So I've been watching Star Trek: Voyager (No, I don't know why), and while there's a lot of dumb things in this show...

So I've been watching Star Trek: Voyager (No, I don't know why), and while there's a lot of dumb things in this show, there's one thing I've come across in season 5 (I don't know why I've made it that far either) that's really bugging me.

So to not bog down in details, a member of the main cast gets afflicted with Space Medical Problems. The medical staff on voyager don't know how to deal with these particular problems, and they don't have time to read about it, so they decide on the only logical course of action: to create the hologram of the known galaxy's leading expert in Xenowhatever. They do that, and the chief doctor proceeds to work with him on the issue, and get friendly with him even.

Then, as they are on the verge of having the solution to the problem, a problem arises - it turns out that the expert that the hologram is based on was a real bad dude and experimented on living people. His science worked and ultimately his cures saved the lives of countless thousands, but he did torturous experiments on the living which is absolutely not okay. So, almost everyone on the ship (including the person afflicted with the space problems) is immediately completely against this guy, and insists that his hologram and his work be deleted. Furthermore, they completely refuse the idea of using his methods, as doing it would "validate the methods he used to achieve them." The character would rather die than take this treatment.

So my question is: am I a moral pygmy, or is that just incredibly stupid? Morality is the point here, and while OF COURSE experimenting on living people is a terrible thing and should not be unpunished, surely burning actual good technology and research that came from it is ridiculously wasteful. If you were dying from some horrible rotting disease, and you find out that there is a cure, but it was discovered by a nazi scientist who got it by murduring babies, would you refuse it?

yeah no thats bullshit
the nazis figured out the relationship between smoking and cancer, among many other medical advances.
we dont ignore those discoveries

Not using the data means you are actively making it so those people suffered and died for literally nothing. Why would you do that

Ethics slow down progress, but without ethics we can easily lose what makes us human.

That's the gist of it.

Because it's not okay that they suffered in the first place, and if they used research that came from human experiment it would set the precedent that human experimentation is acceptable.

Classic ham-fisted writing.

I imagine the vilification and execution of those who conducted it is plenty to demonstrate that it is not.

Perhaps, but that in itself is a pretty weak justification

No one is saying the actions were justified but medical science was given a boost and people with diabetes are alive today because of some of the things that went on

If that's what it means to be human I'll take my chances as something else.

Cardassian spotted

Mind your tongue Bajoran scum.

The most common situation is when experiments on humans are done, it's done with little to no regards for quality or care for the subjects. The first sticking point is usually consent, that either A) subjects don't consent or B) subjects are in a situation which doesn't permit them to say no and have a decent chance of living (which is in itself another argument).

They don't bring it up in the episode 5x08 Nothing Human (because you were too much of a faggot to just say it), but "unethical" experimentation is usually done with really poor quality (like most research, but I digress). The Japanese taking prisoners and sewing arms on the opposite side for example, to see how the nervous system adapted. Usually such programs, like most government programs, are unfruitful due to their shitty quality and just continue marching on to worse and worse experiments.

Specific to the episode, and a common argument with Nazi medicine, is that when the research is done fantastically, it encourages more research. Which means more people not consenting.

Flip the situation around, say I rape you and take your wealth. You could argue that's wrong, and I could say it makes my life better, so what's the big deal. If we permit wanton behavior in research environments, logically there's no justification for most laws regarding fair treatment of anyone. Everyone has a line they draw somewhere which can change based on the situation, but as a society filled with empathic and traumatizable people we err on the side of caution regarding these matters.

tl;dr unethical things are great until they happen to you

Go watch DS9 instead. It is much more realistic when it comes to human behavior.

I know this episode and I think there are some genuinely great episodes in VOY. I think people are too quick to dismiss it.

About your question:
I cringed a lot during this episode, since I think it is immoral to waste the results of the "evil scientist", since this way his victims suffered for absolutely nothing.

If we don't use the technologies and knowledge gained through human suffering, all of those people suffered for nothing.

>erase him from history
>he did a couple bad things that saved more people than it harmed

Desperate times

This really seems like a more complicated version of the trolley-problem desu

>it would set the precedent that human experimentation is acceptable.

>implying precedents exist and can "be set"

>this isn't just a lazy moralist meme to avoid thinking and quickly end the conversation

>you realize Neelix was a pedophile

I love how the Cardassians always talk like bourgeois Nazis or something.

This reminds me of stellaris

I wish I was playing stellaris

REMOVE SPACE KEBAB

what when how

I smacked the unbidden down with a 100k stack now I'm expanding into their space and everybody is my bitch

I've found that removing everything is the best solution.
Amazing how it got at least that right thanks to dumb design and bugs.

kes was like 1 or 2 years old when neelix was cultivating his Stockholm syndrome on her

this. numerous medical advances were made by nazi germany that would have been impossible due to ethics, and that knowledge was kept by the west and used, lest the suffering of the victimized patients were to be in vain.

Why in the fuck would they not include basic strategy mechanics like rally points for new ships or auto explore or auto scan debris from dead ships

Like what the fuck happened in development to cause these fucking sore thumbs to appear

In reality, there are lots of results of "type Mengele" we use to cure people. One could basically argue that much of the ancient fundamentals of being a doctor are of this type, as back in the days it was going to see a doctor and have him try his ideas or going to the grave instead. Skulldrilling works, but its test subjects most likely have just been forced to say yes due to their pain, and thus are not voluntary subjects. Similarly, many of the limits in human performance may have been found using Unit 731's work, but just taking it more easily and not freezing people's arms and chopping them off. I'd actually say that it's thanks to Shiro Ishii that the people testing how a hand expands when lowering air pressure were otherwise clad in spacesuits.

The crew member the hologram was created to help treat was a member of a radical separatist group that rejected living in the utopian conditions of the Federation in favor of a life of terrorism because of personal ideals and some of the other crew members in the same group personally knew relatives that the doctor the hologram was based on performed atrocious experiments on and killed, so none of their moral views were based on dispassionate logic that could be influenced by sound reasoning.

The doctor emulated was completely amoral, his only concern was with results. His major atrocity was deliberately causing a deadly epidemic among oppressed sentient humanoids of a different species with a lethal disease for the express purpose of experimenting with cheap methods of treatment in order to prevent massive loss of slave labor. Other atrocities included deliberately blinding members of that species to study their adaptation to blindness despite the widespread availability of vision restoring medical procedures and ocular prostheses possessed by his species.

The end justifies he means. Always, without exception. We have 1000s of years of history that tells us this and billions of years of evolution that also tells us this.

It's stupid, moral grandstanding in the face of a hologram at the cost of a crewmember's life is irresponsible.

They only live to the ripe old age of nine, though

Forget Nazi German.

Unit 73-fucking-1.

Also his main role other than cooking seemed to be reading kids like Naomi Wildman bedtime stories. In the episode where they found members of his species living in an asteroid he didn't want to stay with them... UNTIL it was revealed they had children there at which point he left Voyager.

Tuvok should've investigated his holodeck history closely. Odo wouldn't have tolerated Neelix at all.

Why did they leave the babies on the planet?

federation ethics, they think that differences are good and make the universe interesting and should be preserved unless they are part of some natural cycle, so they have to give the new species a chance

That episode pissed me off so much. What are they afraid they will anger the spirits of the people who were immorally experimented on?

I always wanted to fuck Kes.

We shouldn't shun the results from sources we disagree with morally.

Imagine if we did this with other forms of discovery? Many discoveries in any field were discovered accidentally, but then refined through creative and intelligent thinkers. Should we abandon this knowledge because those who found it did so in a manner that isn't intentional and non-accident base? Not we shouldn't, because that's a stupid reason not to use amazing findings.

Strawman aside, the same is true with methods done in an unethical way. We should instead cancel out the unethical consequence of these methods by using the findings to better millions of lives.

Most opposition are not against the use of these findings found from morally bankrupt methods, but instead are afraid of future scientists stating "The ends justify the means. Their suffering is minor compared to the potential suffering of many more." Pretty much Ozzy from Watchmen.

I think there's overall a massive simplification of a complex problem. It's also doomed to paradoxical consequences no matter what you do: Perform unethical tests to make great discoveries today at the expense of a few sufferers. Perform ethical tests to protect a few from suffering, but condemn thousands in the process today until scientists discover an alternative solution. Both cause undue suffering. Who decides what's right and wrong?

In my opinion, it's the scientists able to perform, discover, and refine the results. Without them there's no results at all.

I once had someone ask me "What if you were the one being tested on?" and my answer was "I'd feel privileged knowing those torturous tests would help save many more at my own expense. It's the closest to a superhero I'd be. I find it disturbing that so many, yourself included, have so little respect for life, humanity, and progress that you'd put your own comfort and life over theirs, when your voluntary sacrifice could save countless others."

>So I've been watching Star Trek: Voyager (No, I don't know why)
Now you know why not.

I remember that episode when it came out and I had the same reaction. It's ok to have morals with there are endless options to solve a problem in a fictional universe.

Want to know were most of our medical knowledge came from in the 20th century? Nazi scientists. Last I checked people weren't refusing medical care regardless of how the knowledge came about.

Voyager always had the problem with throwing stones in glass houses.

Kes a shit, Seven of Nine is best girl.

Mengele would put people on exercise machines and have them exercise while they received lethal amounts of X-rays until they died. Those films were used by medical students for decades to study how the human body worked.

He also did work on twins. We learned a lot about heredity from those experiments.

I can't help myself, two months ago I decided that I'm gonna watch Star Trek, so I started watching Star Trek. That means starting from TOS (loved it), then TNG (loved it), then DS9,(liked it) and now this. (eh.)

I can't not finish it at this point, so I'm making my way through. There's interesting character moments and some ideas are neat, but it's so fucking stupid, and treats me like I'm stupid too. Also the least likeable cast by far.

Veeky Forums - Philosophy of Bioethics

>I once had someone ask me "What if you were the one being tested on?" and my answer was "I'd feel privileged knowing those torturous tests would help save many more at my own expense. It's the closest to a superhero I'd be. I find it disturbing that so many, yourself included, have so little respect for life, humanity, and progress that you'd put your own comfort and life over theirs, when your voluntary sacrifice could save countless others."
>he typed in the comfort of his home, as he lived in a society that guarantees he won't be experimented on
hmm really makes me think...

I would certainly take advantage of such knowledge -- I imagine I would then feel some debt to be paid forward on behalf of those whose suffering has led to a benefit for me.

Did not watch STV, but I do think there is an interesting argument that could be had over whether the SIMULATED HOLOGRAM of the evil human-experimenter would retain the taint, for those who would argue that there was a taint at all. How many removes des it take from a moral wrong before it can be disregarded? Or is, perhaps, the fact that moral wrong was a part of gaining a specific set of knowledge imply some obligation to honor those wronged rather than to refuse the advantage gained...

I would argue there is a strong likelihood that basic concepts in tool use involved, to some extent, hitting one another on the head with antelope thigh-bones - does that mean that the moral issues raised means we must eschew tool use?