141–150 of 378 posts
Poor poor people - they'll be better off if we stay away. EDIT: There is absolutely no chance that our western society has 'got it right'. If you think otherwise, I'm afraid you're deluding yourself.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You are basically saying that your beliefs and way of life are so superior and better than theirs that you must convert them No, they're saying that they believe their beliefs and way of life are superior, therefore they have a moral obligation to improve the lives of those less fortunate than them. Whether they're right or not is another issue, and as there's no objective way to measure such things, there is no ac…
" No, they're saying that they believe their beliefs and way of life are superior, therefore they have a moral obligation to improve the lives of those less fortunate than them. " " Whether they're right or not is another issue [..] " Morals are all about right or wrong - you can't have it both ways. -- The OPs belief is entirely objectionable. Have none of us learnt anything from history? EDIT: Actually, maybe that…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know the answer either, but I sure as hell know it's not my decision to make for somebody else. Your point about possible alien intelligences is an excellent one. How would we want to be treated if the shoe were on the other foot? I don't know my answer -- I suspect I would be all for change even if it were uncomfortable. But I absolutely know that I would be the one to make my personal decision about the mat…
I don't know what they're going to do here. The isolated tribe in India live in a protected zone, but the government regularly offers them a chance to make contact, and the tribe drives them off with weapons. That's a way forward that is neither dragging them into the 21st century nor running a zoo. I'm not advocating for that, of course, just pointing out that contact/isolation is a false dichotomy.
Others are children who do not get to make a choice until AFTER they have been indoctrinated with the tribe's values.
We see the same problem in the Muslim world. In some countries, Muslim women are treated as property and not allowed outside without a chaperone. How can they make a free choice to join the West when their male guardians say "no" for them?
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…
This experience is repeated among indigenous peoples the world over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians#Contempo...
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do they know it's huge? From their point of view, it could be the size of a bird. The story goes that the Huaorani called Nate Saint's plane a "woodbee" before he landed near them. After all, it flies and it buzzes.
They have two eyes with slightly different perspectives, and there's also the atmosphere to color blue things that are far away, so they have some idea of how far is it. Knowing how far and how big it looks like, you can estimate the real size. It's part of how our eye-brain interface works.
There's another story about the Grand Canyon. Apparently the first Spaniards to reach it estimated it to be a couple hundred feet deep, and thought the part of the Colorado that they could see was about six feet across. It was a mile down and 200 feet across, but they had no concept of a canyon that big.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know the answer either, but I sure as hell know it's not my decision to make for somebody else. Your point about possible alien intelligences is an excellent one. How would we want to be treated if the shoe were on the other foot? I don't know my answer -- I suspect I would be all for change even if it were uncomfortable. But I absolutely know that I would be the one to make my personal decision about the mat…
I don't know what they're going to do here. The isolated tribe in India live in a protected zone, but the government regularly offers them a chance to make contact, and the tribe drives them off with weapons. That's a way forward that is neither dragging them into the 21st century nor running a zoo. I'm not advocating for that, of course, just pointing out that contact/isolation is a false dichotomy.
Science fiction is great. It lets us look at some of these issues without (perhaps) so much emotional heat.
So let's assume that in the 1950s, aliens contacted the president of the United States -- a theme which recurs over and over again in sci-fi. The president decided that we were too primitive and paranoid to handle contact with a galactic civilization, so he told them to leave us alone.
What I'm saying is that whatever the nature of the leader, whether they are the president, or prime minister, or head of NATO, or head of the UN, or whoever else, it doesn't matter. They don't have the moral authority to be making decisions like that for me. No part of the social contract allows leaders to make decisions of such huge import and keep them secret.
So while I support any individual's right to be left alone and live however they like, I do not support people who are presumed leaders keeping information of that magnitude from others.
Just to speculate a bit, if you're the chief of a tribe, or part of the power structure, it probably sounds pretty good to be left alone. After all, who wants change? However if you're a mother who just watched her 5-year-old kid die from something that was easily prevented? You might have different ideas. Keeping the mother uniformed so that you can continue exercising your power over her is immoral and I do not support it.
As you point out, in the real world, these kinds of things are murky at best, with lots of little conditions and details you want to consider. All I'm saying is that it's not acceptable to simply throw your hands up and give up. From what little I know, I think the idea of repeated gentle contact -- as much as it can be done without annoying them too much -- is probably the wisest course of action. This would allow us to be sure we have made a reasonable and polite effort to inform them of the outside world, as well as trying to catch the newer members of the tribe as they are born and grow up. After all, even if you're left alone, it is reasonable to expect that you still have some kind of relationship to your neighbors.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
" No, they're saying that they believe their beliefs and way of life are superior, therefore they have a moral obligation to improve the lives of those less fortunate than them. " " Whether they're right or not is another issue [..] " Morals are all about right or wrong - you can't have it both ways. -- The OPs belief is entirely objectionable. Have none of us learnt anything from history? EDIT: Actually, maybe that…
It's your ludicrous conflation of the OP's genuine concern for the material welfare of these people with "ethnic cleansing" that's abhorrent.
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Look at what happened to Australian Aboriginals - the settlers who separated kids from their families had the best of intentions - but they also had a sense of superiority which gave them an utter contempt for the culture of the children in question.
There are some parallels between those settlers and the OP's statement:
"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."