Typhon Pact..Do tell?

[Christopher]

I haven't suggested that each case be decided via some kind of tripwire threshold. I've proposed a guideline that, I believe, demarcates two very different kind of cultures.

Two different ways of saying the same thing. You can't define an entire culture based on a single parameter.

Is the Federation to provide no guidance at all to its personnel and let the contact decision rest solely with the ship's captain on the scene?

And the straw men keep on coming. I'm saying it's ridiculous to rely on a single parameter -- obviously I'm not proposing relying on zero parameters. Of course there should be a set of guidelines for evaluating how or whether to approach a contact. What I'm saying is that the guidelines should be more complex and useful than just "You must be at least this tall to be contacted."

You've come close to proposing the elimination of the PD.

Have you listened to a single thing I've said? I emphatically approve of the notion of a noninterference policy. I believe it is very wise to avoid imposing change on another culture. My argument is that contact is not automatically interference. As long as they get to make their own choices about whether and how to accept contact with you, as long as you're not forcing anything on them or restricting their freedom of choice, then by definition you're not interfering. What I'm against is the dumbed-down, absolutist Prime Directive of the 24th century, the one that misses the point of what the Directive is supposed to be about and ends up being just as condescending in its own way as the Civilising-Mission mentality that it's supposed to be an antidote to.

 

[justcorbly]

You can't define an entire culture based on a single parameter.

I haven't attempted anything like that.

Of course there should be a set of guidelines for evaluating how or whether to approach a contact. What I'm saying is that the guidelines should be more complex and useful than just "You must be at least this tall to be contacted."

I've no problem with that. Frankly, I'd expect any standing guidance to be supplemented and fine-tuned by Starfleet as the situation merited. Compare, e.g., contact with a new culture located in a peaceful isolated region with contact with a new culture in a strategic location vis-a-vis a hostile power.

My argument is that contact is not automatically interference. As long as they get to make their own choices about whether and how to accept contact with you, as long as you're not forcing anything on them or restricting their freedom of choice, then by definition you're not interfering.

How can they have a role in deciding to accept contact unless contact has already been made? You cannot participate in a decision with a partner that, as far as you know, does not exist.

My argument has been that contact itself constitutes interference and that the impact on some cultures could be negative. My proposal is an attempt to provide guidance to help identify those cultures. Of course, other guidelines are possible, but certainly we cannot assert that all first contacts do not interfere, i.e., interact with, a culture.

 

[Christopher]

How can they have a role in deciding to accept contact unless contact has already been made? You cannot participate in a decision with a partner that, as far as you know, does not exist.

In real life, cultures have been contacted by other, previously unknown cultures all the time. They didn't have any choice beforehand, but the point is that contact itself isn't automatically interference or harm. It isn't the mere fact of meeting someone that's critical -- it's what happens after you meet them. And that's where the choice -- on both sides -- comes into play.

Any culture on any planet is going to share its world with other cultures that have ideas or technologies that are new to it. There's no way to prevent a culture from being exposed to change, because contrary to the conceits of fiction, no planet has only one culture in isolation. So it's ridiculous to define being exposed to new ideas or entities as though it were an optional or preventable thing. Every culture is, at some point in its history, going to be exposed to ideas it's never contemplated. It's what happens afterward that makes the difference. If you respect their autonomy, then you'll let them decide whether they even want to acknowledge your ideas. If they don't, they'll just ignore them and dismiss you as fools or liars, and they'll continue living their lives with no change, even after the contact occurs. People are very good at ignoring anything that doesn't fit their preconceptions.

And contact can be impermanent. It can be forgotten. The Vikings established a colony in Newfoundland in AD 1000 and interacted with the Native Americans for years. But the colony failed and the contact faded into myth, so that when Europeans began settling the Americas half a millennium later, it was regarded for centuries as the first contact between the continents.

So you go down to a new planet and make your presence known, unobtrusively. If they react badly, you go away and leave them alone (perhaps after trying another couple of landing sites, because of course no planet is monocultural). Without your continued presence to reinforce things, they'll reinterpret the brief contact in whatever way suits them, perhaps dismissing it as mass hysteria or a supernatural visitation or a hoax or whatever. And their lives will return to normal.

My argument has been that contact itself constitutes interference

Which is exactly the assumption I reject. Of course you don't interfere just by making your presence known. If I knock on my neighbor's door and introduce myself, I'm not interfering in her life. If I barge in, camp out on her couch, raid her refrigerator, criticize her choice in friends, etc., then I'm interfering.

 

[justcorbly]

So you go down to a new planet and make your presence known, unobtrusively. If they react badly, you go away...they'll reinterpret the brief contact in whatever way suits them, perhaps dismissing it as mass hysteria or a supernatural visitation or a hoax or whatever. And their lives will return to normal.

Or, perhaps not. Perhaps one of those who were contacted will leverage that prestige to secure power. Or, perhaps panic-driven crowds will massacre those who we contacted. Perhaps, even with the best science, we'll spread a virus or two. A first contact situation is, by definition, unpredictable.

When we are talking about non-technological societies who may not even have invented writing, and who have not developed an awareness that other cultures exist on their planet or elsewhere, who in fact do not know they are on a planet, the chances of even a minimal contact having an inadvertent impact exist.

 

[wew]

Well using a real world example, we know that in Cortes conquest of Tenochtitlan, his presence shaped and interfered with native socieities in the region. People often forget that his victory was forged with the assistance of groups hostile to the Aztecs. Many who were willing to use the Spanish against the Aztecs.

Sometimes, knowledge itself result in interference of sorts.

 

[Sci]

So you go down to a new planet and make your presence known, unobtrusively. If they react badly, you go away...they'll reinterpret the brief contact in whatever way suits them, perhaps dismissing it as mass hysteria or a supernatural visitation or a hoax or whatever. And their lives will return to normal.

Or, perhaps not. Perhaps one of those who were contacted will leverage that prestige to secure power. Or, perhaps panic-driven crowds will massacre those who we contacted.

But neither of those constitute interference, because those are internal conflicts that occur without the participation of or pressure for a particular outcome from the people who had contacted them. If Species A contacts Species B but leaves and never imposes its will upon Species B, then it has not interfered with Species B -- even if Species B decides to declare a civil war amongst itself because the factions within Species B have different ideas about how they should have reacted to Species A.

 

[Christopher]

Or, perhaps not. Perhaps one of those who were contacted will leverage that prestige to secure power. Or, perhaps panic-driven crowds will massacre those who we contacted. Perhaps, even with the best science, we'll spread a virus or two. A first contact situation is, by definition, unpredictable.

When we are talking about non-technological societies who may not even have invented writing, and who have not developed an awareness that other cultures exist on their planet or elsewhere, who in fact do not know they are on a planet, the chances of even a minimal contact having an inadvertent impact exist.

Those possibilities exist regardless of how advanced the society is. One of the most inane assumptions behind Prime Directive boilerplate is that any and all change a society undergoes is somehow unnatural disruption. That's total BS. Every society is constantly undergoing change. Every society has different factions within it competing with each other, jockeying for status.

The myth is that any change is caused purely by the visitors. That's actually rather racist, because it denies the agency of the contactees, their ability to think and act and choose for themselves. In reality, when an outside contact triggers a change within a society, it's because an existing faction within that society capitalizes on it to advance its own agenda. If it hadn't been the outside contact that triggered it, something else might have.

Well using a real world example, we know that in Cortes conquest of Tenochtitlan, his presence shaped and interfered with native socieities in the region. People often forget that his victory was forged with the assistance of groups hostile to the Aztecs. Many who were willing to use the Spanish against the Aztecs.

But that's actually a good example of my point. It was the Mexica peoples themselves who did the bulk of the work overthrowing the Aztecs. All Cortez did (at least initially) was provide a catalyst for a change that was burgeoning in the society already.

Of course, Cortez is a bad example, because he was deliberately trying to change the status quo, namely by taking over the whole ball of wax. I don't for a moment deny that an outsider making a deliberate effort to impose change can cause great harm and disruption. My point, in fact, is that when disruption occurs, it's because of the intentional desire to disrupt, reform, or eradicate the native culture -- it's not an inevitable result of contact. Historically, contacts with the intent to conquer, convert, or assimilate have been damaging or disastrous, but less aggressive contacts, interactions based solely in trade or exploration, have been less damaging.

Do those contacts bring change? Very possibly, even probably. But it's a mistake to assume that change equals contamination. One of the biggest errors that people tend to make about indigenous cultures is that they way they were at the time of contact was the same way they'd always been since the dawn of time. That's crap. Change is normal. Every culture goes through changes that can be triggered by any number of internal or external factors. So to say that you shouldn't talk to an alien culture because it might bring changes is not a good reason at all. Even a warp-level culture can be changed by its contact with you, or you could be changed by contact with a pre-warp culture. Even without contact, you and they will undergo changes within your own respective cultures. And you'll adapt to those changes and go on with your lives -- because that's what cultures do. They don't remain absolutely static and then fall completely apart at the first hint of change.

 

[justcorbly]

... we know that in Cortes conquest of Tenochtitlan, his presence shaped and interfered with native socieities in the region. People often forget that his victory was forged with the assistance of groups hostile to the Aztecs. Many who were willing to use the Spanish against the Aztecs.

Cortes is a reasonable example. As I understand it, the Aztecs had never seen a horse and initially thought that a Spaniard on horseback was a single animal. That certainly must have appeared alien.

To be fair, though, at some point Cortes began actively interfering for his own advantage. After all, he didn't go to Mexico with benign intentions.

When I use the word "contact", I mean only the initial first meeting between the locals and the visitors.

 

[justcorbly]

One of the most inane assumptions behind Prime Directive boilerplate is that any and all change a society undergoes is somehow unnatural disruption. That's total BS. Every society is constantly undergoing change. Every society has different factions within it competing with each other, jockeying for status.

I've always assumed that the PD language was built on the assumption that Starfleet did not want to cause, and be responsible for, inadvertent and harmful impacts caused by contact, with the emphasis on the responsibility bit. I'm pretty sure Starfleet understands that all societies are dynamic.

The myth is that any change is caused purely by the visitors.

Whose myth is that? Not our myth, and certainly not Starfleet's.

Examples from Earth's history, like Cortes, are useful, but their utility only goes so far. We have no experience with alien contact. We only have experience with contact between two pieces of the same species. We simply do not know how a truly alien culture would react.

(We should recognize that most of the aliens in Trek are modeled on beings who exhibit in the extreme one or more characteristics found in humans. Klingons are warlike and combative. Romulans are disciplined and pledged to the state. Ferengi are greedy. Vulcans have calmed their inner demons and usually behave as if they were Shaolin priests in one of our TV shows. Let's hope we someday learn who is really out there.)