Philosophy Picards actions - moral?

In Star Trek 9: Insurrection, there is a very special planet. Said planet has these rings which somehow give off some magical radiation which, in essence, can do these things...

-After some brief exposure, the Enterprise crew felt younger and physically WAS younger. Worf got pimples, Dr Crushers breasts got firmer, Riker and Troi found a new sex drive...
- After some more exposure, Geordi's eyes, which are naturally blind, regenerated into perfect, organic eyes.
- The inhabitants of the planet (who numbered, if I recall correctly, at about 500) effectively had super-long lifespans (possibly numbering in the hundreds of years, maybe even thousands) if not outright immortality.

Now, Starfleet had a covert operation to quietly relocate the inhabitants to a different planet, and then harvest the radiation from the rings. However, this harvesting would have caused the rings to be unable to create more radiation.

Now, if Starfleet had managed to harvest the radiation, it would have effectively doubled the lifespans of all the people of the Federation (numbering in the billions if not trillions), and possibly cured many diseases. However, the 500 inhabitants of the planet would, in time, have died (after a normal lifespan length). Keep in mind that the 500 people were NOT indigenous to the planet.

However, Picard interfered in this. In the end, no radiatioin was harvested, and the 500 people still lived on the planet with their superlong lives intact.

So now the question - was Picard doing the right thing? In doing what he did, he denied healthier, longer lives to billions of people, so that 500 people could basically live for millenia. It's an unclear moral issue, and I for one am not sure if Picard did the right thing or not.

 

I own this movie- . Good topic.

I think that Picard's point was that the Federation (and their cohorts) didn't have the right to decide what was right for these people. Although, as I recall, they came from another planet, they had been living there for a long time. There was nobody living there before, so the planet became their property when they arrived there and began to live there.

The people from the federation could have benefited from the effects of the planet without harvesting the energy. All they had to do was go there.

However, this would have turned these peoples' home into a tourist attraction/health spa. I don't think that would have gone done very well with them either.

Then there's the whole argument that people aren't meant to live longer than their given spans.

However, by harvesting the energy of these rings, the Federation would have been destroying the environment of this planet, they would have been destroying a natural phenomena.

So I think Picard's actions were the right ones.

 

In essence, Picard was defying the Federation, but is it truly wrong to take away this thing from the 500 who had perhaps worked their lives to find such a phenomenon? Taking in account of Picard himself, at the time he probably favored the 500 more than the trillion, in which he knew there were flaws. A gift to a trillion can easily be overthrown by the wickedness and ambition of one, and perhaps it is because of this fear of the power being used unlawfully that convinced him to keep it in place.

Do you know how powerful a man could be if he was able to withhold and give out such immortality?

 

If harvesting from the rings would cause them to stop producing radiation then i think Picard did the right thing. Sure a lot of people would have had longer lives, but that would eventually end when they run out of the radiation.
It seems that Picard was stuck between a rock and a hard place from the beginning. But i think that it is not Star Fleets position to tell people to get up off their planet where they have lived their lives, so that Star Fleet can do some harvesting of a resource that will soon end. Wouldn't that make them as bad as any of the other aliens that want to take over the universe (i don't watch Star Trek that much anymore, so i'm a little lost as to who's who) ?

 

i agree with kane. starfleet seems to be the official dictator of the galaxy~

 

As far as harvesting goes, we're never informed as to whether or not it was fully perishable.

Meaikoh, regarding your lifespan comment, if thats true then why is current medical tech ok? That extends our lifespans from 30 years to, what, 80? Besides, the inhabitants of the planet are not living their natural lifespans.

As far as the people there, they didn't work their whole lives to find it. They just up and stumbled upon it. ( http://www.st-minutiae.com/academy/literature329/ins.txt )

"SOJEF
We came here from a solar system on the verge of self-annihilation... where technology had created weapons that threatened to destroy all life. A small group of us set off to find a new home... a home that would be isolated from the threats of other worlds. (beat) That was three hundred and nine years ago."

So no, they were just looking for a place to stay, not the phenomenom. Is it fair to deny billions of potential health so 600 (thats the right #) can live for centuries if not millenia? After all, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, no? I don't believe EITHER way is fully right, and I don't think it's as simple a decision as "they found it first". After all, they were going to be relocated, and they would have then (heaven forbid) begun to live their natural life cycles.

If 500 people could afford good healthcare because they lived in a certain area, but the rest of Earth was living significantly shorter lifespans, would you consider it ok?

As far as using the tech in a morally wrong way goes, I'm not sure any of the Feddies could really stomach it. Even the Admiral in that movie wasn't corrupt, he was, at worst, misguided.

 

I said that the argument was possible, but I didn't mean to use it. Personally, if there was a way to harvest the energy without destroying the planet's ability to create said energy, I would be fine with it.

Although Valant does raise a good point; if it were in the wrong hands, then there could be trouble. However, what is the right hands? Neph, I'm not sure either way is wholly right either. After all, who has the right to have the ability to live forever?

Still, I think Captain Picard chose the lesser of two evils.

Whether by luck or not, they did discover this planet and it has become their home. Since there was nobody there before, they basically have ownership of the planet. They have the best claim since they were established there for so long undisturbed. That's how ownership worked with a lot of land here on Earth, although people were cheated...such as the Amerindian people who lived on the continent of America before everyone else.

 

Well, thats the thing. These were orders that, while not openly public, WERE legal within the Federation/Starfleet, so I'm sure safeguards were in place against one man obtaining all the power (especially since it seems that even super-secret tech is sought after by many... just look at the Klingons and the Genesis device. They were convinced it was a Federation super-weapon and in many stories, both canonical and non, were extremely paranoid about it and did try to get it. So in that train of thought, Im sure if someone had this fountain of youth handy, they'd be highly hunted by nearly everyone, and if they kept it a secret, who would believe them about the effects?)

Ultimately, The Right Hands are going to be those who would distribute the Magical Health Radiation freely and equally.

For that matter, is there a lesser of two evils here?

On one hand you relocate 500 people (and to be totally blunt, its not like the Federation doesn't have plenty of worlds for them to live on) and "condemn" them to actually having to die.

On the other hand, you prevent billions, maybe trillions (does anybody have a canonical population number handy?) of people from living longer lives, and possibly even eliminating many diseases.

So it comes down to this: massive gain for a minority, or small gain for a majority?

Edit: Minor note regarding "wrong hands" in the Federation... frankly the Feddies don't seem to have it in them. The majority of the Federation is very much composed of "doves". However for the purposes of discussion, let's assume that in the wake of the Dominion War, more corrupt people had entered the beauracracy.

 

It wasn't choosing, really. It was just to ignore it and to leave it what it was before, as opposed to actually making a decision. When such a decision must be made, is equilibrium not a good thing to maintain? On one hand, those 500 still live their lives, nothing is disrupted, and life is normal except with that knowledge that the radiation is there.

On the other hand, the Federation is suddenly hit by the utter power and changing force of this radiation, everybody reacts upon their want of survival in wanting it for themselves (beliefs twist facts. What if one thought that having more meant living more? What if one thought some did not deserve it, etc.) chaos spreads. Government does not do well when such an important thing is at hand, especially if corruption can be assumed to give the population a reason to riot. Who would distribute it equally, and how would everyone accept that fact? There will be no doubt some heirarchy created because some high-up guy has a not-so-equal thought train. In these situations, equality is almost impossible, and in this situation, would it be better to not touch the 500 living peacefully, or to gamble such a thing on trillions of people who rarely if ever share any thoughts, and would be corrupted by the thought of eternal life no matter what virtues they have?

 

But it doesn't grant eternal life to people not on the planet. At best it doubles their lifespans and cure some diseases. They'd still die.

 

I agree with the majority in that Picard was probably defying Starfleet, making a silent statement that they have no right to interfere in the lives of those completely unrelated to them. Still, the benefits of Star Fleet's actions would've outweighed the benefits of Picard's, so I personally don't see this as a black and white affair. If Picard hadn't interferred then the 600 citizens would've been unjustly forced into something they had no control over, yet because he did, billions if not trillions of people were denied the extensive benefits the radiation could've bestowed on them. But before I continue - quick question (I haven't had the opportunity to see this yet, so forgive me if this is answered throughout the movie) - Why couldn't the 500 have harvested the radiation alongside the trillions of others, and both parties could live a happily ever after?

 

There are two possibilities...

1) The aging they missed out on would suddenly catch up with them. For many, thats instant death (300 year old people, etc). For some, it just means some catch up aging.

2) They begin to age at the normal rate.

Either way, they eventually die.