A social principle (a pattern?) under which a society doesn't interfere with non-members (StarTrek PrimeDirective) and its members don't interfere with each other. A mechanism that tries to maintain this principle is the restitution provision on the StoneSociety website.

Many of the freedoms we enjoyed in America - speech, assembly, press, etc - are also based on this principle.

-- PeterMerel

Freedom of expression also involves a freedom to at least symbolically interfere, i.e., protest, dissent, revolt, especially where this is just. For example, EastTimor is not officially in American society, yet it is proper to complain about the massacre of its population by invading Indonesian's [??]. Really, it is very just when one considers AmericanImperialism. 

The world is a society; the universe of sentient beings is a society. The StarTrek Prime Directive, if used in a modern context, can be an opt-out clause for morality. The Prime Directive of the 24th C was only reached after practical experience, actually a disaster, and had arbitrary criteria, WarpDrive technology I think was one, that even the venerable Picard bent if not broke on one occasion. What should the criteria be for a late 20th C PrimeDirective?

There is a difference between be a missionary and being a trader in information.

Perhaps NonInterference should be better defined as ConstructiveInterference which is desirable and DestructiveInterference which is not.

-- NicholasRoberts

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Who decides what's constructive and what's destructive?