Temporal Prime Directive or Prime Directive

[Techno-Druid]

David Brin basically rips on the concept of Prime Directive with his Uplift Series.

In the universe of the books, very few alien civilizations have naturally developed, instead relying on patron races to biologically and/or technologically uplift other alien species.

Humans are an exception, we naturally evolved (being 'wolflings') and would have been uplifted technologically by another alien species if it weren't for the fact that we already began the process of uplifting chimps and dolphins. Although we're not as advanced as other alien species, the fact that we naturally evolved actually made us far more mature as a species as we've been aloud to make certain mistakes and learning from them.

[Zethras]

It isn't perfect but there are reasons...just think of how destructive it could be giving some undeveloped race advanced technology...one mistake and millions could die in the blink of a eye.

Nawwww, what could possibly go wrong?

[Swizzington]

If I could time travel I would go back to 1991 and kick myself in the balls.

So much money and time wasted

The implication here being you had a child...?

The Prime Directive is an annoying, but sometimes convenient, plot device.

[Kellorion]

Have it in place, but if you can save a planet by destroying an asteroid they have no idea is coming towards them or that you stopped it, or that is so non advanced that 'sometimes when you pee, you bits bleed and you dies, and it just happens'' can be cured by like an aerosol dispersed into the atmosphere and again they dont know, then yea fuck it.

But if its like 'here, we cured this, and exposed you to our mega advanced tech, and here are some phasers for no reason'' then yea, dont do that.

[Mihalik]

Temporal Prime Directive or Prime Directive what is your position on either, is Picard right, and what would you do?

The Temporal Prime Directive is narrative device. Temporal paradoxes are complicated. It's doubtful whether you can actually change the past at all, any travel back in time would essentially cause a Causal Loop.

Even ST came up with a device to deal with this, essentially establishing that every time a new divergent timeline is created.

The Prime Directive on the other hand is simply a great and moral idea.

[Doctor Amadeus]

The Temporal Prime Directive is narrative device. Temporal paradoxes are complicated. It's doubtful whether you can actually change the past at all, any travel back in time would essentially cause a Causal Loop.

Even ST came up with a device to deal with this, essentially establishing that every time a new divergent timeline is created.

The Prime Directive on the other hand is simply a great and moral idea.

My take is it depends but time travel tends to make me believe you just go to another reality not back in time. Maybe there is one where Hitler was killed as a baby.

[Coolascancer]

the prime directive is in place to limit federation interference so as to not bring about a significant change in a civilization or planet's timeline. like.. Red and Blue people should've mixed and become purple people but we killed all the red people and now we have just blue people. Yes, my explanation definitely has some minority report like reasoning in it. the prime directive is a good idea, like not rushing a kid into the NFL or NBA when they arent ready (admittedly i dont know shit about that, like if it really matters)
Now, as to how they use the PD to influence decisions in the show(s)... yeah they kinda just do whatever the fuck they want at the time and deal with it later.. which is, as a whole, kinda what the prime directive is trying to protect, that supposed natural sequence of events.. which if an event occurs is it not part of what should've happened?

[Mihalik]

Nawwww, what could possibly go wrong?

There are plenty or real life examples to what happens, like... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musket_Wars

[AcidicSyn]

What if the asteroid wouldn't completely wipe them out but would only kill 95% of the people, but in the process teach them a very important lesson about how fragile life is and the survivors build an amazing Utopian future which will one day remove all suffering from the universe.

And you stopped it because you didn't like the asteroid. good work jackass.


Anyways the point is you can't know the future so you shouldn't play god.

I would assume that analysts could determine the impact of the asteroid and provide fairly accurate estimates regarding the level of devastation the impact would cause. This is, of course, based entirely on the assumption that a group capable of confirming an asteroid light years away will impact on a planet with 100% certainty are also capable of determining the most likely level of damage, which I'm not sure is too much of a stretch.

So in this case, we actually COULD know the future, and would not be playing god, and instead would be giving a civilization a chance; not because "I didn't like the asteroid", but instead because it was determined to be the best course of action by the highest minds of our galactic civilization. In fact, in my scenario; it wouldn't even be my call at all as the directive would have been amended to include these situations. Which would leave the only jackass in the equation as...oh, sorry.