The prime directive is the most amoral thing in all of Star Trek.
If there are space faring aliens out there who have solved scarcity and they’re just watching the suffering that unfolds daily on this world - they better indeed hope we don’t figure out space travel because I will have serious unanswered questions.
There’s a pretty key difference between the Federation and a hypothetical tri-omni god. The Federation is not and cannot be omniscient. They might be, for all effective purposes, omnipotent, and we certainly like to think of them as highly benevolent. But we know, and they know, that they cannot foresee the longer-term consequences of action or inaction, in most cases.
My opinion is that when inaction would obviously doom an entire planet—such as if that planet is about to be catastrophically struck by a meteor—the Federation should intervene on a humanitarian basis. But nearly anything short of that and the Prime Directive is Good, Actually. In the case of intraplanetary conflict, asylum could be offered to victims of genocide or persecution, but contrary to @[email protected]’s statement, I think it is paternalistic to interfere because “you know better”. How many times have real-world powerful empires stepped in claiming to be doing good, only to end up causing very much the opposite result. Dozens of times in the last two centuries in the Middle East alone. There are people who will still try and claim that white colonists were good for Aboriginal people on the basis of this reasoning.
Malaria is a horrible disease - well worth doing something about. Plus, mosquitos are annoying:-P.
So when people gave Africans nets to put on the windows to their homes/bedrooms, the idea was that it would HELP.
Instead… Africans decided that they made pretty good nets for catching fish. However, the same extremely tiny holes that kept mosquitoes out of homes while they sleep also kept tiny little fish eggs in - very much unlike a traditional fishing net that would only catch the large fish while letting the eggs slip through back into the water where they could grow.
Entire lakes were devastated. The people, who did not know the consequences of merely trying to eat food to survive, destroyed the ability of future generations to likewise eat and survive.
It is hubris to think that we know what is best for some other culture that we have not met nor know much of anything about.
Edit: this is not to say that nothing should ever be done to help, only that care should be taken in doing so. e.g. selling guns to someone may sound like a good idea “for their protection”, but is it really? Whether I think so or not, Starfleet has decided to abide by that principle, and I think it is admirable. I presume that they know more about cultural development than I do, especially of pre- vs. post-warp societies:-).
I think it is paternalistic to interfere because “you know better”
I totally see where you are coming from but hear me out.
The first mention of the prime directive is a TOS episode which is an explicit allegory of the Vietnam War with federation and Klingon Empire supporting each side (they even mention it, not the name directly but something like "a war in south eastern Asia in the 20 century. Remember, this was during the war itself). This is a total valid critic of imperialism.
But interference isn’t always about coming with all the solutions and saying we know better. It can be about offering help on eye level, taking the other side serious.
Let’s take vaccination programs. It is paternalistic to roll out a program that produces results that suit you well and make you look good on paper (looking at you, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). It is not paternalistic to be in exchange with the locals to adjust to local needs and most and for most release the patents which didn’t happen with the covid vaccines due to the prime directive argument that only “we” know how to make vaccines safely. (I hope release is the right term, meaning making public domain)
Edit: TL;DR: Prime Directive is a good concept in it’s first mention that was generalized in the wrong direction
The federation does trade and tries to help more primitive societies that they encounter. They provide medical supplies, food, and other things a society asks them for, but they won’t share technology or interfere with their politics because it always leads to massive harm. Putting their finger in the scale results in conflict, despotism, and weird religions around what the contacted people were exposed to.
Let’s say a benevolent alien ship passes by, and discovers a planet with a 90% child mortality rate, due to disease. They introduce vaccines to the population which drop it to under 10%. That’s great.
They return a few decades later, and the civilization is in shambles. It turned out that birth rates didn’t change much. The population started doubling every 5 years. Food production couldn’t keep up. The subsequent wars famine and civil unrest devastated the society.
We’ve seen similar problems, to a lesser extent, on earth. Providing cheap, second hand cloths to Africa ended up destroying the local textile industry. Many places are now dependent on that aid.
In star trek, Star fleet seems to do fly by visits to many places. They are not equipped to assess the results of interference. That would require a team onsite for long term study and assistance. You would need to improve multiple areas at once, each supporting the others. We see some evidence of this, in some episodes, though it is lacking.
The pre-warp limit also makes some sense. It’s an obvious marker for a society. By that point they have likely learnt the lessons with neive help internally. They can assess the risks, and introduce them carefully. They are also likely close enough in technology that the boost won’t destabilise their economy etc.
It’s far from perfect, but as a rule for fly by captains, it makes a good amount of sense.
Dead children cry out from a thousand worlds.
The prime directive is the most amoral thing in all of Star Trek.
If there are space faring aliens out there who have solved scarcity and they’re just watching the suffering that unfolds daily on this world - they better indeed hope we don’t figure out space travel because I will have serious unanswered questions.
(This same shit applies to all-powerful deities.)
There’s a pretty key difference between the Federation and a hypothetical tri-omni god. The Federation is not and cannot be omniscient. They might be, for all effective purposes, omnipotent, and we certainly like to think of them as highly benevolent. But we know, and they know, that they cannot foresee the longer-term consequences of action or inaction, in most cases.
My opinion is that when inaction would obviously doom an entire planet—such as if that planet is about to be catastrophically struck by a meteor—the Federation should intervene on a humanitarian basis. But nearly anything short of that and the Prime Directive is Good, Actually. In the case of intraplanetary conflict, asylum could be offered to victims of genocide or persecution, but contrary to @[email protected]’s statement, I think it is paternalistic to interfere because “you know better”. How many times have real-world powerful empires stepped in claiming to be doing good, only to end up causing very much the opposite result. Dozens of times in the last two centuries in the Middle East alone. There are people who will still try and claim that white colonists were good for Aboriginal people on the basis of this reasoning.
Malaria is a horrible disease - well worth doing something about. Plus, mosquitos are annoying:-P.
So when people gave Africans nets to put on the windows to their homes/bedrooms, the idea was that it would HELP.
Instead… Africans decided that they made pretty good nets for catching fish. However, the same extremely tiny holes that kept mosquitoes out of homes while they sleep also kept tiny little fish eggs in - very much unlike a traditional fishing net that would only catch the large fish while letting the eggs slip through back into the water where they could grow.
Entire lakes were devastated. The people, who did not know the consequences of merely trying to eat food to survive, destroyed the ability of future generations to likewise eat and survive.
It is hubris to think that we know what is best for some other culture that we have not met nor know much of anything about.
Edit: this is not to say that nothing should ever be done to help, only that care should be taken in doing so. e.g. selling guns to someone may sound like a good idea “for their protection”, but is it really? Whether I think so or not, Starfleet has decided to abide by that principle, and I think it is admirable. I presume that they know more about cultural development than I do, especially of pre- vs. post-warp societies:-).
I totally see where you are coming from but hear me out.
The first mention of the prime directive is a TOS episode which is an explicit allegory of the Vietnam War with federation and Klingon Empire supporting each side (they even mention it, not the name directly but something like "a war in south eastern Asia in the 20 century. Remember, this was during the war itself). This is a total valid critic of imperialism.
But interference isn’t always about coming with all the solutions and saying we know better. It can be about offering help on eye level, taking the other side serious.
Let’s take vaccination programs. It is paternalistic to roll out a program that produces results that suit you well and make you look good on paper (looking at you, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). It is not paternalistic to be in exchange with the locals to adjust to local needs and most and for most release the patents which didn’t happen with the covid vaccines due to the
prime directiveargument that only “we” know how to make vaccines safely. (I hope release is the right term, meaning making public domain)Edit: TL;DR: Prime Directive is a good concept in it’s first mention that was generalized in the wrong direction
The federation does trade and tries to help more primitive societies that they encounter. They provide medical supplies, food, and other things a society asks them for, but they won’t share technology or interfere with their politics because it always leads to massive harm. Putting their finger in the scale results in conflict, despotism, and weird religions around what the contacted people were exposed to.
A good counter example is vaccination.
Let’s say a benevolent alien ship passes by, and discovers a planet with a 90% child mortality rate, due to disease. They introduce vaccines to the population which drop it to under 10%. That’s great.
They return a few decades later, and the civilization is in shambles. It turned out that birth rates didn’t change much. The population started doubling every 5 years. Food production couldn’t keep up. The subsequent wars famine and civil unrest devastated the society.
We’ve seen similar problems, to a lesser extent, on earth. Providing cheap, second hand cloths to Africa ended up destroying the local textile industry. Many places are now dependent on that aid.
In star trek, Star fleet seems to do fly by visits to many places. They are not equipped to assess the results of interference. That would require a team onsite for long term study and assistance. You would need to improve multiple areas at once, each supporting the others. We see some evidence of this, in some episodes, though it is lacking.
The pre-warp limit also makes some sense. It’s an obvious marker for a society. By that point they have likely learnt the lessons with neive help internally. They can assess the risks, and introduce them carefully. They are also likely close enough in technology that the boost won’t destabilise their economy etc.
It’s far from perfect, but as a rule for fly by captains, it makes a good amount of sense.