The Hinterworlds Rambler
SOC-14 5K
[ Edited for the sake of not sinking to that level ]
Originally posted by Laryssa:
What is wrong with the Prime Directive anyway? Seems to make alot of sense. You libs are always complaining about our interference and exploitation in lesser developed countries, so If I try to agree with you, you suddenly switch to the opposite viewpoint.
Apologies to Bill - but I really want to get a response in to this. I'll do so by way of an analogy.
There's been a stink recently over a seal cull in Canada. I can see why it's being done - to control the seal population so it doesn't adversely affect the local ecology. For the sake of argument let's call this Canada's 'Prime Directive'.
One could achieve similar results by inviting people to 'Come and kill all the Seals you can' and video the resulting carnage for commercial release. This is what I'd see as a Kalbfus-esque
'Prime Directive'. The right things are done for the wrong reasons - and so there is a negative societal effect.
Contact with advanced and primitive societies have often gone wrong in many ways, noninterference simply avoids the issue by putting off contact for awhile, saves on many headaches I think. Now if someone didn't introduce the modern way of life to the Middle East, we wouldn't be importing their oil and they wouldn't be blowing themselves up.
'If someone hadn't introduced the modern way of life to the Middle East'?
And who might this someone be? Must be some hombre /seniorita to do all that work by themselves.
Of course, if they hadn't introduced the modern life to that area others wouldn't have? Why?
Starviking
When did "liberal" become a defacto insult? Is this an expression of some form of communal insanity in the USA these days? It reminds me of the generic use of "fag" as an insult among 12 year gamers.You libs are always complaining about our interference and exploitation in lesser developed countries, so If I try to agree with you, you suddenly switch to the opposite viewpoint.
So, why not leave them alone? Whenever you have contact you have problems. We arm them with modern technology and with that modern technology they create problems for us, that is the lesson of the 20th century. The pronlem for the Americans in this sector is that they are the most advanced civilization, but not the most numerous. The primitives on other planets are doing their own thing, mostly unaware that there are other starfaring civilizations. They have their own problems with warefare, they have their belief systems that run counter to that of most Americans. If Americans are going to land there and teach them better their is going to be problems, and what's more if they give them starships they are going to cause problems for the American Sector whereas before they only caused problems for themselves.The complaints about interference and exploitation have more to do with an inherent beleif in the differences of man. Indoctrinated racism and cultural evangalism are never pretty. It starts with the beleif that the Empire is better, purer, more magnificent, and most importantly has every right to kill a million non-citizens for any insult, and ends with the mess that is the downfall of Empire.
</font>[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]Killing seagulls and not interfering with them are not the same thing. A more natural analogy would be setting aside a wilderness preserve for them, so they won't be interfered with by mankind.Originally posted by Starviking:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Laryssa:
What is wrong with the Prime Directive anyway? Seems to make alot of sense. You libs are always complaining about our interference and exploitation in lesser developed countries, so If I try to agree with you, you suddenly switch to the opposite viewpoint.
Apologies to Bill - but I really want to get a response in to this. I'll do so by way of an analogy.
There's been a stink recently over a seal cull in Canada. I can see why it's being done - to control the seal population so it doesn't adversely affect the local ecology. For the sake of argument let's call this Canada's 'Prime Directive'.
One could achieve similar results by inviting people to 'Come and kill all the Seals you can' and video the resulting carnage for commercial release. This is what I'd see as a Kalbfus-esque
'Prime Directive'. The right things are done for the wrong reasons - and so there is a negative societal effect.
Contact with advanced and primitive societies have often gone wrong in many ways, noninterference simply avoids the issue by putting off contact for awhile, saves on many headaches I think. Now if someone didn't introduce the modern way of life to the Middle East, we wouldn't be importing their oil and they wouldn't be blowing themselves up.
'If someone hadn't introduced the modern way of life to the Middle East'?
And who might this someone be? Must be some hombre /seniorita to do all that work by themselves.
Of course, if they hadn't introduced the modern life to that area others wouldn't have? Why?
Starviking
Primitive does not automatically imply better. Some liberals will always take the side of the Cannibals eating human flesh over the European explorers trying to rescue their comrades from the stewpot.Or in other words, the imperium firebombing a world because the imperial ambassador had been found torturing the locals for pleasure, and the locals had the temerity to DARE try to hold the diplomat accountable.
Some parallels with the international criminal court at the Hague may apply.
From an external point of view, the empires actions are reprehensible. From inside the empire the actions are righteous, just and fair. From on the firebombed planet some justifiable anger would from then on exist.
Empires don't exist eternally. Eventually the pointy shoe is on the other foot, and memories can be very very very long....
The ecosystem of Earth reflects the presence of humans - you cannot recreate a functional terrestrial Earth ecosystem without people.Originally posted by Laryssa:
The goal was to duplicate Earth's living sphere as exactly as the colonists could with life taken with them. The planet as established is mostly in a wild state with humans only taking a small portion of its surface, The goal wasn't simply to find a new place for Americans to live, but to basically bring their home with them, as much of it as they could, and with it as much of old Earth's ecosystem as they could possible stuff on the Colony ships.
Subtle.Originally posted by Laryssa:
This was not the only Phoenix project, I'm thinking of starting another Phoenix project nearby, this one established by a bunch of Neo-Nazis from Old Earth as well. They are somewhat to the spinward of the American sector, a looming menace of militant white supremicists, they call themselves the Fourth Reich, and they've labeled their sector the Reich sector. The Reich has taken great pains to multiply their numbers using genetic engineering and human cloning, they naturally think their kind of human is naturally superior to any other kind or alien.
I don't think Earth's Environment would collapse if you removed humans from the picture, it would just reach a new balance. In other words fewer rats and pigeons to name a few examples. Some people actually value the environment for its own sake rather than just for its ability to support humans. Maybe New Terra isn't an exact copy, but it is as close as they can come. The Americans try to maintian a light foot print by keeping their population no higher than tens of millions at most, besides they like open spaces rather than being crammed up in megacities.The ecosystem of Earth reflects the presence of humans - you cannot recreate a functional terrestrial Earth ecosystem without people.
It's not a question of "collapse," Tom Kalbfus - it's simply that earth ecosystems reflect tens of millenia of human manipulation and disturbance, so if the goal is to re-create the terroan biosphere as "exactly" as possible, the human element needs to be included. Humans are a part of the ecosystem as well and exert landscape-level influences with their subsistence practices - try googling "aboriginal burning," for example.Originally posted by Laryssa:
I don't think Earth's Environment would collapse if you removed humans from the picture, it would just reach a new balance.