In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time.
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In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time. But is Spock getting less flavoursome over time? In this essay I shall…
Did they manufacture each replicator individually, or just make the first one, then use it to replicate all the other replicators?
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If I were Star Trek people I would be more concerned about where the replicators get the matter the food is made of, and why aren't there any bathrooms on the Enterprise?
@anon20394702398750 @MostlyHarmless
Jean Luc shaves his head in his study.
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In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time. But is Spock getting less flavoursome over time? In this essay I shall…
@MostlyHarmless (a) I regret that I know the technical manual answer to this discrepancy.
(b) If I didn't know it, I would be perfectly willing to accept that it's like people who prefer analog to digital music because they miss the "warmth" of a record player.
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In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time. But is Spock getting less flavoursome over time? In this essay I shall…
@MostlyHarmless the weak point is that the transporter is copying a reference object (the person being transported) whereas presumably the food replicators are working from a software copy of food, I would guess. They're having to put the food together from scratch as it were without a physical reference. Maybe that matters??
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@howtophil @MostlyHarmless I think this is it
At some point someone scanned a plate of scrambled eggs and everyone has been eating that same plate of scrambled eggs ever since
You don't get the variations in flavour and texture like you would with a meal prepared by hand
My first thought was to randomize the pattern mathematically, but…that's pretty much what LLMs do with language, and what procedural generation in video games does, and neither of them is a substitute for hand-made novelty.
Also, doing this realistically may require numerous iterations of an extremely detailed physics simulation in which animals are created and killed over and over, and therefore be both computationally infeasible and highly unethical.
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My first thought was to randomize the pattern mathematically, but…that's pretty much what LLMs do with language, and what procedural generation in video games does, and neither of them is a substitute for hand-made novelty.
Also, doing this realistically may require numerous iterations of an extremely detailed physics simulation in which animals are created and killed over and over, and therefore be both computationally infeasible and highly unethical.
@argv_minus_one @Wearwolf @howtophil @MostlyHarmless Just turn up the temperature on the replicator and eat whatever tail probability tokens get scrambled in
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@MostlyHarmless I always assumed it's because replicated food is based off of a lower-resolution template, whilst the transporter does a unique high-res (destructive) copy of an object. So, every replicated steak is 'the same steak', and the compression artifacts make it a bit less good than the real thing.
(This makes sense if you consider several episodes of Star Trek imply it takes huge amounts of storage to hold a transporter pattern, yet replicators have extensive menus available to them - clearly replicator patterns are compressed or just low-res by comparison, with an apparently noticeable quality trade-off)
@aoanla @MostlyHarmless I *seem* to recall a mention that replicated food will turn into mush if you let it sit for too long? That would also speak for a "lower resolution," I suppose.
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In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time. But is Spock getting less flavoursome over time? In this essay I shall…
@MostlyHarmless I think the problem is that replicated food always tastes exactly the same, without all the tiny variations you get with freshly cooked food.
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@aoanla @MostlyHarmless I *seem* to recall a mention that replicated food will turn into mush if you let it sit for too long? That would also speak for a "lower resolution," I suppose.
@chrpistorius @aoanla @MostlyHarmless It could also be a plausible story beat that the Federation regulates the replicators for nutritional content, so in addition to the scan being low-res, the recipies are also "healthy" in ways that make them less flavorful. I'd also lean into the idea that if you get a steak, it's always the _same_ steak, everywhere, and how that could get very boring compared to any fresh cooking.
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@argv_minus_one @Wearwolf @howtophil @MostlyHarmless Just turn up the temperature on the replicator and eat whatever tail probability tokens get scrambled in
@jleedev @argv_minus_one @Wearwolf @MostlyHarmless You could scan multiple plates of scrambled eggs, but data storage seems to still be limited in the 24th century.
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In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time. But is Spock getting less flavoursome over time? In this essay I shall…
@MostlyHarmless Regarding the transporter perfectly replicating Spock
I think it was the final season of Picard that said the transporter didn't copy some bits of people if the pattern for those bits was judged to be "common"
These bits were then replicated from locally stored patterns, presumably to save bandwidth
Compromising the locally stored patterns was a big plot point
Of course my memory may have gone completely
...Gonna have to watch Picard again
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In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time. But is Spock getting less flavoursome over time? In this essay I shall…
@MostlyHarmless it's too bad we didn't get a Star Trek episode where they replicate analogue synths so Picard can say "it just doesn't sound like a real minimoog, it doesn't have that buttery filter"
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In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time. But is Spock getting less flavoursome over time? In this essay I shall…
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Did they manufacture each replicator individually, or just make the first one, then use it to replicate all the other replicators?
Wouldn’t 2 replicators be needed?
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In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time. But is Spock getting less flavoursome over time? In this essay I shall…
@MostlyHarmless It's because qualia is a non-fungible token.
So you can transport a steak and it'll still taste as good, but you can't copy that stake or just create your own fraudulent duplicate from scratch without it tasting just a bit less juicy and more like ass.
You gotta drop the magical thinking and get with the science.
This is why they destroy the original when transporting you because you without qualia is just a weird zombie.
QED
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@MostlyHarmless Does imply that each time you transport you may smell and taste SLIGHTLY different but there's a social convention that it;s NEVER MENTIONED.
@scottgal @MostlyHarmless First rule of transporter club is you don't mention transporter club member's smell and you don't lick any other member of transport club
Second rule of transporter club is you don't mention transporter club member's smell and you don't lick any other member of transport club
Third rule of transporter club is Dr Pulaski is not on the club, so you may sniff and lick her consensually -
If I were Star Trek people I would be more concerned about where the replicators get the matter the food is made of, and why aren't there any bathrooms on the Enterprise?
@anon20394702398750 @MostlyHarmless "My food tastes a little bit like Spock, is this my Spock smells a little less … oh!"
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@MostlyHarmless
hmmm physics would then suggest there is an anti-Spock somewhere, getting more and more flavourful over time. Once again the mysteries of the universe are explained.
[Causally browsing Spock recipes on the internet]@curiously @MostlyHarmless Certainly in the mirror verse
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@curiously @MostlyHarmless Certainly in the mirror verse
@curiously @MostlyHarmless The beard could maybe then be explained as a transporter malfunction
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In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time. But is Spock getting less flavoursome over time? In this essay I shall…
@MostlyHarmless There should have been an episode where some brought five loaves of bread and two fish on board and used the transporter to create a multitude of copies to give out to everyone in the mess hall and everyone would praise them for their extraordinary replicator recipes
