And they develop by contact with other cultures.
The premise of the Prime Directive, whether you agree with the premise or not, is that if contacted by a more technologically advanced culture, they'll be subsumed by that culture, and that this is an inherently bad thing.
You will never find any sociological treaty that actually contains notions such as 'natural development is good' as opposed to 'development by contact with other cultures is bad' or 'contact will most likely destroy the culture'.
That's because we don't come into contact with other worlds, but there is such a thing as Westphalian Sovereignty, there is such a thing as the Observer Effect, and the Prime Directive is a naturally logical extension of both.
Why? Because these are pseudo-sociological notions with no basis in fact.
That is because by the time we figured out the phenomenon, the world had been fully explored. We've never been to alien worlds so any country-based metaphor you care to pull out is likely to not be a good fit.
"Indians, Maori, Native Americans, Native Australians, the Inuit, Africans, the Mayans" - in all those cases, the more powerfull civilization came to conquer, to remodel the other culture in their image.
Yes, and they thought they were being benevolent towards the less developed cultures. They thought they were 'helping' them come towards civilization. Don't you see? It's like Julian's parents giving him genetic alteration. He wasn't Julian anymore, he was someone else.
What first contacts were beneficial to the less powerful cultures?
None! Not a one! NO culture has benefited. This is why the Prime Directive exists.
All contacts in which the advanced culture did not try to remodel the contacted culture with the equivalent of a chainsaw.
I don't know what you're talking about here. You don't name any specific examples, because there aren't any.
In the colonial age, where exploitation and conquest of native cultures was standard policy, you'll find few examples of this kind. But even in that period, one could name Cook's, Laperouse's, etc contacts with native cultures (which did NOT lead to those cultures comitting mass suicide or entering a dark age).
What cultures are you referring to?
There are plenty of examples in recent times, though - in present times, we made contact with many less advanced tribes and cultures - contacts that, unsurprisingly, failed to lead to the destruction of those cultures.
Name
one.
Again - the notion that a contact will only change a culture for the worse is pseudo-sociological nonsense.
Again, you need to actually refer to something here. It's a scientific fact that you cannot observe a system without altering that system. This is a basic tenet of science.
Cultures - and individuals - have the right to decide on their own what they want.
Yes! And the premise of the Prime Directive is that you take that choice away from them when you provide them with information that is so far beyond anything they have learned for themselves that you are, in effect, responsible for everything they do after that.
Of course the Federation won't tell this or that culture what to do - it will abide by their choices, but it will give them that choice, NOT made that choice for the other cultures - THIS is immoral.
But the cultures wouldn't have a choice not to change. The very act of offering them a choice would be enough to wreak massive damage on a primitive culture. Look, let's say I lived in the 24th century and had a personal shield device that protected me from harm. And then let's say I came across a planet that had just developed the musket. So I beam down (freaking everyone out) and say: "Hey guys, that musket is going to harm you. Now you get a choice: join my super-advanced culture and ultimately be eaten up by it, or, y'know, keep it up with your muskets and disease and the like- whatever you like! It's your choice!" Don't you see how I'd essentially be destroying whatever it was that made that world unique? Don't you think if aliens had come and made the proposal to us during OUR musket age, we would have essentially been subsumed by that culture? You'd be no better than the borg- they think they are doing everyone a favour as well!
Transparent straw-man argument.
I don't know that there's an argument here. I think you think interfering with other cultures is a good thing, I think it's a bad thing, and Star Trek agrees with me. Maybe you should watch Stargate or something?
There's a REALLY long distance between a policy to teach the individuals who want to learn and a policy to put indians into reservations (to take their lands, etc - conquest).
What would you do with the people who didn't want to learn, given that the people who suddenly had access to vastly more advanced technology and information would essentially be as gods to them.
Again, Destructor - for a culture to change is NOT a crime. And a culture as a whole - and individuals belonging to that culture - has the right to decide on its own what do.
The Prime Directive supports this, by letting them develop naturally until they achieve warp drive.
And again - the British Empire intentionally tried to remake the cultures of New Zeeland and Australia into their own image (and failed - the native cultures of Australia and New Zeeland exist even today).
Oh, come on. They were
decimated. Beyond decimated. They do NOT survive in anything LIKE the way they were prior to colonization. To even casually say that New Zealand and Australia are not utterly Europeanized is just downright nuts. This has nothing to do with facts, this is belief. You actually believe that those cultures should have made way for the 'superior' culture, don't you? This is the very antithesis of Star Trek.
As I already said - when the more powerful culture does not come with the intent to forcubly remake the less powerful culture, both cultures survive just fine - and prosper.
I will accept that has happened when you list
even one example. Even with the best of intentions, it always happens.
Exactly. Much like you saying that contact to another culture will destroy that culture relies on so many pseudo-sociological what ifs, "it becomes meaningless" - essentially, it's an unsupported fantasy.
Uh, you mean except for all those examples I cited? It's say it's a self-evident truth by now.
Saying you'll be responsible for whatever - insert paranoid future fantasy - happens to this culture is like saying that you're responsible for the man you saved becoming Hitler.
Uh, the Prime Directive doesn't exist to prevent cultures from becoming evil. It exists to prevent them from being irrevocably altered by technology beyond their understanding.
Your post consists of the same pseudo-sociological ideea (contact with a culture will always/almost always lead to negative consequences to that culture) and the same example (the colonial age) repeated ad nauseam.
I negated both.[/B]
You've done nothing of a sort, you've simply asserted that cultural contamination would not occur, despite all of history being essentially one long example of the fact that it would. You've not listed even once scintilla of evidence to the contrary, just shrugged and said you believe the opposite. Your belief is fine and I encourage you to stick with it, but you've 'negated' nothing. In fact, the more you talk, the more I think the Prime Directive is a necessity- to protect alien worlds from precisely your mindset.
In 'Homeward' and 'Dear doctor' they do judge who lives and who dies, Destructor.
Non-interference (letting them die) is playing God just as much as interference (saving them).
Just as an advanced race giving force-field technology to everyone about to fight the civil war, or, even better, preventing them from fighting it all together, would have saved thousands. The world as you know it today would not exist.
If the Enterprise had never even driven past Borall II, would they, then, also be responsible? Or would it have just been a natural disaster? If there were Vulcans observing us and witnessed the
hundreds of thousands who died in the Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster of 2004, would it be their 'responsibility' to save them all? Or would they say to themselves: "This is their disaster. We have powers that would alter that world forever.
We cannot save them all. They have to look after themselves." Would you rather live as you do now, or in a zoo, looked after by some higher power that sees us as incapable of going forward on our own?
And, as cause for these negative consequences, both 'Homeward' and 'Dear doctor' "feature some really bad science - pertaining to sociology and evolution.
I will concede that. I was not defending those individual episodes. I am defending the Prime Directive.
Making contact with another culture makes all members of said culture commit suicide? Pseudo-sociology fully contradicted by the real thing.
Homeward in no way implies this. The character who killed himself was a record-keeper. He was specifically quoted as saying that his history was everything to him, that he felt personally tied to it. It was entirely logical that he might not be able to handle the truth of his existence, just as many religious people might kill themselves if they thought that the existence of aliens disproved their faith. I am sure that most of the Boralans could have handled the truth without suicide. But the truth still would have changed them, utterly and irrevocably, surely you cannot deny that?
You see, this notion of 'contact will always/almost always have negative consequences' IS BAD SCIENCE.
The Prime Directive doesn't need to distinguish between positive or negative consequences. Indeed, it exists to
remove the need for personal opinion, because the consequences are so vast that no-one person can safely say that the morally correct decision was made. There is just interference, which changes a system, and non-interference, which does not. Cultures have a right to develop naturally. Ergo, they have a right not to be interfered with. I do not believe the Prime Directive prevents the Federation from saving primitive cultures- Homeward is actually a good example of how they did
not reveal themselves, and they also save a planet from an asteroid collision in 'The Paradise Syndrome'- without the knowledge of the people of that world. But if the Federation introduced advanced technology to a primitive world they would be responsible for whatever effects that introduced- and whether those effects were negative or positive would be utterly unpredictable.
"The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy... and a very correct one. History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous."
- Captain Picard (TNG: "Symbiosis")
