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When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

theguardian.com

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Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#131

Post by skrebbel »

strken wrote: post #17
andrei_says_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So a great story but I don't know how much can be extrapolated from it about human behaviour in general. Given that this really happened, a lot. Lord of the Flies came out of the fantasy of an English superintendent. Yet, it has permeated our culture as a cautionary tale about human behavior. It is 100% fiction. I’d like to recommend Humankind by Rutger Bregman - a wonderful book dismantling the toxic narratives we…

I haven't read Humankind yet, but a recent review I have read[0] gives a mix of positives and negatives to it. A lot of the cited studies are controversial in their own right: S.L.A. Marshall's claim that only 15% of soldiers in WW2 fired their weapons is based on subjective evidence, omits mention of whether they had any opportunity to fire, and has many other flaws that have since been picked apart, for example. Th…

I read both the book and this review, and while the review makes some valid points, it also holds the book to a pretty high bar.

Usually I'm all for doing exactly that, but this book is not about hard scientific proof for some fancy new theory. It's about an idea, the idea that humans are good by default. To be taken seriously as an idea, it only needs as much proof as the idea it's rejecting, which is that humans are a razor thin layer of civility over evil, savage animals.

It's about debunking that as much as it is about proposing an alternative. I think Bregman is perfectly happy to leave the hard science for the scientists. If readers agree that his idea is at least as plausible as the one he's up against, he's done pretty well. And to my reading, even this review agrees with that.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#134

Post by wombatmobile »

caligulatte wrote: post #86

Is it a coincidence this is posted now? The Peter Warner written about in the article drowned just recently, on April 13th.

Experienced seafarer Peter Warner dies after boat capsized in northern NSW Laura Chung By Laura Chung April 13, 2021 — 10.23pm

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/experienced-seafarer-pet...

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#136

Post by beachy »

axaxs wrote: post #63
beachy wrote: post #3

That's a wonderful story and and an uplifting rebuttal to Lord of the Flies. But to be fair, six Tongan boys were probably far hardier and well equipped than the typical British schoolboy of that time would have been. It seems they thought nothing of stealing a fishing boat and heading to sea, and they most likely had abundant life skills already - they basically relocated from life on one pacific island to another.…

This was my thought, as well. At the risk of sounding...I don't know some 'ist' word, people are just raised differently and the world varies so much. Picture you're on a beach, and behind you is a shirtless man with a machete. How you feel is completely dependent on where you are in the world. In LA, you'd run for cover. In south east Asia, it's Tuesday. I learned a lot from my travels, to back the adage about trave…

Funny you mention the machete. Last time I was in Suva in Fiji, some of the locals come into town for their evening drinks, directly I guess from cutting sugar cane in the fields, all with machetes hanging from their belts. It's a head turner all right if you're more used to people being kicked out of pubs just for wearing their jandals.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#137

Post by beachy »

filleduchaos wrote: post #122
beachy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pointless pendatry over words doesn't move discussion forwards. I wouldn't personally use either of those words to describe Nazis, which is largely what WWII "happened for".

I'm curious about what the pointless pedantry is in drawing a distinction between "stupid" and "morally abhorrent".

Those were not the words you used, and (continuing the pointless arguments about words), "morally abhorrent" does not mean the same as distasteful, at least to most english speakers.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#138

Post by nojokes »

totetsu wrote: post #22

This got a lot of coverage last year. This article questions the colonial view point it was mostly reported from. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/416819/concerns-over-a-tale... Here's an interview with one of the survivors https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018746636 And the reason the island was uninhabited. the Pacific slave trade https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/20182...

> "For me it's so hard to process because 'whiteness' believes it can own anything and everything," she said.

Sounds overly racist to me.

> The New Zealand Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi has weighed in on the conversation, writing on Twitter that in his opinion, "you should prioritise Polynesian (Tongan if possible!) filmmakers as to avoid cultural appropriation, misrepresentation, and to keep the Pasifika voice authentic".

> Gesa-Fatafehi agreed that if the story was made into a film, she would like to see Tongans behind, and in front of, the camera.

Well, they can do it if they want to - nothing can stop them to make a movie like this but they do not have any right to stop others to make their own interpretation (and they can dislike it and explain to everyone what is wrong with it).

I would like to see a Hollywood movie with mostly white but with at least one Asian and at least one black actors :) Ok, I am just joking about Hollywood stereotypes here.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#139

Post by nerdponx »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #124
dalbasal wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK if its a modern bias or a recurring one, but people are very drawn to the idea of a core human "nature:" what we are when all the surface level stuff is stripped away. The way the conversations I've had tend to go is ever more contrived scenarios. Eventually it gets to spaceships carrying sperm and eggs to be raised cultureless by robots. You need to avoid scenarios like these, where the boys know about raising c…

There is an idea that after the bombs fall we all turn into raping and pillaging marauders. I have no idea why people find this idea comforting. In reality villages will be built, laws written and religions made up.

It can be both, no?

Look at human history: lots of villages and religions, also lots of raping and pillaging.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#140

Post by jfk13 »

morsch wrote: post #101
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #41

Map of island: https://goo.gl/maps/DRmA2F5roGeHmyKs7 And Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ʻAta

The only photo on the page is of the slaver that sealed the island's fate. Sad.

It's wikipedia. Maybe you could contribute something to improve it?
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