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Scarcity is an important factor. Today, primitive societies (mostly) safe from Western conquest because they simply don't have anything we want.
by losteric 8y ago
Scarcity is an important factor. Today, primitive societies (mostly) safe from Western conquest because they simply don't have anything we want.
- azernik 8y agoThat's more about selection bias than about anything that's inherently different about advanced societies today. There were primitive societies that did have valuable things [1], and they were all destroyed or conquered very soon after contact with more powerful societies, and they remain vulnerable to outsiders as soon as they come into possession of something of value. When gold was discovered on the land of uncontacted Amazonian tribes, for example, this happened: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/22/alleged-massacre-of-amazon-tribespeople-javari-valley-brazil https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/22/a...
- psandersen 8y agoThis is a pretty essential point that I think changes the calculus of contact quite a bit. A civilisation capable of visiting us at a reasonable expense to themselves would presumably have much easier access to near unlimited astroids/moons for automated mining. So unless they really prize rare meat or have other illogical goals you wouldn't expect any aliens to visit us until its as easy for them as it is for us to take a transatlantic flight... I wonder if they're also arguing that they should stay silent to preserve our culture instead of curing our diseases etc.