Re: Any areas you passionately agree with Chuck on?
Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2019 2:57 am
@BridgeConsoleMasher He didn't say it was entirely flawless, though. In that, you two might differ.
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Luddhism and communism work well as fantasy scenarios. But real human life is too fragile for the former, our real personalities are not altruistic enough for the latter. This is why the Ba'Ku needed immortality for the former, and the Federation needed post-scarcity for the latter.
I personally think the federation is just being stilted. Or perhaps Starfleet. Post colonialism is definitely the inspiration for it narratively, but I think it says more about the union between planets than it does about any directive by a single planetary member. Starfleet does its own laundry apparently, but it makes a lot of sense if you consider PD just a pact between planets to inhibit any kind of complications one member might put upon the other. Starfleet is like Youtube and enforces the PD like YouTube's copyright bots to not piss off other companies. Of course, Youtube's business tends to involve copyright scrutiny as part of the nature of Youtube's general purpose as a major video hosting site, though technically the legal rules that Youtube is subjected to apply to other sites as well where how they apply the rule seems less obtuse. Starfleet of course being the organization that has a prime directive (as in purpose), for exploration and indiscriminately meeting new planets.clearspira wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 1:05 pm The thing about the Prime Directive is that I agree completely with Chuck - it is monstrous to kill off a whole people when you can stop it - but I also agree with the spirit of why it exists. Just recently a missionary was killed trying to spread Christianity to one of the last isolated tribes on Earth - proving how little we have really come since colonialism and imperialism. Oh, we are no longer sending warships true, but the white man's burden crowd is clearly still going strong even though they themselves would never call themselves that; thinking that these ''savages'' need ''civilizing'' instead of just being left to live their lives in peace.
And that is the PD in a nutshell. It stops ''Federation burden'' every time they meet a new people. It stops idiots getting themselves killed and putting native populations at risk of serious contamination.
Well yeah. Chuck agrees it's good in principle and so do I. The issue is that you have to know when to break it.clearspira wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 1:05 pm The thing about the Prime Directive is that I agree completely with Chuck - it is monstrous to kill off a whole people when you can stop it - but I also agree with the spirit of why it exists. Just recently a missionary was killed trying to spread Christianity to one of the last isolated tribes on Earth - proving how little we have really come since colonialism and imperialism. Oh, we are no longer sending warships true, but the white man's burden crowd is clearly still going strong even though they themselves would never call themselves that; thinking that these ''savages'' need ''civilizing'' instead of just being left to live their lives in peace.
And that is the PD in a nutshell. It stops ''Federation burden'' every time they meet a new people. It stops idiots getting themselves killed and putting native populations at risk of serious contamination.
Cept Roddenberry's reason for the way the Fed works is that Mankind has evolved enough to make it work being that altruistic, same for his BS about Mankind evolving beyond grief, etc.clearspira wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 12:46 pm This is why the Ba'Ku needed immortality for the former, and the Federation needed post-scarcity for the latter.