Is the Prime Directive Problematic? (Why YouTubers are wrong)

Let's Just Get into it..

Trek Chapters:

00:00 - Intro
00:11 - Youtube Sphere
00:45 - Prime Directive
07:48 - Conclusion

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[huntercoleherr]

Haha, Kirk.

"The Prime Directive supercedes literally everything."

Also Kirk:

"They worship a computer that provides for their every need? Blow up their god."

[JohnSmith-xqpz]

"It's treason than" ... oh wait wrong fandom

[loremaster]

I think the Prime Directives intitial intentions are good. But "good intentions pathe the way to hell."
Ultimately I think is it is a good Directive if the spirit of the law is being followed instead of the letter of the law.

[Nostripe]

I think a big part of the prime directive is responsibility. It is a warning for a captain to think through since ultimately you are responsible for whatever outcomes come from your choice to interfere or leave the culture alone.

[HarmonyShoal]

The underlying assumption is that civilizations that discover warp somehow only discover it when they're mature enough to do so. This isn't the case in reality, discoveries are often made accidentally and the maturity to use the technology wisely comes after the fact not before. What difference does it make if someone within a civilization makes the discovery or if another civilization intervenes to offer it. Well it makes zero difference and we know this because we live in a world with different countries that steal technology or sell technology to each other constantly and the risk of improper utilization is always nonzero but lower than you might expect. Civilizations can thrive or destroy themselves regardless of whether or not they discover it organically or it's given to them, I would say that organic discovery is riskier than intervention and guidance. That being the case, the prime directive serves merely as a way for the federation to not assume any responsibility or the possibility of being implicated in any sort of guilt if things go wrong. It's very lazy and an abdication of responsibility because they've lied to themselves with the assumption that if the worst happens without the federations intervention then that is not the federations problem but in reality the don't actually escape anything by doing that. Because if the worst happens and they could have helped but chose not to then they are still responsible for the ensuing preventable disaster. There is no way to objectively assuage their guilt in this situation the prime directive is a deluded way to pretend that something isn't their problem when it is.

[mikevanroy]

The Bajorans may not have had warp drive under the occupation. But they knew such a thing existed, they had interactions with many warp-capable species, they even had Bajorans join Starfleet. Hell, Ro Laren piloted the Enterprise-D! There's a point where strict adherence to the Prime Directive is simply pointless.

[ivorybooker]

Roddenberry put it up because of how America acted after WWII. He was worried about imperialism, not interference. Literally worried about the use of power by thinking we're the "best there is" without looking elsewhere. Learning and doing and accepting. Picard, Kirk and Janeway dealt with this everyday, and interfered when truly necessary.

[yinyangphoenix]

Mostly, the Prime Directive is wise to abide by. However, there is a saying that I like, from Oliver Wendell Holmes, I think: “The young man knows the rules but the old man knows the exceptions.” The Prime Directive is imperfect and it is not without exceptions.

[JanetDax]

The season 3 finale of The Orville mentioned the Union's non- interference policy that was created after a planet received advanced technology. 5 years later the planet destroyed itself.

[draochvar]

When it comes to the Prime Directive, I always have to think back to the words of Loisoix Leveilleur from FF14:

"To ignore the plight of those one might conceivably save is not wisdom—it is indolence. And such a passive stance will not, I fear, take us far upon the path to progress."

If your non-interference will damn an entire world to death and ruin, it is morally untenable.

[GamerFromJump]

The Prime Directive only makes sense if you _don’t_ believe all sapient life is valuable. Otherwise, respecting autonomy while saving lives is the only way to go.

The idea that a living race should die because they haven’t figured out how to violate one of the central principles of physics is _insane._

Personally, I think _The Orville_ had a good idea in making the threshold be an active and working SETI program.

In particular, ENT: Dear Doctor - “Evolution does not work that way; cure the disease!”

[mikebasil]

Knowing when to make exceptions to the rules, even the rules that we might usually feel quite comfortable with, is always a most interesting Star Trek drama for me. Of course knowing the right ways and the wrong ways is most important. But to be as realistic as possible, I would never jump to the conclusion that the Prime Directive is somehow racist. I just wish that it wouldn’t always be made to feel like a cosmic minefield with all the Star Fleet dilemmas which can get wearisome. The case-by-case basis may indeed sound like a fair perspective. Thank you for this video. 🖖🏻🖖🏼🖖🏽🖖🏾🖖🏿

[thetrainhopper]

The Prime Directive isn’t racist, but you could write stories showing how it can be. If you’re willing to let a civilization die through no fault of its own just to appease a rule, you could make the case that there is a hierarchy at play. And the Federation sees the civilizations that are a part of it as inherently more valuable than everyone else cause Federation. So, it can be racist or at least written as such to make a parallel between people that hold themselves highly, but still think and do terrible things in the world. Saying this as a teacher who works with the most underprivileged students and the most privileged and the privileged ones not being able to see how their well meaning beliefs can hurt others.

[podemosurss]

1:40 It was introduced by Federation Senator George H. I. W. Bush, in what was called the "Iraqui exception". Worlds with oil are to be considered as dangerous and holding weapons of mass destruction (ok, end of the joke).

[OrangeRiver]

I think you'll find there's a lot of agreement between us that the Prime Directive's spirit of non-interference is generally a good thing, although as I stated in my video, not letting civilizations perish from natural disasters should be an exception. I wouldn't say my America criticisms were "random" either. And about Japan...well, let's just say that I didn't pull that argument out of thin air lol. There's plenty of reasons the bombings shouldn't have happened. But anyway, I'll address some more of these points on my next livestream, Monday May 29th at 5 P.M. CT!

[terrysimmons]

I wonder about non Star Fleet "Federation" Captains. Such as mining ships or other private interest. I've seen episodes that could go ether way. How much dose the prime directive hold sway over them?

[forte]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there was a Trek episode about how gangster *movies* changed how a planet worked that ended with that planet getting a tricorder, which was stated to have the blueprints for all Starfleet tech. People who copied gangster films were suddenly turned loose upon the galaxy because if carelessness.

[bpdmf]

I think the directive has an overall benefit, but it's up to every captain to decide if a certain situation requires breaking it.

[KiranKingston]

6:56 while you were discussing this point, I couldn't help but be reminded how the Portuguese, Spaniards, and British interfered in the development of the African, and the American civilizations. They bestowed firearms and technologies onto the coastal tribes, and incentivized them to go deeper into the continent to gather the resources that would profit their civilization with more guns and horses and other means of control in their region.

I'm mixed on the case by case basis comment. Proxy wars between superpowers, like Korean and Vietnam Wars and Afghanistan in the 80s, shouldn't be causes to "uplift" the local civilizations with technologies and doctrines used by the advanced civilizations. However, that mindset can be exploited by the side who believes "might is right" philosophy.

[BreadApologist]

Intervention to stop a major disaster that endangered a planet even pre warp is fine imo. Getting involved in a conflict is also acceptable if one side is clearly in the wrong. If one side is akin to the legion from fallout or etc and the other is more civilized and compassionate….ya help the good ones. Advanced technology could stop a war in a day depending on how advanced vs how advanced the planet is. I think there’s always cases to bend and ignore the directive.