense here. We're explicitly told that the cost for the repair work is absurdly low. Somebody didn't think this episode through at all.

[siderea]

With the caveat that I haven't seen the episode and I am well aware I'm overthinking a plate of beans: that's not how capitalism works. The cost of the repair (to the party doing the repair) has no particular relationship to the price. The price is All The Market Will Bear. And, hey, if it's a choice between being a century or two late back to base and getting the warp core repaired, really, the market will bear quite a lot.

And perhaps more to the point, for many applications, humans are cheap where technology is expensive. This is why Amazon's Mechanic Turk exists. And heaven knows, human lives have not be historically highly valued, so.

Really, it's as much a mindset as an economic system, one that objectifies humans (and presumably other sentient species) as assets (or expenses).

[conuly]

Capitalism doesn't really work by selling products and services for less than they cost to produce, or by just breaking even, unless those products and services are loss leaders.