Isolated tribe air-spotted in Brazil
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Reminds me a bit of a short story I read as a kid about a scientist who invented a camera that could travel back in time - he decided to test it out by sending it back to photograph Stone Henge and to see why it was built. So he sends it back to his estimate of when it was built - the camera takes a picture. Develops it, nothing but a couple of people tending animals. Sends it a year later, similar story. He keeps sending it once a year, and eventually crowds start gathering. Several years later they start building Stone Henge. And then he realises that they are building Stone Henge as a response to this camera turning up once a year and flashing.
Anyway - I like the question somebody posed earlier about the morality of leaving them alone, rather than the automatically assuming that they should be left in "innocent bliss". Maybe they'd like to get hold of some anti-biotics etc etc.
Anyway - I like the question somebody posed earlier about the morality of leaving them alone, rather than the automatically assuming that they should be left in "innocent bliss". Maybe they'd like to get hold of some anti-biotics etc etc.
zenie
>^^<
Good story!
I see your point in the morality of leaving them out of the world, but what makes you think they need antibiotics? Hasn't it been the case that man brings disease to these tribes and wipes them out?
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
I always go by the Prime Directive myself.
But seriously, although you might think this is a moral dilemma and that perhaps 'we' ought to make contact, if you look at the past record of contacting isolated tribes, there is no way in all of hell that it will benefit from them. It would be an almost purely destructive move, particularly where the contact is made by rapacious logging companies. It's fairly common in this situation for a lot of the tribe to die of diseases, and the rest of the people to descend rapidly into cash-economy-poverty and alcoholism and conflict brought on by the loss of all cultural reference points (and frequently their land).
Survival International's page seems to be down at the moment or I'd link to some of their stuff about what happens to tribes contacted in these situations. Basically they tend to become irredeemably fucked in a very short space of time and a lot of them die. The only moral thing to do is leave them alone as long as possible.
But seriously, although you might think this is a moral dilemma and that perhaps 'we' ought to make contact, if you look at the past record of contacting isolated tribes, there is no way in all of hell that it will benefit from them. It would be an almost purely destructive move, particularly where the contact is made by rapacious logging companies. It's fairly common in this situation for a lot of the tribe to die of diseases, and the rest of the people to descend rapidly into cash-economy-poverty and alcoholism and conflict brought on by the loss of all cultural reference points (and frequently their land).
Survival International's page seems to be down at the moment or I'd link to some of their stuff about what happens to tribes contacted in these situations. Basically they tend to become irredeemably fucked in a very short space of time and a lot of them die. The only moral thing to do is leave them alone as long as possible.
Why...? You want a life where you have to spend your time fending off disease, hunger, and one stroke of bad luck can kill you. Strange choice...
Only if we do it incorrectly. But, hey, lets just spend our time being negative and never helping anyone. Take the contact slowly, and draw on the experience generated before...
purves grundy
ambient clown remix
Yeah I've just been trying and failing to get on to Survival's site. They've a whole section on uncontacted tribes.
I think it's clear nowadays that any situation in which you try to force your own particular brand of progress onto people who having been living their own life for millenia, assuming you know what 'they' want, is bound to end in disaster.
purves grundy
ambient clown remix
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
I don't think you know an awful lot about this. How are you going to protect them from urban diseases that we would shake off in a few days but that will kill them because they have no immunity? And that don't have a medical cure? Like a cold perhaps.
From wikipedia: "Nukaak Maku (colombia) were contacted in 2003 and 65% of the tribal members died of disease. Around 2-3 dozen Nukaak still remain isolated."
Do you really want to be the one to contact those few dozen remaining? Knowing that again 65% of them will die as a direct result?
editor
hiraethified
Innit, given whats happened previously in similar situations lets leave them alone.
And you are an expert in this, then...?
Take the contact slowly, and draw on the experience generated before. Which would include looking out for disease. I just dislike the way tribes like this are portrayed as "primitive". They're sophisticated people in their own right. If handled correctly I don't see any downsides to be told there's other people out there...
If they want to be left alone, then do so, but make sure they know help (ie knowledge) is available...
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
I'm not portraying them as primitive. It's the people who think they would benefit from contact with us that are assuming they are primitive. They really, really won't benefit.And you are an expert in this, then...?
Take the contact slowly, and draw on the experience generated before. Which would include looking out for disease. I just dislike the way tribes like this are portrayed as "primitive". They're sophisticated people in their own right. If handled correctly I don't see any downsides to be told there's other people out there...
If they want to be left alone, then do so, but make sure they know help (ie knowledge) is available...
I'm not an expert, but I've read about this subject a bit - feel free to do the same.
Personally, I know what option I'd take...
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
But you're not them are you? You think you are empathising with them but it seems your experience of life is so different from theirs that you can't imagine that they might be happy with their lives. Happier than you, possibly. Or let's say 'content', since happiness is a bit of a funny concept.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
purves grundy
ambient clown remix
And you are an expert in this, then...?
Take the contact slowly, and draw on the experience generated before. Which would include looking out for disease. I just dislike the way tribes like this are portrayed as "primitive". They're sophisticated people in their own right. If handled correctly I don't see any downsides to be told there's other people out there...
If they want to be left alone, then do so, but make sure they know help (ie knowledge) is available...
Nobody is portraying them as primitive
By going in there as well-intentioned experts and looking for disease, diseases for which they often have built up immunities, you're almost guaranteed to wipe out more than you 'save', as BA points out.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Exactly.
purves grundy
ambient clown remix
Looks like this story has generated massive traffic for Survival International:
http://www.survival-international.org/
http://www.survival-international.org/
editor
hiraethified
Surely opening up a little style bar with cutting edge DJs in the village can't hurt?
mwgdrwg
Be a Pisces. Jam.
Keep that anal probe away from me, I don't want space AIDS.
Martian booze on the other hand...gimme!
editor
hiraethified
Offline DJs aren't cutting edge (more blunt and gnarled) and we don't play style bars, we play beer-slopping old boozers.
But if someone would like to book us into a nice gig in, say, Hawaii, we could make an exception.
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