When Did The Prime Directive Change And Why?

[lstyer]

Anwar's argument rings of "I'll only save you if it doesn't cost me time, money or resources; otherwise it is not worth saving you." It is a very self-centered attitude, not at all worthy of a society which places great value on sentient life, such as the United Federation of Planets.

Even if you set aside a dogmatic devotion to non-interference, practical considerations play an important role in when and how to intervene. A situation that would require the intervention of dozens of ships may simply not be a practical undertaking.

That practicality may not even be cold self-interest. Based on what we've seen in Next Generation, humanitarian missions are fairly common for star ships. If a given ship is on a time-sensitive mission to deliver a vaccine to a planet where billions are threatened by a disease, the decision to continue that mission rather than divert to assist in the prevention of a natural disaster that would effect a planet whose population is in the millions is based on practical considerations.

 

[lstyer]

But isn't this the point of the Prime Directive, that you never can know what 'knock on effects' your actions might take, and since ANY interference with a less advanced culture will almost certainly have negative knock-on effects, that's presumably why the Prime Directive exists.

That may well be the thinking behind the TNG-era interpretation of the Prime Directive, but I don't think it's applicable to the TOS-era understanding.

In TOS, I think the Prime Directive was more about giving societies and cultures the opportunity to find their own paths, free of avoidable outside interference. It seems to be rooted in valuing freedom of choice on a societal scale.

The TNG-era interpretation seems to be heavily informed by a mix of dogmatism and self-doubt. In-universe the dogmatism is kind of believable in that Starfleet has been around for another hundred years, and ideas and values tend to calcify. The self-doubt, I think, might be more an artifact of real-world thinking, playing on the old saw that the UFP in TOS represented the pre-Vietnam USA and the UFP in TNG represented the post-Vietnam USA.

 

[The Badger]

That practicality may not even be cold self-interest. Based on what we've seen in Next Generation, humanitarian missions are fairly common for star ships. If a given ship is on a time-sensitive mission to deliver a vaccine to a planet where billions are threatened by a disease, the decision to continue that mission rather than divert to assist in the prevention of a natural disaster that would effect a planet whose population is in the millions is based on practical considerations.

Of course. Of those of us on this thread arguing against the strict version of the PD (not the PD in general, only the isolationist version from TNG onwards), I don't think anyone has claimed we should ignore practical considerations. We all seem to agree that 'if it is practical to help out, and you can do so causing minimal (or preferably no) social disruption, then do so'.

No one is claiming that practicality should be tossed aside in a frenzy of do-gooding that leaves the Federation bankrupt, spent and at the mercy of it's enemies. Anwar has stated that if intervention was to occur even once it would inevitably lead to that situation, but I have yet to be convinced.

 

[lstyer]

The 'developing warp drive' criteria seems rather arbitary.

Any decision on when to make first contact with another society is, to some degree, arbitrary. A decent argument can probably be made that development of warp drive is a watershed moment in the Star Trek galaxy, though, in that there are so many warp-capable societies running around that near-immediate first contact with someone is all but inevitable at that point, so "it might as well be us."

That's particularly true in the Enterprise era, when the hundreds of worlds that will eventually be UFP members are either independent or members of smaller interstellar nations. Maybe the emphasis on warp-capability in the TNG era is an artifact from that period.

 

[Anwar]

It is, they pretty much said so in "First Contact" the TV episode. They usually wait until the species is warp capable and then make contact with them (if they knew about them already) because then it's a matter of "Okay, they're going to be out there anyways so we may as well contact them NOW instead of let them run into the Cardassians first).

 

[Vanyel]

Oskar Schindler.

Hero or monster?

Neither.

...you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

The man did save ~1200 Jews, but how many Allied soldiers were killed by his munitions?

Nothing is completely black and white.

 

[DonIago]

Weren't his munitions intentionally defective, at least in his later years?

 

[Vanyel]

Weren't his munitions intentionally defective, at least in his later years?

That question has really bugged me. If his munitions were defective, would the Nazi's have kept getting them from him? In the last year or two of the war when they were desperate for anything to throw at the Allies, they most likely would have. But while they were winning, or when The Russian Army and US forces stalled the Nazi advance I don't think they would have. At that point they still had the option of being more selective.

So I don't really know.

 

[DonIago]

Well, Schindler wasn't producing munitions earlier in the war IIRC, so it seems likely.

I'll have to check Wikipedia at some point.

There we are - "In Brněnec, he gained another former Jewish factory, where he was supposed to produce missiles and hand grenades for the war effort. However, during the months that this factory was running, not a single weapon produced could actually be fired. Hence Schindler made no money; rather, his previously earned fortune grew steadily smaller as he bribed officials and cared for his workers."

Brněnec would have been established sometime during or after 1943, as that was the year the Krakow Ghetto was eliminated and Brněnec definitely wasn't established prior to that.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler#World War II. The information is sourced to http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/steinhouse.html (Herbert Steinhouse, "The Real Oskar Schindler", Saturday Night Magazine, April, 1994).

 

[DevilEyes]

Nicolai forced the crew of the 1701D to play God.

They were already playing God when they decided not to interfere. He just changed the "God's" decision.

A question for everyone: Is interfering or not interfering, playing God?

Both.

That's the catch with being "God" - when you have huge power over someone/something and can make decisions on your discretion, you can't just run away from your role. You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. You know how the beef that many folks have had with God (if they believe in God) is that he allows awful things to happen to good and innocent people? They aren't letting him/her/it/them off the hook just because they aren't interfering. It's the same with world governments, the UN, other international organizations, and pretty much every entity or person that has considerable power, or is thought to have considerable power (yes, "with great power comes great responsability" - it may sound trite, but it's true). Whatever they do or don't do, someone is going to blame them for what they did or for what they failed to do.

How can the Federation avoid this "God" position? Well, the only thing I can think of is to adopt an isolationist position, stop the space exploration, destroy all their more advanced technology and make it impossible for anyone else from their planets to ever set foot outside their region of space, which would save the future generations from that awful burden of playing God. Yes, I am being sarcastic. Whining about the responsability would make the Starfleet look silly and hypocritical - if you don't want to "play God", just stay away from all those other civilizations that you're afraid you'll influence. Or if you aren't gonna do that, just go out there and make tough decisions based on the reality of the situation, and decide if the PD applies and when it does not according to circumstances, and whether it should be better not to interfere or to interfere, and how. Which, oh yeah, is exactly what most of Trek captains have been doing all along.

 

[DonIago]

As far as playing God, Futurama said it best - "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

 

[T'Girl]

How can the Federation avoid this "God" position? Well, the only thing I can think of is to adopt an isolationist position, stop the space exploration, destroy all their more advanced technology and make it impossible for anyone else from their planets to ever set foot outside their region of space,

An interesting policy for when it comes time to recruit new Members into the Federation.

 

[DonIago]

I think "Join us and never leave your homeworld again," is kind of catchy!

 

[DevilEyes]

How can the Federation avoid this "God" position? Well, the only thing I can think of is to adopt an isolationist position, stop the space exploration, destroy all their more advanced technology and make it impossible for anyone else from their planets to ever set foot outside their region of space,

An interesting policy for when it comes time to recruit new Members into the Federation.

I guess you either missed my sarcasm, or you're being doubly sarcastic and pretending to have missed it...

But yeah, why does the Federation need to get new members? What's the point of constantly expanding? It only gives you more power, and with that comes that pesky responsability of 'playing God'...

It seems that some people on this thread think that it's possible for the Federation to grow ever more powerful, expand, go around the galaxy collecting info on various civilizations, and avoid any responsability for helping or not helping those civilizations when they are in need... by choosing non-interference. Well, sorry, it doesn't work that way, you're responsible for inaction as much as you're responsible for action. Both fall under "playing God" if your power and resources are putting you in the position of deciding on death and life. So, instead of whining, either stay home, folks, or go out there, and make tough decisions based on the reality of the situation, OK?

 

[Anwar]

Well, sorry, it doesn't work that way, you're responsible for inaction as much as you're responsible for action. Both fall under "playing God" if your power and resources are putting you in the position of deciding on death and life.

By that logic, absolutely any action you ever take in live EVER is "Playing God". It's an over-simplification, a dangerous one when dealing with the development of alien cultures.

 

[DevilEyes]

Well, sorry, it doesn't work that way, you're responsible for inaction as much as you're responsible for action. Both fall under "playing God" if your power and resources are putting you in the position of deciding on death and life.

By that logic, absolutely any action you ever take in live EVER is "Playing God". It's an over-simplification, a dangerous one when dealing with the development of alien cultures.

No, it's not, because, as usual, your "logic" is based on logical fallacies.

To be "playing God", you need to be in the position to make life and death decisions. Most people never get that kind of power over other humans (at best, you get to decide whether you'll kill that fly or squash that bug or not ).

You are, however, responsible for any action you ever take in life (unless you're a child or mentally incapacitated), that much is true, but that's not "playing God", that's playing an adult sapient being.

 

[Anwar]

No, it's not, because, as usual, your "logic" is based on logical fallacies.

To be "playing God", you need to be in the position to make life and death decisions.

That sort of thinking that you ALWAYS have to make some huge choice when flying by some alien world that's suffering any sort of discomfort, is what leads to things like the Galactic Nanny State.

 

[sojourner]

OH God! I thought we finally discredited your Galactic Nanny State. Don't try and revive it. It's a premise based on bad assumptions with no backing.