tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4588236197446203618.post8828316252824607736..comments2023-10-31T05:22:37.723-07:00Comments on The Right Geek: Blast from the Past: On Star Trek's Prime DirectiveThe Right Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09649094767960738820noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4588236197446203618.post-14914665348383418902018-03-03T22:38:52.448-08:002018-03-03T22:38:52.448-08:00Allow me to rebut this by posting the lyrics to a ...Allow me to rebut this by posting the lyrics to a certain song by a famous West Indian singer:<br /><br />Them crazy<br />Them crazy <br />We gonna chase those crazy baldheads out of town<br />Chase those crazy baldheads out of our town<br />I'n'I build a cabin<br />I'n'I plant the corn<br />Didn't my people before me<br />Slave for this country?<br />Now you look me with that scorn<br />Then you eat up all my corn<br />We gonna chase those crazy <br />Chase them crazy <br />Chase those crazy baldheads out of town<br />Build your penitentiary, we build your schools<br />Brainwash education to make us the fools<br />Hate is your reward for our love<br />Telling us of your God above<br />We gonna chase those crazy <br />Chase those crazy bunkheads <br />Chase those crazy baldheads out of the town<br />Chase those crazy baldheads out of the town<br />We gonna chase those crazy <br />Chase those crazy bunkheads <br />Chase those crazy baldheads out of the town<br />Here comes the conman<br />Coming with his con plan<br />We won't take no bribe<br />We've got to stay alive<br />We gonna chase those crazy <br />Chase those crazy baldheads <br />Chase those crazy baldheads out of the town<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=XWWBDvOaVUY<br /><br />https://genius.com/9087945 (explains the deeper meaning in the lyrics of the song)<br /><br />What's said in this song is a good reason (one of them, anyway) why there's a Prime Directive.Lionel Braithwaitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05251435131708623589noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4588236197446203618.post-20949461271593146922016-04-22T11:46:10.175-07:002016-04-22T11:46:10.175-07:00" It is horrifying to me, for example, that T..." It is horrifying to me, for example, that Timicin is returned to his planet at the conclusion of TNG's Half a Life even though his people believe he should die by ritual suicide for the crime of being too old - and that Lwaxana acquiesces to this turn of events!" "<br /><br />I have a strong belief in personal freedom. I always have. I always will. That much being said:<br /><br />At the end of the day Timicin CHOSE to go back. Picard was willing to grant him asylum IF HE CHOSE TO STAY. He did not. You can fault the man for doing what others believed that he must. I cannot hold the Federation at fault this time. <br /><br />It was Timicin's life and it was his choice to make. Holding him against his will when he had committed no violation of Federation law would have been just as wrong as forcing him to go back and for the exact same reasons. He did what his conscience demanded of him because of his personal beliefs about right and wrong. I would not have acted the same way but it wasn't my choice. The rest of this I agree with.Jim McCoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12524898692671838600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4588236197446203618.post-26221289864015181162016-04-22T10:56:04.195-07:002016-04-22T10:56:04.195-07:00I got so impatient with the Prime Directive that I...I got so impatient with the Prime Directive that I wrote a whole novel about how silly it is. <br /><br />Sure, nobody likes the idea of humans with starships acting like Space Conquistadors . . . but does that mean you leave planetary populations under the heel of Space Aztecs? (When Cortez marched into Mexico City his army had ten times more Mexicans than Spaniards in it. Evidently the Aztecs had made themselves unpopular.) Do you, in effect, refuse to send the Allied armies across the Channel in 1944 because you don't want to "interfere" with France's "natural development"?<br /><br />More to the point, it requires a very particular set of cultural circumstances to come up with the Prime Directive. You need a very powerful civilization (like the Federation or mid-Sixties America) which nevertheless has a profound sense of inferiority and inherent "sinfulness." If Gene Roddenberry had been writing his TV show before World War I it would have dealt with issues of how Captain Kirk should best intervene in the affairs of primitive planets in order to guide their development toward civilization.<br /><br />And let's remember something: the whole point of the Prime Directive is to create opportunities for drama and conflict! Most of the episodes in which it is a major plot element are those in which it conflicts with the basic morality of the characters. The Prime Directive exists to be defied!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4588236197446203618.post-36373809279349350592016-04-22T08:43:44.464-07:002016-04-22T08:43:44.464-07:00I would submit that the urge to help those in need...I would submit that the urge to help those in need is part of our evolutionary history, and therefore preordained by the laws of "natural development". Therefore, it is those who would enforce a rigid adherence to any non-interference directive who are violating the natural development of a species.<br /><br />I'm reminded of an episode of STNG where the Enterprise discovers a sleeper ship and manages to revive three of the sleepers and cure the diseases that would have killed them in their own time. The doctor gives a brief talk to one of the sleepers about how "we modern folk no longer fear death but accept it as part of the cycle of life". It's probably just as well I wasn't that patient, since I might well have asked how that philosophy squares with reviving me and curing my cancer.Karlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09767954910569442805noreply@blogger.com