17 ms·

Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

• olivercameron 16y ago
  Watching this clip was one of the worst Flash video experiences I have ever had. Ridiculously laggy. On another note, watching this video was also one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had.
  • Rariel 16y ago
    Why was it humbling?
    • josephb 16y ago
      Maybe the experience of using flash?
      • RK 16y ago
        Seeing how far we've come, but we still can't get flash right, I would guess.
• zachallaun 16y ago
  "If illegal loggers or miners contact these people, they won't shoot images... They'll shoot guns." Very few realize that there's more to protect in the Rainforest than trees.
  • Tutorialzine 16y ago
    You can't imagine how right you are. Tribes like this do not exist officially. Loggers would not hesitate to wipe them off - problems solved, no questions asked. What is more troublesome, is that nobody knows how often this has happened in the past.
    • parfe 16y ago
      I'm surprised you can so easily equate illegal loggers with mass murders. I'm actually a bit shocked at a lot of the comments here. This story has brought out the crazy in a lot of posters that's generally suppressed by the focused theme of HN.
• bradleyland 16y ago
  Man charged with the task of protecting indigenous people from intruders flies overhead in a plane named after the Cherokee indian tribe. Insignificant in the great scope of things, but I smirked a little.
• jbrennan 16y ago
  I wonder what kind of disturbance just the helicopter (or whatever method was used to capture the footage) caused on the tribe. Obviously the tribe was aware of it, but if they've never been contacted, would they be able to even fathom what such a thing is? I'm genuinely curious because I'm also genuinely ignorant on how "uncontacted" tribes like that are and what their civilization is like. Could anyone enlighten me? It seems like such a fascinating area of study.
  • goldins 16y ago
    I assume you're hinting at the theory regarding the Native Americans not being able to comprehend Columbus's ships. It would definitely be an interesting research study, though getting the paperwork filed might be a bit of a challenge :-)
  • vietor 16y ago
    I would expect that it would do what every other unexplainable but repeated phenomena did in pre-scientific cultures, become part of the mythology. See: Weather. But my only anthropology was a few GE classes in undergrad, so maybe someone with actual knowledge can chime in? Hopefully future history books (or niche Ph.D. theses more likely ...) won't include a section about the bloody war between the plane-ists and the aplane-ists, over the deep theological issue of gods made manifest and physically watching over you... [See discussion below, not meant as a dig about this specific video or this specific group of people]
    • farlington 16y ago
      from their faq (http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/articles/3109-questions-and-answers-uncontacted-tribes http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/articles/3109-questions-and...): "uncontacted tribes will have seen aeroplanes on numerous occasions. The idea that this damages their self-image and/or spiritual beliefs belongs in the realm of fiction, and is based on the false supposition that their cultures are fragile. Experience shows that such peoples are in fact robust and well able to adapt to outside goods – most have been doing so for a very long time. Tribal peoples are not destroyed when they get or see things from outside, but by violence and disease as their lands are invaded."
• goldins 16y ago
  Did this shatter anyone else's perception of how well-connected we are, as a species?
  • Cyranix 16y ago
    The existence of isolated social groups isn't a mind-blowing concept to me, but not something I think about daily either. Does a new awareness of the exception to the rule really change your perception of how interconnected most of humanity is? Maybe I'm reading too much into this comment, but something about it seems to imply that being disconnected from the global network is a bad thing. Though I myself am a highly plugged-in urbanite, I hope that people who see this remember that living in a small group (or even alone) is just as valid as assimilating with the vast network that connects the majority.
    • goldins 16y ago
      I didn't mean it as a negative comment; I don't see being isolated as a bad thing, but definitely (at least) mildly mind-blowing. Honestly, I don't think I've though about this level of isolation (not used negatively here either) from other regions and cultures. For the majority of my life I have been connected to people via different networks and this is a culture that I, also a highly plugged-in urbanite, can't relate to much (again, not in a bad way). I think that other people who see this on HN share a similar viewpoint - we're so far removed from isolation that we don't see this as "valid" or "invalid" but as a completely different culture that doesn't relate to ours except on very basic levels.
• idm 16y ago
  The idea of uncontacted tribes - still in existence - is awesome. ...but it's a little scary too to consider the famous Arthur C. Clarke quote "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Sure, these tribes may not have been contacted, but what mythologies have evolved to explain the strange, huge bird in the sky that circles around them from time to time?
  • m_myers 16y ago
    How do they know it's huge? From their point of view, it could be the size of a bird. The story goes that the Huaorani called Nate Saint's plane a "woodbee" before he landed near them. After all, it flies and it buzzes.
    • BoppreH 16y ago
      They have two eyes with slightly different perspectives, and there's also the atmosphere to color blue things that are far away, so they have some idea of how far is it. Knowing how far and how big it looks like, you can estimate the real size. It's part of how our eye-brain interface works.
      • m_myers 16y ago
        Yes, but it's hard to judge things that you have no reference frame for. There's another story about the Grand Canyon. Apparently the first Spaniards to reach it estimated it to be a couple hundred feet deep, and thought the part of the Colorado that they could see was about six feet across. It was a mile down and 200 feet across, but they had no concept of a canyon that big.
        • billswift 16y ago
          A better example might be from Colin Turnbull's The Forest People where one of the Pygmies accompanied him to the edge of the forest and refused to believe a distant "bug" was really a buffalo.
• raganwald 16y ago
  You know that Golden Rule?" Not the one that VCs quote, but the one that goes "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you?" We should think about that when we choose how to deal with uncontacted tribes. It may be that one day another intelligence will need to decide how to deal with us, and on that day I hope we can say, "Yes, we used to have a habit of massacring technologically inferior peoples we encountered, but we grew up a little and we don't do that any more. Then we used to keep them alive but destroy their culture and identity while mouthing platitudes about how we were helping them, but we grew up a little and we don't do that any more either."
  • StavrosK 16y ago
    I'll go one further: How do you know other civilizations don't go "the inhabitants of Earth are one of the few uncontacted civilizations left in the galaxy" and petition the Intergalactic Council to not harvest the sun for energy? It sounds far-fetched, but do you think this tribe is thinking "there are other civilizations on Earth that we've never talked to, yet they're trying not to destroy us"?
  • xenophanes 16y ago
    We should give them access to technology and to our way of life. Our way of life is better. Preserving their backwards culture so they can continue lives of misery and suffering is just as disgusting as the Prime Directive. Help is exactly what I would want from advanced alien visitors. I don't want them to respect my culture just because it is mine; I want something better for myself, not cultural relativism. There is nothing good or enviable about uncivilized lifestyles to preserve; any actions that maintain them in that lifestyle are ensuring they literally die young, mostly of preventable causes. Their lives are short, uncomfortable and brutal. Trying to minimize contact is ensuring they do not get modern medical care and that they retain their dark ages quality (or worse) myths and prejudices.
    • d3x 16y ago
      I really hope you are kidding. If not this is so typical of the american way of thinking. Yes, we are so superior lets convert them all to our [insert culture, religion etc...]. What is so bad about leaving them alone? I would bet they are much happer than the majority of the FB and Twitter obsessed narcissist that I run into every day. While we are at it lets make sure they all become good christians too because anyone that has not accepted christ in their life just does not know what they are missing. Im not trying to be an ass but I fundamentally disagree with everything you just said. BTW: you to know that Western medicine is not the only medicine in the world. While we are at it lets take them our aids, diabetes, obesity etc... You are basically saying that your beliefs and way of life are so superior and better than theirs that you must convert them and that is total bullshit. They have a right just as you do to continue their way of life without someone like you coming along and deciding what is and is not ok for them.
• jim_h 16y ago
  http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/01/5965571-newly-released-photos-of-uncontacted-amazon-indian-tribe-give-us-a-glimpse-of-another-world?GT1=43001 http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/01/5965571-newl... This has better photos. According to NBC report in 2008, an agency has been aware of the tribe and have been tracking (and not contacting) them since 1910.
  • jim_h 16y ago
    They mostly likely have had contact with some people. In the first photo, you can make out a nice machete and a pot.
    • RK 16y ago
      Supposedly this is due to intertribal trade, rather than direct contact with the larger outside communities.
      • fingerprinter 16y ago
        Is there some number of links that would make this tribe 'contacted' then? I would have assumed 'uncontacted' meant 'no knowledge of outside world at all' but it seems not. Having this tribe get a machete and pot and see a plane makes it feel pretty 'contacted'. Not that I want to quibble over some definition...
        • RK 16y ago
          I would make a Facebook joke here, but... I think that they mean that these people have not been in direct contact with non-tribal people. It sounds like most of them are very isolated. Even the other tribes that have contact with the mainstream society seem to have little to no contact with these "uncontacted" tribes. This is mostly info I read on that website and related links, i.e. I'm not an expert.
      • seanos 16y ago
        If they like trading pots and knives with other tribes, maybe they would like to trade with the wider world if they were given the opportunity?
• deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
• lwhi 16y ago
  Poor poor people - they'll be better off if we stay away. EDIT: There is absolutely no chance that our western society has 'got it right'. If you think otherwise, I'm afraid you're deluding yourself.
  • BoppreH 16y ago
    Our life expectancy and education is literally thousands of years ahead of anything they have. You can argue about violence, capitalism and religion, and I'd agree, but parts of our culture are better then theirs in easily measurable ways.
    • gregwebs 16y ago
      education: it depends on the subject- many of the people under discussion are probably expert trackers/hunters and have a more intimate knowledge of their surroundings than even our modern biologists. Most of civilization's education is not very useful in this context. I doubt there is a single part of our culture that is "better in an easily measurable way". This includes life expectancy, which of course cannot be "literally thousands of years ahead".
      • Pheter 16y ago
        How is life expectancy not easy to measure? (Unless you mean without disturbing them)
        • gregwebs 16y ago
          life expectancy in civilization is easy enough to measure. However, by definition it is very difficult to measure life expectancy of isolated people. First you must contact them- which starts to change them. Second, you must determine their age, which is a difficult task. The real problem is that using life expectancy by itself is misleading- it mostly represents access to emergency medicine and antibiotics, and the harshness of the environment. We can keep people alive in the USA for a very long time, but that doesn't mean they are healthy.
        • 16y ago
• hasenj 16y ago
  The footage almost looks like clips from the movie Avatar.
  • StaxBread 16y ago
    More like the movie Avatar looks like footage like this ;)
• mynameishere 16y ago
  Realistically, they're on borrowed time. I mean, the common cold (etc, etc) isn't going to play nice once it finally hits them.
• donpdonp 16y ago
  I hope this undisturbed group of Emacs users is allowed to continue their peaceful way of life.
  • bsandbox 16y ago
    That raises an important ethical question.. should we not let them know about vim?
• russell_h 16y ago
  Absolutely fascinating stuff, and for me anyway it raises some interesting ethical questions. Making contact with these tribes would (I would imagine) destroy a lot of culture, to say nothing of the obvious issues of disease, etc. On the other hand, in a society where we claim to value innovation and progress, failing to offer these tribes the benefits available to others feels a little wrong. Given the choice between our lifestyles and theirs, how many of us would choose theirs? It raises some interesting legal questions too. In the United States for example, I believe (and I could be wrong on this) starting in 2014 we would fine these tribes for failure to purchase health insurance. To say nothing of the "Republican Form of Government" guarantee in the constitution.
  • Devilboy 16y ago
    Traditionally those legal problems are solved by simply granting these people exceptions. I mean aboriginal people and native Americans do get special treatment in some cases.
    • russell_h 16y ago
      Yeah, I expect thats how it would be handled here (although "granting an exception" to the Constitution could get tricky, depending on the timeline in this hypothetical). What I really meant (and I wasn't very clear on this) was more of how could we ethically reconcile our laws with our desire, if we have one, to preserve such tribes. For the most part it seems like if you have to special-case something you're doing something wrong to begin with. So either allowing such tribes to exist without interference should run counter to what we're trying to accomplish with our laws, or our laws don't actually say what we intend them to.
      • Devilboy 16y ago
        Some of these tribes are even cannibals, they kill people and eat them. Should we turn a blind eye to that too? I don't know. It's a hard question.
        • 16y ago
• rglullis 16y ago
  This "footage" hit the news a couple of years ago in Brazil, and a couple of days later was challenged as being fake. I could look more into details and see if there is any translation from the articles back then, but I will stand that this is NOT an "uncontacted tribe".
  • goldins 16y ago
    Interesting - can you link to any sources?
    • rglullis 16y ago
      "The photographer that took the picture, José Carlos, has admitted that the tribe has, in fact, been known about since 1910. He created the hoax "in order to call attention to the dangers the logging industry may have on the group." http://www.geekologie.com/2008/06/fake_uncontacted_amazon_tribe.php http://www.geekologie.com/2008/06/fake_uncontacted_amazon_tr...
      • sabat 16y ago
        A set of photographs of the tribe were indeed published by msnbc.com and others in May 2008. However, the images above - which were made available to the media for the first time yesterday - are not the same photographs. A Survival International spokesperson has just confirmed to me that the images were taken in June 2010. For the sake of clarity and accuracy, I have therefore updated the title of this post to say Newly-released photos rather than New photos. The controversy over the 2008 pictures was sparked by an article in The Observer headlined Secret of the "lost" tribe that wasn't. Later in 2008, Stephen Pritchard, that newspaper's readers' editor, wrote a follow-up piece in which he said the original article had misrepresented the situation. http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/01/5965571-newly-released-photos-of-uncontacted-amazon-indian-tribe-give-us-a-glimpse-of-another-world?GT1=43001 http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/01/5965571-newl...
      • sorbus 16y ago
        If you read the source linked to in that article, the hoax wasn't that the tribe was uncontacted; it was that it was only just discovered. However, the fact that it's been known of for so long certainly does suggest that there has been at least some contact.
• elliottcarlson 16y ago
  A trail to the articles pronouncing this a hoax/fake back in 2008: http://www.geekologie.com/2008/06/fake_uncontacted_amazon_tribe.php http://www.geekologie.com/2008/06/fake_uncontacted_amazon_tr...
  • araneae 16y ago
    If you read that article, what the guy supposedly lied about was that no one else knew about them. But they do live there.
• Keyframe 16y ago
  Uncontacted tribe has had some contact http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/pb-110201-tribe-da-03.photoblog900.jpg http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/pb-1... - I see a metal pot in that image.
  • BoppreH 16y ago
    Maybe some group of loggers left it a while ago? There's a chance it's only indirect contact. [EDIT: or maybe inter-tribal trade, as someone else mentioned]
• zeteo 16y ago
  It's so easy to play God hovering in the skies, and make decisions for these people's future, isn't it? Maybe they actually don't enjoy 50+% child mortality, dying of appendicitis, and having to barter a truckload of plantains for a pot and a steel machete. Why don't they send someone on the ground, to explain to them that there's a big world out there that can change their ways forever, and give them a choice whether they'd like to be a part of it or not?
  • megablast 16y ago
    Well, you could not simply explain it to them, you would have to show it to some of them, and let them live the life, before they could make an informed decision. Perhaps the best advice would be to contact other tribes that have been assimilated, and see how they feel about the process. Would they go back, if they could?
    • forensic 16y ago
      This has been done. Individuals have been taken from tribes and allowed to integrate into western society. They usually choose to go back.
      • dmg8 16y ago
        link?
        • sukuriant 16y ago
          yes, a link would be very nice for that one. Furthermore, I'd like to know reasons for their return, if that's the case. Also, I'd like to know what their children think, if they have them in the outside world, and what happens if they're provided some of the benefits of outside society (eg: state-of-the-art surgery from top-trained surgeons)
        • forensic 16y ago
          I read about the case study in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Dawn-Prehistoric-Origins-Sexuality/dp/0061707805 http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Dawn-Prehistoric-Origins-Sexuality... don't have a page number unfortunately
• bradleyjoyce 16y ago
  as I am currently living in Peru, this is pretty moving to me. the argument here on both sides is pretty powerful, and you can easily find passionate people telling you it's real, or it's fake, etc etc. The president's (Alan Garcia) accusation that environmentalists are making "uncontacted people" up seems pretty ridiculous to me though, as there seems to be a lot of evidence supporting the claim that there a number of uncontacted peoples in the remote regions of the country.
• kmfrk 16y ago
  It would be a good opportunity for Amazon to spend some money on charity. Benefits both parties.
• bendmorris 16y ago
  To avoid any confusion, from the site's FAQ: "Is this an ‘undiscovered’ or ‘lost’ tribe? No. This is empty sensationalism. It’s extremely unlikely there are any tribes whose existence is totally unknown to anyone else. The uncontacted tribe in these photos has been monitored by the Brazilian government for 20 years, and lives in a reserve set up to protect uncontacted tribes."
• Karhan 16y ago
  Did anyone else notice that one of them shot an arrow at the plane? lol. In all seriousness I wonder how they would treat someone like him if he just showed up one day. Probably depends on the day of the week.
  • reledi 16y ago
    I noticed that as well. They seemed quite defensive, but rightfully so since they probably have no idea why the plane is monitoring their village so it might seem as a threat to them.
• sabat 16y ago
  This is blowing my mind. Do I understand this right? There are people living in the forests of Brazil that have no idea about the modern world?!
  • seanos 16y ago
    yep!
  • muppetman 16y ago
    Yup. And people out there care about the ipad2. Amazing huh?
• bane 16y ago
  Zuck is probably wondering how he can get them on Facebook at this very moment.
• malkia 16y ago
  Makes me wonder if aliens are not treating us also as uncontacted tribe but on a larger scale.
• narrator 16y ago
  I am really getting a kick out of the ironic juxtaposition of the most technologically primitive segment of the world population getting space up here at the top of Hacker News. After all, the Hacker News audience represents arguably the most technologically sophisticated segment of the world population.
  • forensic 16y ago
    Unfortunately I think Hacker News, in this thread, is providing support to the thesis that there is something about the engineer mindset that is inherently authoritarian and extremist. http://www.slate.com/id/2240157/ http://www.slate.com/id/2240157/
    • nitrogen 16y ago
      Perhaps when your job is to be right, and success or failure is quite clear (either the program compiles or it doesn't; either the bridge supports its design weight or it crumbles), it's easy to extend that mindset to the rest of the world.
• Mz 16y ago
  As far as the argument of contact or no contact, I don't have an answer but I think the issue is that contact often destroys the culture rather than helps it grow and evolve. I have read some things that indicated native americans lost in part because they adopted guns and abandoned bows. They lacked the means to make or money to buy the type of oil that would work in cold weather and used lard instead, which firms up in the cold. They would keep their guns under their blankets with them to keep the lard warm enough for the guns to work. Just adopting one piece of technology did not resolve their problems and it was a technology they were ill equipped to adequately maintain. I am reminded of a scene in "Lawrence of Arabia" where he tells the Arabs "If you take English engineers, you take English rule." Where you have a large, "evolved" culture with a density of people, material goods, information and so on, contact with a culture that is less "dense" (in terms of numbers of people, amount of material goods, etc) tends to simply wipe it out, sometimes literally killing all members (because microbes in large communities evolve rapidly and become more virulent -- Americans who move to Europe, which is more densely populated, routinely wind up with a horrific flu shortly after moving there, far worse than the flu bugs typically caught in the U.S. This is common knowledge in the military community/among military families who have ever lived over there.). I wish a knew a means to gently make contact and offer options. I think that would be the ideal. I have no idea if it is achievable.
  • mahmud 16y ago
    Lawrence of Arabia? Might as well cite Tarzan comics.
    • jordan0day 16y ago
      Yes, because no matter how insightful, wisdom must be ignored if it comes from a disagreeable source.
    • Mz 16y ago
      Lawrence of Arabia is a historical figure and I did a college paper on him. He accomplished amazing things in the real world in terms of helping the Arabs achieve their independence. The Arabs were a relatively "primitive" (tribal) people compared to the English who sought to rule them. The film is based on real events. Like most such films, it is part documentary, part fiction/drama. He was famous enough during his life to have been followed around by a journalist. The journalist provided both actual documentation of Lawrence's activities (through film and photos) but also hyped it, so not all of that information is really accurate. Some themes in the movie are relevant to the discussion here: The Arabs keep wanting British artillery as The Answer. The British don't want to give it to them because they want to keep the Arabs under their thumb. (Note: Like with American Natives, they apparently saw "guns" as a source of power and wanted them completely out of context -- unable to manufacture them themselves and so on.) Lawrence tells the Arabs that he thinks their traditional ways are their source of power -- that riding camels through the desert like they did historically is the way to have power equivalent to British power. At the time, Britain was a Naval power and he compares the camels to ships and the desert to the ocean. I cannot verify whether or not Lawrence ever said that but it is historical fact that he rode with Arab irregulars and that such troops traveled by camel. It is also historical fact that he took Aqaba, a key port city, with a force of only 40 men. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Revolt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Revolt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_of_Arabia_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_of_Arabia_(film) Here is an actual quote of the man which agrees with the gist of what I am saying and from a reputable source: Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is. http://telawrence.info/telawrenceinfo/life/biog_quotes.shtml http://telawrence.info/telawrenceinfo/life/biog_quotes.shtml
• Eliezer 16y ago
  I say it's time to send them their Hogwarts letters.
• logjam 16y ago
  Relevant: "cultural imperialism" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_imperialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_imperialism
• jseifer 16y ago
  Did anyone else notice how healthy they looked?
  • BoppreH 16y ago
    They have been there for quite a while, and humans are great at adaptation. If we couldn't be reasonably healthy at such conditions, humanity would have been extinct long ago.
  • AngryParsley 16y ago
    Selection effect. You also didn't see anyone with cleft palettes or appendicitis or iodine deficiency. If somebody gets sick or injured in that tribe, they're much more likely to die than in most places. Also, sick or injured people don't romp around the forest checking out strange birds in the sky.
    • jseifer 16y ago
      Yeah but compare the groups you saw there to some random groups you'd see in a mall here. There's a pretty big difference.
• T_S_ 16y ago
  It's absurd to say they are "uncontacted". They are humans after all. How can such a smart crowd fall for that headline stuff? Concerns about their public health and inability to defend their property rights (our interpretation of those rights, at least) may be well founded. However, this whole episode says more about how Brazil tries to control loggers than it does about indigenous people. They are finally starting to slow down deforestation, using any tool they can.
• adsr 16y ago
  In my opinion they would have left their forrest a long time ago if they where really curious to seek out what was beyond it. The fact that they stay, indicates to me that they are happy with the way life is.
  • jordan0day 16y ago
    Let's think about, say, American slaves in 1835. Only some slaves risked their lives trying to reach free states or Canada and escape slavery. Therefore any slave who remained must have been happy with the way their life was? Curiosity only has a little to do with it. Maybe the curious ones left and never returned. That doesn't mean those that remain enjoy their lives. I mean, I could be wrong and they're the happiest people on earth, but I bet some penicillin could make their lives even better.
    • adsr 16y ago
      I don't think slaves is the best comparison here, their way of life was artificial and forced on them and there was an unbalance of power. My point was that terms like happiness, and quality of life is hard to find any absolute definitions for. It's highly subjective and ones view of it is very likely colored by the culture a person identifies with. These people do most likely posess expert knowledge of their forrest, hypothetically there is nothing that is preventing them from leaving, or seeking out the unknown. This is not a quality that is unique to the europeans who colonised the world.
• pshapiro 16y ago
  Uncontacted? It looks like they're looking right into the lens!
  • hydrazine 16y ago
    True, though they may have filed it away as an unexplained phenomenon, given that the plane was tiny and the camera was shooting from a mile away.
• AndrewMoffat 16y ago
  How is it that some peoples can remain in this state for so long? Please don't read disrespect in the question, I mean it neutrally. There seems to have been very little innovation or growth in terms of technology when you look at people still living like this.
  • gregwebs 16y ago
    Because they most likely lead a happy (and possibly leisurely lifestyle by our standards) already. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society Perhaps a more interesting question to ask is why would anyone want to switch to civilization? It has really been all downside (except for the wealthiest few %) until very recently in history.
  • ebaysucks 16y ago
    The governance technology used by a society has a huge impact on productivity and power structures. Moving a worker from Congo to the USA yields much more productivity gains than giving an American high school student a university education.
• deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
• radicaldreamer 16y ago
  Meta about some of the comments on this post: I've never seen such unbridled arrogance and xenophobia in a post on HN before. The our way or the highway attitude is shocking.
  • necolas 16y ago
    The ignorance and lack of empathy are surprising.
    • randallsquared 16y ago
      It's unclear whether you agree with the g'parent or disagree. Perhaps that was intentional. :)
  • parfe 16y ago
    I think the focused nature of HN content generally hides the crazy. Even though the site is populated by techs and businessmen we're still pretty much just a random cross section of society, only linked by our common interest.
• twidlit 16y ago
  I think the best way to do this is observe, document and study as much of their culture as we can without contact, After that contact them to with the goal of medical help and protection. And proceed carefully from there.
• mhewett 16y ago
  I once attended a talk by Carl Sagan where, during the question-answer session, someone mentioned how much we could learn from "primitive societies". Sagan replied that we should not glorify such lives. In addition to other things, he said that in 1900 the average life span in civilized countries was 35. As artificial and commercialized as we have become, technology has improved our lives.
• eneveu 16y ago
  Reminds me of "Guns, Germs, and Steel". I've started reading it a few weeks ago, following recommendations on another HN thread. Great book so far. Part of the book focuses on diseases, and how epidemic diseases only spread in large populations. Problem appears when small tribes with no immunization are exposed to these "common" diseases...
• flip 16y ago
  Anyone else feel a little guilty just watching it?
  • ebaysucks 16y ago
    Why would one feel guilty?
• tokenadult 16y ago
  As the BBC reports, the advocacy group that is promoting these images acknowledges that the persons shown have steel machetes, which must be trade goods. So to call them "uncontacted" is stretching a point. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12325690 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12325690
• StaxBread 16y ago
  To everyone saying that they should be given the opportunity to join our civilization, it's not like they have a choice. They'll die if they get the common cold or flu or at the very least come close to death. And how do we know that our civilization is "better" for them? It's not like they could become incorporated into our society anyway (not the current generation). Contacting and converting them is more an act of self-righteousness than anything else.
• tectonic 16y ago
  "The house of ‘The Last of his Tribe’, a sole surviving uncontacted man who lives on his own in the forest after the rest of his tribe were massacred" http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/evidence http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/evidence
• njharman 16y ago
  I saw pictures from this video months ago. I thought it was demonstrated then to be a "hoax" or faked. No?
• sukuriant 16y ago
  I have been skimming over the comments in here, and I have come to two thoughts. First off, I don't have a well-established stance, but our god-like observation of their civilization is ... strange. I wonder what would happen if they all were struck by a terrible disease as the scientists with their kilometre-spying cameras watched. Would they go and help? Where's their "don't contact them" nature, then? But that wasn't the thought I intended to contemplate. Some people have said that their culture is lost. Why is their culture lost? And this is terrible, but, does it matter? If their culture is full of things long since dis-proven, what has been lost? If they choose to leave their old ways upon discovering/learning (through whatever means) our ways, what does that matter? Please explain why these things are bad to me. If a people has chosen a different way of life upon experiencing it, who cares that it's gone? The anthropologists that were having fun? This desperation to keep these people isolated reminds me of another article I read on HN a while ago that discussed scientists that were very sad about the situation that polar bears and grizzlies were beginning to breed. I thought it was beautiful to see their joined species able to survive, but I can only imagine the people that wanted to keep them separate were disappointed, in part, because there wouldn't be any pure-bred polar bears anymore. My other thought is a request to HN for this very type of article. Please, please, please, for heated debates like this with the numerous tree-like threads. Please make a way to collapse sub-threads so the train of thought that brought someone to a particular point can be clearly seen.
• Tycho 16y ago
  This makes me think of those Waco cult members that felt the wrath of the authorities - because they had children within their community I think.
• yoyar 16y ago
  I'm astounded (perhaps I should not be) that so many assume that the lives of the people in these cultures must be short brutish and unpleasant. For a culture, or set of cultures to survive and likely thrive for 1000s of years in the jungle it must be a rich life. Take a look at the decoration these people paint on their skin for instance. They have free time to decorate and adorn themselves. They have farms. They have technology and knowledge beyond what your small minds can imagine. Yes, technology, they can light fires, create traps for the food they need, farm and make tools from all manner of naturally occurring materials that surround them in abundance. I'd wager they live an abundant happy life. Sure, they have their difficulties. But I live in modern society and I have lots of difficulties too. These people live in a tightly knit family and society. I envy them in some ways. I certainly wouldn't be sitting here thinking how much better I have it from them. They have a different way of life. To assume their way or our way is better can only stem from ignorance, and oh of course, no shortage of arrogance. If someone took you and immersed you in the jungle you'd be lucky to last a day or two. Think of what would happen to one of these people if you put them in a city.
• mkconor 16y ago
  This issue is tricky and not for some of the reasons I've seen listed in this thread. My maternal grandparents were both the children of indigenious South Americans so this is somewhat personal for me. One the one hand if we contact them then we are dooming everyone in the tribe above the age of about ten to dependency for the rest of their lives. They will go from being autonomous, skilled members of a sovereign tribe to illiterate, unskilled Peruvian citizens in one fell swoop. In their world they own their land, have their own system of wealth and acheivement and customs that are tailored to their own strengths. In our world, they are penniless and barely subsist on land that is actually owned but the Peruvian government. Unless the proponents of contact are willing to provide the extensive resources they will need in order to assimilate to our way of life, I say we leave them alone. I saw alot of mention of technology and medicine and all the other comforts of modern life, but those things are not free for the taking. There are hundreds of thousands of
• harshpotatoes 16y ago
  It sucks that if these uncontacted tribes were to try to make contact, the only people that would be there to meet them would be loggers. I can't imagine loggers would treat them with the same dignity/respect that a trained professional might.
• evlapix 16y ago
  How do uncontacted people view us? They seem to be mesmerized by the plane, and even chase after it for a longer look. Can't we just ask them how they want to relate with us? I'm sure we can find some way to discuss the matter with them and still not be invasive.
• knv 16y ago
  Time to send Missionaria Protectiva to spread the Panoplia Propheticus among them!
• grn 16y ago
  I find it extremely disgusting. There's nothing wrong with contacting others. Everyday I'm contacted by lots of people: colleagues, marketers, head hunters etc. They give me choice. Let members of the tribe enjoy the same freedoms. Stop treating them like animals in a ZOO.
• ebaysucks 16y ago
  We shouldn't impose anything on them, but why not make contact? Offer them our technology and let them decide whether they want to use it. I wouldn't want to be treated like a primitive animal in a zoo incapable of making their own choices by a technologically superior way of life.
• glenjamin 16y ago
  With the amount of comments on this page it's unlikely anyone will even see this, but am I the only one surprised at how many people still use the term "Indian" to refer to natives populations who look a bit like Indians? As far as I'm aware, this is the sole reason for the origination of the term in this context (as opposed to, you know, people from India).
  • edanm 16y ago
    I think the term has nothing to do with looks. It originated because, when Columbus first came to America, he thought he was in India (that was his destination, after all), so he called the people there "Indians". Now the term tends to mean "natives".
• yaix 16y ago
  Knowledge is misery, so better leave them alone. Having knowledge about the world only shows you how much you don't know. And the more you learn, the more you are aware of all the things you have not yet discovered and will never learn in your lifetime. So, its much nicer to be able to know "the whole world" (i.e. the isolated village you live in). You know everything and everybody in the "world" and for the stuff you can't explain (lightning, death) you just make up a god and blame it on him/her. What a great life!
• Baadier 16y ago
  Throwing my 2 cents in here but I just wonder whether by giving them right to choose culture we would inadvertently have already made that decision for them.
• nhebb 16y ago
  There's something appalling about this, as if remote tribal people are to be watched like animals on the Discovery channel. It's creepy. They're not there for your viewing entertainment.
• drndown2007 16y ago
  gokhan's comment is buried quite deep, but needs to be seen: "Check the FAQ first: http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/articles/3109-questions-and.. http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/articles/3109-questions-and.... But could this be because they don’t see the benefits of ‘our’ way of life? If they knew, might they want to join us? They won’t get the chance. In reality, the future offered by the settler society is to ‘join’ at the lowest possible level often as beggars and prostitutes. History proves that tribal peoples end up in a far worse state after contact, often dead."
• wowfat 16y ago
  wow. This would have been 1000X awesome if this was a video captured by one of our space telescopes looking at another galaxy!
• ylem 16y ago
  I must say that the footage is amazing!
• ylem 16y ago
  Given loggers, or just the general expansion of modern civilizations, they will run into the outside world. Wouldn't it be better if they were given a gentle introduction? Send in some speakers and voice/video feeds. Eventually send in people. If they want to be left alone afterwards, it's their choice. If some people want to explore the outer society, let them. If you look at say, Malaysia, the Iban have done pretty well in Sarawak--contact doesn't have to result in the destruction of the natives...
• deleted 16y ago
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