Star Trek Prime Directive Meets Ayn Rand
First of all let me say that I cannot believe I am doing an analysis of the Star Trek prime directive. The prime directive states:
“As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Star Fleet personnel may interfere with the healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes the introduction of superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely. Star Fleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation.”
The associated prohibitions are given below (according to Jbrenner)
1. Providing knowledge of technologies or science
2. Taking actions to generally affect a society's overall development
3. Taking actions which support one faction within a society over another
4. Helping a society escape the negative consequences of its own actions
5. Helping a society escape a natural disaster known to the society, even if inaction would result in a society's extinction.
6. Subverting or avoiding the application of a society's laws
7. Interfering in the internal affairs of a society
What would Ayn Rand say about the prime directive. I bet her first question would be what is a sentient species? According to dictionary “sentient” means “able to perceive or feel things.” Well cows, cats, dogs, and many other species can perceive or feel things, in fact much simpler organisms would fit this definition. Based on this definition Rand would state that only rational beings have rights. Rand defined the hierarchy of knowledge integration as sensation, precepts, and conceptual. She explains it perceptual in this example.
“An animal is guided, not merely by immediate sensations, but by percepts. Its actions are not single, discrete responses to single, separate stimuli, but are directed by an integrated awareness of the perceptual reality confronting it. It is able to grasp the perceptual concretes immediately present and it is able to form automatic perceptual associations, but it can go no further.”
My guess is that Rand would then ask what is “normal cultural evolution.” Is it normal cultural evolution to allow Rachel Carson to convince countries to ban DDT and cause 100 million deaths? Is it normal cultural evolution to allow Mao to institute the cultural revolution that will starve over 30 million people to death? There is no such thing a normal cultural evolution. But it rings of Marxist ideas of a scientific progression of society.
Then Rand would ask why normal cultural evolution is considered sacred. According to the dictionary sacred means “connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.” Rand would reject anything based on an appeal to a deity. The proof of the first sentence of the prime directive rests on an appeal to faith, not reason.
It is clear the Prime Directive is based on faith, not reason and is immoral from the first sentence. I will not take on the rest of the directive but I will look at the prohibitions. The first prohibition is “Providing knowledge of technologies or science.” Given that directive was directed to species that are “able to perceive or feel things” this is almost meaningless. Most species that able to perceive are not able to understand or take advantage of knowledge.
But what about rational beings? Why would you not provide knowledge of technologies or science? Does this mean we cannot teach our kids science and technology? That would clearly be immoral. Your objection might be that they are within our culture, but what about African cultures? Should we have not introduced DDT, or steam engines, or the Internet? While we have no obligation to introduce these sciences and technologies, to purposely prohibit them would be immoral.
All the prohibitions and the prime directives are based group think (and written by Hollywood TV writers!). The word society is mentioned nine times in the Prime Directive and in the prohibitions. Individual is not mentioned once. Societies are based on a collection of people and only have rights based on the rights of the individuals, who make up the society, but none separate from them.
Start Trek’s Prime Directive is an inherently Socialist Ideal and Evil.
Previous comments...
BTW, I understand there is a new movie being released on 9/11.
The UFP is setup to be the fantasy successor for the current UN. Fantasy successor I deem it, since it appears to have actually had some effectiveness unlike the UN.
I think it would be more their equivalent of default ROEs than anything else.
Certainly not a founding principle.
What about another species that is rational? The PD just says society. What is the logic between requiring no teaching of other rational beings, but allowing it within our species? It doesn't matter how you cut it, the PD does not make sense.
It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to say about our own species or our own planet. There is no logical inconsistency here.
Any comparison to any previous earth-bound situation will be lacking by definition. That said, when I'm in France, I need to follow French laws. That does not have any implication whatsoever as to what laws ought to be passed in the US.
There is a pretty clear demarcation here logically (other planets/species vs our planet/species). I'm not really sure how you can't see that.
To some extent though it seems that PD most closely resembles the isolationism strategy proposed during the 30's. Rather than the Monroe doctrine which, instead of causing non interference, merely insured that ONLY the US could interfere in the western hemisphere.
The biggest problem that I have with the PD is that it is based on a fundamental tenet that interaction is bad and "unnatural." What poppycock. What would be unnatural would be to be kept in a fishbowl. Observed but not interacted with.
I say absolutely. People in Atlantis would be interested in studying scarcity and abundance and how people trade scarce good/services.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
(Of course it was the banksters that created the situation.)
The problem with Afghanistan is that we allied with the Northern Alliance instead of conquering the country and appointing an American governor-general to rule it until we'd pacified the rest of the middle east, maybe longer.
Well said, zagros, and it's been a pleasure meeting you.
sorry, had to be said at the top of my lungs... so to speak...
One thing we have not considered with regard to this foreign policy issue is the cost. A do nothing foreign policy may be all that the US can afford, not that that matters to the last couple of presidents.
Is that why we put the Shah in Iran, or Noriaga in Panama, Hussein in Iraq, or how about support for Osama in Afghanistan, the Saudi's in Arabia, the corrupt idiots we supported in S. Vietnam, then of course their was Ghadafhi in Libiya. Those we thought would be better if they were transformed into worth partners?
Then of course, we formed the League of Nations and the United Nations. Yeah, that's worked out well for us.
We've never had any idea of what we were doing in foreign policy since the Monroe Doctrine. It's got nothing to do with who's president.
The US needs to learn to get business out of government and vice versa. The two don't mix well when man's natural rights are measured. The only thing we've ever gotten right was what we did with Japan and Germany, then get out and let them go on. We taught the populace to understand Natural Rights--then made their governments respect those rights.
"We need to lead by example. If we do not want others to interfere in our internal affairs, we should not interfere in theirs."
Can't have Falstaff and have him thin.
Who are we to lead, if we're just "equal" to everyone else? And if we are superior enough to lead, why not conquer?
The mess came about because we pompously rejected the historic reality at the end of WWII that we were meant to rule the world. As Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated in microcosm, we so hated the idea of there being masters that we made servants of our people.
Most of the world is not concerned with your fictional "natural rights". They respect power and see opportunity in weakness. Therein lies the root of our foreign policy woes.
Your "reason" is flawed because of your blind devotion to the utopian idea of all people thinking the same way and all people holding the same values.
Are you REALLY toeing the liberal line that aggression is a result of *poverty*?
with ISIS raking in a million a day?
Ayn Rand, "The Objectivist Ethics"
Of course... there were the people who jumped anyway, but (not to sound crass) sometimes you just can't fix stupid.
If I'm doing something I enjoy, whether it's working at my shop or playing with dangerous chemistry or climbing a bridge or participating on this board, *I* am getting enjoyment out of it. If it's "altruistic", does it really matter if someone else can benefit from it as well?
His actions don't affect you?
It seems to me that one could at least tentatively make the argument that ANY interaction, whether for good or ill, is likely to be extremely coercive in a way that peaceful interactions between members of the same society would not be. I think it was Arthur C Clarke that said something to the effect of any sufficiently advanced technology will appear as magic to those who are less advanced.
So is it possible that not having the PD and allowing unlimited interactions is really closely morally equivalent to forcing the un-advanced civilization to develop in a way to our own liking?
I base mine on Heinlein's. That behavior which serves to ensure the continued existence and prosperity of my kind.
Regarding certain biotechnologies, I would be disturbed to even have another citizen of my own country sell something that could be built upon into a bioweapon against my own country. This is why countries have export control laws regarding weapons technologies.
Things seem like common sense once you know them. Before I ever heard of the notion of something basic like how price floors/ceilings create surplus supply/demand, I would have had to think hard about it.
Also, many people who would want to go to a Gulch appear to have psychological depression (or in their view they see the truth of how miserable conditions really are), so they should like something called the dismal science. j/k, but not by much.
gods' hairy balls!!! example please
I'm on the side of *my* society; that is an evolutionary imperative. I will interfere if it benefits my society, and refrain if it benefits my society to do so, or at least doesn't harm my society to refrain.
Agreed, they should have had to pay tribute for their protection, or protection should have been provided directly by our legions, which of course meant a governor-general ruling the country via proxies.
Best foreign policy the US ever had was entering WWII. The worst foreign policy was not pushing east after defeating Germany.
Had we entered and ended WWII as history meant, we'd have a globe-girdling empire right now, with our cultural values imposed on the entire world, to its benefit.
And let me be clear: we would have imposed our cutural values on the world the same way the f*ing communists have imposed theirs on us since WWII.
http://www.counterpunch.org/1998/01/15/h...
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/09/s...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y57elLCP...
Okay, let's look at it metaphorically.
On the first of the month, you stop a thug from stealing a package from your neighbor's porch.
You do not kill him. You do not turn him over to the police and testify at his trial.
At the end of the month, the thug comes and sets fire to your house.
Stopping the thug, by the way you describe it, "backfired". When in reality the failure lay in actions subsequent to the initial action.
Throwing the Soviets out of *any* place was in our interest. Failure to deal with the middle-eastern savages according to their nature after that, failure to insert western controls into the power vacuum that followed the Soviet pullout, were the factors leading up to 9/11. NOT helping the Mujahideen.
Even Bin Laden asserted that the trigger for his assault on 9/11 was Desert Storm, not throwing the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
And while it's true that Bin Laden's actions may have been motivated by Desert Storm, he never would have had the resources necessary to actually put his plans into action if we hadn't funded the Mujahideen in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM8lXIAM...
I'd like to hear some people's view on the storyline presented, from an Objectivist point of view.
"The Fighting Philosopher"
"Here There be Witches"
by E.B. Cole.
They tell the story of an incredibly advanced civilization that practices the Prime Directive; non-interference. In the first story, 3 wayward members of the civilization are picked up from a planet where they've been taking advantage of the locals with their superior technology. When captured, they are re-educated.
Then, the protagonist is given permission to interfere in a culture like the ancient Mayans, with human sacrifice. Using a brainwashed local, they take over the priesthood, overthrow the government, and guide the society to eventual membership in the galactic civilization.
In the 2nd story, they're monitoring a primitive society, and it turns out that in the course of "witch hunts", done for profit of the priesthood, the society is wiping out all its telepaths.
The men involved violate the prime directive and interfere when an innocent farmer is tortured and about to be burned at the stake. They then "clean house", at which point their commanding officer shows up, and as they're getting ready to face punishment, they find out they've just been promoted to the "X Corps"... a special division charged with "guiding" primitive civilizations.
Personally... I hate the stories, although they're well written.