TMP Seems more "Futuristic" Then "Star Trek '09"

[RAMA]

Why don't we just go all the way back to the beginning and just keep flinging poo at each other?

You think what was done in the past was a good thing? Ignore the outcome of all of it for a second, before you answer that question. What it boils down to is simply "Would you do it today?" Force your religion onto a native tribe. Relocate them. Force them to live your way. Kill them because you want the ressources they are sitting on. All that stuff. Would you do it?

You can't erase what is done and no one said growing up is easy. You also can't view the world of hundreds and thousands of years ago through the lens of today's moral parameters.

So the Prime Directive isn't a good thing... because you'd obviously go back and change things you felt weren't right.

Hence the temporal prime directive, put in place in the 24th century...already unofficially part of most logic within TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday", "City on the Edge..", "Assignment Earth".

No one wants to change that past but cultures do grow and adapt over time...so its time to apply what we've learned...

 

[BillJ]

Let's frame it in Star Trek terms.

In Star Trek: First Contact we learn that after meeting the Vulcans we wipe out poverty, hunger and disease in fifty years. Does this happen without the Vulcans landing on our doorstep and showing us there's more to the universe than just us?

It seems to me that in this instance interference was a good thing.

There's nothing unusual about this...they are allowed to make contact with cultures who possess light speed travel, its a different story when you start to interfere with it. The Vulcans were also very careful with post-contact protocols, as was the UFP in "First Contact"...and the planet CHOSE if it were to enter the UFP. No one told them they needed a treaty port...

RAMA

Woopsie... missed it.

So the day a war ravaged culture attains light speed is the day they should be met (too primitive). Even though there still twenty years away from the nearest habitable system? It took eighty years after breaking lightspeed to break warp two. It's a very arbitrary line. Seems to me the Vulcans wanted to nursemaid humanity. Make sure they didn't get into trouble. And it seems since they had say so in Earth's deep space exploration program they were interfering in Earth's internal affairs.

Plus your telling me that the humans weren't taking notes on Vulcan ship designs?

A Vulcan ship captain got excited about the discovery and broke the Vulcan version of the Prime Directive. No way he had time to phone home and get permission to make contact.

 

[RAMA]

Let's frame it in Star Trek terms.

In Star Trek: First Contact we learn that after meeting the Vulcans we wipe out poverty, hunger and disease in fifty years. Does this happen without the Vulcans landing on our doorstep and showing us there's more to the universe than just us?

It seems to me that in this instance interference was a good thing.

There's nothing unusual about this...they are allowed to make contact with cultures who possess light speed travel, its a different story when you start to interfere with it. The Vulcans were also very careful with post-contact protocols, as was the UFP in "First Contact"...and the planet CHOSE if it were to enter the UFP. No one told them they needed a treaty port...

RAMA

Woopsie... missed it.

So the day a war ravaged culture attains light speed is the day they should be met (too primitive). Even though there still twenty years away from the nearest habitable system? It took eighty years after breaking lightspeed to break warp two. It's a very arbitrary line. Seems to me the Vulcans wanted to nursemaid humanity. Make sure they didn't get into trouble. And it seems since they had say so in Earth's deep space exploration program they were interfering in Earth's internal affairs.

Plus your telling me that the humans weren't taking notes on how Vulcan ship designs?

A Vulcan ship captain got excited about the discovery and broke the Vulcan version of the Prime Directive. No way he had time to phone home and get permission to make contact.

There HAS to be an arbitrary time when contact can be made...I don't think we shouldn't go out and meet and share with other alien species. If you are 17 but a few weeks from your 18th birthday, you're going to be asked to show ID to buy cigarettes and prob won't get them. Apparently at a later date, the UFP officially used the Vulcan logic of a Prime Directive. I agree, they were too cautious, too long with humans.

 

[BillJ]

There HAS to be an arbitrary time when contact can be made...I don't think we shouldn't go out and meet and share with other alien species. If you are 17 but a few weeks from your 18th birthday, you're going to be asked to show ID to buy cigarettes and prob won't get them. Apparently at a later date, the UFP officially used the Vulcan logic of a Prime Directive. I agree, they were too cautious, too long with humans.

But at the end of the day... they interfered.

The point being is that interference in and of itself is not good or bad. It's more about what happens after the interference occurs.

Interference can lead to good things (freedom from computer control on Beta III and Gamma Trianguli VI) and bad things (accelerated weapons production on planet Neural). But even on Neural, the status quo was maintained. Villagers and hill people had bows and arrows. Villagers and hill people alike now have firearms.

Jim Kirk is not the Prime Directive monster people like to make him out to be.

 

[RAMA]

There HAS to be an arbitrary time when contact can be made...I don't think we shouldn't go out and meet and share with other alien species. If you are 17 but a few weeks from your 18th birthday, you're going to be asked to show ID to buy cigarettes and prob won't get them. Apparently at a later date, the UFP officially used the Vulcan logic of a Prime Directive. I agree, they were too cautious, too long with humans.

But at the end of the day... they interfered.

The point being is that interference in and of itself is not good or bad. It's more about what happens after the interference occurs.

Interference can lead to good things (freedom from computer control on Beta III and Gamma Trianguli VI) and bad things (accelerated weapons production on planet Neural). But even on Neural, the status quo was maintained. Villagers and hill people had bows and arrows. Villagers and hill people alike now have firearms.

Jim Kirk is not the Prime Directive monster people like to make him out to be.

Yes, history changes for both cultures and many more afterwards. Again, there has to be a point in time when this is allowed to happen, too soon and too much and it can mean disaster. By definition this is not against the PD.

I have qualms against your conclusions here without disagreeing wholeheartedly...elements which I have gone into before (TOS's apparent lack of thought in regards to computers or advanced AI). In fact, although many are still uncomfortable with this even now in 2011, the stories told in TOS show a definite 60s bias. Some of the assumptions have been proven wrong, others remain to be seen.

RAMA

 

[xortex]

Moral integrity made Kirk's decisions to break the PD harder where pine was free of such a restraint being unconflicted personally and therefore being a much less interesting, likable and complex dramatic character.