Is Troi ethical?

[AntonyF]

A thought sprung to me on my umpteenth rewatch of TNG, and it's perhaps only as a (hopefully) wiser older man now I think about something differently.

And I thought... is Troi and the use of her ethical?

Think about it. She's reading foreign captains and what not, then reporting back to the Captain on it. She scanned their brains, their innermost thoughts. She may not get full detail but she at least felt the present to see what its shape was.

At no point are they aware or consented to such scans.

What would be the ethics of putting telepaths on your ship to gain insight of not just enemies but literally anyone that flies near you?

I noticed her too in The Schizoid Man (not that I should use anything in season two against the show) and she goes straight to Kareen and tells her that Ira Graves is attracted to her. I mean that's not only quite invasive, she didn't need to go and tell her too. It was arguably exposition to setup the later love angle, but we could have picked that up regardless.

The Federation are the good guys, so to come back to the first question - is that ethical?

Also why don't Romulans kidnap a load of Betazoids - the full blood ones - and install one on every ship. Instant info on what your enemies are thinking.

 

[Ragitsu]

Does that apply to clearly hostile races?

"Excuse me: may we get consent to scan your minds before you kill us all?"

 

[AntonyF]

Does that apply to clearly hostile races?

"Excuse me: may we get consent to scan your minds before you kill us all?"

Good question, what do you think?

She does it frequently with people that aren't hostile, and in situations like Ira Graves mentioned above.

But if the person is proven hostile, is it then agreeable? And who sets that benchmark?

 

[valkyrie013]

Would be a good episode to have, Troi ( Or another telepathic species) passes by person X and say there thinking of murder or some other crime, and Troi tells the captain, or Worf, etc. and then get into a thing of consent, and probably what is some thing like the Deltan's "Oath of Celibacy" or something where a telepathic species agrees not to scan anybody without there permission. Something like the PsyCorps of B5.

Maybe an episode where a new member of the crew is from a telepathic race, and goes around scanning others for his or her own pleasure, and gets found out, or something to that effect.

As for Troi scanning the adversary, I have no problem with that, Any captain would love to know if an apposing captain is telling the truth or is hiding something etc. Maybe an invasion of privacy, and the captain wouldn't want it done in non hostile environments, but yeah.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

It's the same thing that an intuitive person could do by looking at body language, reading between the lines of what someone said or didn't say, or listening to their hunches, only more so.

We don't know when we're being studied or observed, but there is only so much a person can tell about us by watching us normally without technical aids or a higher level of access. I suppose it could be considered an invasion of privacy, but maybe that's regarded in extreme circumstances like entering a house without a search warrant because you hear screaming. If something is going on, a captain needs to know for the needs of the many on his ship and in the Federation/Starfleet.

 

[AntonyF]

Would be a good episode to have, Troi ( Or another telepathic species) passes by person X and say there thinking of murder or some other crime, and Troi tells the captain, or Worf, etc. and then get into a thing of consent...

That would have been interesting. And I don't think they ever tested her fallibility.

This brings to mind Retrospect from Voyager a bit. I loved how they tipped that on its head and showed how an idea or something said with good intentions can spiral out of control.

Something like the PsyCorps of B5.

I admit as I wrote the post I did start to think "Wait, am I channelling the B5 story here?"

It's the same thing that an intuitive person could do by looking at body language, reading between the lines of what someone said or didn't say, or listening to their hunches, only more so.

Playing devi's advocate with myself as I pondered it I thought the same thing. But is it the same? With body language etc. both sides are on the same page and there's nothing private about said info. But with mind scanning, she's definitely getting an unfair advantage as she's listening in on your own mind.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

When a person actively denies or otherwise tries to hide their feelings and thoughts, but gives it away unintentionally in body language, they may believe, however falsely, that they've done a good enough job concealing that information. And they may have hidden it well from those who can't read them. But they're an open book to those who can.

So the speaker is not on the same page as an observer who can easily see what the speaker thinks is well hidden

 

[valkyrie013]

Topical Subject, as in were being observed, recorded, etc. by video, audio devices all over our normal day, and some companies are mining that data to see what we think, say etc. to form an algorithm of Us, and what we would watch, buy etc.

 

[BillJ]

A thought sprung to me on my umpteenth rewatch of TNG, and it's perhaps only as a (hopefully) wiser older man now I think about something differently.

And I thought... is Troi and the use of her ethical?

Think about it. She's reading foreign captains and what not, then reporting back to the Captain on it. She scanned their brains, their innermost thoughts. She may not get full detail but she at least felt the present to see what its shape was.

At no point are they aware or consented to such scans.

What would be the ethics of putting telepaths on your ship to gain insight of not just enemies but literally anyone that flies near you?

I noticed her too in The Schizoid Man (not that I should use anything in season two against the show) and she goes straight to Kareen and tells her that Ira Graves is attracted to her. I mean that's not only quite invasive, she didn't need to go and tell her too. It was arguably exposition to setup the later love angle, but we could have picked that up regardless.

The Federation are the good guys, so to come back to the first question - is that ethical?

Also why don't Romulans kidnap a load of Betazoids - the full blood ones - and install one on every ship. Instant info on what your enemies are thinking.

I think part of the problem is that a person good in reading body language would be just as helpful as Troi is, most of the time.

 

[FederationHistorian]

A thought sprung to me on my umpteenth rewatch of TNG, and it's perhaps only as a (hopefully) wiser older man now I think about something differently.

And I thought... is Troi and the use of her ethical?

Think about it. She's reading foreign captains and what not, then reporting back to the Captain on it. She scanned their brains, their innermost thoughts. She may not get full detail but she at least felt the present to see what its shape was.

At no point are they aware or consented to such scans.

What would be the ethics of putting telepaths on your ship to gain insight of not just enemies but literally anyone that flies near you?

I noticed her too in The Schizoid Man (not that I should use anything in season two against the show) and she goes straight to Kareen and tells her that Ira Graves is attracted to her. I mean that's not only quite invasive, she didn't need to go and tell her too. It was arguably exposition to setup the later love angle, but we could have picked that up regardless.

The Federation are the good guys, so to come back to the first question - is that ethical?

All of this goes back to no one using privacy controls on the holodeck. There just seems to a be a lot of transparency in 24th century Starfleet that's accepted by everyone. So, there's nothing wrong with how Troi is used. She's doing her job, and reading what everyone is feeling, even though to non-telepaths and non-empaths, its invasive.

Also why don't Romulans kidnap a load of Betazoids - the full blood ones - and install one on every ship. Instant info on what your enemies are thinking.

1) Why would a Romulan trust a Betazoid? They don’t even trust each other.

2) Why would a species that loves secrets upon secrets not keep an invasive empathic and telepathic species around them? Gee, I wonder.

3) And wouldn’t Betazoids, even half-Romulan Betazoids, be better use for interrogations?

 

[The Wormhole]

They kind of dance around this issue in The Drumhead when Picard objects to basing suspicions around what Admiral Satie's Betazoid senses, to which Satie asks "you have a Betazoid officer, wouldn't you act on what she says she senses?" Picard admits he would and maybe he should rethink that stance, though he clearly dismisses the matter afterwards.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

It's only okay when we do it. "Maybe" is like Picard's "I'll think about that tomorrow." Yeah, right.

 

[Guy Gardener]

A second class citizen, is still a Citizen.

The Reman's are very very Telepathic, and fight for Romulus of their own free will.

Klingon allies, did not end well.

Aenar Slaves, did not end well.

Are Romulans' telepathic?

Can't the reinvent the Romulan mind scanner as a WMD?

In the Price, Deana got hypocritically pissy that that buddy from Police Academy was scanning Picard.

 

[Tosk]

Trek answer: The species that Starfleet regularly butt heads with all try to use their technology to have an advantage. I don't see why using the natural ability of an officer is any different.

Real world answer: Thank fugg we don't have telepaths.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

It's brain-to-brain wire tapping. Imagine if Picard had to get a warrant every time he needed an insight from Troi.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's brain-to-brain wire tapping. Imagine if Picard had to get a warrant every time he needed an insight from Troi.

The bridge position she takes is for a counselor classically trained in game theory, who can consult with the captain on snap judgements based on body language and language, like Lie To Me vs. the Mentalist.

Of Course picking up on tells from language, from an alien filtered through a universal translator is all but bullshit.

It's also possible that she is lying, when she claims the she can empathically read an alien on the view screen, who is a thousand miles away shielded by metal and shields from her perceptability that she can distinguish the person on the crew talking via subspace radio, and the other 2 thousand souls standing within 200 feet of the man talking.

 

[Tosk]

Would it be unethical to have a bridge officer with really good vision?
How about one that can compute sixty trillion operations per second?

 

[somebuddyX]

In the universe of Star Trek everyone seems to be cool with empaths and telepaths, so I think by their standards what she does is ethical. I find the Betazoids intruding into people's minds creepy as hell. I never realised I'd probably be pro-Psi Corps until right now.

 

[Guy Gardener]

In the universe of Star Trek everyone seems to be cool with empaths and telepaths, so I think by their standards what she does is ethical. I find the Betazoids intruding into people's minds creepy as hell. I never realised I'd probably be pro-Psi Corps until right now.

The Psi Corp's final solution for Humanity is Evolution.

They assume that with the right breeding programs, that "humanity" will be %100 telepaths, so it's just a question of waiting, and banging, until the telepaths outnumber the mundanes.

Exterminating 26 billion humans so that 1 million Telepaths can replace them, is just dumb, because they don't have the man power the retain or garrison all that space and land from Alien encroachment, and they don't have the specialized workers to keep a modern society running, especially if all the telepaths want to be administrators and artists, and no one wants to be a plumber.

A further problem is that because Telepathy is not the product of evolution, it's unlikely that it can be gifted to all mundanes, no matter how forced your breeding programs are. So eventually you're going to get inbreeding issues if the Psi Corp only lets the same descendants of the same original 200 people surgically altered by the Vorlon, to make babies destined to be the ruling class.

Mundanes on the hand, exterminating 1 million telepaths? Child's play, and zero consequences... Which is why the telepaths couldn't just dick around and wait to inherit the earth, in a thousand years or so.

Oh.

The Great Burn?

%70 percent of all telepaths are dead.

Humanity was not going to be one hundred percent telepathic, like they were in Deconstruction of Falling Stars, until they figured out how to make human telepaths with surgery, like the Vorlons did in the 20th century.

 

[Oddish]

Also why don't Romulans kidnap a load of Betazoids - the full blood ones - and install one on every ship. Instant info on what your enemies are thinking.

Why don't the Federation have a full blooded Betazoid on every capital ship as a matter of policy?