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Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

uncontactedtribes.org

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Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#41

Post by Devilboy »

russell_h wrote: post #24

Absolutely fascinating stuff, and for me anyway it raises some interesting ethical questions. Making contact with these tribes would (I would imagine) destroy a lot of culture, to say nothing of the obvious issues of disease, etc. On the other hand, in a society where we claim to value innovation and progress, failing to offer these tribes the benefits available to others feels a little wrong. Given the choice betwee…

Traditionally those legal problems are solved by simply granting these people exceptions. I mean aboriginal people and native Americans do get special treatment in some cases.

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#42

Post by lwhi »

d3x wrote: post #35
xenophanes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 any…

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.

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#44

Post by Groxx »

farlington wrote: post #22
vietor wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect that it would do what every other unexplainable but repeated phenomena did in pre-scientific cultures, become part of the mythology. See: Weather. But my only anthropology was a few GE classes in undergrad, so maybe someone with actual knowledge can chime in? Hopefully future history books (or niche Ph.D. theses more likely ...) won't include a section about the bloody war between the plane-ists and th…

from their faq ( http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/articles/3109-questions-and... ): "uncontacted tribes will have seen aeroplanes on numerous occasions. The idea that this damages their self-image and/or spiritual beliefs belongs in the realm of fiction, and is based on the false supposition that their cultures are fragile. Experience shows that such peoples are in fact robust and well able to adapt to outside goods…

>Experience shows that such peoples are in fact robust and well able to adapt to outside goods

Yes, fairly often by either adding it to their mythology or creating a cargo cult: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

Whether either of those count as "damage" is academic; it's change. Either we inflict more change or we try to prevent all change.

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#45

Post by zeteo »

It's so easy to play God hovering in the skies, and make decisions for these people's future, isn't it? Maybe they actually don't enjoy 50+% child mortality, dying of appendicitis, and having to barter a truckload of plantains for a pot and a steel machete. Why don't they send someone on the ground, to explain to them that there's a big world out there that can change their ways forever, and give them a choice whether they'd like to be a part of it or not?

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#46

Post by bradleyjoyce »

as I am currently living in Peru, this is pretty moving to me. the argument here on both sides is pretty powerful, and you can easily find passionate people telling you it's real, or it's fake, etc etc. The president's (Alan Garcia) accusation that environmentalists are making "uncontacted people" up seems pretty ridiculous to me though, as there seems to be a lot of evidence supporting the claim that there a number of uncontacted peoples in the remote regions of the country.

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#47

Post by Devilboy »

jbrennan wrote: post #5

I wonder what kind of disturbance just the helicopter (or whatever method was used to capture the footage) caused on the tribe. Obviously the tribe was aware of it, but if they've never been contacted, would they be able to even fathom what such a thing is? I'm genuinely curious because I'm also genuinely ignorant on how "uncontacted" tribes like that are and what their civilization is like. Could anyone enlighten me…

I'm sure they've seen planes plenty of times, I mean commercial airliners fly pretty much everywhere I think? I'm sure they'd love to see it up close though. They must assume it's a bird monster or something.

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#48

Post by raganwald »

Groxx wrote: post #32
raganwald wrote: post #9

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 encounte…

> ... 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, t…

I present the following without comment:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Isolated_trib...

And especially:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sentinelese_p...

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#49

Post by araneae »

xenophanes wrote: post #27
raganwald wrote: post #9

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 encounte…

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…

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

This is quite similar to what happened in North America; the blankets with smallpox were highly unnecessary.

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