Voluntaryism as science fiction

[memenode]

I am a fan of Star Trek. It is one science fiction show which greatly influenced my personal development and way of thinking. To some extent, perhaps ironically, it also helped make me into a person who would ultimately come to embrace voluntaryism. This is because it is a rare show that really makes you open your mind and think beyond what is considered conventional, yet is usually so optimistic and technological that it keeps me right there waiting for more - perpetually.

It might, in fact, be solely responsible for making me into a freedom loving technology enthusiast. Yet, some have said that Star Trek might be socialist propaganda. I wouldn't quite agree, but if it were then it's doing a darn bad job at it. The reason, again, is simply that instead of dumbing people down it actually encourages them to think. And apparently, once you really start thinking for yourself it doesn't take long before you realize what a sham socialism is.

And, interestingly, this actually makes a Star Trek fan like myself, more critical of even Star Trek itself. My eyes are open and I can pretty clearly see when the socialist aspect of Star Trek emerges and then view it from the right perspective, even if it means cheering for the side the authors of the show might not have intended their audience to cheer for.

That said, as I've been looking for depictions of voluntaryism in science fiction that are more truthful to voluntaryism than The Ferengi, I seem to come out short. I took interest in Firefly a bit because the Serenity crew are, apparently, quite anti-mafia (edit: looks like gov*rnment is being replaced by "mafia" in this forum ) . They are honest capitalists who are trying to survive.

My problem with Firefly, however, is probably the same as with the Wild West - too dirty, too trigger happy and too stupid to be quite blunt. Why can't we have a SF depiction of voluntaryists/anarcho-capitalists which doesn't involve trigger happy dirty people in old junk ships without even proper defenses. It seems as if every time I hit ancap relations in SF it is either being ridiculed, satirized or even if they are portrayed as heros, dark, dirty and violent.

What I need to see is science fiction which has the optimism, lightness and drive of Star Trek, but instead of having a federation that is like some big federated empire run by a central mafia, we have a "free territory" of individuals who truly abide by the single voluntary principle of non-coercion and who are not only traders, but indeed explorers too - because I refuse to believe that the voluntaryist society is only driven by individuals whose sole self interest are material goods. This simply isn't so. This is the fallacy attributed to capitalism through such depictions as Ferengi and to a point Firefly. It is a god damn lie.

We need The Trek of Voluntaryists. It is everything Star Trek could be if it was rid of politics. Imagine Star Trek's Federation suddenly disappearing - and all that is left is a vast array of space - that is simply - free. Free of authority, free of regulations, free of power play and politics - where everyone is a freelancer. This is the vision of the future we need to present.

[kola]

gene roddenbery was too cool.

or an alien.

[J’raxis 270145]

Socialism (and capitalism and other economic theories) is a theory of how to allocate scarce resources. It's hard to think of Star Trek as socialist propaganda when they had eliminated such scarcity in virtually all contexts—inexhaustible energy supplies, "pattern replicators" for consumer goods, and the discovery of enough habitable planets to make available land nearly infinite, too.

[John Edward Mercier]

That was the serie's appeal.
It created a lack of materialism, and thus caused its characters to focus higher on the self actualization pyramid.

[dalebert]

Socialism (and capitalism and other economic theories) is a theory of how to allocate scarce resources. It's hard to think of Star Trek as socialist propaganda when they had eliminated such scarcity in virtually all contexts—inexhaustible energy supplies, "pattern replicators" for consumer goods, and the discovery of enough habitable planets to make available land nearly infinite, too.

I predict that we'll stop needing real estate long before we have the ability to go find more, at least some of us who chose that route. Some will choose not to. We can help them develop the technologies needed to support their fragile and needy biological bodies in space. We may as well. Our rapidly expanding minds will get bored easily and will be hungry for new problems to solve.