This story discussion reminds me why I used to visit here so much. All the comments are interesting, and I want to respond to them all :-D
I won't, but here are some key points that really struck me:
... I think it's also unethical and a bit condescending to allow people to die from easily treatable medical conditions just because that culture's tech hasn't discovered the cure on their own yet.
I think you have this backward, and why the "Prime Directive" is properly considered a philosophy. You mentioned the power dynamic - isn't curing the uncurable the most significant, god-like power imbalance? The movie Elysium really got me thinking about this with their miraculous healing "beds".
The first thing that this episode reminded me of was the Speaker For The Dead.
I'm not sure I see the link to "Speaker for the Dead", the "piggies" were given a kind of "Yoda-wisdom" and almost came off as the more mature of the two species. You should consider readng The Worthing Saga (same author)- some of the short stories are much more aligned to this story's premise, and in one case really show how best intentions pevert a society.
In response to PotatoKnight - I realize that you are asking questions and that is an admirable approach :-)
I'm a bit confused by some of your points, so I might be coming at this the wrong way. If you mean the specific "tech tree" of Western Civilization as the template for all - yes I agree completely. There is this marvellous theory I've heard regarding the tech difference btwn Europe and China in the Middle Ages because Europeans drank wine, and the Chinese preferred tea. Needing to see the wine to judge colour and quality, the Europeans developed a glass industry that allowed for lens, which begat telescopes and their opposite number microscopes, and so on. Resulting in a significant divergence from a culture that knew how to make glass, but didn't pursue it in the same way.
As for
It's just a hop, skip and jump from that attitude to seeing and treating these societies as children who need help from the adults--an attitude that has given rise to quite the parade of atrocities in all-too-recent history.
I agree with the first part, but the second is a result of cultural beliefs that
Father Know Best. It is not the contact, but the belief that "We Know Better". That is the attitude that needs to be changed.
I wasn't really taken with this story - it reminded me more of parenting with a sci-fi twist "Don't they grow up so fast, darling?" I would have appreciated more conflict btwn the main characters. My philosophy is more hands off, and I think this translates to cultural interactions (because all interactions boil down to one-on-one personal interactions). Too much help seems to result in entitlement, learned-helplessness, and (perhaps subconsciously) poor self-respect.