Greatest Gen: The pro genocide podcast

[Nobody700]

Okay if we're gonna go for a more prime directive episode... first, an episode is a bad idea. Make it an arc through a season. One episode, they come to a pre warp planet, say, circa 1920's earth, and find trouble is brewing, a plague is there, and they cure it and go on their way to another plot. Ya know, they beam in, explain, give a cure, and the leaders and people are cool with this. It's just there to service the plot of this episode that they can cure diseases. Than, a couple episodes later, they find the cure they had made... infected the people, so they return, because they didn't STOP and really study the people, only the disease, the cure actually harms them so they try to fix that, but alert the leaders of the world of how powerful Enterprise is when they see teleporter tech. They assumed they were a century behind, not so far behind. This causes some problems but hey, Enterprise is fine and so leave... and return episodes later to see the people of the world tried to do a 'leap forward' and in ONE years time... tens of millions are already starving, a million dead, and war is brewing as tech is the ONLY focus, and Enterprise realizes in JUST helping once, they radically altered a planet to such a degree it's gone to absolute war just to steal the others resources and tech to one day build their own space ships. Perfect? No, but frankly... I hate the prime directive concept (beyond just leave pre warp alone) so trying to justify it is lame to me.

[CharlesPhipps]

I think "Dear Doctor" doesn't suffer from the fact that it is a pro-genocide episode so much as I have no idea what it is trying to say whatsoever.

[hammerofglass]

Based on the whole "there's no way you can possibly back up your 'theory' that they'll evolve in precise ways you predict in advance" "how dare you call evolution a theory!" exchange I don't think the writers had any idea what they were trying to say either.

[Riedquat]

Based on the whole "there's no way you can possibly back up your 'theory' that they'll evolve in precise ways you predict in advance" "how dare you call evolution a theory!" exchange I don't think the writers had any idea what they were trying to say either.

It certainly wasn't written by anyone who has even the most basic grasp of science.

In its own way I suppose it does serve a purpose - showing what a bloody disaster people can be when they think they're being right and moral, have a very fixed, preconceived notion of things (thinking more "any form of interference is bad!" as a dogmatic absolute in this case, rather than their scientific cluelessness), and go off and act on it. Absolute moral certainty, absolute rigidity, leads to some pretty bad places anyway (and it's extremely common). Throw in a complete and utter lack of understanding and I think that's where you get extremism from.

[CharlesPhipps]

Based on the whole "there's no way you can possibly back up your 'theory' that they'll evolve in precise ways you predict in advance" "how dare you call evolution a theory!" exchange I don't think the writers had any idea what they were trying to say either.

It certainly wasn't written by anyone who has even the most basic grasp of science.

In its own way I suppose it does serve a purpose - showing what a bloody disaster people can be when they think they're being right and moral, have a very fixed, preconceived notion of things (thinking more "any form of interference is bad!" as a dogmatic absolute in this case, rather than their scientific cluelessness), and go off and act on it. Absolute moral certainty, absolute rigidity, leads to some pretty bad places anyway (and it's extremely common). Throw in a complete and utter lack of understanding and I think that's where you get extremism from.

It doesn't help that there's been like eighty examples of "The Enterprise is delivering medicine to Planet X."

[McAvoy]

Okay if we're gonna go for a more prime directive episode... first, an episode is a bad idea. Make it an arc through a season. One episode, they come to a pre warp planet, say, circa 1920's earth, and find trouble is brewing, a plague is there, and they cure it and go on their way to another plot. Ya know, they beam in, explain, give a cure, and the leaders and people are cool with this. It's just there to service the plot of this episode that they can cure diseases. Than, a couple episodes later, they find the cure they had made... infected the people, so they return, because they didn't STOP and really study the people, only the disease, the cure actually harms them so they try to fix that, but alert the leaders of the world of how powerful Enterprise is when they see teleporter tech. They assumed they were a century behind, not so far behind. This causes some problems but hey, Enterprise is fine and so leave... and return episodes later to see the people of the world tried to do a 'leap forward' and in ONE years time... tens of millions are already starving, a million dead, and war is brewing as tech is the ONLY focus, and Enterprise realizes in JUST helping once, they radically altered a planet to such a degree it's gone to absolute war just to steal the others resources and tech to one day build their own space ships. Perfect? No, but frankly... I hate the prime directive concept (beyond just leave pre warp alone) so trying to justify it is lame to me.

Enterprise should have stuck around planets for two or three episodes. Like not try to make it like the other series where 45 minutes for an episode to spend time there before going somewhere else.

Enterprise was supposed to be a series where everything was new to the Earth humans. Figuring it out, making mistakes, fixing them. Learning and so forth.

Like meeting new species should take more than one episode. Solving an issue should take more than a episode. Also, the one season equals one year should have been abandoned to show how slow they really are going in comparison. Time jumps. Easy enough since they are using Earth dates as opposed to stardates.

But I do agree. Creating an episode on why there should be a Prime Directive doesn't work and should be more prolonged.

[Nealithi]

Okay if we're gonna go for a more prime directive episode... first, an episode is a bad idea. Make it an arc through a season. One episode, they come to a pre warp planet, say, circa 1920's earth, and find trouble is brewing, a plague is there, and they cure it and go on their way to another plot. Ya know, they beam in, explain, give a cure, and the leaders and people are cool with this. It's just there to service the plot of this episode that they can cure diseases. Than, a couple episodes later, they find the cure they had made... infected the people, so they return, because they didn't STOP and really study the people, only the disease, the cure actually harms them so they try to fix that, but alert the leaders of the world of how powerful Enterprise is when they see teleporter tech. They assumed they were a century behind, not so far behind. This causes some problems but hey, Enterprise is fine and so leave... and return episodes later to see the people of the world tried to do a 'leap forward' and in ONE years time... tens of millions are already starving, a million dead, and war is brewing as tech is the ONLY focus, and Enterprise realizes in JUST helping once, they radically altered a planet to such a degree it's gone to absolute war just to steal the others resources and tech to one day build their own space ships. Perfect? No, but frankly... I hate the prime directive concept (beyond just leave pre warp alone) so trying to justify it is lame to me.

Enterprise should have stuck around planets for two or three episodes. Like not try to make it like the other series where 45 minutes for an episode to spend time there before going somewhere else.

Enterprise was supposed to be a series where everything was new to the Earth humans. Figuring it out, making mistakes, fixing them. Learning and so forth.

Like meeting new species should take more than one episode. Solving an issue should take more than a episode. Also, the one season equals one year should have been abandoned to show how slow they really are going in comparison. Time jumps. Easy enough since they are using Earth dates as opposed to stardates.

But I do agree. Creating an episode on why there should be a Prime Directive doesn't work and should be more prolonged.

I have recently run into an argument that to me parallels the Prime Directive smugness. Basically the trolley car problem. They literally said by not making any choice at all they are not morally at fault at all. If there is a fault it is whoever setup the situation.

Though the more I think on the trolley car problem, well the more I am sick of it. As a moral question it can be interesting, once. So let's examine it fifty times in one hour. Changing the formula a little till the person taking the test either feels guilty or angry. Then the test giver can point and laugh somehow. Sorry not meant to be part of the discussion but something that popped into my head as I was writing this.

[stryke]

I do blame the second Nolan Batman film for making that into such a thing.

[hammerofglass]

Okay if we're gonna go for a more prime directive episode... first, an episode is a bad idea. Make it an arc through a season. One episode, they come to a pre warp planet, say, circa 1920's earth, and find trouble is brewing, a plague is there, and they cure it and go on their way to another plot. Ya know, they beam in, explain, give a cure, and the leaders and people are cool with this. It's just there to service the plot of this episode that they can cure diseases. Than, a couple episodes later, they find the cure they had made... infected the people, so they return, because they didn't STOP and really study the people, only the disease, the cure actually harms them so they try to fix that, but alert the leaders of the world of how powerful Enterprise is when they see teleporter tech. They assumed they were a century behind, not so far behind. This causes some problems but hey, Enterprise is fine and so leave... and return episodes later to see the people of the world tried to do a 'leap forward' and in ONE years time... tens of millions are already starving, a million dead, and war is brewing as tech is the ONLY focus, and Enterprise realizes in JUST helping once, they radically altered a planet to such a degree it's gone to absolute war just to steal the others resources and tech to one day build their own space ships. Perfect? No, but frankly... I hate the prime directive concept (beyond just leave pre warp alone) so trying to justify it is lame to me.

Enterprise should have stuck around planets for two or three episodes. Like not try to make it like the other series where 45 minutes for an episode to spend time there before going somewhere else.

Enterprise was supposed to be a series where everything was new to the Earth humans. Figuring it out, making mistakes, fixing them. Learning and so forth.

Like meeting new species should take more than one episode. Solving an issue should take more than a episode. Also, the one season equals one year should have been abandoned to show how slow they really are going in comparison. Time jumps. Easy enough since they are using Earth dates as opposed to stardates.

But I do agree. Creating an episode on why there should be a Prime Directive doesn't work and should be more prolonged.

I have recently run into an argument that to me parallels the Prime Directive smugness. Basically the trolley car problem. They literally said by not making any choice at all they are not morally at fault at all. If there is a fault it is whoever setup the situation.

Though the more I think on the trolley car problem, well the more I am sick of it. As a moral question it can be interesting, once. So let's examine it fifty times in one hour. Changing the formula a little till the person taking the test either feels guilty or angry. Then the test giver can point and laugh somehow. Sorry not meant to be part of the discussion but something that popped into my head as I was writing this.

I've honestly never understood people who try to wriggle out of the trolley problem. The whole point of it is that there's no way to keep your hands clean, if you remove that element there's no reason to use it at all.

[CharlesPhipps]

I've honestly never understood people who try to wriggle out of the trolley problem. The whole point of it is that there's no way to keep your hands clean, if you remove that element there's no reason to use it at all.

In college, I pointed out that the trolley problem is also something that people misunderstand and get angry at the premise of but the point is not actually the judgement (which shouldn't exist) but the question of getting the person involved in it to learn about THEMSELVES.

Basically, it's to find out what sort of person you are and if you try to save everyone (succeed or fail) that says much as trying to minimize the casualties or accept that they will die.