4 ms·

Your alternative scenario boils down to "who cares if other people are watching, let's go develop warp drive so they will feel right talking to us." As the Prim

by younata 16y ago

Your alternative scenario boils down to "who cares if other people are watching, let's go develop warp drive so they will feel right talking to us." As the Prime Directive of Star Fleet tells us.

jerf 16y ago
The Prime Directive is a way of writing exciting television shows that allows you to put characters that ought to be far too powerful to actually be in a dramatic bind into a dramatic bind, not a model for actual interstellar behavior. For that to actually "exist" would require that every species in the galaxy not only has a "human-like" mind, but one of a very particular and unusual bent, most of which probably comes from watching a particular show. This seems unlikely. (Far, far more likely in my mind would be the uplift scenario, that helping these civilizations would be seen as a moral duty once that was actually a real possibility. And it also sort of requires Star-Trek-like limits on technology as well; the Federation lacks the capability to rewrite a primitive civilization from the gene level up, but that seems an unrealistic limitation in real life. And that's not even what I consider the "most likely" scenario; I'm just saying that anyone who tried to instantiate the Prime Directive would probably break down into this moral duty idea pretty quickly. Why sit and wait for them to develop when you can just make it happen? Artificiality of development is a small concern next to potentially billions of unnecessary deaths. Whoever is out there, watching us war and burn and die and doing nothing, is not being an upstanding moral citizen.)
- hugh3 16y ago
  Whoever is out there, watching us war and burn and die and doing nothing, is not being an upstanding moral citizen.) Really? Do you go out of your way to stop fish and insects from killing each other? edit: I admit this was a badly phrased example. Fish and insects rarely kill each other.
- chc 16y ago
  Human history has shown that just dropping technological advancement on human cultures leads to trouble. If their culture is one of tribal warfare rather than modern civilization, there's a very good chance that all your aid will just be used to support their efforts to kill the other guy. It could be that to aliens, our planet's shared culture is still too close to tribal warfare for them to be comfortable raising us to their level. It wouldn't be quite the same as the Prime Directive as a motive, but it would have the same effect in a lot of situations.
  - jerf 16y ago
    False dichotomy. You are not limited to writing a blank technological check to a civilization or leaving them utterly alone. A false dichotomy that demonstrates your thought is still far too shaped by viewing Star Trek, IMHO. I grew up with that show but I've come to understand it is really an incredible memetic hazard when it comes to trying to understand the universe as it truly is. If your concept of the universe includes anything that looks like Star Trek still in it, examine it immediately and prepare to discard it. Am I limited to either putting my child immediately in the driver's seat of my car or tossing him out into the wild and letting him fend for himself? My point not being that we are metaphorically children; I don't like metaphors like that, we are what we are and we have no idea whether we are or are not like children. My point is that we are not limited to such constrained choices.
    - chc 16y ago
      It's not influenced by Star Trek. As I said, my reasoning is completely unrelated to the Prime Directive — the effect just happens to look the same in the context of an advanced, peaceful culture meeting a more primitive, tribal one. It actually comes from my observations of politics on earth. Countries with closely shared cultures and correspondingly close levels of advancement in certain areas tend to be more trustworthy with the technology they create than countries that were previously poor and balkanized. Most of our intrusion in Africa and the Middle East, even when it's intended to help, tends to just get more people killed. This is not to say that everyone there is a savage, but their culture just isn't at a point where it prepares the citizens or the leaders to handle elements of our culture properly. I don't see how a parent and child relationship is applicable here either. It doesn't tend to happen that way in international politics, so I see no reason to believe it would be more like that on a galactic scale.

by younata 16y ago

Your alternative scenario boils down to "who cares if other people are watching, let's go develop warp drive so they will feel right talking to us." As the Prime Directive of Star Fleet tells us.

jerf 16y ago

The Prime Directive is a way of writing exciting television shows that allows you to put characters that ought to be far too powerful to actually be in a dramatic bind into a dramatic bind, not a model for actual interstellar behavior. For that to actually "exist" would require that every species in the galaxy not only has a "human-like" mind, but one of a very particular and unusual bent, most of which probably comes from watching a particular show. This seems unlikely. (Far, far more likely in my mind would be the uplift scenario, that helping these civilizations would be seen as a moral duty once that was actually a real possibility. And it also sort of requires Star-Trek-like limits on technology as well; the Federation lacks the capability to rewrite a primitive civilization from the gene level up, but that seems an unrealistic limitation in real life. And that's not even what I consider the "most likely" scenario; I'm just saying that anyone who tried to instantiate the Prime Directive would probably break down into this moral duty idea pretty quickly. Why sit and wait for them to develop when you can just make it happen? Artificiality of development is a small concern next to potentially billions of unnecessary deaths. Whoever is out there, watching us war and burn and die and doing nothing, is not being an upstanding moral citizen.)

hugh3 16y ago
Whoever is out there, watching us war and burn and die and doing nothing, is not being an upstanding moral citizen.) Really? Do you go out of your way to stop fish and insects from killing each other? edit: I admit this was a badly phrased example. Fish and insects rarely kill each other.
chc 16y ago
Human history has shown that just dropping technological advancement on human cultures leads to trouble. If their culture is one of tribal warfare rather than modern civilization, there's a very good chance that all your aid will just be used to support their efforts to kill the other guy. It could be that to aliens, our planet's shared culture is still too close to tribal warfare for them to be comfortable raising us to their level. It wouldn't be quite the same as the Prime Directive as a motive, but it would have the same effect in a lot of situations.
- jerf 16y ago
  False dichotomy. You are not limited to writing a blank technological check to a civilization or leaving them utterly alone. A false dichotomy that demonstrates your thought is still far too shaped by viewing Star Trek, IMHO. I grew up with that show but I've come to understand it is really an incredible memetic hazard when it comes to trying to understand the universe as it truly is. If your concept of the universe includes anything that looks like Star Trek still in it, examine it immediately and prepare to discard it. Am I limited to either putting my child immediately in the driver's seat of my car or tossing him out into the wild and letting him fend for himself? My point not being that we are metaphorically children; I don't like metaphors like that, we are what we are and we have no idea whether we are or are not like children. My point is that we are not limited to such constrained choices.
  - chc 16y ago
    It's not influenced by Star Trek. As I said, my reasoning is completely unrelated to the Prime Directive — the effect just happens to look the same in the context of an advanced, peaceful culture meeting a more primitive, tribal one. It actually comes from my observations of politics on earth. Countries with closely shared cultures and correspondingly close levels of advancement in certain areas tend to be more trustworthy with the technology they create than countries that were previously poor and balkanized. Most of our intrusion in Africa and the Middle East, even when it's intended to help, tends to just get more people killed. This is not to say that everyone there is a savage, but their culture just isn't at a point where it prepares the citizens or the leaders to handle elements of our culture properly. I don't see how a parent and child relationship is applicable here either. It doesn't tend to happen that way in international politics, so I see no reason to believe it would be more like that on a galactic scale.