It doesn't tarnish or corrode like copper - that was part of why we used it as currency for so long. It's always going to look like gold no matter how long it hangs out in your pocket/buried in your back yard/whatever. Copper will turn different colors and eventually just plain disappear.

The former would be easier, but I suspect it's really more of the latter - after all, it's not like they don't have the technology right? What we see of replicators makes them look like smaller, less sophisticated transporters (working from predetermined templates rather than scanning first).

If there's one thing the internet teaches us it's that we're pretty much unlimited in our ability to come up with new fetish needs. I don't know if even a holo-deck would be enough to help with that.

That's what you get when you put a Klingon in charge of it. They're all about the honor system.

Participating in a group activity that does something important or is related to the construction of a social good is, right now, something that people make all kinds of crazy unnecessary sacrifices for.*

That's totally unfair. Some of the time they wear flowing robes in earth tones.

I bet there is something to this, though: all our foods are organic messy living things, and while they can use transporter/whatever technology on those it's pretty clear from the show that it's a pretty energy and (especially) computer processing intensive thing to do.

We also never see anyone vacuuming the corridors, which now that I've said that kind of makes me sad because that would have been hilarious to just have in the background at literally any point in the show.

I think people wildly underestimate how much work people will do in prestige economies too, even in exchange for the most hilariously minimal amounts of prestige.

This seems important (and true) to me: there's no indication that they give that the replicated food is just as good as the actual stuff - it's probably not.* But it's really close and for daily "I just want some food" purposes it's close enough. After all, we mostly see them on a military-ish vessel so eating…

There's a kind of sad (in retrospect) article by Bertrand Russell from back somewhere between the '20s and '40s or so where he points out that if we kept the economic gains in productivity they were making then consistent for a bit (to the extent, basically, that we did actually do) and we were ok with keeping our…

The servers are just 20th Century LARPers. It's like the SCA right now, only at least a little bit more accurate.

Or you have the "I want sex" statuette sitting out in plain view, which is one of the jokes I still remember fondly. Good old Riker.

This seems right to me: it amounts to the most aggressive social democracy/welfare state style society, with a non-capitalist philosophy central to the culture, not one where economics doesn't exist. There are still things - even important ones - that can't be replicated.

Wrong when … I said exactly what you said when you tried to correct me, only in less detail because it wasn't important?

Oh, you mean this fallacious comment:
"…noticed. I'm not sure why on that one but I'm guessing it was that they slipped it into the comics first so when people thought back to the character when he first showed up in the movies they remembered Samuel L Jackson looking Nick Fury rather than the traditional one."

Look, literally everyone outside of your little He-Man Woman-Haters clubs can tell there's not a whit of difference between all of you aside from your stupid little internal spats. And since we need a term to apply to the whole fetid pile of little shits that populate those various websites it's MRA's, because that's…

But think what it would do for Tony Cox's career!

Yes, I know what it is and what compound bows do. Bis is a particularly ornate folding one, and he uses it in quick action sequences and to bash people with. The ability to do an easier hold (not draw) is less important to him if he can magically hit things without any real trouble, and a much simpler one would be…

You did notice how I literally talked about how they set it up beforehand, right?