The largest political party in sweden (The Social Democrats) reported having just north of 100'000 members on december 31 2008. The Pirate Party as of writing has over 20'000 members.

Which is still not illegal. You still have to pull the trigger.

Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don't understand it.

Handheld communication devices had been around for many years when Star Trek was first aired. Just look at the backpack radios of vietnam or the handheld military radios of WWII. The first patent for a wireless phone is from 1908. All star trek did was postulate that a communications device could be miniaturized. I doubt you would make the statement about TNG if you really knew how many principles of Physics, Security, Engineering and a whole host of other subjects the writers for that show regularly raped out of sheer ignorance and disintrest. Star Wars is far more correct in any scientific sense than Star Trek. And Star Wars is probably one of the "softest" science fiction out there.

Not to mention the fact that while it is prohibitively expensive and technically difficult, it is possible to change lead into gold using nuclear transmutation.

Your analogy is flawed. If the bulb was created by aliens and contained millions upon millions of cooperating devices that where influenced by yet more millions of possible conditions then perhaps you would have a point. We simply do not know enough to say with any accuracy what would happen to said bulb if we where to change a certain condition.