Why transporters will never come to exist

[Dark Reality 0]

I know a lot of people see Star Trek and other sci-fi shows and fantasize about having some of the technology. Me, I'd love to have a holodeck or holosuite. I'd be like Barclay, living in one. Heck yeah.

 

But transporters? Big mistake, and here's why. A transporter supposedly scans your body, converts it into a data stream, disintegrates you, sends the signal to the desitnation, and then rematerializes you.

 

Wait a minute - it kills you? That's right, you're destroyed and rebuilt. But they have it down to a science, so all your memories and whatnot are retained.

 

But they never answer the real questions about transporter technology, they just dance around them. Like Barclay's transporter phobia, and Tom Riker. But let's look at some possibilities transporters would bring to our everyday lives.

 

1. Before your child leaves for work, you copy them into the transporter buffer, but don't disintegrate them. You do this every day, wiping the previous backup and replacing it with the new one.

 

2. On their way home from school, your child is kidnapped. You don't pay a ransom, you don't call the cops. You just go to your trusty transporter and rematerialize. The child loses their school lessons for a day, but the school understands and sends homework home with a neighbor.

 

3. The real kid is murdered, among other things - but not before the kidnapper records them in a transporter buffer, and then burns the contents of the buffer on whatever storage media is available at the time, and this media is mass reproduced and sold on the black market. To be able to use a transporter to materialize a child who is terrified and vulnerable.

 

4. Perverts develop technology to scan kids without taking them, to rematerialize a copy of them in the privacy of their own home (dungeon?) without the parents ever aware. Crimes against children seem to drop because kids aren't getting kidnapped - they're just getting copied.

 

And that's just one scenario. There are others, but they might not get your attention quite as effectively. For example, transporters and replicators share a lot of the same components. What if I were to download a $20 bill into my transporter buffer and rematerialize 100 copies? They'd all have the same serial, but who checks serials? Besides, I could spend them all at different places.

 

OK, so that's traceable. What if I buy a loaf of bread, a bunch of vegetables, some pasta, and some meat, and load them into the transporter buffer? Replicate that - as that's basically what I'd be doing - and have spaghetti every night. Only if everyone did that, the companies that produced that food to begin with would go out of business.

 

I could go on, but I will not; I've made my point. Do I have a good one, or am I missing something? Because I don't mind these technologies in sci-fi, but hearing people talk about actually developing them - that kinda scares me.

[Kor37 9]

I read an article where scientists have now been able to transport an atom from one place to another. Moral implications aside, a transporter may not be impossible.

[Jack_Bauer 1]

OK, so that's traceable. What if I buy a loaf of bread, a bunch of vegetables, some pasta, and some meat, and load them into the transporter buffer? Replicate that - as that's basically what I'd be doing - and have spaghetti every night. Only if everyone did that, the companies that produced that food to begin with would go out of business.

 

So, there's something scary about effectively ending hunger? And if people could simply use a transporter/replicator to provide everything they need, why would they need jobs (so those companies would be unnecessary)? Of course, people still have jobs in Star Trek which I assume is part of whole working to better ourselves Picard was talking about in Star Trek First Contact.

[Theunicornhunter 2]

I think there may be a problem with the "copy" process - I'm not sure the transporter copies you - dematerialization may be part of the scan procdure (although there was an interesting episode of the Outer Limits with this delimma).

 

I would suggest Krauss's "The Physics of Star Trek" for more indepth analysis of what's wrong with transporter theory. One issue is we have yet to define human personality.

 

There is also an issue that transporters like all technology need a power source - and matter can't be created out of nothing so you have to have a source of energy & matter for all those things you replicate.

 

Now scary would be a power failure in the middle of a deconstruction.

 

Then there is the issue of do you really want to eat replicated food - who knows what that will do to you - do you think naturalists will all disappear?

 

But to Jack's idea - I think the Star Trek vision of the future is a fairy tale - people would not go to work if they didn't have to - maybe some would - but most wouldn't and replicators can't replicate the ongoing research and technology necessary to keep society advancing. (nor can it do the mining and foundry work necessary to create the materials out of which one builds replicators.)

[He Who Shall Not Be Named 2]

Hey, I work to better myself too. But I also see nothing wrong with making a few extra bucks while I am at it.

[trekz 7]

Interesting question/moral dilema. A huge stumbling block in my opinion wold be the cost involved. Such a device would most likely be very expensive, and the power to run it would be costly. It would require a dedicated space, and in the future larger houses may be very expensive. It would require upkeep and maintenance. They did seem to be working on those tranporters a lot, kind of like the copy machine repair guys who are always at the office these days! Paying for repairs and maintence could be astronomical. I would assume one might have to have a permit to have one, due to the moral implications. Imo this would limit the number of transporters prodcued, and if only limited numbers were manufactured, that could result in even higher costs, making them less affordable and potentially available.

[Dark Reality 0]

So, there's something scary about effectively ending hunger? And if people could simply use a transporter/replicator to provide everything they need, why would they need jobs (so those companies would be unnecessary)? Of course, people still have jobs in Star Trek which I assume is part of whole working to better ourselves Picard was talking about in Star Trek First Contact.

Ending hunger? How so? They did it in Star Trek, but let's look at the real-world implications. Some company - I don't care which one - invents the replicator. That is what we're talking about when we talk about ending hunger, right? So the replicator is invented. How much is it going to cost? You can put anything in it to convert it to energy, and convert that energy back to food. (Voy: Year of Hell: Janeway orders Chakotay to recycle a gift so they could use it for other things.) That would set you back at least a half a million bucks, if not a cool million.

 

Bill Gates and George W. Bush would have them. The richest 1% of the population will have them - and they ain't hungry by any means. Is that a guarantee those who are hungry will get to eat? Probably more so with Gates than Bush, considering his charity work, but still, the first replicators are going to be huge, not portable. Hunger might end in the Redmond, WA area, best case scenario. What about hunger in other places in America - what about hunger in third-world countries?

 

Of course, I'm only speaking hypothetically. I'm by no means taking this any more seriously than it deserves.

[mj 7]

I think the government would make a law that it is everyone's right to have access to transporter technology. There would be public and private replicators or transporters, just like there are public and private hospitals, and public and private schools.

[Takara_Soong 4]

I think the government would make a law that it is everyone's right to have access to transporter technology. There would be public and private replicators or transporters, just like there are public and private hospitals, and public and private schools.

Gosh I'm more cynical than you, mj. If government got involved all I can picture are the transporter technology companies lobby group trying to get patent protection extensions, exclusivity laws, just like the drug companies.

Edited May 17, 2006 by Takara_Soong

[Theunicornhunter 2]

My turn to be cynical - if the public transporter of tomorrow is comparable to how public schools & hospitals today compare to private ones .... I don't think I'd be stepping up to the plate.