The ideals behind the Prime Directive were from Vulcan influence. The theory behind it is they tried to do exactly that and it led to disaster in every case.
A lot of scifi shows have been influenced by this. In Stargate SG-1 (spoilers):
The Tollan civilization were humans taken from earth millennia ago that developed science faster than us and ended up being one of the most advanced races in the galaxy. They gave a source of limitless energy to more primitive aliens on a nearby planet in their solar system (think Mars versus Earth) and those aliens weaponized it and blew up part of their own planet. It messed up the Tollan's own planer's orbit, so they had to find a new planet and now don't share any technology.
I'm just really skeptical that an advanced species like that couldn't figure out the appropriate way to save another species from destruction/stagnation without collapsing everything. Just feels like an immensely negative perspective when we could easily just choose a more positive one.
