Trek Tech That Most Needs To Be Invented Before I Die:

Yes, the gap between the haves (those with a replicator and power source) would be transcendentally elevated above the have-nots to such a degree that the have-nots would likely be regarded as a subordinate species, lest the guilt from living such a lavish life while others suffer in abject poverty cause a plague of suicides.

If you have a replicator that can replicate (with relative ease) another replicator and power source, AND you can secure enough of the technology to create a self-sustaining project for making and distributing the devices, then you will change the world. Otherwise, the world will only change in the regard that some will live better and others will live worse, just like every other technology.

Put more eloquently; "one bends space around you, the other bends you around space"... No word yet on how the Soviet Russian version will operate, but it perhaps involves creation and use of a 12th dimension: The State.

Um, actually I think your problem is that you misunderstand the term “wealth inequality”. It is the concept that the average guy working his ass off in Africa still doesn’t make enough money to feed himself, much less his family. And it’s a problem.

Granted I don’t agree with what socialists claim the answer to the problem is, but I won’t deny that it exists.

Only if you classify a person as matter. We're made of matter but I think it's more accurate to describe a person as a state or configuration; mutable; destructable; transferrable.

By the way - it's already happened. How many cells in your body remain from birth, from a decade ago? Most of your body has been destroyed and recreated many times.

It's fun to think about. Our instincts about identity completely fall apart beyond a certain point. Like the way we think of the world, the way we think of ourselves is merely a model with finite accuracy and relevance.

Just for arguments sake: Why shouldn't he? Please try to argue that without assuming a priori what should be the result of the argument, namely that being wealthy is a sign of being more valuable.

The whole idea of wealth actually rests on this circular argument. And we don't even have to think hard to know that it isn't even remotely true. I'm sure everyone here can immediately come up with some names of people who contributed vastly to humanity and weren't wealthy (Mozart, most artists in fact, but also a good number of ancient philosophers, writers, scientists) as well as a lot of wealthy people whose "value" to the rest of us is largely in providing entertaining gossip (inherited wealth, mostly).

In fact, "working hard" is the least reliably successful way towards wealth.

Comparing middle-class "wealth" to street-bum "wealth" really only distracts from what "wealth inequality" is about, namely the fact that the majority of all wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer people.

That said, I'm myself far from a socialist. I do believe that my knowledge and effort justify me having more stuff to play with. However, I also believe that fighting over the 20% of the nation's wealth is not what it should be about, and that very few of the people earning 100x my income and more are as much ahead of me than I am of even the people that earn 1/10th of me. And that is the inequality that needs to be fixed. This spread has nothing whatsoever to do with opportunity, skills, hard working, study or anything else.

I rather think the society needs at least one future technology for it's base - fusion reactors. Because energy is the foundation of all wealth, and you don't have an enlightened society without universal wealth (I'm not talking gold toilets, I'm talking water, food, house, and health).