[bollockitis]

But the reason for intervention isn't just "risks" but the decimation of an uncontested population due to disease caused by a previous intervention. In other words, it seems as though the "prime directive" has already been violated and this is damage control.

[jmts]

I understand that we might now feel obliged to intervene. I think the weirdness for me comes from the fact that we are watching them, and the paradoxes it introduces.

If we weren't watching them, they would potentially go to war, some of them would likely die, and there is a chance that more would die of disease. But we would be none the wiser.

But since we are watching, we perceive a risk that they don't, and we now feel an obligation to mitigate that risk through intervention. We want them to be independent but they are our dependents. We want them to be free but we must restrict their movements. We want them to be untouched by disease but must expose them to it in order to minimise exposure. We take pride in the fact they are untouched yet we must touch them in order to maximise their untouchedness. It is weird.