in some ways the PD is in fact directly IMmoral. It imposes the judgment of "unworthy to survive" on any given pre-warp civilization on the brink of annihilation. The ongoing theme of Star Trek is that it's easy to be an angel while living in Paradise.

I prefered Stargate's approach to this. They would freely trade with anyone they came in contact with except weapons and military aid. They also agreed not to step into other cultures and conflict unless not doing so would lead to a worse situation than if they did anything.

Something to consider: Picard may have broken the Prime Directive a lot, but he was never significantly reprimanded for it, which would suggest that Starfleet views it as one of those rules that it's important to know when to break, like most of the engineering guidelines.

"Come on, Shran, that's ridiculous. No one would ever be so twisted as to think it made sense to let a whole species die in order to avoid harming them!" - Admiral Archer to Admiral Shran when the latter suggests that the Next Generation of officers would forget the intentions of the Noninterference Directive. (ST:ENT:RotF:Patterns of Interference - Christopher L. Bennett)

"Let nature take it's course," bold words coming from a doctor, who's job is to stop "nature from taking it's course" via medicine.

SF Debris Janway. Instead of having an angel and demon on her shoulders; she just has a talking spider wearing a cowboy hat. It keeps telling her to kill and eat Harry.

I love the opening plate; "you ever hear of the emancipation proclamation?" "I'm sorry son, I don't listen to Hip Hop".

The philosophy behind the prime directive is that "we don't want to take responsibility, so let's not act". It's the whole concept of not playing god and let things take it's course as if we are not here to stop it. That way when things go bad, it's not federation's fault. It's cowardly, it comes from a place where they don't want any responsibility for your actions. Picard will make long speeches about the prime directive but he will break it when it suits him.

One of the biggest differences in how the Prime Directive is applied by characters in TOS and later shows is that not once does Kirk ever consider letting societies go extinct in order to avoid violating the directive. He certainly swears to uphold it with his life, but he NEVER swears to put entire civilizations on the line to uphold, only to put his own life on the line to do so. If he were to find himself in the same situations as Picard and Janeway, Kirk would IMMEDIATELY look for a way to help without violating the Directive, and if no solution were available that didn't violate it... he'd just go ahead and violate the Prime Directive because in his mind, there would be no other choice. Remember, James Kirk survived the incident on Tarsus IV in his youth (the incident where Kodos used his own eugenics ideas to decide who lived and who died), and so for Kirk, the idea of letting entire groups of people die for the sake of some law or for someone else's interpretation of a law would never sit well with him (until he got older and Klingons killed his son, but that's a story for another time). In his mind, using the Prime Directive as a reason to decide who lives and who dies just because they do or don't fit a certain criteria would be on the same level as what Kodos had done. And this is why Kirk will always be a better captain than Picard and Janeway, because he never once considered allowing entire species or civilizations to suffer or go extinct in order to uphold the Prime Directive, not even for a moment. He never needed any persuading from anyone on his crew, unlike Picard (as seen in Pen Pals), or Janeway (too many examples to count). Kirk knew when to abide by the Prime Directive, and when to ignore it... at least when it came to situations where extinction could occur.

As SFDebris put it, Janeway knows there's a God, and its her.

Lore I like the the episode of Babylon 5 Acts of Sacrifice (Season 2 Episode 12). The Lumati were created as a commentary of the Federations Noninterference Doctrine by J Michael Straczynsky. The Lumati are actually impressed when they mistakenly conclude the homeless area in the Downbelow Section of B5 was an intentional creation. The Lumati take noninterference to insane levels even within their own society. Lumati Interpreter talks about how if he saw a sick child he would neither help nor hinder it he would simply observe and let nature take its course.

Phlox and archer was before the directives and the federation, they have to make decisions without experience and plans, they make a hell of a job with what they have

It is the dogmatic application of the Prime Directive that makes me dislike the rule as a whole.

I hate how later Trek applied the PD and let whole worlds/species die even though they could prevent it. It just reminds me of that quote by Lincoln: _"To know the true character of a man, give him power."_ I'd love a story that flipped the PD. A starship sees a planet with sentient life about to die and proudly let it happen but it turns out it was a test by the Q or someone and so they will not save the Federation from a cataclysmic event since they failed to act to save lesser beings.

The Prime Directive was invented as a literary device in order for characters to wrestle with ethical dilemmas in a sci fi setting. It was made to be broken! Braga et. al. took it out of context and made it Holy Law.

Don't the writers intentionally hamstring the Federation? If the UFP acted in a more rational manner, a lot of problems our hero's need to solve wouldn't exist. A lot of your moral quandaries simply go away if you accept "the perfect is the enemy of the good". The whole Dominion war? Not a problem if Starfleet had a few "reserve" fleets of warships. Section 31 ends up looking like the good guys because everyone else is so horrified of making a small mistake, that instead they make a much bigger mistake. Also, really nice video.

Its not merely a religion. It seems to be the official state religion of Starfleet.

I loved Prime Directive's early stuff before they sold out.

"I can keep giving those log speeches about the sanctury of the prime directive as soon as worf finishes picking those alien bits out of the grill"

When Picard became god of that primitive culture he’s like “holy shit I’ve got to fix this” then Sisko is like “I’ll just become space jesus”

@4:20 ironically, that is *literally* the same argument Picard used when a time-traveling pirate came on the Enterprise D using the ruse that a routine humanitarian mission they were on was some monumental historical event.

Always great to see another SFDebris fan ☺

I like to think of it like this: we were given the power to help others. Therefore, I think it our job to help others in their endeavors and their protection. As far as we know, we’re the only beings in the universe to have this awesome power. I think it IS our nature to help others and we should follow it. That being said, we should think before we help so that way we don’t make the wrong decision in the name of being good.

Picard is my favorite captain but both him and Janeway I fucking hated their faith in the prime directive!! It’s the one thing about Star Trek I cant stand.

Star fleet should have invaded cardasia in DS9 along side the Klingons. That way they could reinforce their alliance with the Klingons, protect the cardasians, and appease the bajorens and the maquis making the alpha quadrant a lot more stable. I said this literally the exact second The Klingons invaded cardasia.

4:40 stopping wildfires seems like a bad comparison. We know what happens when we stop wildfires: kindling builds up, causing the next one to be bigger.

This kind of dogmatism is what legitimately gives us of faith the right to call out some people’s handling of science as merely another religion another example we see Sarek in TSFS referring to Katra as not of the body. Yet, it is of the body.

There is very little Picard will wax philosophical about, but the prime directive is definitely at the top of that list. For Sisko it was loyalty to the uniform. Which sounded more dogmatic and fanatical than Picard's reasonable if flawed arguments. Both wound up turning into Ahab hunting their respective whales. I guess each captain had shortcomings in one area or another. Usually hidden within the things they were strongest at. Each in their own was were fanatics. Janeway too I guess. Though she was rife with flaws that made her more human than her predecessors. Desperation does that though.

The Prime Directive is the most misunderstood part of Star Trek. It's for one thing: to keep primitive civilizations from blowing themselves up ("A Private Little War"). But it only applies to a growing, thriving culture ("Errand of Mercy"), so Starfleet CAN step in where there's complete stagnation.

In general, I'd agree to a more practical interpretation of the Prime Directive... as per a case by case basis in its application works better and perhaps that is a way that some of the other series should have worked with it more... But in looking at the example used with Picard breaking the Prime Directive as being something on par with killing thousands... that would also give an implication that despite the supposed dogmatic view of obeying the Prime Directive, regardless of its dogma, that Picard has at times gone against what he believes, for whatever reason. The implication in the attack on Picard may reflect that dogmatic view of the Prime Directive... but neither does it truly change Picard's actions... And we can be aware that Picard HAS broken the Prime Directive. In the episode "Justice" the Enterprise arrives at a planet called Edo, which is portrayed as some kind of utopia... though I don't think they ever said that the planet was warp capable... which would thus mean that the Prime Directive would apply... During their "visit" Wesley Crusher is sentenced to death for tripping over a white marker into a selected zone and thus breaking a local Edo law (though Wesley didn't know it), if one is to hold to a dogmatic view of the Prime Directive, Picard would have to essentially let the Edo kill Wesley because of their law, regardless of what Beverly Crusher felt on that issue. But in the end he not only does intervene but makes the statement that, "there can be no justice so long as laws are absolute." And in that line, one could get the sense that the belief in a more pragmatic application is there in terms of action... Though it could mean that there would also be some confusion in the sense when direct statements on the Prime Directive are then treated dogmatically.

I love how deep this goes and invites you to think.

As a Christian Star Trek fan I wholeheartedly agree, this is the main problem I have with the prime directive.

I bet the lawyers and philosophers in the Federation spent decades debating what Janeway did on their Voyager journey in regards to the Prime Directive. I just rewatched Voy "Living Witness" and I think it says a lot about how one can look at the Prime Directive. Voyager meets a spacefaring species and opens trade. Another species sees this and figures the worse and a conflict begins that results in a death and the war that comes about is blamed on Voyager. 700 years later and that brief encounter still echos within their cultures. It doesn't seem like Federation Tech had any barring on the cultures in question but the impact on their cultures was evident...and these were species that wouldn't be banned from meeting according to the Prime Directive. This type of story would be fun to see again and with more detail. "Blink of an Eye" (hope I got that right) is another Voy episode that really shows the profound (though not meant to happen) encounter Voyager had on a planet.

I understand why the Prime Directive exists. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and they often results in unforeseen consequences. But captains do have the authority to decide how to apply the Prime Directive and when to ignore it. This happens all the time in TNG, DS9 and Voyager.

I see the logic of the prime directive because you have to think of the impact would be on a less advanced xenophobic civilization. The religious hysteria, wars, and the rise of a military society that could occur once the primitives discover that there are not alone. This is why we must observe, learn their culture, their history, and who their leaders are before we initiate a first contact. On a personal note I live by the prime directive I never interfere or become involved in other people's family business or quarrels.

Some very interesting thoughts, certainly I might watch with a different mindset. The only facet you don’t seem to have taken into account is the military nature of Starfleet; the Prime Directive has been hammered into generations of captains, starting out as a set of guiding rules & principles. With each generation the inviolable nature of the Prime Directive would become ever more black & white. Very interesting videos, the sort of conversation I love about this channel.

To be honest, most religions are more flexible and thoughtful about the application of their rules than the Federation is with the Prime Directive. That's the whole point of the "ox in the mire" thing, where ordinarily you wouldn't work on the Sabbath day, but if there's some sort of issue that has to be addressed immediately you can do it. Almost every commandment has exceptions based on different circumstances, usually left to the judgment of the individual or clergy. The Prime Directive, however...

in the episode with flox he decided to not interfere between the evolution of two species of humanoids. one the was dominant and one that was subordinate. the dominant species was harboring the development of the subordinate one but they were dying from a disease so flox let nature decide because it would be wrong to help one species because it would change the development of the other. if flox treated the superior species the lower species would never be able to move ahead, so it was right to not interfere because it would not be right to give one species a better future at the expense of the other.

So if I got into a fight (with words) with the captain of another starship and called for an SOS, the Federation could help me. But if I was being attacked by Romulans and Klingons and didn't send out a SOS, they couldn't help me. What The falcon

You left out some big points on Phlox argument. 1) This species was not warp capable yet and that was the widely accepted thresh hold. Only reason they decided to talk to them was because they had sent out some pre warp ships looking for help. 2) The Planet that the dying species(Valakians) was on had a second humanoid and intelligent race(Menk) that was seen to be treated as a second class citizens by the dying race. He makes the argument what if someone came to earth and stop the dinosaurs from dying out? Humans would probably not exist now. The natural evolution for the planet was to let the Valakains die out from the disease and let the Menk become the dominant species on the planet. 3)The disease the species was dying from was genetic. The proteins that bound to Valakian chromosomes were deteriorating causing they're DNA to breakdown. Phlox called it an evolutionary dead end so the species was doomed. That being said. I agree with you, they should have helped them. They weren't warp capable yet but they had already come into contact with two other warp capable species so the culture was already contaminated and Phlox did actually find a cure for the disease. I go with the argument they didn't plan on going into this problem but they were there now and they can help save lives. They should have and hoped for the best with the Menk.

In "Drumhead", the JAG admiral was in civilian clothes, so was she Star Fleet or a civilian?

Phlox and Archer commit genocide once. Janeway did it casually on a daily basis.

With response to Enterprise and Phlax episode. Phlax suggested they let nature take its course because the disease wasn't a disease it was a genetic degradation of their DNA. Also there was a 2nd race living on the planet as servants which Phlax and others realized were a lot smarter than previously thought and maybe they are meant to be the planets single humanoid race as mentioned in the episode normally only 1 race survives evolution. He also leaves them with the treatments that will slow down the progression and pain and their joined work (not his personal findings) in hopes they may develope their own cure.

The chance of any outcome is good or bad depends on the sample space of the outcome. In biology, the chance that a random genetic mutation has a good outcome is extremely low, because on average, one in one million mutations could have a good outcome.

Here is the reason that we CAN say that the prime directive is NOT actually a dogmatic religion; This vary debate occurs in almost every series of the franchise, with the exception of ST-D where the prime directive is mentioned three times, at the very most!

The Prime Directive is not just about protecting others. It is also about protecting the Federation.

There's a philosophy of ethics all about the middle ground. It's called virtue ethics. Where "virtue" is the "golden mean". It tries to balance all considerations and perspectives. It focuses on excesses and deficiency. Like the virtue of courage is the middle ground of cowardice and foolhardiness. Cowardice is an excess of fear. Foolhardiness is a deficiency of fear. Courage is the "golden mean" of fear. It's not utilitarianism though. It's not strictly about pros and cons. You can't use it to justify forcing people on Starfleet getting superior cybernetic eyes. It takes into account that we care about more then maximizing efficiency.

Your review provided an accurate reflection of how the principal characters approached the Prime Directive. It wasn't about "Do this, Do that" but "Consider this before you act." Any interaction (by action or inaction) is a speculative risk. It is capable of having a benefit or a loss. To ensure that you don't create an unintended evil, you need to carefully consider all the variables and act in a manner that will bring about the greatest good. I prefer the kind of interventionism adopted by the "God-Galaxy" in Futurama: "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

the prime directive came from the vulcans and they have a lot of history of shit that happen with the first contact and they are a more old civilization than humanity, and they are logic

I think the main purposes of the prime directive are two-fold. First, the prime directive is meant to allow for the natural evolution of a society and culture, on its own terms, without external cultural influence. Second, the prime directive keeps advanced technology and knowledge out of the hands of, and prevents the potential for abuse by, those who are not either intellectually, psychologically, sociologically, or ethically ready for it.

Seriously...i just found out a lot of ur videos were never going to my new video feed. For months it's touch and go and so to be sure I don't miss any content. I'm not ranting on u man I'm just how pissed with how youtube screws with things. I love ur channel and thank u for doing what u do!

Just a minor point I wanted to make: I don't think that to anyone else in the federation violating the Prime Directive is on the same level as being borg. This admiral was that kind of people who will find ANYTHING to try and prove that you are guilty. From minor offenses to big ones, all of them are equally valid to prove that you are a traitor to your cause and a horrible person. I met this kind of person in real life and often people take way too much time to put them back in their place because, just like Admiral Satie, they cloak themselves in virtue.

Let the good old Darwin sort it out...but I think the existence of the Prime Directive is to explain the most common question in sci-fi fans: if there are faster-than-light civilization, why haven't we met any of them already?

The prime directive is a great idea, but it is upheld by the wrong reason. A society should have the ability to grow and learn under it’s own strength. But if a catastrophic event occurs which is beyond the abilities of that society, say an asteroid. StarFleet should prevent that event in secret.

Ah sfdebris. Love his stuff and his thoughts on the PD. I HATE it when they use it like this. Letting a species die for no reason is disgusting. An all or nothing attitude or 'because I said so' are so frustrating.

One problem I have with the Prime directive is that most other races don't have one and hell doesn't seem to break loose.

The example about nuclear weapons falls slightly flat, considering how vastly higher the body count from Operation Downfall (the Allied invasion of Japan) was projected to be. Part of the preparations for that campaign involved printing a large number of Purple Heart medals. When the bombs forced Imperial Japan to surrender instead, the medals were saved instead, and awarded as needed. To give an idea of how many G.I.'s they expected to be wounded in action, consider the fact that they finally awarded the last of that batch in 2006. Like any tool, it depends on who is using a technology, not what the technology itself is.

The biggest problem with the Prime Directive, in Star Trek, is that it only seems to be relevant to planets outside the Federation.

What phlox was sayin was let nature go ahead n allow the second species exist... as in that episode there were two sentient species... one was technological while the othrrs were treated as workers n lived in total segregation... they did not object because they had child like minds... but the entprise crew discovered they highly intelligent and picked up on information pretty quick... they had the gene to help the other species... phlox stated id rather let nature decide...

The phlax example is a bad one, he was arguing from that stand point because the other sentient species on the planet were poised to become to dominant species, baring human intervention. If they were the only ones on the planet and another sentient race wouldn't have been directly affected by the decision, phlox would have cured the disease in a heart beat

i find it shocking that we the general public can know all the rules in the death note but not all the suborders of the prime directive. lobby starfleet; end the cover up!

I think (on purpose or not) it fits well into the nativity of the Federation during the TNG era. They're pacifistic because... they feel that their technology can solve anything. More than that, they've figured "everything" out. Any new challenge is a few hours of research away from a resolution. When given that mindset, then you feel like you're a god. Being a god, they feel like they shouldn't interfere. From that POV it makes some sense.

Your whole argument is contingent on the assumption that all decision makers are as moral and intelligent as the captains we see. If they are the best of the best then there may be some captains who need the PD as they are not able to be trusted to make the "right" decision. This is no even taking into account bad unexpected consequences of morally good decisions.

..I feel more like "If we have the ability to act anyway we want, we should assume we are just part of the plan.".. which.. i guess thinking about it, kinda leads to the same result as thinking "that plan doesn't exist.", ya still gotta play the game, weigh this with that, just for slightly (or perhaps largely) different reasons, probably as varied in interpretation as day and night. But, to each one's own.

Is it possible that the Archer approach is because humanity is only beginning to interact with species on their own, and that the more pragmatic develops as it gains more experience?

At least on DS9 they called it's ever-present religion what it was. :)

I always thought that the Prime Directive was an advice against imperialism. That Starfleet embrace it so much because they feel it was that makes them different, and better. Where klingons or romulans will enter, putting any excuse that sound good and justify themselves, to change thinks, Starfleet takes the prime Directive as a dogma as much as the "no kill" rule of Batman. Not even think about doing that, because once you enter, and justify your actions, you will be able to stop? Maybe you just openned the door to more interventions. Just no enter to begin with, abd problem solve. It is the Federation wanting to be so neutral that they adore the concept. It gives them something to believe in. That hold them and makes them think that they are acting right. Giving that the Federation appears to be the only mayor power with democracy and "human" rights, it no strange they think so highly of their prime directive. To them, looks like the basic law that makes them not being an empire. That makes all their explorations look as something totally good and innocent, and not something motivated by egoism.

Janeway dogmatically applied the Prime Directive and refused to intefere, but because of her actions she basically left the entire quadrant open to being consumed by The Borg. *slow clap*

If you actually look at how we apply the prime directive directive is not applied that dogmatically. What it does do is force in the cases we see Starfleet officers to wrestle with the morality and the consequences of interfering in other's affairs and in primitive cultures. We see them violate the prime directive quite often and yet very rarely are they taking off in handcuffs, I can only think of one incident where that was even close to happening. The prime directive is not really meant to stop us from helping people that need help but stop the normalization of interfering. It is easy just to help population out because it's planets going to blow up but when intervening particularly with a primitive culture it can be problematic. Just imagine an alien race shows up tomorrow and tells us how they're going to fix the planet. Think about how many different groups on earth would respond to that. Many people would wonder what they're getting out of it. Imagine if they could only save hundred thousand humans who would make that decision? So an unstable core is going to kill population so we intervene. What about if it's only a super volcano that just gonna kill a lot of people do we intervene? What if the population is doing stupid things like fundamentally changing their atmosphere do we intervene? What if a population is looking like they could launch nukes at each other and had life on the planet do we intervene? Determining where that line is can be very difficult and if we put up for debate without consequences to be very easy to find excuses to intervene particularly when would benefit say the Federation or a member world. By making the normal the debate you can easily create a situation where groups look for reasons to interfere to justify their own benefits. We see that happen all the time and it usually leads to disasters. By making this into a so-called dogma you turn it into a situation where the individual actually has to take the time and the responsibility for making the decision to interfere. When interfere because it was truly the right thing to do they end up getting a slap on the wrist but when interfere because of selfish reasons there is serious punishment. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to do nothing. If I remember right in the case with Dr. Flocus the issue wasn't the secure the flag or not but there was a less cognitively developed species on the planet that was developing rapidly. If this disease wiped out a large percentage of the more developed species it could lead to the other developing even faster. There is a lot of potential issues that could arise and there are two speeches like this on a single planet, right now it seemed more than species was caretaking the less event species but in time as the lesson advanced one develops the rule could become a lot more sinister. If you look at our own history the black plague killed off a massive part of Europe's population. This was horrible but also freed up a lot of resources for those who survived allowing them to after they rebound enter the Renaissance. Is likely without the population dying out and relieving the stress on natural resources the Renaissance might never have come. This was a horrible thing but because our species survive dead we were able to grow stronger because of it. I think about how Earth would respond to aliens showing up offering their help. I think about how I would respond and everybody I know. Likely there would be great political upheaval. Just imagine a ship with the firepower of the enterprise showing up and then starting to tell us how to solve our problems. Even if they were completely benevolent there would be questions, our entire culture would change and many elements were not want to. Intervening is often much more dangerous than not, not just to the people who might be the help but to those who would like to help.

I agree completely on what you said. I always thought it was implied that Archer didn't give the cure because it would mean farming that junior race and turn them into soylent green. But they never said that.

Ok, If you say that the civilization should be saved from the volcano, then should we also try to save the poor ant colony from the Amazon Ant?

The real question is how far would the federation go to enforce the omega directive?

I don’t think Picard and the others treat it like dogma they treat it like a rule that they will get fired for breaking

If a preworp civilization was screwing around with the omega molecule, then theoretical a Starfleet captain had the authority to make first contact and offer said race freaking warp drive in return for leaving the omega molecule alone or bomb the sh!t out of them from orbit.

What if Archer and Phlox had demanded social reforms in exchange for their help? Emancipate or emaciate. ;)

I believe that Starfleet could intervene with non-warp civilizations in cases such as global disaster or plague without ever showing their hand, after all, plagues burn themselves out and people do have natural immunity and disasters like earthquakes, volcanos do stop even if from the people on the planets point of view they don't. I do not believe Starfleet should be traveling across the stars looking for fires to put out, but coming upon such a world helping should be a given. Using the logic that nature should take its course can be countered by we are now part of their nature by just being here, as Picard said "In for a penny in for a pound"

The funniest thing about the prime directive is how if you have a warp drive, fine, it's worth saving your planet. If not, then we may be creating the next Hitler. Can't do it.

in the one case they started to help a set of two different people one with a drug the other without and then used the prime directive to help neither

The prime directive is probably dealt on a case by case basis. When its violated, a report is submitted. Its reviewed. There are times when its been over looked. Star fleets official policy on the prime directive needs to seem... Biblical. Captains and crew need to fear it to a degree. Otherwise, I think it would be violated more often.

Love this video.

the prime directive is needed more today then any thing we got todayit means not getting over are heads

with the Ent episode Dear Doctor, if the intention was to make a case for the Prime Directive they could have done it better. what I would have done with the story is to have the crew of the Enterprise give the cure to the Valakian but it somehow leads to complete disaster, like the cure unexpectedly mutated the disease that it now also affects the Menk, or better yet it causes the disease to mutate into some sort of Zombie Virus. I know that this kind of ending would have been too dark for Cable TV at that time, however it dose make a better case for the Prime Directive then what we got and if more episodes of Ent were like that it kinda makes other characters Dogmatic views on the Prime Directive a little bit more understandable

you're forcing the dogmatic proxy. the directive is designed to not value one life over another, no matter how advanced or integrated within their environment as they may be. choosing to breaking the directive for a moralistic reason because of the valuing of specific life is the actual dogma.

Well they can't very well change it now. Even if they did fanbois would be like "Oh. They changed the PD. They've ruined Star Trek." As liberal and progressive as the core audience seems, they get pretty conservative and religious when it comes to changes in canon and "the way Trek should be".

I think the prime directive makes a lot of sense in terms of the federation and star fleet being at least a somewhat militaristic organization. Cultural dominant infighting wouldn't work inside the federation organizationally. The retelling here of Flox not choosing to promote one species retain dominance over another by his actions seems to be a strawman. I'm by no means saying Flox was right or wrong. I'm saying it was his choice to his moral choice to play god or not. Personally I'd probably play god a lot more. If they as a species and culture can't solve their own problems it isn't Flox's responsibility unless he so chooses. Creating or promoting a dominant client race dependence relationship starts from these seemingly innocuous decisions. Look what we did to dog breeds. There are trees suffering because we stop wild fires. Riker in TNG was pretty bad. The point of objective rules is consistency. Should a plea for help from a little girl to escape be any different to that of a tar monster? Being compelled by the Borg seems like much less a crime than violating your operational orders to save cute animals that maybe one day will be a relevant species/civilization. From other sci-fi I tend to agree with the idea of uplifting species and diversifying but at the same time in doing so we are absolutely spreading our biases and preferred values what ever they may be. Doesn't seem good to ignore that bias and that there could be other alternatives. Perhaps revenge is a better sustem even though I don't see it that way. Moral repugnance is very slippery. I'm an engineer hard work and complications are pretty much always evil.

does anyone know what the Second Directive is?

Very bad example. Wildfires have become a massive problem because of the intervention. Small natural fires would have been harmless (even to trees) and would have removed dead biomass. After decades of extinguishing small fires there has accumulated so much biomass that every fire will be an instant inferno (they now wipe out entire forests). The point of the prime directive is that they have painfully learned not to touch shit because touching shit introduces a fan to the scenario. This is not a "rules from paradise" situation. It is a "we tried a dozen times and it went south ten out of twelve times so just don't or else" situation. The lesson to be learned here is: There are things that are counterintuitive and that means that the reasonable thing to do is NOT intuitive. This is exactly aimed at people like you...

This is a Berman/Braga thing, right?

Good old sfdebris. The prime directive feels like it should be strong guidelines instead of law.

Well, in one thought, it seems that all of the Captains and their crew all has different interpretations of the Prime Directive. Can you expect different people would have the same interpretation of the Prime Directive on any occasion? I think it is better writing to have different interpretations play out in the series as a whole.

3:25 Is this a reference to a Star Trek episode? Because I am getting some Stargate Atlantis vibes for some reason...

I feel like acting scared or offended by the general thought of religion treats Athiesn as a dogmatic religion

I've always been critical of the Prime Directive, but I think you're taking it way out of proportion here. The thing you call for - careful consideration and reflection on a case-by-case basis - is what we see in nearly every instance where the Prime Directive is at issue, even those cases where I think their decisions are questionable, or even outright wrong. Entire episodes are devoted to the question: Should we interfere IN THIS CASE? I can't think of a single instance where the crew were forced to ask whether to interfere, responded with "but the PRIME DIRECTIVE!", and then moved on leaving that as a minor sub-plot at most. There is always debate about it - often heated, anguished debate - the actual act of interfering (or not) is usually the minor sub-plot. To further knock down the idea that the Prime Directive is some sort of dogma, look at the consequences for violating it. Picard violated it numerous times - what consequences did he suffer? A stern dressing down? Certainly nothing as severe as, say, a demotion. If the Prime Directive were the inviolable dogma that you make is sound to be, one would expect the severest of punishments for any violation. As for your specific example of Picard's trial in "The Drumhead", you do realize that more than one charge can be laid against a person without it meaning that those charges are equivalent, right? If a prosecutor charges someone with murder, rape, and loitering, you don't think that means the prosecutor equates loitering with rape or murder do you?

I really like your vids. Thanks.

It is not about morality but accountability. It is "safer" to do nothing and follow a rule than have to justify breaking it when it goes wrong. Typical bureaucratic approach.

"The universe/God has a plan" how do that your not part of the plan? I am Christian but I also believe that most things in my life are to help me. If I'm sick, of course I'll pray, but I'm going to see the freaking Doctor. God made the Doctor to help me so I don't have to sit there and think I have to die! In other words, I agree with ya.

Put Archer and Plhox to the side for the moment. They didn't have the prime directive at the time. From the time where the directive is in place however, the Prime Directive is correct. I will do a video on this with an "Assume the Position" episode of my show taking the provocative position that the Prime Directive is and should be considered nearly an absolute with extraordinary conditions present for a captain to break it. Your perspective is that of the current "reasoning" of human beings in the 21st century and I'd argue incorrect. Our current world is a result of the same sort of reasoning and should not taken into the wider universe. The point is not what "ants do", and it has nothing to do with God - it has to do with growth and evolution of the human species and the necessary elements to achieve that growth and more rational point of view. They have a different workable point of view buffered by centuries of experience. Yes I'm bias LOL

Putting Nature above Human Morality is ALWAYS illogical.

You've spoken about the Prime Directive. what about the Temporal Prime Directive? I just finished STO's Starfleet story lines including everything els available story wise and the Temporal Prime Directive seems to play a huge part in it... including breaking it every chance they had... What are your thoughts on the Temporal Prime Directive?

You're supporting a very SG1-biased philosophy there, buddy. I don't like the Prime Directive, but When in Rome... ;) Thanks for the great videos.