Prime directive

[Pawelk198604]

Does when mankind will have interstellar travel capability does we also should have prime directive like law.

[OtherDalfite]

Well, we have the international space treaty, stating you can not own any celestial body. So that's a start, as well as nuclear weapons being illegal to fly into space.

[MBobrik]

Prime directive = the ultimate duty to watch any catastrophe, any atrocity in your neighborhood all the way up to frakkin deaths of entire worlds* and do nothing.

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"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

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But maybe it does not count because those obsessive cultural relativists who made this crappy rule weren't good people to begin with.

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*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeward_%28Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation%29

Edited September 18, 2013 by MBobrik

[Tex_NL]

I do believe some sort of 'Prime Directive' is a good idea. Even on modern day earth there are many differences between cultures, what's perfectly normal and acceptable in one area might be taboo in another. How would you feel if someone comes up to you and tells you at gun point your ways (and those of many generations before you) are wrong just because they say so? Cultural differences between us and an alien culture will probably be beyond imagination. Once we encounter them we have absolutely no right to tell them what's right and what's wrong.

[MBobrik]

Cultural differences between us and an alien culture will probably be beyond imagination. Once we encounter them we have absolutely no right to tell them what's right and what's wrong.

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Imagine it is April 7, 1994 again and you have a large "STOP THE HUTU" button on your desk. If you push it, all the perpetrators will be prevented ( at gunpoint, of course ) from slaughtering the Tutsi and the Rwandan genocide is stopped in its tracks. If you don't push it, it all will happen like the history remembers it and you will be made watching all that on live feed in high resolution.

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Would you push it ? Would you decide for the Rwandans what is right and what is wrong ? Or would you get popcorn and start watching ?

[Ralathon]

Depends how extreme you want to make it.

In my opinion we should intervene when there is a chance of large scale death and destruction by natural means. When the alien Vesuvius is about to explode and bury Pompey, save em. When their equivalent of the black plague comes around hand out cures etc.

When the situation is caused by themselves and it does not threaten the planet with widespread extinction I would advice against taking sudden actions. It is unlikely that their moral values are the same as ours, and what might seem a honorable cause in our eyes might be an atrocity in theirs. Best not to intervene until you know EXACTLY what's going on and understand their moral system to make an educated decision on who to back up.

In the case that the war does threaten the entire planet, such as nuclear war, I suggest backing down and stopping both sides dead in their tracks. You can work out all the ethics later but saving the planet comes first.

[Goldham]

Depends how extreme you want to make it.

In my opinion we should intervene when there is a chance of large scale death and destruction by natural means. When the alien Vesuvius is about to explode and bury Pompey, save em. When their equivalent of the black plague comes around hand out cures etc.

When the situation is caused by themselves and it does not threaten the planet with widespread extinction I would advice against taking sudden actions. It is unlikely that their moral values are the same as ours, and what might seem a honorable cause in our eyes might be an atrocity in theirs. Best not to intervene until you know EXACTLY what's going on and understand their moral system to make an educated decision on who to back up.

In the case that the war does threaten the entire planet, such as nuclear war, I suggest backing down and stopping both sides dead in their tracks. You can work out all the ethics later but saving the planet comes first.

But then if their Civilization is undeveloped enough, Humans would be looked upon like Gods and could completely Change their culture and could believe they're Gods themselves.

[lajoswinkler]

It's a culturocide, exactly. But look at it this way. Is it better to turn your back to suffering, or to destroy a culture?

The only solution after you help them, is to stay with them to minimize the damage. If you leave them, they will actually forgot about you in a few generations. Myths will be born and you'll become a deity. Chances are that, as human history shows, newborn religion will be used to plant even more death than before.

So you must stay with them and they must be nurtured to the level you're at. Culturocide is inevitable.

[Goldham]

It's a culturocide, exactly. But look at it this way. Is it better to turn your back to suffering, or to destroy a culture?

The only solution after you help them, is to stay with them to minimize the damage. If you leave them, they will actually forgot about you in a few generations. Myths will be born and you'll become a deity. Chances are that, as human history shows, newborn religion will be used to plant even more death than before.

So you must stay with them and they must be nurtured to the level you're at. Culturocide is inevitable.

Another Idea would to do a Doctor Who approach and silently affecting the planet from orbit or with invisibility or something.

[AndrewBCrisp]

Since "Homeward" has already been mentioned on the argument of Why The Prime Directive Is Bad Bad Bad, I won't add more to it beyond to state that the episode in question was very badly written. If we're going to use Star Trek in this discussion, I'd recommend the 2nd season TNG episode "Pen Pals" as a counterpoint - it was perhaps a much better treatment of the Prime Directive and the ethical baggage it carries IMHO.

That said, the Prime Directive as imagined in Star Trek was bungled by writers more often than not, and I personally suspect the amount of thought that went into it was along the lines of "How can we throw some big legal obstacle in the way of Our Heroes?" than on any serious attempt to consider how we should deal with alien cultures ethically. It makes too many assumptions along the lines of human-alien contact, including:

• that we'd be able to understand the alien culture to the point that we can recognize a problem,
  
• that we are more advanced than the alien culture in question (or: should we worry about our effect on the Organians or the Q?),
  
• and that our Superior Advancement is only a few centuries or millenia ahead of the alien culture in question.
  
• 
  

Personally, I suspect the chances of a "Prime-Directive-Problem" ever arising in our future is so small as to be not worth considering. Given the vastness of space, the large numbers of planets, and the likelihood that our ventures will be slower than light rather than faster, the chances of us running into a civilization "sufficiently less advanced" than ours is remote. A more likely scenario - and a better foundation for a Prime Directive kind of law - would be finding a planet that bears life, but not sentience. Do we settle and develop the planet, or leave it alone?

Settling a life-bearing planet would certainly create a new human culture and give us an extra bulwark against extinction, but could also mean we would preempt the development of a native sentient species. If interstellar travel becomes commonplace - and that's a big "if" - there's also the concern of cross-contamination. While humans might not pick up alien diseases, the chances of an alien lifeform finding a niche on Earth (or other settled human worlds) is higher.

Modern space exploration already has planetary protection protocols to prevent accidental cross-contamination within this system, and I'd expect we would expand them as we venture to other stars. Ultimately, the best ethical development might be to leave life-bearing planets (and the systems they occupy) alone, save for dedicated scientific colonies designed to remain isolate and easy to remove if necessary. There should be plenty of lifeless planets we can terraform or asteroids we can convert into habitats, that this should not be a problem for our descendants.

The only time I'd imagine a need for a Cultural Prime Directive would be if and when we encounter another starfaring culture. However, it's likely said culture might be more advanced than we, and so the concern would be over how they would affect us, rather than the other way around.

[Nuke]

invasion first, policy second.

[Pawelk198604]

I found cool video about Prime Directive, especially second part

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lewNeQ0qu_M

[Scotius]

We already have a sort of Prime Directive working right now - here on Earth. There are tribes of uncontacted indigenous people in Amazonian jungle, New Guinea and on small archipelagos on Indian Ocean. Both local governments and scientists refrain from direct contact and interference in their life, settling for observation from as far as possible. All this to prevent culturecide. Complete isolation is unfortunately impossible, so i wonder what those people think about our ships, planes and helicopters occasionally passing near their settlements? Do they have UFO stories too?

[KOCOUR]

Given the size of space, limitations of how far you can go, and that there would not be much habitable planets in where you are able to go, Reasonable thing to do, when you find a habitable planet, is to colonize it, and get rid of any "inconviniecies" that could possibly threaten your interests on that planet.

[Monkeh]

I feel the writers of Star Trek had the right idea even if they fudged it a bit. The natural disasters in our own history haven't stopped us getting here. We survived the Black death, London survived the Great Fire, the World wars could be seen as a useful clearing of excess populations.

Fact is you can ask whether it's right to watch a culture become extinct for whatever reason but who's to say what replaces it isn't going to be infinitely better?

Take a race of pig like things on a doomed world we find. All they do is rut and fight and build ugly structures that are there to annoy their neighbours and nothing else. An asteroid is on it's way that will wipe the whole lot of them out.

1) We save them and they carry on being useless and annoying and generally a bit poo for ever more.

2) We leave nature to take it's course and in a few hundred millennia we have a new, enlightened species that travels round the galaxy curing all disease and solving all problems everywhere.

When you watch a nature program on televison you never see the camera people or presenters saving a doomed creature from anything, why is that? It's because by saving the cute chipmonk from the rattlesnake you doom the rattlesnake to starvation. Who are we to say which is more important and which should be helped?

Prime directive is a way to avoid making horrible mistakes.

We meet a race of creatures we can't communicate with, despite best efforts. Every week 100 virgin children are murdered in a sacrificial ritual that appears bloody, horrific and disgusting. The week after we save all 100 children via our new 'beam 'em up' technology.

6 hours after a nightmarish Kracken appears from the bowels of the planet and destroys everything in the solar system, all because it didn't get it's weekly feed. How do you feel now oh mighty child Saviour?

The thing is we won't be able to fully understand any aliens we encounter, it would take full immersion into the culture to do that. Heck, we have a difficult enough time understanding different cultures on Earth. Look at Japan, Mongolia, any Amazon tribe you could find, the Russian federation, Englishness, Korea, the Arab nations, China...the list could go on, but from outside they all look very, very strange and weird and....wrong.

We would HAVE to stay away from anyone we found who were behind us in tech terms, and it would be wise to stay FAR away from anyone we find who has a higher tech level than us or risk getting 'Conquistadored'.

[lajoswinkler]

We already have a sort of Prime Directive working right now - here on Earth. There are tribes of uncontacted indigenous people in Amazonian jungle, New Guinea and on small archipelagos on Indian Ocean. Both local governments and scientists refrain from direct contact and interference in their life, settling for observation from as far as possible. All this to prevent culturecide. Complete isolation is unfortunately impossible, so i wonder what those people think about our ships, planes and helicopters occasionally passing near their settlements? Do they have UFO stories too?

We're already interfering with them. As soon as they've started spotting jet airplanes cruising high above, culturocide began. It's unavoidable.

I'd leave them be. They aren't suffering anomalously. Yes, their life is harder, but they aren't threatened by nature.

-snip-

Edited September 24, 2013 by Aphox
Taking something personally does not give you permission to break the rules yourself

[Pawelk198604]

I feel the writers of Star Trek had the right idea even if they fudged it a bit. The natural disasters in our own history haven't stopped us getting here. We survived the Black death, London survived the Great Fire, the World wars could be seen as a useful clearing of excess populations.

Fact is you can ask whether it's right to watch a culture become extinct for whatever reason but who's to say what replaces it isn't going to be infinitely better?

Take a race of pig like things on a doomed world we find. All they do is rut and fight and build ugly structures that are there to annoy their neighbours and nothing else. An asteroid is on it's way that will wipe the whole lot of them out.

1) We save them and they carry on being useless and annoying and generally a bit poo for ever more.

2) We leave nature to take it's course and in a few hundred millennia we have a new, enlightened species that travels round the galaxy curing all disease and solving all problems everywhere.

When you watch a nature program on televison you never see the camera people or presenters saving a doomed creature from anything, why is that? It's because by saving the cute chipmonk from the rattlesnake you doom the rattlesnake to starvation. Who are we to say which is more important and which should be helped?

Prime directive is a way to avoid making horrible mistakes.

We meet a race of creatures we can't communicate with, despite best efforts. Every week 100 virgin children are murdered in a sacrificial ritual that appears bloody, horrific and disgusting. The week after we save all 100 children via our new 'beam 'em up' technology.

6 hours after a nightmarish Kracken appears from the bowels of the planet and destroys everything in the solar system, all because it didn't get it's weekly feed. How do you feel now oh mighty child Saviour?

The thing is we won't be able to fully understand any aliens we encounter, it would take full immersion into the culture to do that. Heck, we have a difficult enough time understanding different cultures on Earth. Look at Japan, Mongolia, any Amazon tribe you could find, the Russian federation, Englishness, Korea, the Arab nations, China...the list could go on, but from outside they all look very, very strange and weird and....wrong.

We would HAVE to stay away from anyone we found who were behind us in tech terms, and it would be wise to stay FAR away from anyone we find who has a higher tech level than us or risk getting 'Conquistadored'.

So the Prime directive is Federation way to avoid play the God situation :-)

[WhiteWeasel]

When you watch a nature program on televison you never see the camera people or presenters saving a doomed creature from anything, why is that? It's because by saving the cute chipmonk from the rattlesnake you doom the rattlesnake to starvation. Who are we to say which is more important and which should be helped?

I remember seeing a similar predicament in Trigun.

[magnemoe]

We're already interfering with them. As soon as they've started spotting jet airplanes cruising high above, culturocide began. It's unavoidable.

I'd leave them be. They aren't suffering anomalously. Yes, their life is harder, but they aren't threatened by nature.

-snip-

Far more than that, back in 1950 it was tribes in central New Guinea who we had never contacted, they did not know how to make iron but still had metal tools as they had bought them from other tribes who had contact with the coast.

Two reasons to not contact them, first contact with primitive societies are usually very disruptive to them even if totally peaceful.

Second and more egoistic, is that it destroy the study project.

However this is people who are doing pretty well, had they been dying we would interfered.

---

Fun story about the first contact at New Guinea, they flew in with an floatplane and to impress an chieftain they took him on an flight to see the land from above.

Next day the chieftain came back to the pilot with two pigs, he wanted to rent the plane to drop rocks on another village they was fighting.

Pretty smart to invent strategic bombing after one day, no the pilot did not talk about airplane bombs so it was his invention.

[Galacticruler]

Falling Skies sor of has this conflict...in a way.

the Espheni have no semblance of a "prime directive", and the Volm took it upon themselves to interfere with their interference...we got caught in the middle and it might have been better if they hadn't interfered with the Espheni.

[Uthgood]

Depends how extreme you want to make it.

In my opinion we should intervene when there is a chance of large scale death and destruction by natural means. When the alien Vesuvius is about to explode and bury Pompey, save em. When their equivalent of the black plague comes around hand out cures etc.

When the situation is caused by themselves and it does not threaten the planet with widespread extinction I would advice against taking sudden actions. It is unlikely that their moral values are the same as ours, and what might seem a honorable cause in our eyes might be an atrocity in theirs. Best not to intervene until you know EXACTLY what's going on and understand their moral system to make an educated decision on who to back up.

In the case that the war does threaten the entire planet, such as nuclear war, I suggest backing down and stopping both sides dead in their tracks. You can work out all the ethics later but saving the planet comes first.

So, you save some alien species from their pompei, they in turn a few hundred years down the road invent something and end up in space and smash your world. The prime directive (in star trek terms) is there to prevent us from having to make those type of decisions.

[Ralathon]

So, you save some alien species from their pompei, they in turn a few hundred years down the road invent something and end up in space and smash your world. The prime directive (in star trek terms) is there to prevent us from having to make those type of decisions.

The problem is that you don't know if they will do that. For all we know that species could become a peaceloving society based on friendship and happiness.

If you want a nice analysis of the prime directive I suggest you watch this review by SF Debris.

[KOCOUR]

The problem is that you don't know if they will do that. For all we know that species could become a peaceloving society based on friendship and happiness.

Such society wouldnt survive. Agresivity and opportunism are paths to succes, no matter if we are talking fight, bussines, social interactions, or species survival.

[Ralathon]

Such society wouldnt survive. Agresivity and opportunism are paths to succes, no matter if we are talking fight, bussines, social interactions, or species survival.

Aggressiveness and opportunism are not incompatible with peace loving and social behavior. We ourselves are the perfect example of this: The vast majority of humanity does not like fighting and enjoys social interaction. Yet we are opportunists and have aggressive tendencies. This is because we evolved to have a group mentality that gave us empathy.

It was better for the individual human to share his food with his tribe instead of hogging it and letting the rest die since he needs the rest of the tribe to survive winter.

Considering that for a technological society to work you need some kind of collaboration between members (I don't see how a single organism can ever muster the resources to build a Saturn V out of raw materials) it is likely other technological species had convergent evolution and thus have the same morality (In rough strokes at least, details may vary wildly). Since we humans manage to live together quite comfortably and global suffering diminishes every decade, so could an alien species.

Of course you'll point to all the wars and poverty going on in the world right now, and I'm not saying the world is perfect as is. But as a whole we're definitely improving. 3th world countries are

. War is declining as society progresses. Not to mention that we are currently discussing this topic using a technological marvel that can only exist thanks to a globalized economy.

[lajoswinkler]

Far more than that, back in 1950 it was tribes in central New Guinea who we had never contacted, they did not know how to make iron but still had metal tools as they had bought them from other tribes who had contact with the coast.

Two reasons to not contact them, first contact with primitive societies are usually very disruptive to them even if totally peaceful.

Second and more egoistic, is that it destroy the study project.

However this is people who are doing pretty well, had they been dying we would interfered.

---

Fun story about the first contact at New Guinea, they flew in with an floatplane and to impress an chieftain they took him on an flight to see the land from above.

Next day the chieftain came back to the pilot with two pigs, he wanted to rent the plane to drop rocks on another village they was fighting.

Pretty smart to invent strategic bombing after one day, no the pilot did not talk about airplane bombs so it was his invention.

It might seem comedic at a first glance, but there's a lot of sadness in that story. He had been introduced to a concept of modern technology and flying, yet all he wants to use it for is to throw rocks to another village. The tragedy of humanity summed in one request.

So, you save some alien species from their pompei, they in turn a few hundred years down the road invent something and end up in space and smash your world. The prime directive (in star trek terms) is there to prevent us from having to make those type of decisions.

The homeless kid you bought a sandwitch and gave him an opportunity to survive another day might end up as a new global dictator.

We better kill all homeless kids right away so it couldn't happen, right?

I mean, he might.

Wow, with this kind of "arguments" on a KSP forum no wonder the society is struggling to remain relatively peaceful, even if it's technically so easy.

Such society wouldnt survive. Agresivity and opportunism are paths to succes, no matter if we are talking fight, bussines, social interactions, or species survival.

Had the society always been acting like a virus or a malign tumor, which is exactly what most of your opinions phresented on threads like this unfortunately are, Homo would've never even appear or it would be a failed evolutionary cul-de-sac.

You clearly have an extremely bad understanding of sociology and it seems you're advocating for an approach best described as disfigured, primitive social Darwinism. I doubt you know who was the most famous man in the history of mankind who advocated for such abomination of human interactions.