TNG - Homeward

[Riedquat]

No, it isn't. The Enterprise can only be in one location at a time; the Federation can be anywhere within range of its ships.

Let's re-ask the question in yet another form: in the modern world, there are ethical principles that physicians are expected to follow; some of these principles require physicians not to act to preserve life in certain situations. What is the difference between physicians whose ethics require them not to intervene, and Federation starships whose ethics require them not to intervene? (Besides the first case being real and the second case being purely fictional, of course.)

It's not really just about the Enterprise (despite the occasional story that seems to assume it's the only ship the Federation has). The Federation cannot be practically everywhere.

For your comparison to work you have to assume there's something ethical about sitting back with a grin and letting people die. It's the ethic of the Prime Directive that I find disgusting, rather than the practicalities. The equivalent of the physician says that physician should never intervene except in very specific circumstances, rather than those being exceptions. Meanwhile the "what about all these worlds that might be suffering" is the equivalent of saying the physician should be constantly wandering around actively searching for people to help.

[TGLS]

Depends; were you there with the ability to save a bunch of people?

You and I are both here, and we have the ability to save a bunch of people. If you have the time and resources to mess around with this board, I absolutely guarantee that you could have saved people who are now dying or dead.

So: do we have responsibility for the lives that were lost, the suffering that was endured, because we chose to act and not act in particular ways?

Well I did a bit of reading, and basically comes down to trivially yes. It's just like people who don't sell all their possessions and give the money to charity. You, I and everyone else have to accept that we're not morally perfect.

That acceptance doesn't mean that it's good idea to create a legal if not moral rules that declare it's better to let people die than save them.

[Nealithi]

Am I responsible for the thousands of people I don't help because I am not there? No. I help where I can.

You're lying. Whether you're trying to deceive us, or trying to deceive yourself, I don't know - but it doesn't actually matter. You do NOT help everywhere you can. You engage in all sorts of luxurious self-indulgence instead of helping where you can. I know this, because you're a frequent poster here.

Are you responsible for the lives lost and suffering endured because you did not choose to help?

Ah the moved goal post. if 100% effort is not given in something then you are not committed.

I give food to the local church to provide for those in need. I volunteer and deliver food at the local SCUCS. Getting seniors the help they need. And I donated to the local hospital. . . Okay that last one may be because they saved my life. But I am grateful for that.

I think the one lying might be you. You seem to not want a rational debate. You want hate and vitriol stirred up. Because someone who honestly feels as nihilistic as you portray yourself. Wouldn't be commenting here.
But that is my dimestore critique. Take it as you will. If you wish to talk about what really bothers you. I think many here will listen.

And if you want to know why I don't believe you are as negative as you claim.
It is because I have heard those words from my own mouth. I hear of police taking children from a man and giving them to a stranger. Because he had them in a park! No matter he is their father. Some woman made a claim. Girls must cover themself so no hint of being female is seen. Police arrest and multiple x-ray a woman over a dusty tail light. Because maybe she might have done something wrong. Police seize your property and the courts say too bad. It is ours now. We got around the seizure laws baked into the Constitution. You can be pulled over for having the wrong skin colour. You can be shot for obeying a mask mandate. You can be run over and dragged around a parking lot because you voted for a different party. My state came in fifty out of fifty for handling unemployment claims and are in places two years behind on paying out on money owed. And don't say that is a hand out. Unemployment is paid by your own work. It is taken from your pay and held by the state in the case your job is lost.

And so much more. I see, hear, and read all that. And I have to say I am glad I don't have access to nukes. Wipe it all out. To hell with it all. I come here and I watch and rewatch Chuck's review of Superman vs the Elite. Just because it shows how there is actually good out there. Something worth a damn. I have never in my life liked what I see in the mirror. I do what I can because making someone else's life a little easier makes me feel a little better about my little corner.

So I get the words you say. I just don't think you actually mean them.

[Makeitstop]

Am I responsible for the thousands of people I don't help because I am not there? No. I help where I can.

You're lying. Whether you're trying to deceive us, or trying to deceive yourself, I don't know - but it doesn't actually matter. You do NOT help everywhere you can. You engage in all sorts of luxurious self-indulgence instead of helping where you can. I know this, because you're a frequent poster here.

Are you responsible for the lives lost and suffering endured because you did not choose to help?

Could just about every person on the planet do more? Yes. In any given moment is there theoretically some optimal course of action that an individual could take to maximize the good they do in the world? Given all knowledge and a comprehensive analysis of opportunity cost, sure. But that's also an impossible standard that no human being could ever live up to. That kind of inability to balance ones own life and needs with the need to help others is one of the major reasons for burnout among those who do try to devote their lives to helping others.

Responsibility is proportional and contextual. Everyone is responsible for their own choices, their own actions and inaction. But that responsibility is not all or nothing. If I knowingly buy a product that is made unethically using child labor in unsafe facilities where dangerous accidents are a common occurrence, do I bear some guilt for my small part in propping up that situation? Yes. But am I directly responsible for the conditions of the factory and any deaths that occur there? No, because I can't fix every problem everywhere, and I am no more uniquely responsible for factory safety across the globe than for the wars started by world leaders I didn't assassinate.

Now, we've established that nobody is perfect, we all could do more, and in our own small ways, we've all contributed to real problems in the world. We all should try to do better, but we will fail if we set our standards impossibly high. You can't save everyone....

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't save anyone. If you find yourself in a situation where you can easily and safely prevent the meaningless accidental death of an innocent person, and you know you are the only one who can, and you choose not to simply because you don't want to get involved, you are morally responsible for that choice and for the predictable consequences that follow it.

[drewder]

That race was doomed. It would have been doomed if the Federation didn't exist. So they get the destiny the universe gave them. It's not the Federation's place to determine which species live and which species die, or which tragedies a primitive species undergoes and which ones it doesn't.

That's such a weird idea for a humanist society that doesn't believe in God. The universe doesn't decide anything. The random events of an unthinking, uncaring universe are not part of a plan and there is no virtue in letting random events destroy entire societies just so that you can be consistent in your philosophy. Any amount of cultural interference is preferable to genocide through inaction. The same way you don't let a child drown in a river because that is the destiny that the universe gave them.

[CharlesPhipps]

Deciding to take up the mantle of godhood would be a profoundly arrogant act - which is precisely why so many here have erupted into self-righteous moral condemnation. This forum, as a collective, has hot and cold running arrogance and a little arrogance candy left on the pillow.

People in the Utopian future have learned not to meddle; if only people in the here-and-now were so enlightened.

If it's the mantle of godhood to offer humanitarian aid then sign me up, Moses.

Inaction is also a choice to act.

That's such a weird idea for a humanist society that doesn't believe in God. The universe doesn't decide anything. The random events of an unthinking, uncaring universe are not part of a plan and there is no virtue in letting random events destroy entire societies just so that you can be consistent in your philosophy. Any amount of cultural interference is preferable to genocide through inaction. The same way you don't let a child drown in a river because that is the destiny that the universe gave them.

The Federation is absolutely anti-ubermensch in its attitude. They totally believe they are subject to higher powers of morality that are unchangeable, absolute, and contrary to personal advancement. The gods (Q, Organians, Apollo) are also subject to these rather than dictators of morality. If we are to put it in philosophical terms, the Federation is Aristotelian not Nietzschean.

Ethics are beyond mankind and not creations of them.

Sort of like Rorshach who is an atheist moral absolutist.

[Lazerlike42]

By standing by and doing nothing while species they could help save perishes, they are 100% deciding "who lives and who dies."

Let's abolish this abstract and fictional situation and address something a little closer to home.

I 100% guarantee that there are people dying, right now, who could have lived if you or I had decided to act differently. Are we responsible for their deaths?

One of the documents of the Second Vatican Council quotes an old saying that is attributed to early Christians: "Feed the man dying of hunger, because if you have not fed him, you have killed him."

I realize that in 2022 there are some things that can be considered controversial in Catholic teaching, but really basic questions like this - how should we respond to the poor, what responsibility do I have for the plight of others, what culpability do I have for my actions or for my inactions - are probably not particularly controversial topics and they're ones that many of the great philosophers and thinkers have been mulling over and refining for nearly 2,000 years of Church history.

Their answer - and mine - would be that yes, we are responsible for the deaths of other people which we could reasonably have done something to prevent and which we had the knowledge to do. Note the two important criteria here: could I have *reasonably* acted to prevent a person's death, and is that action something I actually *knew* about?

For example, let's say I order a large fry at McDonald's and I get the last ones that are ready, so after I leave the person behind me has to wait for the next batch to finish frying, causing him to get his food and get in the car and drive away 5 minutes later, putting him right at an intersection a drunk driver was plowing through at that time. I would not be responsible for that person's death, even though he would not have died had I acted differently. I couldn't possibly have known that what I was doing would lead to that man's death.

On the other hand, what if I refuse to get out of the way of an ambulance because I want to get to McDonald's faster to get my large fries and somebody dies because the ambulance is 30 seconds late. I might not have known specifically that this was a matter of life or death, but it's no mystery that ambulances driving around with their sirens on are important and that these can be life or death situations. I'd bear some responsibility for that death.

Feeding the hungry is probably closer to a more normal sort of situation that we could envision here. This is definitely a place where someone might lose their life who I could have saved had I been less stingy and helped them out a bit. On the other hand, it's not always that easy a question either. I have been warned by people who do a lot of work with the homeless not to give out cash because they will often use it for any alcohol they can get - which isn't so bad in itself, but often what they can get with it is mouthwash and drinking a bunch of *that* stuff actually is bad for them. When I used to be around a large walkable city a lot of the time, I would often go into restaurants for the homeless that I encountered on the street to make sure they got some food. When I later lived in a non-walkable city, I use to keep gift cards to McDonald's and other places in my car so I could hand them out to people.

- but this all raises another question: I didn't feed every homeless person I ever encountered, so am I responsible for their fate? This is where the idea of what's reasonable comes into play. No, I can't feed every last person. I have children at home that need food themselves, clothes, heat, etc. Yet there's a clear difference between not being able to help everyone I see all the time and not ever taking the time to help *anyone*.

- and remember: one of the major roles of Starfleet/the Federation is to do humanitarian work. Half the episodes of TNG feature some plot element where the Enterprise is doing some kind of humanitarian mission bringing food or medicine to some planet, bringing survivors somewhere, trying to fix the atmosphere or seismic stability of some planet, etc. When they refuse to help people just because they're at X stage of development, that's not like an average Joe not wanting to spend $10 to help a beggar on the street: it's much closer to the Red Cross deciding they aren't going to help victims of a typhoon or earthquake because the country where it happened didn't invent the internal combustion engine yet.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I think the one lying might be you. You seem to not want a rational debate. You want hate and vitriol stirred up.

Ding ding ding! Thank you for putting into words what I have been struggling to articulate at great length in so many threads.

[CrypticMirror]

Deciding to take up the mantle of godhood would be a profoundly arrogant act - which is precisely why so many here have erupted into self-righteous moral condemnation. This forum, as a collective, has hot and cold running arrogance and a little arrogance candy left on the pillow.

People in the Utopian future have learned not to meddle; if only people in the here-and-now were so enlightened.

If it's the mantle of godhood to offer humanitarian aid then sign me up, Moses.

Inaction is also a choice to act.

I've heard this before somewhere, how did it go again?

"Come take up the white man's burden..."


https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_burden.htm

- and remember: one of the major roles of Starfleet/the Federation is to do humanitarian work. Half the episodes of TNG feature some plot element where the Enterprise is doing some kind of humanitarian mission bringing food or medicine to some planet, bringing survivors somewhere, trying to fix the atmosphere or seismic stability of some planet, etc. When they refuse to help people just because they're at X stage of development, that's not like an average Joe not wanting to spend $10 to help a beggar on the street: it's much closer to the Red Cross deciding they aren't going to help victims of a typhoon or earthquake because the country where it happened didn't invent the internal combustion engine yet.

Humanitarian aid, when it is asked for. You can't just go around imposing "aid" on people who are not asking for it. That is the first step on the slippery road of colonialism, and it doesn't end well for anyone. And it has to be asked for equal-to-equal, not supplicant to overlord.

[Riedquat]

Humanitarian aid, when it is asked for. You can't just go around imposing "aid" on people who are not asking for it. That is the first step on the slippery road of colonialism, and it doesn't end well for anyone. And it has to be asked for equal-to-equal, not supplicant to overlord.

There are certainly limits in situations like that but no blanket ban, and quite rightly so. There aren't very many comparable situations left on Earth (one or two), since most of the world is in contact with most of the rest, but I like to think we'd try to make an appropriate effort if possible rather than just shrugging our shoulders and letting people die. Perhaps supplies dropped where the uncontacted could still reach them, or creating a firebreak before the forest fire reached where they lived, that sort of thing.

****

I find it a bit sad that Frustration's starting resorting to extremes - not going completely out of your way to do every bit of help you can somehow not really being all that different. It's a fallacious argument but the type that crops up all too frequently (often by people he's arguing against in areas where I agree with him).