I would imagine that everyone has heard of this directive from Star Trek, but just in case I’ll explain it:
The Prime Directive is a law the Federation has that makes it illegal to interfere in the development of other societies until they achieve Warp technology (and therefore are about to head out into the Universe anyway). In the show, it is usually broken like crazy due to the fact that it makes for some fuzzy ethics sometimes.
So, Star Trek aside, should we have a Prime Directive? Now, assume all of the following for debate purposes:
-Humans can travel faster (much) than the speed of light cheaply.
-We also have taken medical and engineering technology to amazing heights (Hundreds of years life-span, no disease that is uncurable, virtually limitless resources due to nanotechnology)
Now, we’re cruisin’ through the galaxy and we find Planet Teeming Millions. It’s a society with language and rudimentary technology (say midevil). These people are looking at hundreds if not thousands of generations of suffering, disease, war, and death before they can achieve what we have (and are capable of sharing). Is it ethical to allow this to go on when we can help and skip a couple thousand years of suffering? Or do we have to allow it to follow it’s own course while we sit back and record and study the changes?
Thanks. I thought it looked wrong. Brings up a good question though. What if the society is evil?!? Should we destroy it to keep the universe a safe place before they gain the powers to mess with us?
Actually it even extended to cultures that had post-warp technology. Remember the Feds couldn’t get officially involved in the Kingon Civil War because of the Prime Directive.
For a guy who hates Star Trek I sure do know a lot.
**
I’m suppose to decide whether or not we should have a policy based upon technology that either does not exist or cannot possibly exist.
**
Assuming we don’t just blast them to oblivion in order to get what we want, we could just trade with them for whatever raw materials or resources might be valuable to us.
[quote]
Actually it even extended to cultures that had post-warp technology. Remember the Feds couldn’t get officially involved in the Kingon Civil War because of the Prime Directive.
[quote]
Hmmm. You may be right. I guess the reason I thought that was I remember an episode called “First Contact” (TNG, not the movie) where they went and made contact with a civilization that had just gotten Warp tech. But it does apply to civil wars dosn’t it?
It’s a thought exercise only right now. That’s not to say that tomorrow someone doesn’t make the breakthrough that allows us to Warp space around a ship (so no laws are broken). So, should we become a Universe faring healthy, wealthy population, what will our responsibility be to the other forms of intelligent life we find? While you may not have to consider it now, someday someone may, so it’s good to get a head start.
Assume we’ve got all the resources we need. More than we could ever use (between asteroids, comets and planets all over this great big Universe).
I would think a conquistador/missionary mentality would prevail. If there is one thing that I learned in History class it is that history repeats itself. Missionary folk would look at the plight of “those poor godless alien savages” and try to fix the situation by sending missionary starships to convert the masses (regardless of whether there is a prime directive or not). The darker side to this is that corporations will see “a wonderful resource to exploit” not to mention the myriad smaller adventure seekers looking to make a quick buck by stealing artifacts from “these backwards people” (not to mention mining any precious stone found on the planet). In short, regardless of whether a “Prime Directive” exists, the aliens will suffer culture shock.
By the way, the “Prime Directive” is one of those Star Trek ideas that I think makes no sense. I would think that this rule would be violated so many times (albeit not officially by Starfleet) that it would hold no meaning whatsoever. (Besides hasn’t the Federation benefited from alien technology? Doesn’t the Prime Directive apply to humans as well?)
To turn it around, how would we feel about an alien race who showed up, looked us over, and said “Geez, we sure could stop all that pain and suffering and death those silly humans put up with, but it builds charecter. So we’d better just sit back and watch.” I think we would be pissed as hell.
The Prime Directive is a result of the mindset that societies evolve towards something, of the idea that the universe is “meant” in some fashion. It only makes sense if you think that there is something special happening that the new race is interupting. This was a popular idea in the 19th century, and lots of people stuggled to prove that societies inevitably cycled through savagry to Barbarism to civilization to communism (or warp drives). Problem is, the evidence they found suggested that that isn’t the case–societies evolve (or stay the same) as a result of local pressures and conditions, not according to some overarching plan that is inevitably repeated.
This is something I’ve always hated about Star Trek…the assumption that humanity (and other species) are evolving towards some goal, usually imagined as some form of pure energy beings whatever that is. Every sentient species is imagined to have this goal of eventually transcending into something else. There is a concept of immature species and mature species. You have characters saying things like “We’ve evolved beyond petty concern X”.
Which is simply wrong. There is no goal to evolution, and cultural change is not evolution.
But, given the conflation of cultural change and evolution, and given the assumption of teleology in evolution, then the prime directive begins to make more sense. Every species has a goal and we shouldn’t interfere with that goal.
A more pragmatic approach to the prime directive that is sometimes given is that we (the Federation) should have some humility about changing things willy-nilly. The show postulates several negative unintended consequences from trying to change alien societies (let’s ignore all the ways Kirk purposefully changed alien societies for the better by blowing up computers and such). Since we don’t know what will happen from trying to help, and since we know that unintended bad things are likely to occur, we refrain from interfering.
This philosophy is at least somewhat coherent. But it ignores the fact that in the ST universe there are many other space-faring species that will interact with these aliens anyway. Just like modern day hunter-gatherers, we know that these people are going to have interactions with the larger universe, and we have no way of preventing it. So keeping these people in a museum is impossible, even if we wished to.