An observation of the Prime Directive conversation in "Pen Pals"

So are you saying we should deny treatment to them?

Plus that allegory is kinda flawed. A person has power over their own action. But, generally, the average person does not have power over the action of the other billions of people they just happen to share a planet with.

 

Erm, no? Not sure why you'd think I'd think that way that based on what I wrote.

The comparison was with humanity as a whole. And it wasn't meant to be a full analogy, just to illustrate that humans (initially) may not have known they chose something that would hurt their own health in the long run, but they still did.

 

Because I assumed you were attempting to refute my argument that I think the UFP should give aid to pre-warp civilizations that suffer from sapient-made climate change.

 

Nope, I was simply agreeing with you that having made certain choices in the past that led to climate change isn't synonymous with 'choosing extinction' or (in my analogy) 'choosing lung cancer'.

 

Okay, thanks for the clarification!
Sorry for misunderstand you.

 

I think Picard was saying it's a slippery slope. Slippery slope can be a fallacy, though, because once thing does not necessary lead to related or more extreme things.

I used to think the Prime Directive was good because any interaction between two societies with different technological capabilities will inevitably become exploitative. But now I'm reconsidering. The world of Star Trek has eliminated exploitation in other relationships. Why couldn't they have contact with less advanced society in a non-exploitative way? If a person from a pre-industrialized planet learns enough to qualify for a job on a freighter and then works their way up to more advanced jobs, that's not that different from someone working their way up from some troubled family living in some remote unsophisticated area of the Federation... or even someone with a lot of personal problems in Paris deciding to radically change their life.

There are tribes in Darien, the southern province of Panama, that have had little contact with the industrialized world. Panama shouldn't inject itself into their society to deal with war, epidemic, or human rights, but I don't think it needs to have the attitude of trying to hide the fact that they're just a few hundred miles from the canal area that is like the crossroads of the Americas. If enough people leave for other opportunities and their culture ceases to exist, it unfortunate to see a unique culture disappear, but it's should be their choice how much Lexus they want and how much Olive Tree.

 

I point back to "unintended consequences".

 

Picard was also alluding to the types of situations in which Kirk had interfered. So, Picard's dialog was, for all the reasons we've given, trying to establish that Starfleet of the 24th century was not the Starfleet of the 23rd century, that at least some in Starfleet were critical of what Kirk had done.

 

The term, Cowboy Diplomacy, was coined in large part because of Kirk's actions over TOS...

 

I was so close to putting that term in my post...

 

It says a lot about how conservative we're expected to believe things have gotten, that the person Picard is accusing with the term Cowboy Diplomacy is, of all people, bloody Spock