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Robert Beltran says the Prime Directive is 'fascist crap'

One.

That's due diligence, so from now on, we are I suppose expected to fade into the background, if we have finished adding genetic diversity to the species.
 
Beltran...is absolutely right about the prime directive. It should have just stayed a policy of non-interference in internal conflicts. Not an apocalypse bystander contract.
 
Natural disasters are internal conflict.

On a personal level, with individuals, you can't help an adult do anything unless they ask you to help them, or you're treating them like a child.

Yes, I understand that that's what an intervention is, but sometimes persons lose the right to be treated as an adult by their friends and family.
 
Prime Directive needs to be retconned. Based on the P.D the Vulcans should have kept on flying instead of stopping by, unless Solkar ran out of gas. Why was the planet Nibiru saved in STiD, why was the ship there in the first place?
The P.D is like warp drive, as relevant as the plot allows.
However in RL if a P.D was in existence in human history there would be no British Diaspora in Africa, North America and Australasia. Trump might have been Prime Minster today! Oh Lawd!
 
Natural disasters are internal conflict.

On a personal level, with individuals, you can't help an adult do anything unless they ask you to help them, or you're treating them like a child.

Yes, I understand that that's what an intervention is, but sometimes persons lose the right to be treated as an adult by their friends and family.

If someone is about to die, it's better to save them "as a child" than letting them die "as an adult".
 
A dozen idiot wankers have to have written a short story about saving young Adolf Hitler from a childhood disease by using futuristic antibiotics.

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Yes, time travel is a little more invasive than just ignoring your neighbours, but it took the Vulcans a hundred years till they thought that man kind was ready to stand on it's own feet, and that's probably what every advanced species has to do whenever they bump into a uppity child race who doesn't know their ass from their elbow.

Help them continuously for centuries, or watch them accidentally murder themselves a few minutes later, unless it's an invasion and occupation dealio.
 
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A dozen idiot wankers have to have written a short story about saving young Adolf Hitler from a childhood disease by using futuristic antibiotics.

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Yes, time travel is a little more invasive than just ignoring your neighbours, but it took the Vulcans a hundred years till they thought that man kind was ready to stand on it's own feet, and that's probably what every advanced species has to do whenever they bump into a uppity child race who doesn't know their ass from their elbow.

Help them continuously for centuries, or watch them accidentally murder themselves a few minutes later.

"Child race"? You're talking like Q.:lol:
 
I think the spirit of the PD was to prevent the exploitation of the aliens as cheap workforce for example or to get some valuable resource of their planet for a pittance, that sort of thing. It was never intended in its beginning to prevent helping them. As a matter of fact it has never been invoked for this reason by Kirk. Picard is the first one to make that assholish assumption, of course if we refer to in-universe chronology the first one would be Archer before the PD was even invented in Dear Doctor, but Archer is an imbecile.
Who gets to decide what constitutes help? If I'm a member of a non-warp species, I'd prefer the decision not be made by some human with a hero complex that I don't even know who happens to be sitting on a weaponized space ship with the ability to blast my planet to ashes.

The historian guy in "Patterns of Force" didn't think he was exploiting aliens as a cheap workforce or taking valuable resources from their planet. He was trying to help them by instituting his ostensibly benevolent fascist regime. Spock is as clear as anyone about the extent of the Prime Directive, if not the motivation: complete non-interference. And while the Prime Directive is not technically in play in "A Private Little War" (the culture has already been contaminated), it's a perfect example from original Trek about how Kirk's desire to provide help to his friends has consequences that are not only damaging but draw the Federation into an imperialist conflict.
 
Prime Directive needs to be retconned. Based on the P.D the Vulcans should have kept on flying instead of stopping by, unless Solkar ran out of gas. Why was the planet Nibiru saved in STiD, why was the ship there in the first place?
If they'd stopped the eruption on Nibiru without being seen, they wouldn't have violated the Prime Directive. At least, that seems to be Spock's position, and it's mine about how the Prime Directive should work.

But what happens when a non-warp people does see you save them from extinction. How do you prevent them from treating you like saviors, if not gods? How do you avoid drawing those people into some relationship of inequality with and subservience to the mighty Federation?

Well, you bring in as many people with different specialties as possible, to protect the situation from one abusive pinhead of an admiral or misguided captain with a hero complex. You stay as far away from the planet and its people as possible, under the circumstances. And then you sleep well at night because at least those people aren't extinct. So, yeah, I'm in favor of an exception to the Prime Directive in that extreme situation.

But even that extreme situation raises all kinds of colonialist, imperialist problems, which is why non-interference is the much better general policy for most situations.
 
Who gets to decide what constitutes help? If I'm a member of a non-warp species, I'd prefer the decision not be made by some human with a hero complex that I don't even know who happens to be sitting on a weaponized space ship with the ability to blast my planet to ashes.

The historian guy in "Patterns of Force" didn't think he was exploiting aliens as a cheap workforce or taking valuable resources from their planet. He was trying to help them by instituting his ostensibly benevolent fascist regime. Spock is as clear as anyone about the extent of the Prime Directive, if not the motivation: complete non-interference. And while the Prime Directive is not technically in play in "A Private Little War" (the culture has already been contaminated), it's a perfect example from original Trek about how Kirk's desire to provide help to his friends has consequences that are not only damaging but draw the Federation into an imperialist conflict.

"Benevolent fascist regime"? What's benevolent about Hitler? You're speaking nonsense.
 
"Benevolent fascist regime"? What's benevolent about Hitler? You're speaking nonsense.

Have you seen "Patterns of Force"? In the episode, the historian character's theory is that if a fascist regime were put to benign ends it would benefit people. He sets up an imitation of a Nazi state on an alien planet, which of course goes spectacularly wrong, and at the end of the episode he affirms that the Federation's non-interference doctrine is the only way.

His (stupid, misguided) position is that a fascist regime can be benevolent. It's not my position. That's why my words were "ostensibly benevolent."
 
Have you seen "Patterns of Force"? In the episode, the historian character's theory is that if a fascist regime were put to benign ends it would benefit people. He sets up an imitation of a Nazi state on an alien planet, which of course goes spectacularly wrong, and at the end of the episode he affirms that the Federation's non-interference doctrine is the only way.

His (stupid, misguided) position is that a fascist regime can be benevolent. It's not my position. That's why my words were "ostensibly benevolent."

Ok, so it's not your nonsense then but it's nonsense all the same. There never was anything benevolent about fascist regimes, to believe that one has to be insane.
 
You know that every absolute monarch that has ever lived was a fascist right?

King is just another word for President for Life

John Gil tried to save a doomed planet.

He used the organizational structure of the Nazis, minus the global war, death camps, fear mongering and slavery, to assign the necessary duties to the public to create forward societal growth.

Is it really John's fault, that after he had a stroke (was he poisoned?) that that Asshole Melakon took over.

;)
 
If they'd stopped the eruption on Nibiru without being seen, they wouldn't have violated the Prime Directive. At least, that seems to be Spock's position, and it's mine about how the Prime Directive should work.

But what happens when a non-warp people does see you save them from extinction. How do you prevent them from treating you like saviors, if not gods? How do you avoid drawing those people into some relationship of inequality with and subservience to the mighty Federation?

Well, you bring in as many people with different specialties as possible, to protect the situation from one abusive pinhead of an admiral or misguided captain with a hero complex. You stay as far away from the planet and its people as possible, under the circumstances. And then you sleep well at night because at least those people aren't extinct. So, yeah, I'm in favor of an exception to the Prime Directive in that extreme situation.

But even that extreme situation raises all kinds of colonialist, imperialist problems, which is why non-interference is the much better general policy for most situations.

Which takes me back to why were they at Nibiru? To explore does this mean stopping by every inhabited planet and saying 'hello, take me to your leader', even if their level of technology is 'primitive'? The way to hell and good intentions comes to mind when it comes to playing Saviour of the galaxy. Real life Western history is a classic example.
 
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