>> ^Ryjkyj:

HEY!
Do any of you guys remember when that one guy with the crazy avatar did that thing and it was totally hilarious? But then the other guy responded by saying that he didn't think it was hilarious and none of us knew what to do until you-know-who came in like he always does and explained to us that it was in fact a moral dilemma that humans had been experiencing since the beginning of time?
I never would've read that book by the European philosopher who spent his life explaining that dilemma unless that guy recommended it. Now I am one of some-unnamed-planet's foremost historians regarding you-know who. And to think, it never would've happened if so-and-so hadn't explained the thing that I won't mention because it would give away that person's identity.
Come to think of it, none of it EVER even would've been possible if somebody (wink) hadn't come up with ------SECTION REMOVED------ in the first place! Ha! Imagine if that thing had never happened! Can you?!? I know!
PS: If you choose to respond to this, please do not quote me or refer to me by my original or on-line identity or any other distinguishing character feature that might give away who initially wrote this in the first place. In fact, if you do NEED to refer to me, please direct your response to "you".
Note: All person's above referred to as "he/him/his,etc..." where applicable so that gender will remain undefined. If I've offended anyone, you know who you are.

HEY!

Do any of you guys remember when that one guy with the crazy avatar did that thing and it was totally hilarious? But then the other guy responded by saying that he didn't think it was hilarious and none of us knew what to do until you-know-who came in like he always does and explained to us that it was in fact a moral dilemma that humans had been experiencing since the beginning of time?

I never would've read that book by the European philosopher who spent his life explaining that dilemma unless that guy recommended it. Now I am one of some-unnamed-planet's foremost historians regarding you-know who. And to think, it never would've happened if so-and-so hadn't explained the thing that I won't mention because it would give away that person's identity.

Come to think of it, none of it EVER even would've been possible if somebody (wink) hadn't come up with ------SECTION REMOVED------ in the first place! Ha! Imagine if that thing had never happened! Can you?!? I know!

PS: If you choose to respond to this, please do not quote me or refer to me by my original or on-line identity or any other distinguishing character feature that might give away who initially wrote this in the first place. In fact, if you do NEED to refer to me, please direct your response to "you".

Note: All person's above referred to as "he/him/his,etc..." where applicable so that gender will remain undefined. If I've offended anyone, you know who you are.

@kasinator

Replicating weapons is not a theory. In fact, all weapons and ship are replicated except for those parts that use materials that can't be replicated (like latinum). Of course, normally there are safety lockouts that prevent you from replicating weapons, plus you would need a replication pattern.

But anyway, my point concerning the Prime Directive was that, as a Vulcan precept it is not primarily concerned with morality per se. When Spock tells Kirk that his holodeck solution is logical, he is not saying in any way that it is a "good" or "bad" solution. Spock doesn't take morality into consideration, only logic. Thus, while Kirk's solution is "logical" in light of the moral dilemma he faces (that he created for himself) it is not a situation that Spock would get himself into because Spock would not have deliberated on whether or not he must try to save the natives in the first place. And it's not like Spock doesn't have emotions. Even pure-blood Vulcans have emotions, they just shove them aside most of the time. To a Vulcan, acting on emotions invites chaos sooner or later and chaos is inherently unpredictable. Instead of trying to predict the unpredictable and play god, you decide not to interfere.

But then we kind of see the reverse with the Q for a while. They are so high-up in the food chain that they do not consider their interventions as disruptive any more than we consider our destroying of an ant colony disruptive. After all, ants as a whole will adapt and survive in one way or another. But still, even they must admit that they cannot predict what will happen to their own continuum and so they realize they can't stop themselves from evolving without losing what made them Q in the first place. Their "Prime Directive" of not artificially ascending lower lifeforms (except Riker for a while) into Q stems mostly from apathy towards non-Q things but also from self-preservation, as they cannot predict what would happen if non-evolved Q arrived en masse. Thus the same could be said of the Federation's Prime Directive, even if the self-preservation aspect is unavowed.

I don't think that's amoral, I think that's decidedly immoral. Like @ryanbennitt says above, the Federation is keeping people stupid, allowing genocide, famine, wars etc. At the very least, they could introduce their replicators to all friendly states they met and given them INFINITE food and materials. Not doing that, is intentionally keeping them down.

Because it is a post-scarcity world, there is no limit to supplies in the advanced races, but there is in the simple ones and some people will starve, some people will die because of the inaction of the Federation. I think this is immoral. (Morality is obviously different from person to person, but I think the "least harm principle" is almost universal.)

They should of course be careful when introducing new technologies, and do it gradually, but to make an arbitrary decision like "all pre-warp civilizations get nothing" is immoral.


>> ^Bidouleroux:

>> ^gwiz665:
The Prime Directive is immoral.
quality doublepromote

The Prime Directive is amoral. It comes from the Vulcans. It is a rational directive so as to not be squandered by moral dilemmas (when two options seem equally "good" or equally "bad"). The Prime Directive is neither good nor bad, it's just a directive to cut the moral Gordian Knot. That the application of the Prime Directive is debated so much shows why it exists : to cut the crap debates around morality. Because it's easy to think you won't interfere when you're far away but not so easy when you're in the middle of a situation. Hence the directive and hence the fact that they can't really punish you when you ignore it in the heat of a situation, unless you committed an actual crime like genocide. And I say "committed", not "let happen". You can let happen a genocide if by doing so you are respecting the Prime Directive in regard to a pre-warp civilizations' internal matters. If its two warp capable factions of the same civilization, it's a matter of whether there is ground to recognize them as two different civilizations, which is a political decision more than a moral one.
In Voyager they sometimes had good reasons to ignore the Prime Directive, for example with the Ocampas they were aware that they were being protected by an alien (the Caretaker). Also, the Kazon were warp capable and were interfering anyway so that's a good reason to beat the crap out of them (plus they were hostile from the get go). You can refrain from interfering in the internal matters of a civilization, but you can't use that excuse when it's not an internal matter (e.g. Picard and the Romulans vs. the Klingon civil war : don't interfere with the Klingon's own internal affairs but also keep the Romulans from interfering because that's not an internal matter).
The Prime Directive is not an absolute, but a code of conduct. Also, the only way I could see to get punished under it would be to give warp technology to a pre-warp civilization. That's a inter-civilization incident because you effectively wilfully bring a new player (de facto ally since you control their level of technological progress) on the galactic table, skewing things in your favor by artificial means. That's why you don't see the Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians or even the Ferengi giving warp technology. You just can't do that without facing consequences from other warp-capable civilizations.

>> ^gwiz665:

The Prime Directive is immoral.
quality doublepromote


The Prime Directive is amoral. It comes from the Vulcans. It is a rational directive so as to not be squandered by moral dilemmas (when two options seem equally "good" or equally "bad"). The Prime Directive is neither good nor bad, it's just a directive to cut the moral Gordian Knot. That the application of the Prime Directive is debated so much shows why it exists : to cut the crap debates around morality. Because it's easy to think you won't interfere when you're far away but not so easy when you're in the middle of a situation. Hence the directive and hence the fact that they can't really punish you when you ignore it in the heat of a situation, unless you committed an actual crime like genocide. And I say "committed", not "let happen". You can let happen a genocide if by doing so you are respecting the Prime Directive in regard to a pre-warp civilizations' internal matters. If its two warp capable factions of the same civilization, it's a matter of whether there is ground to recognize them as two different civilizations, which is a political decision more than a moral one.

In Voyager they sometimes had good reasons to ignore the Prime Directive, for example with the Ocampas they were aware that they were being protected by an alien (the Caretaker). Also, the Kazon were warp capable and were interfering anyway so that's a good reason to beat the crap out of them (plus they were hostile from the get go). You can refrain from interfering in the internal matters of a civilization, but you can't use that excuse when it's not an internal matter (e.g. Picard and the Romulans vs. the Klingon civil war : don't interfere with the Klingon's own internal affairs but also keep the Romulans from interfering because that's not an internal matter).

The Prime Directive is not an absolute, but a code of conduct. Also, the only way I could see to get punished under it would be to give warp technology to a pre-warp civilization. That's a inter-civilization incident because you effectively wilfully bring a new player (de facto ally since you control their level of technological progress) on the galactic table, skewing things in your favor by artificial means. That's why you don't see the Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians or even the Ferengi giving warp technology. You just can't do that without facing consequences from other warp-capable civilizations.

Now i'm beset by the moral dilemma of which version do I buy?

If I buy the white version, does that make me a racist?

Will the store clerk think so?

Does the black version run faster?

Pokemon shouldn't be this complicated.

>> ^Skeeve:

I tend to agree with westy on this one.
Firstly, the video didn't provide much of a moral dilemma - particularly one large enough to fit the tone of the message.
Secondly, pilots (then and now) experience significantly lower rates of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and less remorse for what they have done. While it isn't impossible for a bomber pilot to feel remorse, in the majority of cases you will find that an infantryman feels more remorse over a single kill than a bomber pilot for hundreds. This made the video seem a little whiny to me.


thats whats weard and why around half way through i asumed it was the nuke thing as im pritty sure most of those guys commited suiside , + it would have drawn more to the wastefull nature of war.

I tend to agree with westy on this one.

Firstly, the video didn't provide much of a moral dilemma - particularly one large enough to fit the tone of the message.

Secondly, pilots (then and now) experience significantly lower rates of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and less remorse for what they have done. While it isn't impossible for a bomber pilot to feel remorse, in the majority of cases you will find that an infantryman feels more remorse over a single kill than a bomber pilot for hundreds. This made the video seem a little whiny to me.

pritty good.

whats strange though is although im sure the raw drawing was a "styl" and done on perpouse allot of the time it looked realy basic something you would use in a kids cartoon with realy simple flat colours . and then in other shots of the air craft and other things the detail went up quite abit

lots of the shots i thought were realy nicely done though and flowed realy well together , i would have preferd a slighty more mature art style though and i think a mor emature art style would have gelld with the CGI components and FX sceens better.

finaly , i think the story was a bit lacking in content and was deliverd rediculously slowly for such a simple message , i allso found the ending prodictable and not realy what i wanted.

im allso not 100% certain on the message or if th emessage convayed actualy works , I guess it makes more sense from an amercan perspective where it was 100% optoinal to go to war. Im prityy sure from the uk perspective it was a case of if we dont fight the germans we are fucked.

I think the plot and message would have worked better if this was set in the context of a more obvouse moral dilemma and i actualy asumed this was the case when the bomb dores opend i thoght there plane would be the one that droped the A bomb , as in that instance u have a far more obvouse moral dilemma to things. other than that i guess it could have made more of a thing showing savilean deths. (although the cartoon did alude to that and the piolot reolising the simularaties of humanity.)

in the end If there is no real moral dilema and the piolot is esentualy fighting because he has to , im not quite sure what he could convay to his son or future generatoins that would be of anny use (within the context of choosing to fight or not).

agreed.

In reply to this comment by 00Scud00:
>> ^GoodAttorney:
Only in first world countries do people enjoy the luxury of struggling with the stupid moral dilemma of loving animals more than people. The 40+ billion spent every year, in this country alone, on sparky and captain whiskers could feed, clothe, and rehabilitate an awful lot of people.

Of course you could apply that same logic to almost anything, yes if we all stopped spending money on -Fill in unnecessary expense here- then that problem would be solved, sounds simple enough but in practice it gets more complicated.

Out of the office: Banned to China. Don't leave a message.

>> ^burdturgler:
>> ^GoodAttorney:
... humanitarianism only applies to humans ...
This human centric attitude is why I have an issue with your post. You seem oblivious to the fact that certain animals share a bond with humanity and have throughout history played a role in human survival. These creatures have placed their trust in us. Dogs specifically have earned our trust, admiration and compassion .. and continue to save human lives every single day, often throwing themselves into personal risk and death, in order to save us. Denying our obligations to them is not a "stupid moral dilemma". It's inhuman.

>> ^GoodAttorney:
... humanitarianism only applies to humans ...
This human centric attitude is why I have an issue with your post. You seem oblivious to the fact that certain animals share a bond with humanity and have throughout history played a role in human survival. These creatures have placed their trust in us. Dogs specifically have earned our trust, admiration and compassion .. and continue to save human lives every single day, often throwing themselves into personal risk and death, in order to save us. Denying our obligations to them is not a "stupid moral dilemma". It's inhuman.

>> ^00Scud00:
>> ^GoodAttorney:
Only in first world countries do people enjoy the luxury of struggling with the stupid moral dilemma of loving animals more than people. The 40+ billion spent every year, in this country alone, on sparky and captain whiskers could feed, clothe, and rehabilitate an awful lot of people.

Of course you could apply that same logic to almost anything, yes if we all stopped spending money on -Fill in unnecessary expense here- then that problem would be solved, sounds simple enough but in practice it gets more complicated.


only in first world countries do people worry about buying pets AT ALL. all that money could feed, clothe, and rehabilitate an awful lot of people.

only in first world countries do people worry about paying for cable television. all that money could feed, clothe, and rehabilitate an awful lot of people.

only in first world countries do people worry about buying more than one set of clothing to wear from day to day. all that money could feed, clothe, and rehabilitate an awful lot of people.

only in first world countries do people worry about spending time commenting on internet videos. that time could be spend raising money to feed, clothe, and rehabilitate an awful lot of people.

thanks for politicizing a video meant to be cute. asshole.

>> ^GoodAttorney:
Only in first world countries do people enjoy the luxury of struggling with the stupid moral dilemma of loving animals more than people. The 40+ billion spent every year, in this country alone, on sparky and captain whiskers could feed, clothe, and rehabilitate an awful lot of people.

Of course you could apply that same logic to almost anything, yes if we all stopped spending money on -Fill in unnecessary expense here- then that problem would be solved, sounds simple enough but in practice it gets more complicated.

>> ^GoodAttorney:
Only in first world countries do people enjoy the luxury of struggling with the stupid moral dilemma of loving animals more than people. The 40+ billion spent every year, in this country alone, on sparky and captain whiskers could feed, clothe, and rehabilitate an awful lot of people.


You should move to China. Have yourself some captain whiskers lo mein. It's a tragic world view that suggests humans should abandon compassion for survival.