Sci-Fi News and Reviews

Prime Directive is "Stupid"

Synergy is a funny thing. I recently wrote a post on an interesting article regarding feasible Cybernetic Enhancements. Even though I found the article on a different site, it turned out that the article was authored by a blogger named George Dvorsky, who runs the 'Sentient Developments' blog (it is a very interesting read, btw. His post on "Fight Club" is inspired!)

While looking at his site, another article jumped out at me. It was entitled Star Trek's 'Prime Directive' is stupid.

Now, every science fiction fan's first response to the this statement is 'Wha Wha What? Who does this guy think he is?' The Prime Directive is sacrosanct; it has always been an assumption that you can't interfere with primitive cultures. It rivals the assumption that you cannot change anything when you are traveling back in time, lest you cause events that prevent your own birth. Both assumptions are just accepted.

Dvorksy throws a wrench into the Prime Directive assumption. He argues that "The PD is a science fictional projection of the naturalistic fallacy and injunctions against playing God. It's also a disturbing application of social Darwinism." He concentrates on a specific 'Star Trek: Enterprise' episode called 'Dear Doctor', in which the crew discovers a planet with two distinct races and one of those races has contracted an epidemic that will lead to their extinction. Should the crew help? In the episode, the ship doctor followed The Prime Directive and the race was allowed to die out 'naturally'.

Dvorsky jumps on this decision. He notes that "... the 'natural course' of things, while certainly flowery and noble sounding, is another way of describing cruel, indifferent and unconscious processes", obviously arguing that the doctor should have provided the cure to the poor, soon-to-be extinct race. He continues, noting that "...While the ethics of obligations is a very tricky thing, it is often through our inaction that we cause the most harm. Injunctions against playing God begs the question: if we don't play God, who will? It is through our good intentions and resultant actions that we are humane. Further, we have to get over our inferiority complex and our fear of making a bad situation worse. And if our actions do make things worse, then we have to refine our strategies and ourselves in hopes of eventually achieving success."

He concludes by noting "Humanity's Prime Directive should not be avoidance, but instead compassionate action."

Wow! Who says science fiction does not inspire rational thought about the real world? That said, I only partly agree with Dvorsky's conclusions. Obviously, a humane, advanced civilization should help a less advanced one. That statement seems to fly in the face of the Prime Directive and to completely agree with Dvorsky. However, I am not so sure that it does. If an advanced society provides a concept or technology to another society, they have the responsibilty to remain and monitor the use of that technology until the receipient society has mastered it.

Let's take an example. What if I gave a handgun to an elementary school child? (now, c'mon...it is just an example...ok, very well, let's make it an school-age alien entity). It would be irresponsible to say 'Here is a powerful weapon; use it against your enemies' and then leave. No - the correct thing to do is to stay and monitor both the alien and the handgun, teach handgun safety, ethics, marksmanship and all of the things an alien should know before owning a handgun.

In the doctor's case, The Prime Directive (in my view) says, you cannot drop off a cure to a population and then move on to the next star system, You have introduced something new into the environment, thus you need to stay and monitor the reaction of the cure with the intended population, the other race on the planet and the evolution of the disease to see if it mutates into some other form. Since you introduced this other event into the ecosystem, you are the de facto caretaker of that system until a sentient race within that system can take your place. In other words, you played God - thus, you have God's responsibilities until the lifeforms that you aided become Gods themselves.

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Posted by Fred on January 17, 2007 2:47 PM
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