When CMDR Riker (gross!) initially refuses to represent LT Maddox in the formal hearings, CPT Dubois says she "will rule summarily based on my findings. Data is a toaster."

No one bats an eye. This analogy seems perfectly normal in the century of faster-than-light travel, energy-matter transporters, and food replicators ("computer: bread, wheat, lightly toasted"(?)).

My question is, could toasters really have survived a 3rd world war, first contact, and the technology boom that came after, even if just as rhetorical device as demonstrated by the JAG officer in TNG? I think my position is obvious. The toaster, as a technological device, even just as an analogy, seems wildly anachronistic in the 24th as calling texting cuneiforming today (my dweeb is showing).

I love this episode so much and CPT Dubois' line has always made me wonder why did Picard or Riker (eew!) did ask "What the hell's a toaster, Captain?"

Dubois: You see, back in the 20th and 21st centuries when people wanted their bread 'toasted', they would put the sliced bread inside these 'slots' that were in a device about this big. They'd wait about a minute while coils in the device would heat up and 'toast' the bread slices, and then the bread would POP up out of the device ready to eat. They also had a thing called avocado toast. But I don't know what that was about, it's just fruit in bread, really.

Riker: What? A hot slot?

Picard: That is absurd! Why would Data burn bread, Captain!?

Riker: Yeah! Where's his slot to stick the bread anyway? Asking for a friend...

Dubois: Gentleman, the point is that Data is a machi-

Picard: Just do your duty, Dubois!

Riker: Yeah, Captain!... about the bread-slot, how hot does it get?