Reply #91: These issues were all dealt with [View All]

[liontamer]

1) your standard replicator can't do complex connections like that. Your best bet to using that technology to create more datas would be to copy his pattern from a transporter buffering system (which is way more complex and accordingly uses more power). But the ethical issues of duplicating data and treating androids as "disposable people" were already dealt with in a TNG episode, (remember the one with Lal, his daughter and the scientist who wanted to dissassemble data)

2) Again replicators use power, power is limited, which means that you have to pay for. Additionally, Ferengi culture is deeply based on acquisition of profit and this drive goes beyond actual need. It's a cultural issue.

3/4) The star trek universe respects individuality; it's essentially the culmination of american culture of the 1960's. so just as an army of disposable datas is immoral, forcing people to give up all individuality (hopes, ambition, even drives like self preservation) is bad.

5) Life is precious. replicators can recreate compounds (so can modern day chemists) not life.