Natanox

Star Trek also operates in a non-scarcity environment and eliminates the necessity of hard, pretty non-rewarding labor through either not showing it or writing (like putting holograms into mines instead of people, or using some sci-fi tech that makes mining comfy as long as said tech doesn’t kill you).

Even without capitalism the term “life is expensive” still stands not in regards to money, but effort that has to be put into stuff that doesn’t wield any emotional reward (you can feel emotionally rewarded in many ways, but some stuff is just shit for a long time). Every person who suffered through depression is gonna tell you that, to feel enticed to do something, there has to be some emotional reward connected to it (one of the things depression elimates), and it’s a mathematical fact that not everyone who’d start scrubbing tubes on a starship could eventually get into high positions since there simply aren’t that many of those. The emotional gains have to offset the cost you put into it.

Of course cutthroat capitalism is shit and I love Star Trek, but what it shows doesn’t make too much sense either economically or socially.

It’s the only sensible approach. Not just is the notion that “humans use just their eyes too” completely wrong (otherwise how would be able to tell that something is off with the car “with our butt”?), computers are not even remotely close to our understanding and rapid interpretation of the world around us or cooperation beyond of what’s pre-programmed, which is necessary to deal with unforeseen circumstances. Cars must offset this somehow, and the simplest way to do so is with vast sensor suites that give them as much information as possible. Of course many humans also utterly fail at cooperation and defensive driving, but that’s another problem.