Except it's really not. Clearly it's meant to prevent situations like the ones in Patterns of Force and A Piece of the Action since those episodes clearly show how badly messing with a pre-warp society can go. Nothing in TOS indicated that Starfleet was required to let a society die if it was faced with annihilation and there's at least one TOS episode where Kirk and company take steps to prevent a pre-warp society from dying without any mention of the Prime Directive or violations thereof. It was crappy writers in TNG, Voyager and Enterprise misinterpreting what was stated about it in TOS that it started to go wrong.
Except it is really so. Only in Classic Trek and Orville were we shown examples where breaking PD made things worse: gangsters and Nazis and bears, oh my.
Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer all gleefully genocide planets for the greater glory of PD. Ryker insists that Genocide is The Cosmic Plan TM, that Genocide proves the existence of God and then Outcast is the only exception because it is God's Plan that Ryker shag the hoit lesbian man.
So your examples that you seem to have made up out of whole cloth supersede my examples that come from the actual show? Yeah I don't think so.
The Riker bit mostly happened. I believe his argument was "If there is a cosmic plan, is it not the height of hubris to think we can or should interfere?"
Of that I want to snap back that is it not also hubris to think we are exempt from that plan? That our intelligence and technology were not guided for a purpose?
Except it's really not. Clearly it's meant to prevent situations like the ones in Patterns of Force and A Piece of the Action since those episodes clearly show how badly messing with a pre-warp society can go. Nothing in TOS indicated that Starfleet was required to let a society die if it was faced with annihilation and there's at least one TOS episode where Kirk and company take steps to prevent a pre-warp society from dying without any mention of the Prime Directive or violations thereof. It was crappy writers in TNG, Voyager and Enterprise misinterpreting what was stated about it in TOS that it started to go wrong.
Except it is really so. Only in Classic Trek and Orville were we shown examples where breaking PD made things worse: gangsters and Nazis and bears, oh my.
Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer all gleefully genocide planets for the greater glory of PD. Ryker insists that Genocide is The Cosmic Plan TM, that Genocide proves the existence of God and then Outcast is the only exception because it is God's Plan that Ryker shag the hoit lesbian man.
So your examples that you seem to have made up out of whole cloth supersede my examples that come from the actual show? Yeah I don't think so.
The Riker bit mostly happened. I believe his argument was "If there is a cosmic plan, is it not the height of hubris to think we can or should interfere?"
Of that I want to snap back that is it not also hubris to think we are exempt from that plan? That our intelligence and technology were not guided for a purpose?
I think it's something of a moral quandary as to when/how one should interfere vs when is it a detriment if they do. In "Symbiosis", Jean-Luc points out that historically, interference, no matter how well-meaning, often has disastrous results. The point Riker makes about "cosmic plans" is to suggest that, if it is meant to be their role to cause a disaster or avert it, who are they to say either way? The Enterprise floating by a planet might cause significant tectonic shifts or alter the path of storm clouds. Who is to say that that wasn't part of the cosmic plan or they ought to remedy something they didn't intentionally have a hand in?
You can't really anticipate what role you play in a situation, so why do something that requires you to go out of your way in order to see it through? That's, in my opinion, Riker's point. Stay the course until the wind starts blowing in another direction. It's also a very lackadaisical non-sequitor, which reflects his character post-BoBW.
I think it's something of a moral quandary as to when/how one should interfere vs when is it a detriment if they do
The moral quandary is ONLY in Classic Trek and Orville. Usually interference makes things worse BUT if non-interference = genocide, then Interference = the Moral act. It is not a moral quandary, it is a practical quandary, which action will lead to LESS genocide. The MORAL question is ALREADY solved. We want LESS genocide, we guess which action will achieve that goal.
In all other Trek shows: if Interference stops genocide, then Interference is wrong. Likewise if NON-interference stops Ryker from shagging the hot lesbian man, then Interference is right.
Self sealing stem bolts don't just seal themselves, you know.
I think it's something of a moral quandary as to when/how one should interfere vs when is it a detriment if they do
The moral quandary is ONLY in Classic Trek and Orville. Usually interference makes things worse BUT if non-interference = genocide, then Interference = the Moral act. It is not a moral quandary, it is a practical quandary, which action will lead to LESS genocide. The MORAL question is ALREADY solved. We want LESS genocide, we guess which action will achieve that goal.
In all other Trek shows: if Interference stops genocide, then Interference is wrong. Likewise if NON-interference stops Ryker from shagging the hot lesbian man, then Interference is right.
Except in the instance where Riker intervened, it was intended as an operation separate from Starfleet and wasn't authorized under Picard. Riker acted on his own and with Cpt Picard feigning ignorance to help him save face. Similarly, when Worf quit Starfleet to help the legitimate HC of Qonos, he was separating himself from the official role he held in order to pursue his own ideals.
Nobody is saying let genocide happen or anything like that. It's also easy to be an armchair moralist about that kind of stuff. There is an issue there, though. You take the victims out of the genocide, or supply them with weapons. Next time a threat emerges, they call you up. Maybe they become the next Klingon empire. Hell, maybe your efforts only make matters worse for both sides and suddenly BOOM! Nuclear hellscape. All because you wanted to prevent genocide.
That is the moral quandry of the PD. Do you help, not knowing whether your actions will be a benefit for all, or the spark that sets the galaxy ablaze? It's easy to say "killing is wrong" because it goes against the basic principles of almost everyone. It's much harder to say "I would put myself between that soldier and his victim regardless of what may come from it."
There is a situation where Picard wanted to break the rules and save a planet, and I sided with the person who refused to help. Or at least that's what it looked like in A Matter of Time.
When the time traveler from the past was posing as a time traveler from the future, Picard asked him what to do and the guy said that from his POV all those people died centuries ago. If he was who he pretended to be, he would have had to face the potential loss of everyone he knew. If I had the opportunity to save Troy from being sacked at the risk that everyone I knew would never exist... I don't think I'd do it.
I'm not sure how that fits into all this, ethically. It's not logically the same thing because saving planet Diddledeedoo III from the giant space walrus is as likely to prevent the next Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, or Adam Sandler as it is to cause one to come along. But ethically speaking, maybe I'd just be being selfish.
All in all, it's a good reason not to go back to the Trojan Wars.
Overall I agree with most of his views. One thing I'm always happy to see is Chuck exposing Trek's more insufferable BS, especially the sort of stuff that we'd see all the time in early TNG.
The Prime Directive is a standout example. Dear Doctor may be the single worst case. I wonder how the writers would feel about a doctor refusing to help a gay man with AIDS because he thought it was God's plan to punish them? But the enlightened Enterprise crew don't even have that excuse. You could easily make the case that their refusal to help there is evil and/or insane. The arbitrary line between who falls under the secular "cosmic plan" is whether or not a race has warp drive.
To cite one real life example- even in your own community, it might do more harm than good to just hand out your money to any downtrodden, poor, or homeless person who asks for it. Is that a reason not to give anything away? Of course not. It's a reason to make informed choices that actually make people's lives better. I don't understand how the writers can miss that.
