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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

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.
  - lwhi 16y ago
    I agree - it's a shocking point of view. I'm choosing to read it as parody. EDIT: Does the downvote mean it's not parody? EDIT,EDIT: So maybe the OP was being sincere - in which case I'm v depressed.
    - xenophanes 16y ago
      You're mistaken. I did not post a parody. I'm serious. That you have a hard time believing that people who disagree with you (like myself) even exist should perhaps be a wake up call to open your mind.
      - lwhi 16y ago
        It's just that many (feared and hated) leaders from history took a similar view. I'm surprised so many people on HN share it. (Did I dodge the Godwin's law bullet...?) -- Seriously though, this is exactly the point of view that was used by all colonial movements. It's antiquated, unjust and it's also completely xenophobic. I'm genuinely shocked.
- araneae 16y ago
  I generally agree with you except for one thing: A significant number of them may die of disease. There have been a few uncontacted tribe members that were forced to make contact with the outside world, and at least one died of TB: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=26225682776 https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=26225682776 This is quite similar to what happened in North America; the blankets with smallpox were highly unnecessary.
- raganwald 16y ago
  How does your perspective differ from the perspective of the missionaries who attempted to bring "salvation" to indigenous peoples around the world? How does your perspective differ from the perspectives that led to the imposition of the Residential Schools? https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Canadian_Indi... Also, nothing I wrote says anything about providing them with access, it says something about destroying their culture and identity. So don't be too quick to make assumptions about what I believe or don't believe about medicine and education.
  - rubashov 16y ago
    What about the missionaries who stopped indigenous peoples' crazy blood soaked ways and widespread human sacrifice rituals? The Aztecs in particular were quite psycho. With the daily stories of decapitated bodies and mass slayings in connection with the drug cartels in Mexico, sometimes a wonder about the cultural link back to the Aztec ways.
    - raganwald 16y ago
      IIRC, the Spaniards stopped the Aztecs with smallpox and the measles. http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/Americas/Cortes.CP.html http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/Americas/Cortes.CP.html But let's not quibble a minor point like that. The question I raised was simply how our perspective today differs from their perspective back in colonial times, with an eye to considering the possibility that we are fallible and that what we sincerely believe is in someone else's best interests may not be in their best interests. I'm not saying we can't or shouldn't contact or help them, I'm saying we should be careful, because it may be that what we think is good for them today turns out to be bad for them. That doesn't mean we shouldn't act, but isn't it worth thinking carefully before making choices?
    - Naga 16y ago
      The scope of human sacrifice was largely exaggerated. The book 1491, by Charles C. Mann, puts the amount of people sacrificed per year by the Aztecs at 3000-4000, out of around 30 million people. He compares that to England, which executed 75000 people between 1530 and 1630. England had about 1/10th the population of the Aztecs, and if it had the same, it would have been executing 7500 people each year, around double the Aztecs were.
- gloob 16y ago
  How "white man's burden"-esque.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    I'm here because someone helpfully provided one of my ancestors with an education into modern sugar plantation processes and methods, including a free trip to Barbados. If it hadn't been for that, I'd be in Nigeria living large on my 419 business. Blogs, 419s, what's the difference?
- ThomPete 16y ago
  The problem with our unproven claims is that you speak from the vantage point of the advanced alien visitors speaking on the primitive cultures behalf. I am not sure what you mean with uncivilized lifestyles. Do you mean wearing clothes? Eating with knife and fork or do you talk about dropping the bomb, invading other countries?
- T_S_ 16y ago
  Perhaps they have something to teach us as well. We should at least ask for directions to El Dorado, before we convert them to OS X and give them some french fries.
- mwhite 16y ago
  Define "better". Primitive people's lives are short, yes. But that they are uncomfortable and brutish is at best an uninformed value judgment that supports the narrative of civilization. By any good measure of happiness, they are probably happier than us. Most of them would die from diseases of civilization in the event of contact, anyway, so I don't really see how western medicine potentially extending their lives applies.
  - uvdiv 16y ago
    >Primitive people's lives are short, yes. But that they are uncomfortable and brutish is at best an uninformed value judgment that supports the narrative of civilization. Then let them make their own value judgement. Offer them 80-year life expectancies and the extravagant luxury of modern life; let them make their own choices. Xenophanes isn't the one arguing for forced isolation -- for keeping the truth of the world secret from them.
  - forensic 16y ago
    The shortness of tribal people's lives has been greatly exaggerated. In fact, it's pure myth. The book Sex at Dawn demonstrates this using the latest anthropology and archaeology if you want to know more. Until recently, it was normal for tribal societies to live longer on average than agricultural societies. All of the statistics that support the idea that tribal life is short were done very poorly and skewed by abortion/infanticide. Tribal societies would have the same lifespans on average as our society does today and perhaps even longer because they had far healthier diets and always got lots of exercise. However, they would keep their numbers low through infanticide and eugenics. For instance a baby with birth defects would often be allowed to die and abortions using certain drugs were normal. Anyway, the idea that tribal life was brutish, solitary and short is utterly wrong on every point. The science indicates clearly: - it was less brutish on average with more social harmony and warfare was less painful for all involved - it was not short at all, quite the contrary. Only modern agricultural societies, through scientific medicine, have begun to approach the lifespans of tribal societies who are not interfered with. This was just a myth from the very start. - it was not solitary. Our society is solitary. In a tribal society, every person is surrounded by lifelong friends and relatives at every moment of every day for their entire lives. Modern man can scarcely imagine the depths of human bonding that tribal societies experience.
- paulitex 16y ago
  "Our way of life is better" Ahh yes, the colonialist's mantra. Even more of a historical failure than the communist manifesto. Go look at how life 'improved' in sub saharan africa. Or the profoundly sad state of natives all over the world, in Canada, Australia, US, and beyond. Our way of life is not better. It is not for everyone. We have huge wealth and health disparity, large scale violence, drug addiction and homeless to name but a few unsavories. Your argument is a very old one - this is a 19th century discussion. As such I suggest you look at the history of colonialism, and the atrocities that resulted and continue to result because of it. Maybe start with Rwanda, it's pretty compelling.
  - orangecat 16y ago
    Our way of life is not better. Yes, it is. Would you trade places with them? Would you want your children to? We have huge wealth and health disparity Which we could certainly eliminate by destroying all our wealth and abandoning medicine. The only thing that should tell you is that "inequality" is a poor metric. And none of this implies that it would be acceptable to forcibly impose our civilization on anyone. It does imply that we should offer them the choice.
    - kevinelliott 16y ago
      It's not fair to offer that comparison after we've already been exposed to our own cultures. Of course now that we've had technology, our social traditions and structure, and advances in science and history, that it would be nearly impossible to WANT to trade places with them. However, we are a stressed out, overworked, sick society who has lost traditions such as appreciation of family, and our idea of relaxation and "living life" is a 2 week vacation once a year. Sure, we've got great tools and Xboxes and the Internet and modern medicine... but at the end of the day, 100+ million Americans are literally sick (defined by the prescribed medications that over 1 in 3 have to treat symptoms of sickness). If I had grown up in their tribe, and was given an opportunity to completely understand the pros and cons of the new society, I may just want to stay ignorant in my tribe. It's quite possible that while they're likely less intelligent, less advanced and very primitive, but happy and connected with each other and have a quality of life that comparatively (to them) is better than our way of life. At the end of the day, to me at least, quality of life is what's really important. To others, it's competition, satisfaction of proving that they are better than others, money, and egocentric activities that make them happy (and that's fine).
- deleted 16y ago
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- forensic 16y ago
  >Preserving their backwards culture so they can continue lives of misery and suffering is just as disgusting as the Prime Directive. The point is that they are not suffering. Modern anthropology and the best science actually indicates that tribal hunter-gatherers experience higher levels of happiness and satisfaction than your typical citizen of an agricultural society. Tribal hunter-gatherers have healthier diets, live longer without outside interference, have more social harmony, deeper longer lasting social bonds, etc. All the ingredients for deep, lasting, and fulfilling happiness. They are living precisely how humans evolved to live. From the perspective of "suffering" agriculture is actually a step backwards. Nonetheless agricultural societies dominate because agricultural societies have higher populations, stronger diseases (natural disease warfare) and better military technology. It is natural that agriculture dominates and pushes out the tribal lifestyle. However on the basis of suffering/misery it is actually the agriculturalists who are worse off. A great book that details this phenomenon was recently released for the public called Sex At Dawn.
  - CamperBob 16y ago
    Modern anthropology and the best science actually indicates that tribal hunter-gatherers experience higher levels of happiness and satisfaction than your typical citizen of an agricultural society. So does the typical Oxycontin addict. 'Happiness and satisfaction' are weasel words that ultimately have no objective meaning. Tribal hunter-gatherers have healthier diets, live longer without outside interference, No, they do not.
    - forensic 16y ago
      I wasn't the one making the argument that these people are experiencing misery/suffering. Misery and suffering is no more objective than happiness and satisfaction. I would argue that both of these things are objective and can be observed in the brain and well as inferred from other criteria. >No, they do not. Yes, they do. We can go back and forth like this all day or you can make a real argument. Read SEX AT DAWN and get back to me with your criticism of their anthropology. Based on your statements regarding happiness I'm going to tentatively conclude that you're one of the ignorant engineers who has little contact with the social sciences. Why do programmers believe they know more than everyone else in subjects where they are grossly ignorant? We need a word for this. Programmer hubris or something. I guess it's just the Dunning-Kruger effect striking again.
- raganwald 16y ago
  I never actually said we shouldn't contact them or offer assistance. Before I go to the gym, I'll argue what I think is with your point. For those who think they should be left in isolation, why is it bad to contact them and expose them to our civilization, but good to invent new things and businesses and cultural systems in our civilization? For example, entrepreneurs invented television and birth control. These inventions changed everything for us and our culture. How is it ok for someone to invent television but not ok for us to contact an isolated tribe and show them what the rest of the world is doing? How is it ok for someone to invent a way for hetero women to make more choices about their bodies and their sexuality, but not ok for us to offer them medicine so that they can make more choices about their bodies? We hackers espouse a philosophy of creating change. How is it ok to create change for our culture but not ok to create change for theirs?
  - seanos 16y ago
    I think it's because when we invent television we don't lose anything. Once we show these people the modern world, there is no going back. It makes it a difficult moral dilema.
    - ugh 16y ago
      When we invented cars we lost our own culture’s tradition of riding horses. It used to be the case that everyone knew how to ride a horse, now only a select few decide to preserve that tradition. Even they ride only for sport and fun, a cheap imitation of what it meant to ride a horse 200 years ago. Cars viciously destroyed the role horses play in our society, that part of our culture is forever lost. (I’m not sad.)
      - seanos 16y ago
        But people can still ride a horse. A contacted tribe can never become uncontacted again. BTW I have no idea whether the right answer is to contact them or not, I am just explaining why it is a moral dilemma.
      - raganwald 16y ago
- gokhan 16y ago
  Check the FAQ first: http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/articles/3109-questions-and-answers-uncontacted-tribes 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.
- ojbyrne 16y ago
  One of the more interesting books I've read recently - A Farewell to Alms - http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic-History/dp/0691121354 http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic-History/d... has the basic argument that as a direct result of modern technology, there are people living on the planet now (in sub-saharan Africa), with the lowest standards of living ever present on this planet, significantly worse than that experienced by Paleolithic hunters and gatherers. Uncivilized lifestyles turned out not to be that brutal, and in fact modern medicine is the primary mechanism by which the poorest countries have significantly lower standards of living than undiscovered tribes. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07indu.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07indu.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_trap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_trap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence
- hristov 16y ago
  Now are you sure our way of life is better? That is a rather self centered thing to say. How do you think they would do in Brazilian society with no property no education and no ability to speak the language? How much do you know about the lives of the poorest Brazilians and Peruvians? Do you think they get much modern medicine? These people would of course be poorer than the poorest brazilians and peruvians because even they (i) can speak the language and (ii) know something about the society they live in.
- Mz 16y ago
  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. I wish it were so simple. Culture is really not easy to transmit. Transmitting some small piece of it in isolation very often only causes problems without improving anything at all. It often destroys what was there without replacing it with anything viable. Look at the really high rates of diabetes and other issues in so many tribal groups around the world. Look at the general quality of life contact has brought them. I'm really not impressed with the track record so far of "helping" such peoples. EDIT: Here is an article (called "Diseases of Affluence") which talks about the high levels of diabetes and such that I found through HN not terribly long ago. Really fascinating piece in its own right. http://maisonneuve.org/pressroom/article/2010/nov/15/the-diseases-affluence/ http://maisonneuve.org/pressroom/article/2010/nov/15/the-dis...
- haberman 16y ago
  Some uncontacted people violently resist outside contact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people
- DanI-S 16y ago
  "Our way of life is better." The fact that this has so many upvotes /really/ lowers my high opinion of the HN readership.
  - AngryParsley 16y ago
    The natives might disagree if they saw our lives, but they can't reply here. They don't know the Internet exists and they're illiterate. I doubt many of us would desire to live in an uncontacted tribe. People in uncontacted tribes spend most of their time getting food to avoid starvation. Sometimes they get injured or ill, but they don't have painkillers or medicine. Sometimes a kid gets appendicitis. They don't have surgery, so the kid dies. Sometimes a child is born with a cleft palette. Charities do this procedure in developing countries, but in uncontacted tribes the child is deformed for life. Based on evidence from other tribes, they're almost certainly a patriarchal society. Sorry girls, you can't be leaders when you grow up. You'll have to have birth children without painkillers or medical supervision. (Oh and there's no birth control.) Breech baby? Tough luck. And don't get attached to your kids early on; infant mortality is pretty high. Granted, their quality of life isn't going to be great even if they're contacted. And arguing on the Internet isn't going to change the outcome of this situation. But our way of life is better. There are very few places on earth where quality of life is worse than an uncontacted tribe. The list is pretty short: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and a couple other countries. Eventually, even those failed states will progress, whereas the uncontacted tribes won't.
  - ugh 16y ago
    Here is another way of looking at it: If you compare the way of living in the United States today to the way of living in the United States at any other point in time, do you think that you would be able to roughly order those ways of living from superior to inferior? If you think that’s possible, wouldn’t it be very weird indeed if you couldn’t similarly order geographically separated cultures?
- pessimist 16y ago
  The problem is that once we make contact with them, 50% will die due to disease. The rest will lead miserable dependent lives, and probably turn to alcoholism. I have seen this first hand with the Jarawa people of the Andaman Islands, and anecdotally with many other tribals. History repeats itself.
- mohsen 16y ago
  how could you even say that, do you even know what their way of life is?
- mambodog 16y ago
  As an Australian, seeing what has happened to our Aboriginal people partly as a result of our interference, and partly also just because of the incompatible nature of our societies and cultures, I'd be very concerned about how such change would affect these people. This experience is repeated among indigenous peoples the world over. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians#Contemporary_issues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians#Contempo...
- guynamedloren 16y ago
  For all you know, these people may be the happiest in the entire world. Who are we to take that from them?
- nerme 16y ago
  OUR way of life is better? No, dude, YOUR way of life is better. If these people are brought in to our culture they're fucked. Plain and simple. What do you think they're going to do, move to the Bay Area and start a social media company? They're on the bottom rung. They've got some red body paint, some banana trees, and some thatch roofed huts. They're wealth exists solely in their own way of life. As soon as they're faced with our way of life, they're fucking worthless.
- logjam 16y ago
  Perhaps you'd be good enough to explain to us all exactly what an "uncivilized lifestyle" is, what is "backward" about them, and exactly which "uncivilized" and "dark age" cultures you feel currently live lives which are "uncomfortable, short, and brutal." Exactly what characterizes "our way of life?" Technology? How does technology make our way of life "better?" Science? I'd advance that many of these "backwards cultures" are probably successful in large part because they are more scientific and experienced and thoughtful about the worlds they inhabit, than oh, say, the average conservative Republican in the "civilized" U.S...who denies global warming, thinks education is dangerous, wants to halt stem-cell research, believes in the efficacy of prayer in health care, etc etc. Maybe we could continue our discussion with a glance at the now classic 1990 New England Journal of Medicine article indicating that African American men in the middle of one of our modern and "civilized" cities and countries in the late twentieth century have a lower life expectancy than their counterparts in Bangladesh. "Dark ages quality?" "Myths and prejudices" You mean racism? Nationalism? "In God We Trust?" http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199001183220306 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199001183220306 Maybe we could move on to a thesis dozens of historians share, that the "primitive" Native Americans gave us MORE in the way of transfer of technology and culture than we provided. The agricultural knowledge passed on, the result of generations of careful observation and experimentation by Native Americans, was immense. Beyond agricultural technology and an enlightened, observational ecology, it's not even clear that the average European knew you could take a damned bath with water regularly as a healthful practice before immigrants gaped at Native Americans doing just that. More importantly, as Ian Frazier notes in the first chapter of "On the Rez" which I invite all the cultural imperialists here to read, at the time of Columbus there were probably about "eleven people in all of Europe who could do what they wanted." Amerigo Vespucci had brought back news that in the New World, "every one is his own master." Frazier goes on to show the profound impact Native American thought had on the idea of personal freedom among European immigrants still steeped in monarchy, and what that brought forth in America.
- pyre 16y ago
  > We should give them access to technology and to our > way of life. Our way of life is better. So, we should like emulate Canada over the mid-20th century, and kidnap children from tribal lands and force them into orphanages/boarding school where most of them will be abused physically and sexually in the process of trying to 'train the savage' out of them? edit: Missed raganwald's post and Wikipedia link
  - deleted 16y ago
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- muhfuhkuh 16y ago
  “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.” -- Stephen Hawking The truth, in both theory and practice, is that there is no pure, fair sharing of technology. It always, in nearly every single situation throughout world history, has ended in blood, subjugation, and/or slavery. And, it likely always will. Cultures don't just switch over to a "more superior" one; they're almost always forced to. Think of how many people died or were conquered through history just so that we could all be able to flush a toilet and it actually go somewhere. Absurd, but apropos.
  - wazoox 16y ago
    > The truth, in both theory and practice, is that there is no pure, fair sharing of technology. It always, in nearly every single situation throughout world history, has ended in blood, subjugation, and/or slavery. And, it likely always will. However this always happened between social apes. E.T. aliens probably would be completely different from us (see "Ender's game" for instance) and may very well act in different ways and follow different motivations. So we don't know, really.
- techiferous 16y ago
  "Our way of life is better." Are you asserting that you know their culture well enough to make a meaningful comparison with your culture?
- jeisenberg 16y ago
  This response is a joke, right? What constitutes a 'civilized' lifestyle? Your concepts of 'backwards' and 'civilized' are grounded in normative assumptions about what is right and wrong. I am not a post-structuralist, but I expect someone to acknowledge his or her normative stance before degrading a culture different than your own. What do you mean when you say 'There is nothing good?' What do you define as 'good?' There are 'tribes' whose languages don't even contain a sense of linear time, which goes against Chomsky's universal theory of language. Here is a recent article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_... No past, no present. I am sorry, but your narrow, ethnocentric mind can't cognitively understand what that kind of existence is like. Look this up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology This varies across cultures and languages. At least pretend to respect difference.
  - xenophanes 16y ago
    Not a joke. You're mistaken in your assumption that I am ignorant of philosophy just b/c A) I didn't cite anyone impressive in my initial comment B) we disagree. Yes I am aware of Chomsky (in more detail than New Yorker articles offer). Yes I am aware of what ontology is. Yes I have studied philosophy. Do you want me to counter-cite philosophers for you to read? You might learn something by reading _The Myth of the Framework_ and _The Open Society And Its Enemies_ by Karl Popper. If you want to trash freedom, human rights, peaceful cooperation, and other aspects of modern Western civilization, and deny their objective value, don't pretend there is no serious and thoughtful stuff published on the other side and that everyone who disagrees with you is ignorant. Next time you want to call someone closed minded, try to do it without ad hominem. Ad hominem arguments don't make you come off as tolerant and willing to have an open-ended discussion where you don't assume in advance who is right.
    - jeisenberg 16y ago
      You certainly don't argue or write like you studied anything but Glenn Beck's wikipedia page. Can you please explain to me how I am 'trashing' freedom, and human rights? Cultural rights ARE human rights. And please explain to me how Karl Popper somehow supports your theory of 'objective value.' Popper's arguments concern the contingency of analyses. Contingency, not objectivity. I only reserve the ad hom's for close-minded dipshits like yourself.
- dkarl 16y ago
  It won't be better for them. It may not better for their children. It will probably be better for their grandchildren... if we continue to be generous. But by that time we'll probably be disgusted and resentful because they haven't assimilated well enough to be productive members of the middle class. The alternative, of course, is forcible assimilation and cultural extinction, which would be a horrific fate inflicted on two generations for the sake of unborn ones. To accomplish what you suggest, it seems like the "cleanest" and most humane way would be to kidnap every child under ten and every subsequent child born into the tribe and put them up (separately) for adoption in wealthy countries. Let everyone older than ten live out their lives undisturbed, except for the tragic disappearance of all of their children. I challenge you to either endorse this method or describe a way that causes less suffering.
- raquo 16y ago
  Obligatory: http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/
- marquis 16y ago
  Let them decide for themselves. Consider those who chose to explore, chose to leave their home village, chose to travel across continents. The members of that tribe who want to know more will explore if/when they decide to do so, and only then should they discover what worlds lie outside of theirs, not by force by us. Perhaps an advanced civilization would think the same. They have seen us go to the moon and send probes into space, and hopefully this would be sufficient for them to understand that we too, wish to explore and are ready for more knowledge.
- dools 16y ago
  Our way of life is better This is a dangerous and destructive attitude without exception.
- hyperbovine 16y ago
  This is the old noble savage debate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage). As evidenced by the fact that Western societies have engaged in it for at least the past 500 years, it's way less settled than you make it out to be. Convincing arguments exist for both sides.
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- dmg8 16y ago
  It sounds as if you're envisioning these people being painlessly integrated into modern society, perhaps retrained as plumbers, software developers, etc., then joining Brazil's (extremely small) middle class. This is just not realistic. In practice, these people joining "civilization" would almost certainly mean ending up living in grinding poverty in an extremely violent "favela" (Brazil's ubiquoutous shanty towns) with drugs and guns everywhere.
- tc23emp 16y ago
  We won't get a chance to offer them a better life if the illegal loggers kill them off with guns and disease first - a process that already began during the rubber boom. The fact that illegal loggers are even there to begin with shows that our morality is not greater than our greed in the pursuit of resources. We may have good intentions, but, if these tribes are not completely protected, elements within our society will slowly take every liberty with the land and its people as has been done countless times in the history. We know nothing of aliens. Any speculation is a reflection on ourselves and, therefore, it is more common to believe that aliens would annihilate us rather than be interested in improving our way of life.
- jordan0day 16y ago
  I don't know why the belief in the "noble savage" persists to this day, but your response is exactly what I would hope for from a rational human being. Certainly there probably is an optimal way to go about contacting a tribe like this and "bringing them up to speed" with the rest of the world, and I admit that there probably isn't a single person on this earth who actually knows what that optimal way is. But to deny these people even the chance at a better life because we're busy hand-wringing over how it will affect their culture is terrible.
- yason 16y ago
  I hope that was sarcasm because as such it would be great and insightful, and very symbolic of Western civilication throughout the centuries. If not, I disagree pretty much with everything you said. Myself, I think Shaw grokked it perfectly with his "Don't do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same".
- lisperforlife 16y ago
  How do you know that they live a miserable life or that they suffer? Do you think they remain uncontacted because they do not have the means to contact? They have remained uncontacted because of their choice. They live close to nature and there is nothing wrong with that. They have their own society and their own culture. Their life is as complicated and as rich as your life is. How do you measure how civilized a culture is? If it is their choice to remain un-contacted, they should be free to live that way. You cannot make an assumption that they would die young. Their bodies would have developed systems to counter most of the natural viruses and other health aspects there. Their upbringing would have taught them the skills to live in harmony with the forest. Their brains would not have developed the adequate techniques to survive in our society. Getting them out of there is the worst possible thing that you can do to them. They have got their technology and we have ours. What is comfort to you is only a conditioned response? Car is a great comfort only if you want to travel long distances. They have crafted their lifestyle in such a manner that they do not need such comforts. Most of their building materials and techniques would take care of air conditioning and cooling. They consume so few resources that their carbon foot print is probably negative. As far as education is concerned, we use this education to survive in this society, to earn, to create and transact with goods and so on. Their society is not built on such structures and transactions. They would have different structures and transactions. One is not necessarily superior or inferior. They are merely different.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  How do you know they are uncivilized? I think you are making assumptions. If they are civilized... I know of at least one old-fashioned civilized culture relatively estranged from Western influence that seems to be doing well, at least in some regards: http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/longevity/page/2 http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/longevity/page/2
  - Mz 16y ago
    Excerpt: Their incidence rate is at or near zero in just about every category, including diabetes, vascular disease, and colorectal cancer. Age seems to have no effect on them, either: The Tarahumara runner who won the 1993 Leadville ultramarathon was 55 years old. Plus, their supernatural invulnerability isn't just limited to their bodies; the Tarahumara have mastered the secret of happiness as well, living as benignly as bodhisattvas in a world free of theft, murder, suicide, and cruelty. Great article. Thanks so much for sharing. Very relevant for me, I mean to my life (as I get well when doctors say it cannot be done -- and I live without a car and walk a lot).
- ra 16y ago
  I suspect you are baiting us but I'll bite. > Our way of life is better. I think you are making a massive assumption. What do you know about their life? How do you know they don't love the forest as if it is their own mother and father? Do you really think that they haven't seen their world destroyed around them, by us, and fear that their world is hanging on by a thread? Do you really think that if they wanted to be part of our world, they wouldn't come out of the forest; even out of simple curiosity? I think raganwald is spot on.
- logicalmind 16y ago
  You should read the book "Ishmael" and see if it changes your view. http://www.amazon.com/Ishmael-Adventure-Spirit-Daniel-Quinn/dp/0553375407 http://www.amazon.com/Ishmael-Adventure-Spirit-Daniel-Quinn/...
- Herald_MJ 16y ago
  I'm not sure if I agree with you, but I really do appreciate you making this point so we can openly debate the merits (and pitfalls) of this perspective.
- StuffMaster 16y ago
  They're living exactly as nature intended them to. Aren't animals best off in their natural environments? You obviously don't know how 'contact' works out. They would likely become alcoholic slum-dwellers, but hey, they have TV! Your attitude is the same as China's regarding Tibet. "Save Tibet!" "Why?" "The Chinese are destroying their culture and way of life by modernizing them! Forcing them to go to school, learn Chinese and math and business and stuff, to get jobs..." Oh wait...
Groxx 16y ago
>... we grew up a little and we don't do that any more either. The only 3rd alternative being "Now we wall them in, pretend they don't exist, and tell people not to tap on the glass"? And those really are the only options, unless you know of an approach that isn't fundamentally the same as one of "kill them", "bring them into our culture", or "prevent our culture from getting into theirs". I'll take door number 2, thanks. And I hope anyone/thing that sees this will proceed to destroy my culture and identity to bring me closer to seeing the rest of the universe as it really is.
- raganwald 16y ago
  I present the following without comment: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Isolated_tribe https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Isolated_trib... And especially: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sentinelese_people https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sentinelese_p...
  - Groxx 16y ago
    And therein lies the dilemma: one of those three choices must be made first, before we can know what their decision is. Once such a decision is known, absolutely, we should respect it as much as we are able, but to know such a thing requires significant cultural contamination.
    - raganwald 16y ago
      Absolutely. At no time did I suggest I know what to do, I said we should think about it.
araneae 16y ago
I think this is exactly the kind of situation where the Golden Rule fails hardcore. If I think about it in that manner, I think "I'd want the hell out!" Who I am and how I would want people to treat me is largely shaped by the culture I live in. I wouldn't be me if I lived in those tribes. We shouldn't be thinking about how we would want to be treated in that situation, we should think about what they want, now. And that's generally for those bulldozer things to stop mowing down their homes.
alecco 16y ago
You should have picked the Silver Rule, then. ""Do not do to others as you would not have others do to you." Much better than Golden Rule, IMHO.
niqolas 16y ago
The concept of "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you?" is implicitly biased as it project's your worldview/morals/values/etc onto the "others" in question. If the goal is to understand, support and/or show respect for the uncontacted tribes, I think the focus should be adjusted to: "Do unto others as they want you to do unto them".

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.
- lwhi 16y ago
  I agree - it's a shocking point of view. I'm choosing to read it as parody. EDIT: Does the downvote mean it's not parody? EDIT,EDIT: So maybe the OP was being sincere - in which case I'm v depressed.
  - xenophanes 16y ago
    You're mistaken. I did not post a parody. I'm serious. That you have a hard time believing that people who disagree with you (like myself) even exist should perhaps be a wake up call to open your mind.
    - lwhi 16y ago
      It's just that many (feared and hated) leaders from history took a similar view. I'm surprised so many people on HN share it. (Did I dodge the Godwin's law bullet...?) -- Seriously though, this is exactly the point of view that was used by all colonial movements. It's antiquated, unjust and it's also completely xenophobic. I'm genuinely shocked.
araneae 16y ago
I generally agree with you except for one thing: A significant number of them may die of disease. There have been a few uncontacted tribe members that were forced to make contact with the outside world, and at least one died of TB: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=26225682776 https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=26225682776 This is quite similar to what happened in North America; the blankets with smallpox were highly unnecessary.
raganwald 16y ago
How does your perspective differ from the perspective of the missionaries who attempted to bring "salvation" to indigenous peoples around the world? How does your perspective differ from the perspectives that led to the imposition of the Residential Schools? https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Canadian_Indi... Also, nothing I wrote says anything about providing them with access, it says something about destroying their culture and identity. So don't be too quick to make assumptions about what I believe or don't believe about medicine and education.
- rubashov 16y ago
  What about the missionaries who stopped indigenous peoples' crazy blood soaked ways and widespread human sacrifice rituals? The Aztecs in particular were quite psycho. With the daily stories of decapitated bodies and mass slayings in connection with the drug cartels in Mexico, sometimes a wonder about the cultural link back to the Aztec ways.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    IIRC, the Spaniards stopped the Aztecs with smallpox and the measles. http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/Americas/Cortes.CP.html http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/Americas/Cortes.CP.html But let's not quibble a minor point like that. The question I raised was simply how our perspective today differs from their perspective back in colonial times, with an eye to considering the possibility that we are fallible and that what we sincerely believe is in someone else's best interests may not be in their best interests. I'm not saying we can't or shouldn't contact or help them, I'm saying we should be careful, because it may be that what we think is good for them today turns out to be bad for them. That doesn't mean we shouldn't act, but isn't it worth thinking carefully before making choices?
  - Naga 16y ago
    The scope of human sacrifice was largely exaggerated. The book 1491, by Charles C. Mann, puts the amount of people sacrificed per year by the Aztecs at 3000-4000, out of around 30 million people. He compares that to England, which executed 75000 people between 1530 and 1630. England had about 1/10th the population of the Aztecs, and if it had the same, it would have been executing 7500 people each year, around double the Aztecs were.
gloob 16y ago
How "white man's burden"-esque.
- raganwald 16y ago
  I'm here because someone helpfully provided one of my ancestors with an education into modern sugar plantation processes and methods, including a free trip to Barbados. If it hadn't been for that, I'd be in Nigeria living large on my 419 business. Blogs, 419s, what's the difference?
ThomPete 16y ago
The problem with our unproven claims is that you speak from the vantage point of the advanced alien visitors speaking on the primitive cultures behalf. I am not sure what you mean with uncivilized lifestyles. Do you mean wearing clothes? Eating with knife and fork or do you talk about dropping the bomb, invading other countries?
T_S_ 16y ago
Perhaps they have something to teach us as well. We should at least ask for directions to El Dorado, before we convert them to OS X and give them some french fries.
mwhite 16y ago
Define "better". Primitive people's lives are short, yes. But that they are uncomfortable and brutish is at best an uninformed value judgment that supports the narrative of civilization. By any good measure of happiness, they are probably happier than us. Most of them would die from diseases of civilization in the event of contact, anyway, so I don't really see how western medicine potentially extending their lives applies.
- uvdiv 16y ago
  >Primitive people's lives are short, yes. But that they are uncomfortable and brutish is at best an uninformed value judgment that supports the narrative of civilization. Then let them make their own value judgement. Offer them 80-year life expectancies and the extravagant luxury of modern life; let them make their own choices. Xenophanes isn't the one arguing for forced isolation -- for keeping the truth of the world secret from them.
- forensic 16y ago
  The shortness of tribal people's lives has been greatly exaggerated. In fact, it's pure myth. The book Sex at Dawn demonstrates this using the latest anthropology and archaeology if you want to know more. Until recently, it was normal for tribal societies to live longer on average than agricultural societies. All of the statistics that support the idea that tribal life is short were done very poorly and skewed by abortion/infanticide. Tribal societies would have the same lifespans on average as our society does today and perhaps even longer because they had far healthier diets and always got lots of exercise. However, they would keep their numbers low through infanticide and eugenics. For instance a baby with birth defects would often be allowed to die and abortions using certain drugs were normal. Anyway, the idea that tribal life was brutish, solitary and short is utterly wrong on every point. The science indicates clearly: - it was less brutish on average with more social harmony and warfare was less painful for all involved - it was not short at all, quite the contrary. Only modern agricultural societies, through scientific medicine, have begun to approach the lifespans of tribal societies who are not interfered with. This was just a myth from the very start. - it was not solitary. Our society is solitary. In a tribal society, every person is surrounded by lifelong friends and relatives at every moment of every day for their entire lives. Modern man can scarcely imagine the depths of human bonding that tribal societies experience.
paulitex 16y ago
"Our way of life is better" Ahh yes, the colonialist's mantra. Even more of a historical failure than the communist manifesto. Go look at how life 'improved' in sub saharan africa. Or the profoundly sad state of natives all over the world, in Canada, Australia, US, and beyond. Our way of life is not better. It is not for everyone. We have huge wealth and health disparity, large scale violence, drug addiction and homeless to name but a few unsavories. Your argument is a very old one - this is a 19th century discussion. As such I suggest you look at the history of colonialism, and the atrocities that resulted and continue to result because of it. Maybe start with Rwanda, it's pretty compelling.
- orangecat 16y ago
  Our way of life is not better. Yes, it is. Would you trade places with them? Would you want your children to? We have huge wealth and health disparity Which we could certainly eliminate by destroying all our wealth and abandoning medicine. The only thing that should tell you is that "inequality" is a poor metric. And none of this implies that it would be acceptable to forcibly impose our civilization on anyone. It does imply that we should offer them the choice.
  - kevinelliott 16y ago
    It's not fair to offer that comparison after we've already been exposed to our own cultures. Of course now that we've had technology, our social traditions and structure, and advances in science and history, that it would be nearly impossible to WANT to trade places with them. However, we are a stressed out, overworked, sick society who has lost traditions such as appreciation of family, and our idea of relaxation and "living life" is a 2 week vacation once a year. Sure, we've got great tools and Xboxes and the Internet and modern medicine... but at the end of the day, 100+ million Americans are literally sick (defined by the prescribed medications that over 1 in 3 have to treat symptoms of sickness). If I had grown up in their tribe, and was given an opportunity to completely understand the pros and cons of the new society, I may just want to stay ignorant in my tribe. It's quite possible that while they're likely less intelligent, less advanced and very primitive, but happy and connected with each other and have a quality of life that comparatively (to them) is better than our way of life. At the end of the day, to me at least, quality of life is what's really important. To others, it's competition, satisfaction of proving that they are better than others, money, and egocentric activities that make them happy (and that's fine).
deleted 16y ago
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forensic 16y ago
>Preserving their backwards culture so they can continue lives of misery and suffering is just as disgusting as the Prime Directive. The point is that they are not suffering. Modern anthropology and the best science actually indicates that tribal hunter-gatherers experience higher levels of happiness and satisfaction than your typical citizen of an agricultural society. Tribal hunter-gatherers have healthier diets, live longer without outside interference, have more social harmony, deeper longer lasting social bonds, etc. All the ingredients for deep, lasting, and fulfilling happiness. They are living precisely how humans evolved to live. From the perspective of "suffering" agriculture is actually a step backwards. Nonetheless agricultural societies dominate because agricultural societies have higher populations, stronger diseases (natural disease warfare) and better military technology. It is natural that agriculture dominates and pushes out the tribal lifestyle. However on the basis of suffering/misery it is actually the agriculturalists who are worse off. A great book that details this phenomenon was recently released for the public called Sex At Dawn.
- CamperBob 16y ago
  Modern anthropology and the best science actually indicates that tribal hunter-gatherers experience higher levels of happiness and satisfaction than your typical citizen of an agricultural society. So does the typical Oxycontin addict. 'Happiness and satisfaction' are weasel words that ultimately have no objective meaning. Tribal hunter-gatherers have healthier diets, live longer without outside interference, No, they do not.
  - forensic 16y ago
    I wasn't the one making the argument that these people are experiencing misery/suffering. Misery and suffering is no more objective than happiness and satisfaction. I would argue that both of these things are objective and can be observed in the brain and well as inferred from other criteria. >No, they do not. Yes, they do. We can go back and forth like this all day or you can make a real argument. Read SEX AT DAWN and get back to me with your criticism of their anthropology. Based on your statements regarding happiness I'm going to tentatively conclude that you're one of the ignorant engineers who has little contact with the social sciences. Why do programmers believe they know more than everyone else in subjects where they are grossly ignorant? We need a word for this. Programmer hubris or something. I guess it's just the Dunning-Kruger effect striking again.
raganwald 16y ago
I never actually said we shouldn't contact them or offer assistance. Before I go to the gym, I'll argue what I think is with your point. For those who think they should be left in isolation, why is it bad to contact them and expose them to our civilization, but good to invent new things and businesses and cultural systems in our civilization? For example, entrepreneurs invented television and birth control. These inventions changed everything for us and our culture. How is it ok for someone to invent television but not ok for us to contact an isolated tribe and show them what the rest of the world is doing? How is it ok for someone to invent a way for hetero women to make more choices about their bodies and their sexuality, but not ok for us to offer them medicine so that they can make more choices about their bodies? We hackers espouse a philosophy of creating change. How is it ok to create change for our culture but not ok to create change for theirs?
- seanos 16y ago
  I think it's because when we invent television we don't lose anything. Once we show these people the modern world, there is no going back. It makes it a difficult moral dilema.
  - ugh 16y ago
    When we invented cars we lost our own culture’s tradition of riding horses. It used to be the case that everyone knew how to ride a horse, now only a select few decide to preserve that tradition. Even they ride only for sport and fun, a cheap imitation of what it meant to ride a horse 200 years ago. Cars viciously destroyed the role horses play in our society, that part of our culture is forever lost. (I’m not sad.)
    - seanos 16y ago
      But people can still ride a horse. A contacted tribe can never become uncontacted again. BTW I have no idea whether the right answer is to contact them or not, I am just explaining why it is a moral dilemma.
    - raganwald 16y ago
gokhan 16y ago
Check the FAQ first: http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/articles/3109-questions-and-answers-uncontacted-tribes 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.
ojbyrne 16y ago
One of the more interesting books I've read recently - A Farewell to Alms - http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic-History/dp/0691121354 http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic-History/d... has the basic argument that as a direct result of modern technology, there are people living on the planet now (in sub-saharan Africa), with the lowest standards of living ever present on this planet, significantly worse than that experienced by Paleolithic hunters and gatherers. Uncivilized lifestyles turned out not to be that brutal, and in fact modern medicine is the primary mechanism by which the poorest countries have significantly lower standards of living than undiscovered tribes. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07indu.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07indu.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_trap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_trap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence
hristov 16y ago
Now are you sure our way of life is better? That is a rather self centered thing to say. How do you think they would do in Brazilian society with no property no education and no ability to speak the language? How much do you know about the lives of the poorest Brazilians and Peruvians? Do you think they get much modern medicine? These people would of course be poorer than the poorest brazilians and peruvians because even they (i) can speak the language and (ii) know something about the society they live in.
Mz 16y ago
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. I wish it were so simple. Culture is really not easy to transmit. Transmitting some small piece of it in isolation very often only causes problems without improving anything at all. It often destroys what was there without replacing it with anything viable. Look at the really high rates of diabetes and other issues in so many tribal groups around the world. Look at the general quality of life contact has brought them. I'm really not impressed with the track record so far of "helping" such peoples. EDIT: Here is an article (called "Diseases of Affluence") which talks about the high levels of diabetes and such that I found through HN not terribly long ago. Really fascinating piece in its own right. http://maisonneuve.org/pressroom/article/2010/nov/15/the-diseases-affluence/ http://maisonneuve.org/pressroom/article/2010/nov/15/the-dis...
haberman 16y ago
Some uncontacted people violently resist outside contact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people
DanI-S 16y ago
"Our way of life is better." The fact that this has so many upvotes /really/ lowers my high opinion of the HN readership.
- AngryParsley 16y ago
  The natives might disagree if they saw our lives, but they can't reply here. They don't know the Internet exists and they're illiterate. I doubt many of us would desire to live in an uncontacted tribe. People in uncontacted tribes spend most of their time getting food to avoid starvation. Sometimes they get injured or ill, but they don't have painkillers or medicine. Sometimes a kid gets appendicitis. They don't have surgery, so the kid dies. Sometimes a child is born with a cleft palette. Charities do this procedure in developing countries, but in uncontacted tribes the child is deformed for life. Based on evidence from other tribes, they're almost certainly a patriarchal society. Sorry girls, you can't be leaders when you grow up. You'll have to have birth children without painkillers or medical supervision. (Oh and there's no birth control.) Breech baby? Tough luck. And don't get attached to your kids early on; infant mortality is pretty high. Granted, their quality of life isn't going to be great even if they're contacted. And arguing on the Internet isn't going to change the outcome of this situation. But our way of life is better. There are very few places on earth where quality of life is worse than an uncontacted tribe. The list is pretty short: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and a couple other countries. Eventually, even those failed states will progress, whereas the uncontacted tribes won't.
- ugh 16y ago
  Here is another way of looking at it: If you compare the way of living in the United States today to the way of living in the United States at any other point in time, do you think that you would be able to roughly order those ways of living from superior to inferior? If you think that’s possible, wouldn’t it be very weird indeed if you couldn’t similarly order geographically separated cultures?
pessimist 16y ago
The problem is that once we make contact with them, 50% will die due to disease. The rest will lead miserable dependent lives, and probably turn to alcoholism. I have seen this first hand with the Jarawa people of the Andaman Islands, and anecdotally with many other tribals. History repeats itself.
mohsen 16y ago
how could you even say that, do you even know what their way of life is?
mambodog 16y ago
As an Australian, seeing what has happened to our Aboriginal people partly as a result of our interference, and partly also just because of the incompatible nature of our societies and cultures, I'd be very concerned about how such change would affect these people. This experience is repeated among indigenous peoples the world over. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians#Contemporary_issues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians#Contempo...
guynamedloren 16y ago
For all you know, these people may be the happiest in the entire world. Who are we to take that from them?
nerme 16y ago
OUR way of life is better? No, dude, YOUR way of life is better. If these people are brought in to our culture they're fucked. Plain and simple. What do you think they're going to do, move to the Bay Area and start a social media company? They're on the bottom rung. They've got some red body paint, some banana trees, and some thatch roofed huts. They're wealth exists solely in their own way of life. As soon as they're faced with our way of life, they're fucking worthless.
logjam 16y ago
Perhaps you'd be good enough to explain to us all exactly what an "uncivilized lifestyle" is, what is "backward" about them, and exactly which "uncivilized" and "dark age" cultures you feel currently live lives which are "uncomfortable, short, and brutal." Exactly what characterizes "our way of life?" Technology? How does technology make our way of life "better?" Science? I'd advance that many of these "backwards cultures" are probably successful in large part because they are more scientific and experienced and thoughtful about the worlds they inhabit, than oh, say, the average conservative Republican in the "civilized" U.S...who denies global warming, thinks education is dangerous, wants to halt stem-cell research, believes in the efficacy of prayer in health care, etc etc. Maybe we could continue our discussion with a glance at the now classic 1990 New England Journal of Medicine article indicating that African American men in the middle of one of our modern and "civilized" cities and countries in the late twentieth century have a lower life expectancy than their counterparts in Bangladesh. "Dark ages quality?" "Myths and prejudices" You mean racism? Nationalism? "In God We Trust?" http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199001183220306 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199001183220306 Maybe we could move on to a thesis dozens of historians share, that the "primitive" Native Americans gave us MORE in the way of transfer of technology and culture than we provided. The agricultural knowledge passed on, the result of generations of careful observation and experimentation by Native Americans, was immense. Beyond agricultural technology and an enlightened, observational ecology, it's not even clear that the average European knew you could take a damned bath with water regularly as a healthful practice before immigrants gaped at Native Americans doing just that. More importantly, as Ian Frazier notes in the first chapter of "On the Rez" which I invite all the cultural imperialists here to read, at the time of Columbus there were probably about "eleven people in all of Europe who could do what they wanted." Amerigo Vespucci had brought back news that in the New World, "every one is his own master." Frazier goes on to show the profound impact Native American thought had on the idea of personal freedom among European immigrants still steeped in monarchy, and what that brought forth in America.
pyre 16y ago
> We should give them access to technology and to our > way of life. Our way of life is better. So, we should like emulate Canada over the mid-20th century, and kidnap children from tribal lands and force them into orphanages/boarding school where most of them will be abused physically and sexually in the process of trying to 'train the savage' out of them? edit: Missed raganwald's post and Wikipedia link
- deleted 16y ago
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muhfuhkuh 16y ago
“If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.” -- Stephen Hawking The truth, in both theory and practice, is that there is no pure, fair sharing of technology. It always, in nearly every single situation throughout world history, has ended in blood, subjugation, and/or slavery. And, it likely always will. Cultures don't just switch over to a "more superior" one; they're almost always forced to. Think of how many people died or were conquered through history just so that we could all be able to flush a toilet and it actually go somewhere. Absurd, but apropos.
- wazoox 16y ago
  > The truth, in both theory and practice, is that there is no pure, fair sharing of technology. It always, in nearly every single situation throughout world history, has ended in blood, subjugation, and/or slavery. And, it likely always will. However this always happened between social apes. E.T. aliens probably would be completely different from us (see "Ender's game" for instance) and may very well act in different ways and follow different motivations. So we don't know, really.
techiferous 16y ago
"Our way of life is better." Are you asserting that you know their culture well enough to make a meaningful comparison with your culture?
jeisenberg 16y ago
This response is a joke, right? What constitutes a 'civilized' lifestyle? Your concepts of 'backwards' and 'civilized' are grounded in normative assumptions about what is right and wrong. I am not a post-structuralist, but I expect someone to acknowledge his or her normative stance before degrading a culture different than your own. What do you mean when you say 'There is nothing good?' What do you define as 'good?' There are 'tribes' whose languages don't even contain a sense of linear time, which goes against Chomsky's universal theory of language. Here is a recent article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_... No past, no present. I am sorry, but your narrow, ethnocentric mind can't cognitively understand what that kind of existence is like. Look this up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology This varies across cultures and languages. At least pretend to respect difference.
- xenophanes 16y ago
  Not a joke. You're mistaken in your assumption that I am ignorant of philosophy just b/c A) I didn't cite anyone impressive in my initial comment B) we disagree. Yes I am aware of Chomsky (in more detail than New Yorker articles offer). Yes I am aware of what ontology is. Yes I have studied philosophy. Do you want me to counter-cite philosophers for you to read? You might learn something by reading _The Myth of the Framework_ and _The Open Society And Its Enemies_ by Karl Popper. If you want to trash freedom, human rights, peaceful cooperation, and other aspects of modern Western civilization, and deny their objective value, don't pretend there is no serious and thoughtful stuff published on the other side and that everyone who disagrees with you is ignorant. Next time you want to call someone closed minded, try to do it without ad hominem. Ad hominem arguments don't make you come off as tolerant and willing to have an open-ended discussion where you don't assume in advance who is right.
  - jeisenberg 16y ago
    You certainly don't argue or write like you studied anything but Glenn Beck's wikipedia page. Can you please explain to me how I am 'trashing' freedom, and human rights? Cultural rights ARE human rights. And please explain to me how Karl Popper somehow supports your theory of 'objective value.' Popper's arguments concern the contingency of analyses. Contingency, not objectivity. I only reserve the ad hom's for close-minded dipshits like yourself.
dkarl 16y ago
It won't be better for them. It may not better for their children. It will probably be better for their grandchildren... if we continue to be generous. But by that time we'll probably be disgusted and resentful because they haven't assimilated well enough to be productive members of the middle class. The alternative, of course, is forcible assimilation and cultural extinction, which would be a horrific fate inflicted on two generations for the sake of unborn ones. To accomplish what you suggest, it seems like the "cleanest" and most humane way would be to kidnap every child under ten and every subsequent child born into the tribe and put them up (separately) for adoption in wealthy countries. Let everyone older than ten live out their lives undisturbed, except for the tragic disappearance of all of their children. I challenge you to either endorse this method or describe a way that causes less suffering.
raquo 16y ago
Obligatory: http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/
marquis 16y ago
Let them decide for themselves. Consider those who chose to explore, chose to leave their home village, chose to travel across continents. The members of that tribe who want to know more will explore if/when they decide to do so, and only then should they discover what worlds lie outside of theirs, not by force by us. Perhaps an advanced civilization would think the same. They have seen us go to the moon and send probes into space, and hopefully this would be sufficient for them to understand that we too, wish to explore and are ready for more knowledge.
dools 16y ago
Our way of life is better This is a dangerous and destructive attitude without exception.
hyperbovine 16y ago
This is the old noble savage debate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage). As evidenced by the fact that Western societies have engaged in it for at least the past 500 years, it's way less settled than you make it out to be. Convincing arguments exist for both sides.
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dmg8 16y ago
It sounds as if you're envisioning these people being painlessly integrated into modern society, perhaps retrained as plumbers, software developers, etc., then joining Brazil's (extremely small) middle class. This is just not realistic. In practice, these people joining "civilization" would almost certainly mean ending up living in grinding poverty in an extremely violent "favela" (Brazil's ubiquoutous shanty towns) with drugs and guns everywhere.
tc23emp 16y ago
We won't get a chance to offer them a better life if the illegal loggers kill them off with guns and disease first - a process that already began during the rubber boom. The fact that illegal loggers are even there to begin with shows that our morality is not greater than our greed in the pursuit of resources. We may have good intentions, but, if these tribes are not completely protected, elements within our society will slowly take every liberty with the land and its people as has been done countless times in the history. We know nothing of aliens. Any speculation is a reflection on ourselves and, therefore, it is more common to believe that aliens would annihilate us rather than be interested in improving our way of life.
jordan0day 16y ago
I don't know why the belief in the "noble savage" persists to this day, but your response is exactly what I would hope for from a rational human being. Certainly there probably is an optimal way to go about contacting a tribe like this and "bringing them up to speed" with the rest of the world, and I admit that there probably isn't a single person on this earth who actually knows what that optimal way is. But to deny these people even the chance at a better life because we're busy hand-wringing over how it will affect their culture is terrible.
yason 16y ago
I hope that was sarcasm because as such it would be great and insightful, and very symbolic of Western civilication throughout the centuries. If not, I disagree pretty much with everything you said. Myself, I think Shaw grokked it perfectly with his "Don't do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same".
lisperforlife 16y ago
How do you know that they live a miserable life or that they suffer? Do you think they remain uncontacted because they do not have the means to contact? They have remained uncontacted because of their choice. They live close to nature and there is nothing wrong with that. They have their own society and their own culture. Their life is as complicated and as rich as your life is. How do you measure how civilized a culture is? If it is their choice to remain un-contacted, they should be free to live that way. You cannot make an assumption that they would die young. Their bodies would have developed systems to counter most of the natural viruses and other health aspects there. Their upbringing would have taught them the skills to live in harmony with the forest. Their brains would not have developed the adequate techniques to survive in our society. Getting them out of there is the worst possible thing that you can do to them. They have got their technology and we have ours. What is comfort to you is only a conditioned response? Car is a great comfort only if you want to travel long distances. They have crafted their lifestyle in such a manner that they do not need such comforts. Most of their building materials and techniques would take care of air conditioning and cooling. They consume so few resources that their carbon foot print is probably negative. As far as education is concerned, we use this education to survive in this society, to earn, to create and transact with goods and so on. Their society is not built on such structures and transactions. They would have different structures and transactions. One is not necessarily superior or inferior. They are merely different.
sliverstorm 16y ago
How do you know they are uncivilized? I think you are making assumptions. If they are civilized... I know of at least one old-fashioned civilized culture relatively estranged from Western influence that seems to be doing well, at least in some regards: http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/longevity/page/2 http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/longevity/page/2
- Mz 16y ago
  Excerpt: Their incidence rate is at or near zero in just about every category, including diabetes, vascular disease, and colorectal cancer. Age seems to have no effect on them, either: The Tarahumara runner who won the 1993 Leadville ultramarathon was 55 years old. Plus, their supernatural invulnerability isn't just limited to their bodies; the Tarahumara have mastered the secret of happiness as well, living as benignly as bodhisattvas in a world free of theft, murder, suicide, and cruelty. Great article. Thanks so much for sharing. Very relevant for me, I mean to my life (as I get well when doctors say it cannot be done -- and I live without a car and walk a lot).
ra 16y ago
I suspect you are baiting us but I'll bite. > Our way of life is better. I think you are making a massive assumption. What do you know about their life? How do you know they don't love the forest as if it is their own mother and father? Do you really think that they haven't seen their world destroyed around them, by us, and fear that their world is hanging on by a thread? Do you really think that if they wanted to be part of our world, they wouldn't come out of the forest; even out of simple curiosity? I think raganwald is spot on.
logicalmind 16y ago
You should read the book "Ishmael" and see if it changes your view. http://www.amazon.com/Ishmael-Adventure-Spirit-Daniel-Quinn/dp/0553375407 http://www.amazon.com/Ishmael-Adventure-Spirit-Daniel-Quinn/...
Herald_MJ 16y ago
I'm not sure if I agree with you, but I really do appreciate you making this point so we can openly debate the merits (and pitfalls) of this perspective.
StuffMaster 16y ago
They're living exactly as nature intended them to. Aren't animals best off in their natural environments? You obviously don't know how 'contact' works out. They would likely become alcoholic slum-dwellers, but hey, they have TV! Your attitude is the same as China's regarding Tibet. "Save Tibet!" "Why?" "The Chinese are destroying their culture and way of life by modernizing them! Forcing them to go to school, learn Chinese and math and business and stuff, to get jobs..." Oh wait...

Groxx 16y ago

>... we grew up a little and we don't do that any more either. The only 3rd alternative being "Now we wall them in, pretend they don't exist, and tell people not to tap on the glass"? And those really are the only options, unless you know of an approach that isn't fundamentally the same as one of "kill them", "bring them into our culture", or "prevent our culture from getting into theirs". I'll take door number 2, thanks. And I hope anyone/thing that sees this will proceed to destroy my culture and identity to bring me closer to seeing the rest of the universe as it really is.

raganwald 16y ago
I present the following without comment: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Isolated_tribe https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Isolated_trib... And especially: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sentinelese_people https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sentinelese_p...
- Groxx 16y ago
  And therein lies the dilemma: one of those three choices must be made first, before we can know what their decision is. Once such a decision is known, absolutely, we should respect it as much as we are able, but to know such a thing requires significant cultural contamination.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Absolutely. At no time did I suggest I know what to do, I said we should think about it.

araneae 16y ago

I think this is exactly the kind of situation where the Golden Rule fails hardcore. If I think about it in that manner, I think "I'd want the hell out!" Who I am and how I would want people to treat me is largely shaped by the culture I live in. I wouldn't be me if I lived in those tribes. We shouldn't be thinking about how we would want to be treated in that situation, we should think about what they want, now. And that's generally for those bulldozer things to stop mowing down their homes.

alecco 16y ago

You should have picked the Silver Rule, then. ""Do not do to others as you would not have others do to you." Much better than Golden Rule, IMHO.

niqolas 16y ago

The concept of "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you?" is implicitly biased as it project's your worldview/morals/values/etc onto the "others" in question. If the goal is to understand, support and/or show respect for the uncontacted tribes, I think the focus should be adjusted to: "Do unto others as they want you to do unto them".