“...folks that studiously ignore the implications of replicators...”
So where do they the parts and energy(especially the energy) for the replicators when the replicators break down?
(I know, I know The Hologram?)
Well that’s the QUESTION of the replicators. But there’s a lot of good and bad implications to replicators that people ignore. The obvious one is that in a replicator society needs are solved, people get to eat and be entertained and get clothes and all those other basic needs that fit in a microwave for free. The big BAD implication is that about 60% of the world is now out of work, the entire subsistence providing retail supply chain just died.
You combine providing for all of society’s basic needs with 60% unemployment you get a world where not can communism work, you HAVE to have it. You basically wind up in Judge Dredd world. Which goes a long way to explain why so many people are willing to colonize random planets, and also why so much of the population is attached to the military in some way.