# The Prime Directive **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 6, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-prime-directive/527945 "2010-02-06T20:17:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-prime-directive/527945/41 "2010-02-09T23:35:26Z")
Here’s the core of the issue: > [@YogSosoth](#): > > Again, when Vulcans contacted humans, it caused a radical but positive change within humanity that allowed it (us?) to, as Picard said, eliminate poverty and war and internal strife within a few decades. No reason why this canon history in Star Trek cannot happen again to another primitive race. Let’s face it, Cochran was the only post-warp person on Earth. We were not a post-warp civilization yet, but good did come out of it. You’re talking about a fictional TV show. > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Suppose in the next century or two humanity developed interstellar travel and formed a world government. Supposing there are lesser developed but still intelligent alien races (rangng from cavemen to today’s level of technology) would support uplifiting and civilizing them or leave them be like in Star Trek’s Prime Directive. This thread isn’t about a fictional TV show. It’s about an idea espoused in the TV show. **In reality** , regardless of what happens on your television, casually interfering in other races affairs, even those who have no potential for recourse, is a bad idea. We’re going to assume that we have the capability for FTL travel, we’re _not_ going to assume that we have replicators (magic make-stuff devices), because that’s not within the context of the thread. We don’t exist in Star Trek, so our discussion is one based in our reality, not theirs. The best consequence, for humanity, of interference with a more primitive specie is economic drag for a decades, maybe centuries. The worst is alienation of a potential ally, even outright war with one a few generations down the line. That _doesn’t_ mean we should ignore them entirely. It means that we shouldn’t stumble blindly from system to system scream “Yo’ home dawg, have a goddamn hot pocket, they’re scalding hot on the edges and freezing inside. Yummmy!” If we’re to “uplift” a civilization, it should be more along the lines of a single project, undertaken with the support and attention of an entire society. Something planned, carefully, and done slowly. A lot of _that_ depends on where in their society you meet them. If they’re not yet in their industrial revolution, introduction would be far different than if they’ve got their first extracelestial (whether they’re located on a moon or planet, who’s to say?) base. It’d also be a lot different if their prevailing religious beliefs led them towards rabid xenophobia, or if they were even remotely similar. Like before, how do you classify an individual? Each body, of course. By our standards. What of hive-insects? What of a race of intelligent [collonials](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_%28biology%29)? Applying our morality to the universe is like a bicycle mechanic applying his expertise to relativistic effects on an interstellar mission. It’s simply not applicable. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-prime-directive/527945/42 "2010-02-10T01:38:46Z")
> [@Todderbob](#): > > On a former military missile, no less. > > So, are you making first contact right now? 😛 > > (Bonus points for user name.) > > What FTL system did you use to reach us, anyway? :dubious: Just because I like to describe it, 🙂 in my book ftl travel is accomplished by moving to other branes where the speed of light relative to our brane is higher. Since you never travel ftl in that brane, you don’t violate any laws, and since you can’t drag singularities around causality is not violated. You have to trace world lines through these branes. If you stay in ours, physics is exactly the same. I think this meets what I feel is a requirement for violation of laws in sf - you don’t really violate anything, you just find they don’t apply the way you thought in a new environment. For purposes of the PD, races only discover this stuff when they build particle accelerators of interplanetary size. String theory works in my book, but it takes a hell of a lot of power to prove it. Anyhow this cannot be accomplished without the resources available from a unified planet. So maturity and first contact go together. Obviously what I’m going for is fiction, not a paper, but I do like the fact that none of the books on quantum gravity or string theory I read trash the idea. > [@](#): > > Certainly, but more to the point it’s a lot of mind-power that could be applied to other things. > > Yes, and we could dedicate a lot of life-military to a lot of life-science careers. This could lead to new breakthroughs. > > However, that doesn’t mean that’s how it’d work out in reality. In reality, it’d more likely be a time of stagnation, throughout history it’s been conflict and despair that’s fueled technological innovation. > > People were dying in groves, so we invented vaccines. People were dying in groves (in war), so we invented a more efficient ways to kill people; the repeating rifle, the poisonous gas, the nuclear weapon, the ICBM, etc. > > Each and every one of those things lead to greater technological innovations later on. A lot of the development of the IC, computers after ENIAC, and lasers were pretty much non-military. Many military funded projects were actually for civilian purposes, with clever people like Licklider figuring out how to write grant proposals to convince the military they’d get something out of it. In any case, the massive acceleration of discovery you mention only happens during wars, and most during total war, and that is something we can’t afford anymore. At the moment we spend a ton on the military without the urgency that drives discovery. Better than a war, but I think we could do better in true peace. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2010, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-prime-directive/527945/43 "2010-02-11T23:16:24Z")
Todderbob, I think, during the course of this discussion, I mixed up whether I was discussing how a fictional rule would apply in a fiction universe, or how that fictional rule would apply in real life. I can’t even tell anymore so let me clarify: Within the ST universe, I think the PD is crap. Too many holes, too many counter examples make it’s intent and application unfair, unreasonable, and short-sighted. I wish the Federation and Star Fleet would get rid of that rule. In real life, I can see that things would be a lot more complex. We probably wouldn’t meet races that are homogenous within their planets, or even continents. Humans would probably resemble those on Babylon 5 than the single-minded utopians that Federation humans resemble. So in real life, I would support a modified PD that allows us to help, but not dominate a pre-warp society, and the type/amount of help would depend on if they are 10 years pre-warp or 1000 years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-prime-directive/527945.md?page=2)