Morality of prime directive
- Thread starter lotho
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- UK
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
What a complex question with what a binary poll.
This one is the only I can't understand at all. Others I can see the point of at least partially, like not sharing technology that could potentially start wars or letting them know about scientific facts that could upturn the entire views less advanced societies are based on, but surely altering the potential path of a species is better than guaranteed extinction?
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Everything short of extinction is fine. Too many variables to expose the population to, but there's not going to be a population to expose if they all die.
FaeGlade Plural
Semper Legens
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- Land of Bureaucracy
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- Plural/They
Which Prime Directive?
Because there's a huge difference between TOS-era "let's not interfere in foreign internal affairs and meddle with other cultures", and VOY-era "better let them all die than lift a finger".
Is some form of a Prime Directive a good idea?
Well, you can argue about this pretty hard. If you can introduce medicine or agriculture that will save millions of lives, is it not immoral to do so?
But the idea can be defended. You can make a solid argument that letting a species/civilization develop naturally is safer than letting yourself interfere.
Is it a good idea to let a species get wiped out from a disaster you could have prevented?
No, you can't defend that. Yet we see that employed often in later Star Trek. There's a huge false dichotomy of "what if it was a war instead of a natural disaster", which is just...those two are different, they're not the same. Maybe you can find some grey area, like a nuclear winter, or a bioweapon, but that doesn't mean you can't say "we interfere in natural catastrophies, such as asteroid strikes, but not with wars".
Standing by and doing nothing while a species gets wiped out in a way you could stop? If you do that, you're an utter monster.
Because there's a huge difference between TOS-era "let's not interfere in foreign internal affairs and meddle with other cultures", and VOY-era "better let them all die than lift a finger".
Is some form of a Prime Directive a good idea?
Well, you can argue about this pretty hard. If you can introduce medicine or agriculture that will save millions of lives, is it not immoral to do so?
But the idea can be defended. You can make a solid argument that letting a species/civilization develop naturally is safer than letting yourself interfere.
Is it a good idea to let a species get wiped out from a disaster you could have prevented?
No, you can't defend that. Yet we see that employed often in later Star Trek. There's a huge false dichotomy of "what if it was a war instead of a natural disaster", which is just...those two are different, they're not the same. Maybe you can find some grey area, like a nuclear winter, or a bioweapon, but that doesn't mean you can't say "we interfere in natural catastrophies, such as asteroid strikes, but not with wars".
Standing by and doing nothing while a species gets wiped out in a way you could stop? If you do that, you're an utter monster.
- Location
- UK
Speciesist might be a better term. And it explains it in the image itself.
And yeah, TOS era's prime directive often got broken by Kirk and co for good reasons, making it more of a guideline than anything. By TNG, it was viewed as dogma, backed up by arguments such as Riker's "what if there's some grand plan that means billions of people are meant to die, and we shouldn't interfere with that".
I'm on the phone.
While the later episodes are lulzy, that comic is gratuitous as well. I mean foreign nations have no right to dictate to locals how to live. Isn't the prime directive even when taken to retarded extremes better than colonialism?
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- UK
No? If you have interstellar space travel, you don't need to exploit aliens for anything. You don't need their labour, you don't need their resources. The "powerful civilisation meets primitive society, destroys it" idea does not necessarily have a basis outside of everyone being on one planet. Yet the Federation in Star Trek is scared that they will go ahead and exploit planetbound societies anyway. Really, the Prime Directive should say "don't exploit non-warp-capable species", but the Federation doesn't want the responsibility of having to police interactions, so it decides to prevent all interaction instead.
Also, "colonialism is worse than going exinct", definitely no.
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
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- Jerkville
If they didn't want to die to a natural disaster, they shouldn't have been born primitive. Unless of course a member of the bridge crew personally interacts with them and suddenly remembers that they are condemning sapient life to die en masse, in which case no effort is too great.
The Prime Directive as presented at every point after TOS* is pretty much complete bullshit. Being able to rot on a culturally uncontaminated ball of uninhabitable rock is not better than almost any alternative**.
*Into Darkness being the one example that immediately springs to mind where it was handled in a generally reasonable fashion.
**With exceptions made for the Dark Eldar or similar 'rescuing' them
The Prime Directive as presented at every point after TOS* is pretty much complete bullshit. Being able to rot on a culturally uncontaminated ball of uninhabitable rock is not better than almost any alternative**.
*Into Darkness being the one example that immediately springs to mind where it was handled in a generally reasonable fashion.
**With exceptions made for the Dark Eldar or similar 'rescuing' them
No slave labor might still be useful. Also yes being colonialism is more than slavery they also force their religion and politics on you. Also yes being colonized is better than extinction due to natural disasters. But which alien race would you want near earth now one with a prime directive who will let asteroids hit you but won't hurt you otherwise. Or space Colonists who won't let asteroids kill you but will conquer and enslave you. I mean it's not guaranteed a rock will hit you. But empires will conquer you if they can.
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- Patriarchova
About sums it up.
Okay, I'm not a fan of the Prime Directive as it was practiced in the later shows, but that cartoon is exaggerating. Starfleet can and does protect primitive sophonts from natural disasters when they can do so without exposing themselves to them. The comic states that diverting the comet without setting foot on the planet's surface was an option; if that's the case, Starfleet would have diverted the comet.
serra2
Himouto! Sylvanas-chan
What possible need would you have for mass slave labor? To work our fields of space cotton? To nail the boards that make up our space stations?
If they don't use robots they could use slaves for low tier menial labor. I mean we still have low skill jobs that could be done the stuff that illegal immigrants do for example. Also there is sex slavery, and domestic work like maids and gardeners. Look at those arabs who always get caught treating their servants like slaves.
BunBun299
Killer Rabbit
If species is meant to die, the universe can get off it's lazy ass and kill them some other way we can't prevent. I absolutely hate this argument. Especially because I happen to believe in a loving God. If anything, if there is a species in dire need of aid or they will be wiped out, and we happen to be around to witness this, then it is because he means for us to help them survive. And if you don't believe in God, then all of this is random chance, and they are meant to neither live or die. What ever disaster is looming over them is just random chance, so you are just a colossal asshole not to help when you can.
There are things we shouldn't interfere with. We shouldn't beam security officers with phasers down to prevent a mugging. But there are times when we should. And if it's a choice between not interfering and allowing extinction, well then, that policy of not interfering should be dumped in favor of saving an entire species.
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- UK
Why would you not use robots? There are robots currently being built to do things like serve at bars. Why would you keep alien sex slaves when its highly likely that they don't even have compatable sex organs with your species? Domestic work can, again, be done by robots. Imagine a futuristic Roomba. Hell, we have automated lawnmowers already. Never mind that in Star Trek they could probably transport all the grass above a certain height away.
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- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
The Cardassian occupation of Bajor says hello.
Since this is a question about the Star Trek universe, you have to answer within the confines of that setting, and not just rely on what "would make sense".
Well robots if they rebel are far more dangerous than regular slaves. As for sex slaves since we are talking about Star Trek where everyone is humanoid I am assuming they are compatible. As for the teleport probably. But there was a quote in Star Wars where someone asks why they have slaves if they have droids. And the response was entertainment value. The society would get prestige by having more slaves.
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- UK
I'm sorry, can a Roomba pick up a rifle or punch you in the privates?
A roomba can't a human robot or kill bot could.
It depends on the tech.
- Location
- UK
It doesn't say in the OP that it's confined to Star Trek. I read it as being what do you think of the concept.
Also, out of interest Lotho, do you think we should be interfering in Africa by sending them aid for their HIV epidemic? If the answer is "yes", tell me why aliens shouldn't give their advanced medical technology to other aliens. Ecclampsia is an issue that predominantly affects developing countries. Should we not have bothered running a trial to confirm that intravenous magnesium was effective against it because telling them that would disrupt their societies?
serra2
Himouto! Sylvanas-chan
Yeah, I think of the Prime directive, and how it is usually described and I just....
Imagine if Earth had some Bio-weapon that went off, and after several years and over a billion dead we finally eliminate all instances of it. We recover and make the jump to space. And the first alien species polity group we met goes "Oh yeah, you guys, we remember the reports on that thing. Nasty little bug, we whipped up a universal cure in a day to protect ourselves. Didn't want to give it to you, afraid to upset your natural development."
How good do you think future relations with said polity would be?