Name of the Ferengi Empire

posted on February 25th, 2010, 12:50 am

It was a joke, Tyler.

posted on February 25th, 2010, 12:55 am

Best get a nice supply of brain bleach... not every women looks like a Goddess...

This.

To be even more clear, there are womenz that are simply too ugly to imagine naked.

Before someone points at me the gun of Righteous Indignation Against Prejudiced Minds, not all menz are either DiCaprios or Scwharzeneggers. I, for one, would avoid imposing the sight of naked me on anyone.

posted on February 25th, 2010, 1:06 am

Sorry.  I was trying to be funny and failed hard, I guess.

posted on February 25th, 2010, 2:43 am

Heh, I know this is going to start a political argument(so please don't read into this statement)

I just have to say that The ferengi are just greedy and selfish.  They may have been capitalists at one point, but have gon way past that onto just pure greed.  Our society is only about 2/3 capitalist at the moment(I doubt even that) so I wouldn't compare anyone to the Ferengi  unless it was meant as insult(Not that I'm saying you were being insulting).  No one is that bad :p...except maybe Bill Gates

Oh any why, might I ask, do you think that Capitalism will be the "Ultimate Doom" of our society? (Crap I did it again)

Greedy and selfish, according to some, is the epitome of a market based economy. The economist Adam Smith (c. 1776) says, essentially, that if people pursue their own self interests and their own gains, everyone will be better off and the market mechanism will determine whether they are actually doing society any good.

Our society is very much capitalist, every business out there has one goal in mind: to make profit, and if they took an economics class (like I am at the moment), they would know that that is what the "should" be doing, and even if they didn't they probably are without even realizing. Ultimately we are all seeking to maximize our profit and I don't just mean in terms of money. So we are all pretty much capitalists.

My fear is that at some point we will try to over reach our bounds so to speak. By that I mean we, which can be interpreted either as humanity or as businesses, particularly large ones, will go looking for more profit than exists, seek to manipulate any and everything to do it, end up bringing down everyone else, along with the economy.

As for the whole Bill Gates/Microsoft "monopoly" thing, this is one of those issues which will never be resolved until Apple throws in the towel and admits defeat or maybe turns itself into an open source institution. The fact of the matter is, computer software, especially operating systems, may be a "natural monopoly", that is a market which functions better and cheaper as a monopoly than as a competitive market. Just try to imagine if there were as few as ten proprietary operating systems out there, each of which was equally popular but completely unique. Just imagine the insanity that would be the world of computing. There would have to be ten different versions of a single driver, ten different versions of every piece of software, and about a billion compatibility issues on a daily basis. If these ten companies tried to unify their methods some how that could be construed as a trust and then we would have massive anti-trust lawsuits gumming up the works. Does the fact that Microsoft practically has a monopoly on the computing world mean that Bill Gates gets filthy rich, (DUH!) of course it does. And if Apple had become the more popular OS then Apple would be making a killing right now, Microsoft would be the one left in the shadows, and everyone would be complaining about Apple being a monopoly.

The fact that Microsoft rules the world right now so stop complaining and just accept it [directed at the world]  . Personally I don't really have issue with it, I will take Windows over Mac any day. I consider Windows to be the more powerful, flexible, and adaptable OS, even if it is less stable or more prone to viruses. The only reason Macs "don't get viruses" is because no one bothers writing them (and I heard once that programming for Macs is notoriously difficult). I will admit that recently Microsoft seems to be trying to imitate (or aspire to) the "easy, user friendly" style of Mac which should be called "useless, option stripping, and dumbing down". Microsoft shouldn't go removing features or options, etc. which allow the user great control over their PC; there are some people who like them and make use of them even it it's only a fraction of all users. I'm particularly disappointed (as are many others) that the Advanced Tag Editor was removed from WMP 12 on account of it being significantly "broken" (I never had issue with it).

Oh well, that's my rant.

Sorry.  I was trying to be funny and failed hard, I guess.

Let's just say that it came across as being slightly chauvinist and sexist. But I also have to go with Tyler on this one, some women just shouldn't not wear clothes. And besides sometimes it's about what they don't take off... 

posted on February 25th, 2010, 3:17 am

I really believe that if the whole of society was Socialist, it would work like clock work, same if it was Capitalist.  the only reason I believe Capitalism is better is because if someone does not do their share, no body is left to pick up where they left off, likewise, the slackers never feel the downside to their faliure.  On the flip side, in a perfect Capitalist world, if someone fails, they can only blame themselves, and they can only fix it them selves.

However these are both hypothetical assessments, and like i said, If the world was perfect, either would work. The downfall of our society is when we try to balance in between, and it doesn't work

Oh and the bill gates thing was a joke  

posted on February 25th, 2010, 3:57 am

Oh and the bill gates thing was a joke  

Yeah, I just used it as an opprotunity to rant.

posted on February 25th, 2010, 9:41 am

In my opinion the world today is clearly ruled by capitalists. And, following Lenin, we are even already again in the state of imperialism when considering all the wars going on led by the NATO.
Perhaps because of this imperial thing the Ferengi were a warfaring race at the beginning (I try to stay at the topic with this  ).
I don't see any point, where the western societies are "in between" as Adm. Zaxxon said. Yeah, there are still some rights of the workers, but only because the rulers know, when they do away with all those rights, there will be rebellion. They aren't that stupid, they waited for a crisis in order to cut these rights, luckily, not all people are that dumb, look at Greece right now.

posted on February 25th, 2010, 2:21 pm

Perhaps because of this imperial thing the Ferengi were a warfaring race at the beginning (I try to stay at the topic with this  ).

The Ferengi have had wars and violence in their history, though apparently not slavery and genocide. I'm not so sure about the last 2, though, considering their sale of bioweapons for that exact purpose makes themn indirectly responsible.

posted on February 25th, 2010, 3:24 pm

In my opinion the world today is clearly ruled by capitalists. And, following Lenin, we are even already again in the state of imperialism when considering all the wars going on led by the NATO.
Perhaps because of this imperial thing the Ferengi were a warfaring race at the beginning (I try to stay at the topic with this  ).
I don't see any point, where the western societies are "in between" as Adm. Zaxxon said. Yeah, there are still some rights of the workers, but only because the rulers know, when they do away with all those rights, there will be rebellion. They aren't that stupid, they waited for a crisis in order to cut these rights, luckily, not all people are that dumb, look at Greece right now.

Crud well I had a big long response written, just before my computer restarted because of a windows update(Darn you Bill Gates!!)

Anyway, my main point was that I mostly agree with you except that our current gov't leaders are not Capitalist but seem to favor their own Totalitarian Agenda. They don't support, or care about us little people, leaving us to do nothing but be capitalist and fend for our selves, or join a union and just sit around and complain about it.(not to say a General Statement about Unions, because they were created for a reason)

This is what I mean by in between.  Our Government members clearly favor them selves over us, and support only their supporters, making their own little socialist regime, and then, if you arn't a member, you are forced to be capitalist and fend for your self, because they can't force you to support them...yet.  that is what I mean by in between.

You are either completely relying on the government, or you are their enemy(military excluded form all this.  Our military system seems to be the only government system that is still sound atm, mainly because the current powers don't care about them)

posted on February 25th, 2010, 5:20 pm

Crud well I had a big long response written, just before my computer restarted because of a windows update(Darn you Bill Gates!!)

Anyway, my main point was that I mostly agree with you except that our current gov't leaders are not Capitalist but seem to favor their own Totalitarian Agenda. They don't support, or care about us little people, leaving us to do nothing but be capitalist and fend for our selves, or join a union and just sit around and complain about it.(not to say a General Statement about Unions, because they were created for a reason)

This is what I mean by in between.  Our Government members clearly favor them selves over us, and support only their supporters, making their own little socialist regime, and then, if you arn't a member, you are forced to be capitalist and fend for your self, because they can't force you to support them...yet.  that is what I mean by in between.

You are either completely relying on the government, or you are their enemy(military excluded form all this.  Our military system seems to be the only government system that is still sound atm, mainly because the current powers don't care about them)

Well, the points you dislike about our governments are the main points of capitalism, that is why capitalism is bad and that is why there is a little difference between capitalism and market based economy. Our governments have nothing to do with socialism by the way, socialism would mean democracy and equality for everyone. Socialism is not what our propagandistic media tries to convey us(North Corea is far away from being communist in any way, nevertheless the media tells us everytime it is a "communist regime" - nonsense.) Nevertheless it is a different approach to democracy as well. However, I don't want to write an essay now about socialism. Look at the federation: there we got communism, which normally needs socialism before, but not in ST, that's why it's called utopian .

[Anonymous]

posted on February 25th, 2010, 5:34 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on February 25th, 2010, 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think its quite obvious that our government is not Socialist, they just like to tell everyone that we are all equal(they are just more equal than us  - George Orwell)

But you haven't said why Capitalism is bad You said it is bad, and Free ecomomy is bad, but never said why it is bad.  Without capatilism there would neither, Apple, nor Microsoft.  there would be no modding of Armada2, nor armada2 at all There would just be a one size fits all government company that everyone is forced to use.

Its a scary world where people are not allowed to excel beyond others, as well do the best they can.

not to say that some people don't take it too far, but right now, companies such as microsoft still have competition.  Its when they have beaten the compotition into a bloody pulp :fish: that it turns into a monopoly, aswell as a socialist regime, because eve ryone is forced to use the same OS 

Look at the federation: there we got communism, which normally needs socialism before, but not in ST, that's why it's called utopian .

Yeah, like I said.  Even Marxism works in a perfect world.  However their military is clearly Capitalist.  Though, again it wouldn't work in a real war inviroment, if you choose to excel, you will become a captian, but if you just choose to do the bare minimum, you will stay an ensign forever.  I think there was a TNG episode that explained it.

[Anonymous]

posted on February 25th, 2010, 5:39 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on February 25th, 2010, 5:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ok, so I thought I should make my opinion more clear:


Everything is good in small amounts.  There should be Government programs to help people to get back on their feet, and not die in the streets, but they should also be allowed to fail first.

Likewise, They should be able to gain money based on their ability, and excel beyond others, but also they should not be able to monopolize.

I think that is a good balance, and most would agree that would work fine.  Unfortunately, people are selfish, so when they are in charge, the rules change inorder to better benefit themselves.

You should not be able to Capitalize at other peoples expense when already holding a position of power like that of a government office.  When the Government itself becomes a monopoly, nobody wins except them.

posted on February 26th, 2010, 9:19 am

I think we are taking this too far regarding the topic of the Ferengi....

However, look at Africa and tell me again capitalism is not bad. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq and tell me capitalism is not bad, look at the unemployed in the streets and tell me capitalism is not bad. There is that much misery all over the world, 3% of the people earn as much money as 50%(and that is the case in industrialized countries, I'm not talking about Russia and so on), and those people got the power- Just like in the Ferengi-Alliance: the rich got the most power, they buy politicians, media and make wars to put out the opponents or to secure "new markets".
Why would there not be Apple or Microsoft without capitalism(and such)? Even the GDR invented computers on its own ...
In socialism there are still different companies, but in the hands of the workers. The political power always lies in the hands of the economy, and if the economy is in the hands of the majority of the people, then they got the political power, too. This is the basis of socialist democracy.
You say people are selfish, but this is just because as you said before, they have to compete in capitalist system(otherwise they "Fail first").

posted on February 26th, 2010, 9:24 pm

I think, unfortunately, it is the case many times that politics and economics get in the same bed and send the whole system up the river. As an economic system there is nothing (theoretically) wrong with capitalism. Like I said before, we are all "selfish capitalists" in a sense. We all seek to get as much as we can, whether it be of a good or a service or out of life, for as little as possible. Adam Smith, essentially the founder of economics as a discipline, thought that pursuing their own gains, doing things "selfishly", people would ultimately benefit society as a whole. If a person tries to pursue an occupation which is not desirable to society, he will not make gains and be forced, by the "market" so to speak, to do something else in order to make those gains. In an capitalist economic system free of politics everything would be fine even monopolies which are, economically, a rather tricky thing to deal with. But unfortunately politics gets in the way. Perhaps not so much in capitalist systems, but almost always in communist/socialist systems, even if the political structure isn't authoritarian.

The problem, as I see it, is that the core idea of communism is that everything is owned by everyone. "Well, how the hell does that work?" And that's the kicker, no one really knows. "If everything is supposed to be owned collectively by the people, does that mean the government owns it?" Well if the government is the people, sure. "Wait, if we're all supposed to be equal under these systems, how can we have a "government"; that automatically puts one group of people above the rest and gives them power, that defeats the purpose of everyone being equal." In theory we should poll the entire population and see what most people want to do. "But that would be practically impossible, and not everyone is educated enough to make an informed decision." So ultimately one person rises to the top and becomes a leader, often times this leader will take it upon himself to "subdue" those who are against him, resort to force, refuse to stop using that force for other thing, and Shazam!: authoritarian government. "So then does that mean the government shouldn't own everything, but we can't all own everything, that doesn't make sense *:huh: *" And so here we are back at private ownership which defeats the purpose of a communist/socialist system. In history this, or something like this, always seems to be how things play out: one person or a group of people, usually lower class, latch on to the idea of communism/socialism and take it upon themselves to start a revolution. A powerful leader figure come in and successfully overturns the standing government. He is then either elevated by their followers to the position of ruler of the country because they don't know how, or said leader elevates himself, believing the common people incapable of ruling themselves. Ultimately an authoritarian government gets instituted and they claim to be operating under a communist system.

So then, what is "wrong" with capitalism. To understand this, we need a crash course in basic microeconomics, this is a bit truncated so read the links to get a better understanding. Microeconomics centers around the principle of supply and demand. "Supply" is how much a producer can sell (the "quantity supplied") at any given price while "demand" is how much the buyers are willing to buy (the "quantity demanded") at any given price.

The basic, ideal market structure which employs these principles is perfect competition. In perfect competition there are an infinite number of buyers and sellers in a given market, each of whom is insignificant and has zero market power; that is they have no influence over the price and are free to enter and exit the market at will. All the sellers' products are exactly the same, there is no difference. Because they have no influence over the market, they must sell their goods for what ever price the market sets as determined by supply and demand. In the market supply and demand come to an equilibrium which is determined by society which is willing to buy a certain quantity for a price; that price becomes the price all the suppliers in the market must sell at. If they try to sell for less, they are not making as much money as they could be, if they try to sell for more, no one will buy because everyone else is selling for less. All firms under perfect competition will seek to maximize their economic profits which include "accounting" or monetary profits and constitute all revenues minus all monetary costs and all opprotunity costs, which are the amount of money you could make doing the next best thing to what you are doing right now. Under perfect competition firms will enter the market lowering the price and thus profits, until all firms are making zero economic profits (they still make accounting profits). Or if there are firms experiencing economic losses, firms will leave and raise the price, raising profits (lowering losses) until there is zero economic profit.

The other basic market system is monopoly in which there is one seller who is the market. They set the price although they are still subject to the laws of supply and demand. However, monopolists can produce for a cost X which is low but sell their goods at the maximum price that consumers will pay for the quantity produced. This is considered a failure of the market system because the monopolist is not necessarily producing the social optimum quantity and charges "too much" for what it does produce. They tend to have very large economic profits.

Ok, so what is the problem? The problem is that perfect competition is theoretical and can't really exist in most markets. 90% of the things we buy operate under what is called monopolistic competition in which there are still many buyers and sellers but each seller is offering a product which is slightly different from all the others. Firms now try to get people to buy their goods by advertising which is all well and good, although some would say otherwise. But monopolistic competitors are like monopolists in that they produce for a low price but charge a high price. The real problem comes when one or a few company gets a large amount of influence over the market and begins to undercut other companies forcing them out of business or buying them out. This results in an oligopoly and a lot of power in the hands of a few. This, often translates into political power as they finance campaigns or lobby Congress either for or against various rules and regulations. The problem is compounded by people, whose behavior does not necessarily fall into any one pattern. There is also the issue of labor and wages which are also a market but one which is less predictable. People will always want higher wages and companies will always want to pay them as little as they have to(, or do they?). Is this an issue? Well, it certainly can be if the companies get too much power. Are politicians in the pockets of businesses, probably, but they have been for centuries. It is not quite as bad as it has been in the past, especially from about 1870 to about 1910 when railroad and then oil companies held immense power over the government.

The reason that Apple and Microsoft (Take note: neither "invented" computers, they just make them run) couldn't exist outside of a market system is that under communism/socialism everything comes from the same place, even if both companies existed, there would be little point since both would be owned by the same entity that owned all other production. That entity would be accruing more costs than were necessary since only one company is necessary to get the job done. The problem with a "socialist democracy" is that economic power rarely falls into the hands of the common people, if only because the majority of the common people are ignorant or indifferent. This will land control, again, in the hands of a few, who, chances are, will seize on the opprotunity to influence others and we're back at square one. It's like sitting in a tank and claiming you have power; you can sit in it all you want, if you don't know how to drive it you don't actually have much power.

Frankly we don't know much about the actual political structure of the Ferengi Alliance beyond that bribery is used to get ahead and the Grand Nagus is top dog. We don't actually know whether the Alliance was formed for political purposes or economic ones or whether it was formed by free will or force. In many respects it is like a monarchy than anything else. But it is also a society in which rutheless capitalism is the foundation of both their society and government and economics is government. The Ferengi are only the odd ones out because all other species rely on straight trade and have economies that aren't really goverend by supply and demand any more due to the invention of the replicator which renders the need to go and "buy" something useless. It should be noted however that on several occasions we have heard reference to Federation "credits" so they obviously had some kind of economy, but "credits" obviously don't work in quite the same way as money does today. They obviously don't seek it or strive to acquire them, but rather there they are and they can be used as necessary to acquire things which they don't or can't use the replicator for.

If politics didn't get in the way, capitalism would be a just fine system, but the fact is that politics does get in the way because it can do nothing but get in the way. Once upon a time politicians didn't dare dream of messing with economics and businesses, but they found that their involvement was inevitable as society evolved. Right now capitalism is our best bet, if only because no one has successfully made socialism/communism work on a large scale. There are very few, if not no, countries which are actually communist/socialist. What we think of as communist is actually more like authoritarian.

[Anonymous]

posted on February 26th, 2010, 11:14 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on February 26th, 2010, 11:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think we are taking this too far regarding the topic of the Ferengi....

However, look at Africa and tell me again capitalism is not bad. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq and tell me capitalism is not bad, look at the unemployed in the streets and tell me capitalism is not bad. There is that much misery all over the world, 3% of the people earn as much money as 50%(and that is the case in industrialized countries, I'm not talking about Russia and so on), and those people got the power- Just like in the Ferengi-Alliance: the rich got the most power, they buy politicians, media and make wars to put out the opponents or to secure "new markets".
Why would there not be Apple or Microsoft without capitalism(and such)? Even the GDR invented computers on its own ...
In socialism there are still different companies, but in the hands of the workers. The political power always lies in the hands of the economy, and if the economy is in the hands of the majority of the people, then they got the political power, too. This is the basis of socialist democracy.
You say people are selfish, but this is just because as you said before, they have to compete in capitalist system(otherwise they "Fail first").

Sorry man, but I completely dissagree

@ Atlantisbase

I have actually taken microeconomics And I completely agree with you.  If the world was perfect, ans there were no selfish people, it would automatically make the world communist, and it would be fine Unfortunately, you have people like Hitler who try to make the world perfect, and therefore Kill the unwilling, and imperfect.

but in this imperfect world, It is best that people pay for their mistakes, and are rewarded for their Achievements.  Nobody should be forced to give their best to someone else.  Not saying thats bad, but they shouldn't be forced down like that.  It removes the Term Charity form any vocabulary. 

Unfortunately, because Capatilizm is all we have that works right now, (unless you are willing to force people to do things) there will be people that Die in the streets.  That is why I said a limited bit of government involve ment is good, because they can give them a job if they can't get one themselves.  They can keep them from Dying, but they will also have to suffer with the boreing jobe people don't want to do unless they earn a higher position.  Everyone starts that way int he real world, and sometimes you have to start over .




As far as the Ferengi go... I'm sure they were not all that successful.