Just throwing an idea out there: how about faking the child's death, smuggling them out and putting them up for adoption in mainstream Brazilian society?
This brings many obvious problems, but seems to allow us to have the cake and eat it too.
The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
41–50 of 59 posts
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#42Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#43The West does this with down syndrome. In the UK apparently 90% of pregnancies with prenatally diagnosed Down syndrome are terminated. (see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-wouldve-aborted-a-... for example)
Killing a child, or any conscious being willing to live, cannot be compared to terminating a pregnancy at a point where the embryo is just a blob of cells with no global survival instinct and consciousness whatsoever (just basic biochemistry-powered defensive reactions at cellular level). It's ridiculous making such mental gymnastics to stretch this article in order to blame " the West ".
I used the phrase "the West" because the practice happens in the US, but is more common in Europe.
The analogy stems from an instrumentalist view of what it means to be human and the expectations parents have that children are for their own pleasure. IE: a down syndrome life isn't worth living because such a person can't be a meaningfully productive member of society, or a down syndrome child isn't one I want to have because of the long-term burden I will have to bear.
It's not mental gymnastics to make that connection. The only reason it isn't obvious is because abortion is a taboo subject.
FWIW a 10 week old fetus is a lot more than a "blob of cells": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sivegxcp2Bk .
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why even this comment is flagged? maybe downvoted by HN people who buried their children alive by tradition?
Probably because it's a case of Godwin's Law (without justification), and is an over-simplistic and emotive comment that is likely to trigger a flame-war.
How it can be an over-simplitic thing? Is there any room for a valid argument/justification of killing a child (except for "cultural thing" bullshit)?
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
At what point is a child imbued with consciousness and a will to live? Who should be responsible for that determination?
While the line drawing fallacy certainly comes into play here, one can with some confidence say that /before a single neuron is formed/ is most certainly a safe spot to point at and say “not yet.”
I didn't quickly find a definitive answer about the time the first neuron forms, but some brief searching around seems to indicate the neurons are already assembling into complex structures before 5 weeks.
So it seems like development of the first neuron would be well before that, and not a very practically-useful line.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_human_bra...
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's easier to judge small tribes as being backwards than to look at ourselves and see the backwardness, and that we're really not any different.
Just how on Earth have you inferred this statement from the OP or from the parent's comment? Have you read either?
The HN guidelines [0] are actually a remarkably good set of principles for online discussion of challenging topics.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something ... Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that.” ... Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
The standard of care each of us puts into each of our own responses is what makes HN-quality conversations possible or impossible.
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#47This is human zoo. We see that culture, and our approach to certain instances of it is inherently oppressive. We had cultures similar to that of the indigenous peoples' back in the old world until relatively recently. But because we have a certain fascination with these exotic "species" of people, we negate them the modern life, way better than theirs in every objective measure. We entitle ourselves to the "preservat…
I'm not sure that I enjoy the idea of communicating with millions or billions of people. That's not why I use the language I use.
The incidental fact that I share a common language with certain other individuals of high status, isn't why I speak this language. Would that I could choose another language, would that be the reason to choose it?
If that's true, certainly there are people with more than me, operating at higher status in other languages, so why don't I simply open doors for myself and choose to learn one of those languages?
(hint: you can't just walk up to someone and kick it to them, not in any language; there are more rules to the equation, and they are neither trivial nor obvious; I mean look at how I'm disagreeing with you right now, and in your own language, no less!)
The reality is that, all I really get from this language is a the house and food that keeps me going. The quantity of people I could theoretically interact with isn't a benefit, because the quality of people I could possibly interect with is much lower than the peaks and unicorns of whatever metric you might use to chart the value of social interaction in an objective manner, which, by the way, is conceptually repugnant to me.
So, preserving a dying language, what's that worth? Well, in the sense of using selective breeding to artificially create stunted or distorted animals as curiosities for entertainment, yeah, it seems ethically distasteful to force A child to learn esperanto, without an endgame in mind, other than for the purpose of injecting an artificial sense of nostalgia into a custom that will never see practical use. Under the hood, the mechanics of this almost translate to wasting a child's time as investment in future emotional blackmail.
So, then, to look at that idea as a corrolary to preserving and forcing an enclave to remain isolated and backwards because it's so quaint. Or perhaps because it serves as a visceral teaching tool, to demonstrate an interactive example of human existence that predates certain discoveries. What does that really mean?
Does blocking access to modernity mean, if not so much (outsiders blocking said access) for the mature members of a primitive clan within an isolated tribe, then moreso it means permitting those older members to engage in what is effectively child abuse. All this transpiring as they foster a new generation of children who will grow up without refridgerators and freezers, and effectively be restricted from knowing the delight of ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake? Children's ice cream?
What could have been? What would we see, as we watch these children blossom into adults (as modern citizens of the global village), were it not for our morbid fascination with the primitive cultures of indigenous peoples? On the one hand, children raised in mud huts could certainly do without the tape worms and eye infections that leave some of them blind, malnourished and half-starved. And what of all the patently wrong misinformation of superstition and ritual? But then again, the hollow, selfish emptiness of modernity, and the auto-immune problems, endocrine disorders and psychiatric medication required to cope with the cognitive dissonance of living beneath an RFID geolocated surveillance ad tech apparatus designed by quantitative economists leaves something to be desired, so where's the goldilocks zone in all this?
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Killing a child, or any conscious being willing to live, cannot be compared to terminating a pregnancy at a point where the embryo is just a blob of cells with no global survival instinct and consciousness whatsoever (just basic biochemistry-powered defensive reactions at cellular level). It's ridiculous making such mental gymnastics to stretch this article in order to blame " the West ".
I used the phrase "the West" because the practice happens in the US, but is more common in Europe. The analogy stems from an instrumentalist view of what it means to be human and the expectations parents have that children are for their own pleasure. IE: a down syndrome life isn't worth living because such a person can't be a meaningfully productive member of society, or a down syndrome child isn't one I want to have…
While a 10 week old fetus is not a blob of cells, having some major structures forming and hinting at their definitive shape, the brain is still very little more than autonomic functions.
Also, there are a multitude of reasons why a couple would want to terminate a pregnancy for a genetic anomaly, from the social burden to the financial burden or the notion that their child with a congenital condition will not lead a life they deem worth living. At this point, when the fetus is not a person just yet, it's their choice to make.
Would you have a child knowing they'd be condemned to a premature and painful death?
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#49Just throwing an idea out there: how about faking the child's death, smuggling them out and putting them up for adoption in mainstream Brazilian society? This brings many obvious problems, but seems to allow us to have the cake and eat it too.
How about death to parent's who allow this, and instead they can just drop their kid off at the nearest hospital, fire department, police, etc? Plenty of people in the world would be for adopting these kids, it's assinine that there is even a discussion on whether any human should be allowed to kill another because of tradition.
Better the tribe and their traditions cease to exist, than blatant child murder continues to go unpunished.
I'm all for the prime directive in a space-faring society, to namely not let the people even know 'we' exist, but this is totally different. They are aware of us, as we are of them, and this is the same planet, which we all co-habitate and there's geneva conventions and human rights that ALL humans must have, regardless of where they are born into.
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#50This is human zoo. We see that culture, and our approach to certain instances of it is inherently oppressive. We had cultures similar to that of the indigenous peoples' back in the old world until relatively recently. But because we have a certain fascination with these exotic "species" of people, we negate them the modern life, way better than theirs in every objective measure. We entitle ourselves to the "preservat…
I'm not sure that I enjoy the idea of communicating with millions or billions of people. That's not why I use the language I use. The incidental fact that I share a common language with certain other individuals of high status, isn't why I speak this language. Would that I could choose another language, would that be the reason to choose it? If that's true, certainly there are people with more than me, operating at h…
BTW, as an addendum, I wrote this as a pure response to the parent comment, without RTFA, and the original HN title of the submission was that of the article itself (The Right to Kill) didn't disclose that this was specifically an article WRT murder as a crime of passion, since framing an idea as a Right is more abstract, whether the victims are children or not.
Moral relativism aside, the more civilized approach to produce an effect of nearly the same outcome as murder, is exile.
This is an option that was explored and proven successful by ancient and medieval societies across the globe. When something unforgivable and unforgettable happens, those responsible may be banished instead of executed, and in a civilization of unlimited resources, dungeon-like conditions need not be a term of excommunication.
But, within the context of a scenario like this, where the sterility of contact with the outside world is, in fact, a prerquisite to the concept at hand, the approach to handle the preservation of alien customs apart from society at large demands elaborate effort.
Beyond adopting the effort to carry out what amounts to a charade, one still needs to seek a rational basis for the effort. Why bother? Why should one tread lightly when maybe the life of a child is at stake?
The handy answer is because we can. We can have it both ways. The primitive culture can be preserved, if a channel of willful exile is opened, as an alternative to murder. And having it both ways affords the option of live and let live, which is better.
Perspective may say that this condones something akin to honor killing, as mitigated circumstances, sometimes you have to cut your losses and look at what you still have left.
It would require a carefully designed protocol, to handle the exfiltration of exiled tribal citizens that primitive clans rejected for perceived crimes, but it could be done. Is it worth the effort? I think a quantitative analyst would question how much it costs, and the answer is that it's probably quite affordable.