18 KiB
[D] Thoughts on Alien Noninterference Clauses
-
Author: u/Someone-Else-Else Anti-Spiral*
-
URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2vx8j5/d_thoughts_on_alien_noninterference_clauses/
-
Score: 16
-
Created: 2015-02-14T23:59:48
Post:
So my gut instinct about Prime Directive-like laws is that they're terrible, but I wondered why. Lots of universes have justifications for them.
First two I thought of, off the top of my head:
Marvel
The Watchers are reluctant to give any advanced tech to less advanced species, but given how many fuckups Marvel universe people tend to have with their advanced tech/ powers, it seems somewhat justified.
Star Trek
The thing is, the Prime Directive's imperative for the Federation. Normally, there isn't just one justification for such important rules.
So... the most common justification is that aliens might adopt explorers' cultures. Does that seem likely? Given how many alien planets seem to have been influenced by human cultures in the Trekverse (the Nazi planet, for instance), this seems like a reasonable explanation, although doesn't explain why the assumption of Federation values is considered bad.
One other reason that seems less likely to be spoken about in-universe, though, is that the Federation is basically a democratic alliance. If, say, Klingon-like aliens in the Federation sets itself up as an uplifting group, it can influence the aliens it introduces to more Klingonesque values, and Klingonesque values now have more vote weight in the Federation (and we know that there are Federation aliens with different values, like the carnivores that consider all their prey sapient). So why would, say, humans have the right to uplift others?
And if you just contact an alien species to help them out and then leave, they are going to try to follow you to the stars, with all the cultural influence that implies.
Your thoughts? Any other universes with reasonable/unreasonable prime directives?
Comments:
u/None [+23] (7 hours later)
[removed]
u/eaglejarl [+2] (16 hours later)
Generally not enough to repopulate either race
I agree with everything you've got here, except to point out that you're assuming a one-world civilization on both sides. Given enough worlds in each culture, it would be likely that a few would survive. See the Bolo series for examples.
u/None [+3] (17 hours later)
[removed]
u/eaglejarl [+2] (19 hours later)
Well, I figure if you've got 10,000 planets (or whatever number you regard as sufficient) then the chances are pretty high that at least one of them would manage to shield against / divert / destroy the inbound WMD(s). Any single planet with a self-sustaining population base will be sufficient for a race to repopulate itself.
u/Nepene [+2] (23 hours later)
Notably the Federation only had about 150 worlds. That's going to sharply limit their ability to absorb damage. Plus a limited number have large shipyards which are necessary to resist invasion from other alien empires.
Perhaps as size increases an empire would be more willing to interfere?
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (19 hours later)
And low-population refugia are not viable without a supplychain from large-population centers without the raw numbers the specializations needed to keep the advanced technology keeping lifesupport functional cannot be supported. This is one of the things which make a second strike nigh-inevitable regardless of the psycology of the target. Every ship in transit that sees their homeworld die knows itself to be the walking dead - The choices available are to wait until you run out of spare parts no longer being manufactured and then die slow, or do the universe a favor and take out the party responsible.
u/Someone-Else-Else [+1] Anti-Spiral (21 hours later)
With decent industrial capacity, you can have those ships manufacture their own spare parts.
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (a day later)
"No user serviceable parts" - Starships are ridiculously advanced tech. So is long-term off-home-world life support. And the various medical and cybernetic mods the crew, themselves are using. All of that is going to require a large and very complicated economy to maintain - Far more specialties involved than can fit on a starship. By necessity, it must have the capacity to run on it's own for a minimum of one return trip, but that is almost certainly going to involve consumable supplies that simply cannot be replenished without the aid of someplace with an actual industrial base.
u/alexanderwales [+2] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
The Federation does have replicators, which should in theory free them from a whole lot of constraints as far as supplies/parts goes. There aren't a lot of limits on what the replicators can't make.
u/JackStargazer [+1] Primordial Apologist (6 days later)
All the ones that do exist seem to be plot and thermodynamics based. They can't make the Macguffin-of-the-week, and they can't make fuel.
u/Someone-Else-Else [+1] Anti-Spiral (a day later)
Well, if industrial capacity advanced at the same rate starship tech did, you could have technology to make the tools required for starships/life support/ mods.
And you probably wouldn't just hide in blank space, you'd hide in an asteroid.
u/Izeinwinter [+2] (a day later)
The historical trend isn't towards ever greater self-sufficiency in production. Rather the opposite, in fact. So what a "more advanced" industrial base means could easily be "We collect 84 % of the sunlight from this star, launch scoops at it for raw materials, employ over 40 billion beings at or above Citizen grade intelligence, and 8492 beings of full Exult class intellect, all to bring you the Jauntatron 90! Get yours today, and get 9 tonnes of antimatter free with purchase" - Ie, starships are out and out cheap, but self-replication? Howling laughter Just.. No. Take the computer you are reading this on - the industrial web that produced it spans the planet, and markets it's products to it, and that scale of operation is vital to making it possible. It's not a trend that's showing any sign whatsoever of reversing.
u/Someone-Else-Else [+1] Anti-Spiral (a day later)
Well, we're also seeing the ability to, say, 3D print, and to make small machines. And even with limitations on what you can print, you can easily print tools to make unprintable devices.
The industrial web that produced this computer is based on 21st century tech, not future tech.
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (a day later)
I do a fair bit of making - I sew, metalwork, carpet, upholster. I know my way around machine tools. Do you want to know what I know about it? It's slow, and it depends on buying things. A lot.
Feedstock. Chips. Cutting heads, cloth, needles. (.. a stupid amount of needles, actually. When doing fine work / sewing silk, have to use very thin needles. And they bend. Fortunately, they also cost cents..)
Slow matters because if you don't produce life support hardware fast enough, you die. More importantly, this entire thing is a part of that entire industrial web. Not an alternative to it. Believing it to be so is an error. What it is for is art and customization - I can (and do!) pay in time instead of money to have silk lined suits in nice wool that fit, and make shelves that conform exactly to that odd corner. I can't hex silk, wool or teak into existence. Which a colonist on an asteroid cut of from the homeworld would need to do. It isn't just the formal industry that would need to be replaced, its the biological too.
u/Someone-Else-Else [+2] Anti-Spiral (a day later)
Biological would be remarkably easy, if you had the sort of tech that let you alter DNA.
And if you're in space, you should have that sort of tech ready.
u/Nighzmarquls [+2] (2 days later)
That said the time frame for a full recovery would probably be measured in depending on technology between 30 and 100 years at the optimistic to get BACK to starship building capacity.
However this is assuming you managed to find an exponential resource aquisition and utilization method involving automation.
Which leads to very different kinds of wars and empires.
Mainly, if your 'growth base' is unhurt you can 'spare' to lose anything up to your present population over the course of a doubling phase.
u/Someone-Else-Else [+1] Anti-Spiral (2 days later)
That was the point I was making, yeah.
If you can wage interstellar war, you can spare your entire population.
u/JackStargazer [+1] Primordial Apologist (6 days later)
Why would an effective interstellar civilization live on worlds?
u/autowikibot [+1] (6 days later)
#####
######
#### Orbital (The Culture):
In Iain M. Banks' fictional Culture universe, an Orbital (sometimes also simply called an O or a small ring) is a purpose-built space habitat forming a ring typically around 3 million km (1.9 million miles) in diameter. The rotation of the ring simulates both gravity and a day-night cycle comparable to a planetary body orbiting a star.
Its inhabitants, often numbering many billions, live on the inside of the ring, where continent-sized "plates" have been shaped to provide all sorts of natural environments and climates, often with the aim of producing especially spectacular results.
====
^Interesting: ^Bishop ^Ring ^(habitat) ^| ^Halo ^(megastructure) ^| ^Planets ^in ^science ^fiction
^Parent ^commenter ^can [^toggle ^NSFW](/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot NSFW toggle&message=%2Btoggle-nsfw+coso8xr) ^or [^delete](/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot Deletion&message=%2Bdelete+coso8xr)^. ^Will ^also ^delete ^on ^comment ^score ^of ^-1 ^or ^less. ^| ^(FAQs) ^| ^Mods ^| ^Magic ^Words
u/Someone-Else-Else [+1] Anti-Spiral (8 hours later)
A sort of violence-based Great Filter, huh?
That makes sense.
u/ancientcampus [+1] juggling kittens (8 days later)
Not to spoil anything, but the novel "Year Zero" has a similar principle.
u/alexanderwales [+13] Time flies like an arrow (4 hours later)
The prime directive is a fictional reaction to real world colonialism. When it was written, Roddenberry was probably thinking of how the major powers of Europe had royally fucked up Africa and the Americas. If you had posited a show then (or even now) where the technologically advanced society came in and enacted extensive change on a different, less technologically advanced society, it would probably be read in a historical (or even modern) context, where you were taking about British colonists coming to the New World.
It's very easy to say "Oh, well they weren't as smart as us" or some other such thing, but you can see where that sounds like the sort of thing you can't really trust yourself on.
u/Timewinders [+8] (5 hours later)
A lot of the damage that the Europeans caused was intentional, as a result of mercantilist policies. Look at opium in China and the divide and conquer strategies and destruction of the textile industry in India. A lot of other damage done by the Europeans was just because of neglect. For the most part, they weren't even trying to improve the livelihood of other countries. Obviously you shouldn't let your civilization's corporations to get anywhere near a less-advanced species (how you would enforce that, even with a prime directive, is another issue). There'd still be a huge risk when getting involved with a less-advanced species but I think it'd be worth it if you could prevent many generations from dying, suffering from disease, etc.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (5 hours later)
I generally agree that the Prime Directive is not a great idea - I would prefer an established set of procedures for first contact and a detailed set of rules that govern how to deal with a primitive culture in an appropriate way. The amount of caution that Star Fleet (and some other fictional organizations) show is a little bit of cultural skittishness which has historical foundations, and I think they go too far in their caution.
u/Timewinders [+2] (5 hours later)
I agree, it does seem like a reaction to colonialism. I'm surprised the sentiment is so strong even centuries from the present day, but I think that might have more to do with the writer using current values in their world building rather than considering what might be realistic in the future.
u/JackStargazer [+1] Primordial Apologist (6 days later)
This is much the same response they have to genetic engineering, in universe, for a similar reason.
Which is really strange, since only humanity went through the Eugenics Wars and the Federation is made up of many species.
u/Someone-Else-Else [+3] Anti-Spiral (5 hours later)
I don't know, the White Man's Burden was definitely a thing as far as motives went.
If you had the stated goals of colonialism as making money at the cost of conquered peoples, people would... disagree with policies.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
The best example of intentionally damaging European policy is actually the Dutch in the Congo, I think.
u/Someone-Else-Else [+3] Anti-Spiral (5 hours later)
It's very easy to say "Oh, well they weren't as smart as us" or some other such thing, but you can see where that sounds like the sort of thing you can't really trust yourself on.
Huh, didn't think of that.
u/boomfarmer [+6] Trying to be helpful (5 hours later)
The Culture in the eponymous series of novels by Iain Banks appear to be A/B testing noninterference clauses. Sometimes they make contact, and sometimes they don't.
Does this happen in any other stories?
u/RolandsVaria [+4] (3 hours later)
The Watchrs are wise to not share their technology, if only because any attempt to mess with the status quo in the Marvel universe will result in the universe itself screwing everyone over.
As for the Prime Directive...it has its use, but too often verges into dogma. SF Debris said most of what there is to say: http://blip.tv/sf-debris-opinionated-reviews/prime-directive-analysis-5638650
u/None [+4] (3 hours later)
[deleted]
u/Cruithne [+2] Light Sith epistemologist (19 hours later)
Pact is like this, though I gather from your flair that you may already be reading it. The universe is very resistant to changes to the status quo, and if one faction starts to get too much power, especially if it's a quick rise, the universe steps in and kicks them down a few notches, and this seems to be a well-known thing.
u/Fredlage [+2] (16 hours later)
I've often wondered about that and I've been meaning to look for a specialist's opinion on this subject. While it's prevalence in fiction might be a reaction to colonialism, there are also several real life examples of uncontacted peoples, living in South America, India and New Guinea, and several groups that defend these people should be left alone. Like the OP, my gut instinct has always been that these people would have much to gain from contact with a civilization that's careful not to infect them with viruses they've never gained immunity to and that doesn't attempt to impose on their culture, but like I said, I've yet to look for good arguments on either side of the issue.
u/puesyomero [+2] The Culture (a day later)
well there is also "the road not taken" explanation. advanced race does not contact others so as to not taint their technological and cultural output. think it on terms like heirloom crops, sure commercial crops yield more food reliably and cheaply but people still value weird unusual fruits and vegetables because they're unique and something you don't see often. I can easily picture elder races monitoring younger sapients and saying "you know that communism thing seems like a neat idea!" or "hey they developed a global network BEFORE reliable atomic power! :D"
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
This would be sensible if a galactic superintelligent civilization didn't have far better ways to create randomness than using humanity. But yeah, it's how people deal with tribes, people appreciate the way they are in contact with nature and there really are some things in those tribes that our civilization lacks.
u/itaibn0 [+1] (6 days later)
Sure, galactic superintelligent civilizations have more efficient ways to create randomness, but those just don't have the same sentimental value as real physically embodied ab initio civilizations.