More of a Star Trek prime directive thing.
I think it's interesting to consider the context that the prime directive was invented in. It was the height of the cold war and when there were still lingering remnants of colonial empires. Not just like their influences but outright European rule in parts of Asia and Africa. There had been a pro national self determination intellectual movement going on for decades but it was a very difficult idea to get going in practice. The US had been big on the ideals of self determination but was now at the height of american involvement in Vietnam. That background lead to Gene Roddenberry coming up with the prime directive as a radical reaction against the assumption that humanity would take imperial ambitions into the future. Star Trek was always about the idea that humanity would get morally better and move away from greed. The prime directive has no room for greed in it, it's a complete rejection of imperialist impulse. The difficulty was living up to these hard standards. That's how you get episodes like
A Private Little War where the question is how do we minimize the damage that the big bad galaxy does to these primitive people.
The prime directive was the apex of liberalism when it was invented but since then, society has progressed. The biggest problems that people face aren't the meddling influences of evil empires or cold war manipulations of outside powers. Hong Kong didn't want to leave the British empire and China had to threaten war to keep the British from expanding the franchise before they left. The Falkland islands overwhelmingly want to stay British. Peurto Rico doesn't want independence, it wants to improve it's economic situation as part of the United States. The neoliberal impulse is
dangerous as always but the interaction is much more complex now. That lead to what I think is the
most interesting conversation in star trek.
The prime directive wouldn't be invented today. It's a product of the final days of the era of nationalism when the right of national self determination was still being spread worldwide. These days national self determination isn't really the problem, the problem is personal self determination. It's a much thornier problem because you there isn't a clear line you can draw on a map and say it's "solved". Back when Star Trek was first coming up with the prime directive the problems of national self determination were so big that you could blame limits on personal freedom on lack of it. These days if anything the situation is reversed.