This is some good stuff, I'm going to listen again, lots to take in.
On a side note: I would like to follow MY Prime Directive, and violate Capn Janeway.

*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Saturday, November 13th, 2010 8:32pm PST - promote requested by kulpims.

I think the Prime Directive is one of the best, most hard-sci-fi aspects of Star Trek.

I would hope that any interstellar civilization we create or join would have the same policy.

The Prime Directive is immoral.

*quality *doublepromote

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by gwiz665.

Double-Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Sunday, November 14th, 2010 6:59am PST - doublepromote requested by gwiz665.

>> ^gwiz665:

The Prime Directive is immoral.
quality doublepromote


well like he said, it isn't entirely, it really needs a middle ground. Thanks for the promotes guys!

>> ^gwiz665:

The Prime Directive is immoral.
quality doublepromote


are you saying Federation should copy US foreign policy?

Certainly not. Forcing your influence on an alien civilization is just as bad as keeping them ignorant.
>> ^kulpims:

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

are you saying Federation should copy US foreign policy?

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Star trek, prime directive, forien policy' to 'Star trek, prime directive, foreign policy, rules, laws' - edited by ant

*long

This video has been flagged as being at least 10 minutes in length - declared long by Stingray.

"Oooh, there's some people in trouble, but we judge ourselves to be superior to them, therefore we won't help them, we'll just sit back and study them for a bit then move on." - The prime directive of the ass-hole.

>> ^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.

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.

I was really impressed with this. This really puts the ethics embedded in star trek that I really enjoyed under the microscope.

One of the difficulties of lifting the underlying ethics out of the series is that the series itself spans its creation over an incredible period of time; I'm not sure Gene Roddenberry was thinking 30 years ahead when he first came up with it =P. Also, Gene died shortly into the 4th season of start trek TNG...he wasn't around to be really involved with deep space 9, voyager, or enterprise. This is reflected in TOS vs. TNG; in TOS, the goal was to, "explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before." TOS was about adventure; they had the people fly out to find a new world, fly down 'n meet 'em, and then get in all kinds of trouble. They seemed to focus on meeting civilizations that were approximately as technologically advanced as starfleet's. In TNG, the stated mission is the same, but the show has a much stronger anthropological sentiment to it. They actually fly down to places where they would be considered gods (and occasionally are, when they screw up).

From the anthropological perspective, the prime directive really does make a lot of sense...to a point. Suppose that you do come across some relatively underdeveloped civilization, and you have the chance to immediately save a lot of citizens of that civilization. Your direct interference with that civilization will indeed mess up your experiments concerning the study of how civilizations develop, so it's something that you generally want to avoid. Trying to save a civilization from one problem necessarily induces another problem. By solving a civilization's problem, their behavior may change to become reliant, and therefor dependent, upon you. Then, what are the ethics of *not* stopping your mission to explore out new civilizations? What are the ethics of *not* creating a supply line to suit the needs of your newly dependent civilization? Should you try to make that civilization self-sufficient to solve their own problems, what are the ethics of giving them technology without the social infrastructure for them to be able to deal with that technology? Finally, after all that, suppose that you give a new civilization new technology and a new social infrastructure to be able to deal with that technology responsibly; you've just committed a much more interesting and philosophical upset, and you've essentially wiped out an entire culture, and replaced it with another. From an anthropological standpoint, that's complete disaster.

That said, there are still times when it's a much bigger disaster to let things fall their course. Suppose a natural disaster is about to occur in which an entire planet will be destroyed. In this case, by not intervening, the entire culture and population will be eradicated, which is completely unacceptable from both anthropological and humanitarian standpoints. What do you do? In one episode of TNG (I can't remember which one), the solution was to transport the entire civilization to their holodecks, and transfer them to a new planet, all the while they believe that they are migrating to some new location on their homeworld. They preserved both the life and the culture, and satisfied both standpoints, which is a great and rare solution.

This video illustrates this caveat and many others by showing that the prime directive should *not* be considered a dogma that should be followed by every anthropologist blindly, but rather should be a rule of thumb. In a tough spot, it'll get you the best outcome most of the time. At other times, advanced levels of thought are necessary in order to fish out the actual best solution. For someone to break this rule of thumb very frequently might raise some eyebrows about what they are doing, as is the case seen in the clip where the senior officer was putting Picard in the hotseat about breaking the directive on 9 separate occasions in a short span of time.

The fact of the matter, though, is that it is *not* treated as a dogma in the series; it *is* treated as a rule of thumb. The fact that Picard broke it on 9 occasions in a short span of time truly shows this. In several other clips that was shown in this video, they actually *did* end up breaking the prime directive.

I believe that the person who created this video was just upset that he was never issued a starfleet academy textbook on the prime directive which spells out every detail and nuance of the directive =P. Of course they don't go into high levels of detail on it; the mass wouldn't be interested, or would just take a course on ethics & philosophy instead. Instead of going into high detail, they did as entertainers do, and just presented the rule in its most frustrating (and therefore interesting) fashion, by showing all of the situations when it makes us violate our own compulsion to follow our own set of moral standards. I believe that the prime directive in the series does come close to that which the author of the clip wants, but is merely stifled in its presentation by drama and intrigue.

*promote this for more discussions

Self promoting this video back to the front page; last published Sunday, November 14th, 2010 1:15pm PST - promote requested by original submitter kasinator.

Quite well done. I've usually excused the capricious way in which the "prime directive" ended up being a placeholder for "I need the heroes to be conflicted about resolving a major issue by doing something trivial so there's dramatic tension", but he really nails them to the wall.

The real problem is that after Gene Roddenberry died, you had that awful, awful travesty known as Star Trek: Voyager, where following the Prime Directive always meant doing something hideously awful.

The other series got sketchy about it at times, but ST:Voy is really the issue here.

Let me be the mediator between you two. The prime directive was indeed from the vulcans. But dismissing the outcry of a race can be simply heartless. Letting the person die in the fire just because you dont know them is just a grotesque out of sight and mind excuse. handing out to those in need the means help is always a good thing. but you have to remember it still has consequences. the replicator idea for instance. Who is to say that they will just replicate food? they can replicate weapons just as easily in theory. and it can certainly cause a culture clash if they are like the native american type species.

The problem is not about if the prime directive is unfair, SFdebris pointed out it turned unquestionable, dogmatic. there is no negotiation anylonger when it really needs ore of a middle ground between helpiging and ignoring.

I always involved in lovers quarrels, it is my place!

@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.

@csnel3
@kulpims
@GeeSussFreeK
@NetRunner
@draak13
@gwiz665
@budzos
@Bidouleroux
@everyone else here
And while it is true the vulcans have emotions which if left unchecked can perpetuate acts of chaos, even logic could condone the acts of intervention under certain circumstances. Like what was mentioned earlier with transporting the inhabitants of an entire colony to another planet. Logic would dictate that saving a lives rather than having them face extinction, especially when taking such action takes minimal effort on the part of those who intervene is a far better outcome than ignoring them and moving on. some of those ants Q steps on could have made great stides, some Q are even cautious enough to look out for ant hills so they would not step on them. Remember that Q himself does not represent the continuum and the entire Q as a whole.

Now just so I am entirely clear here, I am not against the principles of the prime directive, it does have its importance. But it seems whenever this debate is drawn both parties in which are for or against the directive are under the impression the directive has to be the one sided stance. That is what I am against. It should indeed be a directive, a consideration to keep in regard, but upholding to a non debatable stature leaves no room for leniency, any more than abandoning it and following a reckless moral compass as those pro directive would imagine it to be. What the directive needs is a middle ground. A set of further principles which leaves room for making a rational and logical decision to intervene under appropriate circumstances.

I was going to save this for a future sift, but this seems like the best time to place this:



I fear that point the most. Is it really free thinking if everyone shares the same idea? Unity may bring about a positive force, but it will always need quarrelsome debate to establish its principles, When people need to resort to an order, to establish the prime directive as a one way street, is it unified logic, or a dictated mindset? And if it is either one, what happens when everything else becomes a one way street? even in the optimistic future Roddenberry Imagined, his future did not have a perfect race. Every race had its own strengths and weaknesses. And some of their strengths to others seemed like their weaknesses, but when they worked with and learned with one another, it provided a harmony of thought, principle and the idea that even Their "enlightened" principles needed adjustment from others.

So my point to all this is the prime directive should be seen as a recommended precaution which leaves room for debate, not a dogma, and certainly not something that should be taken lightly. With that said, I think I am past the point of sharing the video, and this should really be moved to sift talks so we can further *discuss this in greater detail.

This video is being sent to Sift Talk for discussion - discuss requested by kasinator.

@kasinator, I agree with your point, but I also think you're restating the conclusion of the original video -- not that the Prime Directive is bad, but that the way it became an unquestioned dogma in the series was bad. Like the original video showed, there are plenty of examples where the only defense of Prime Directive absolutism were fallacious arguments (argument from ignorance, and argument from authority were highlighted).

I argue that that's because it's a TV show, and the writers obviously weren't trained moral philosophers. Also, they'd long since painted themselves into a corner by making such a big deal about how it's a core principle of their civilization -- like, say, the 1st Amendment.

To state the obvious, the Federation isn't a real civilization, so its laws, ethics, and doctrines aren't going to have the same rigor as ones that have been subjected to centuries of debate by real people who have to live by them.

In any case, discuss is more meant for questions of rules infractions about a video, not just for comment threads that get interesting.

*return

Returning this video from Sift Talk - return requested by NetRunner.

@NetRunner

True. But how many shows have the same following as star trek? It really does deserve better writers along with a re-airing. Especially now more than ever. Roddenberry's ideas need to be heard again.

@kasinator I agree, we need Star Trek back on the air again to give us some sort of pop-culture that reinforces the idea that all people should try to engage in moral reasoning about everything they do.

I'd really like to see someone take on a version of Trek that mostly tried to echo the ethical struggles of our era, and try to hash them out.

Part of the problem is that all of the key struggles we're having today are considered unquestionably settled in the Federation, all questions economic are settled (via a mechanism that always remains steadfastly off-camera), all questions about the proper role of the state seem settled (but again, the role of the state in non-Starfleet lives is hardly ever mentioned), certainly the idea of respecting all religions, and viewing all sentient lifeforms without prejudice is so ingrained in Federation citizens that it's shocking to even hear them make mild jibes about the physical attributes of another race.

I almost think the right way to reboot Star Trek now would be to have it be about someone in the 24th century making a reality show that follows the lives of a group of teens coming of age on Earth in the Federation...and then give us some insight into how the Federation gets a little screwed up by the resurrection of media they thought had thankfully died off in WW3...

@NetRunner
Yes to reboot, no to reality tv.

I can see NBC making it again possibly cbs since its in the paramount association. in the meantime, we will have to donate to new voayges and their work.