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The Forbidden Island

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Re: The Forbidden Island

#21

Post by dirktheman »

derleth wrote: post #18

Just think: A life without the damage wrought by modern antibiotics, dentistry, surgery, and preventative medicine! Where if you get sick with something that a week's worth of pills would clear right up, you're gonna die in pain! Paradise! Yep, nothing quite like the Noble Savage, who has the dignity to die of something you've only heard about in old novels.

Well, they seem to be doing allright for the past 65,000 years...

I'm the first to admit that I probably wouldn't last a week there. It seems quite romantic, living on a deserted island, without the antics of our society. But gathering food and water is hard, or even near impossible for us. These people however, seem to have found a way to survive.

I'm assuming that, because they have lived in such a closed ecosystem for so long, they have different diseases than we have. I'm also assuming that for the diseases and medical conditions they have, they probably can find medicinal plants in the forest.

I doubt however they have the same life expectancy as we do!

Re: The Forbidden Island

#22

Post by grbalaffa »

derleth wrote: post #18

Just think: A life without the damage wrought by modern antibiotics, dentistry, surgery, and preventative medicine! Where if you get sick with something that a week's worth of pills would clear right up, you're gonna die in pain! Paradise! Yep, nothing quite like the Noble Savage, who has the dignity to die of something you've only heard about in old novels.

Just to pick one example, ancient people actually had very good teeth:

http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/ancestors-had-much...

Re: The Forbidden Island

#23

Post by 6ren »

derleth wrote: post #18

Just think: A life without the damage wrought by modern antibiotics, dentistry, surgery, and preventative medicine! Where if you get sick with something that a week's worth of pills would clear right up, you're gonna die in pain! Paradise! Yep, nothing quite like the Noble Savage, who has the dignity to die of something you've only heard about in old novels.

The archaeological record shows that tooth decay increased dramatically with agriculture, and prior to that, was much less frequent than today. It's one step forward, two steps back - at least, for dentistry.

Many of our dramatically beneficial advances - such as covered sewage and vitamin-supplemented bread - solve problems that did not exist for less densely populated hunter-gatherers.

The big problem for them was carrying capacity, meaning you had to migrate, fight the tribe next door... or practice infanticide. Overcoming these is the true achievement of our age.

EDIT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel EDIT2 I'm saying pre-agriculture people had/have better teeth and gums than you do now.

Re: The Forbidden Island

#24

Post by derleth »

tnjm wrote: post #20
derleth wrote: post #18

Just think: A life without the damage wrought by modern antibiotics, dentistry, surgery, and preventative medicine! Where if you get sick with something that a week's worth of pills would clear right up, you're gonna die in pain! Paradise! Yep, nothing quite like the Noble Savage, who has the dignity to die of something you've only heard about in old novels.

But... the choice is theirs, not yours or mine. It's clear they know the outside world exists. They have chosen not to engage. (To put it mildly.) As an aside, there are more than 100 'uncontacted' tribes in the world. All of them know of the outside world; all have chosen -- for now -- not to interact directly with mainstream society.

> But... the choice is theirs, not yours or mine.

How much do they really know, though? Do they know that some of their diseases could be cured, for example?

Re: The Forbidden Island

#25

Post by hingisundhorsa »

dirktheman wrote: post #9

Fascinating story, as well as the wikipedia article about uncontacted peoples. I really appreciate the Indian government for the exclusion zone, as contact with the rest of the world will probably wipe them away. From a anthropological standpoint, this is a nice paradox. I'm sure anthropologists would LOVE to study an uncontacted tribe. Particularly this tribe, as they appear to be of African descent yet are living i…

How long do we think this Indian protection of this island will last? The current Indian government, who Indian colleagues tell me is led by a mafia related Italian family, is one of the most corrupt in the world. It is only a matter of time before whichever intelligent anthropologist in the bureaucracy/judicary is currently protecting them falls by the wayside.

Re: The Forbidden Island

#27

Post by ambuj »

This is interesting too - "An expedition led by Maurice Vidal Portman, a government administrator who hoped to research the natives and their customs, accomplished a successful landing on North Sentinel Island in January 1880. The group found a network of pathways and several small, abandoned villages. After several days, six Sentinelese were captured and taken to Port Blair. They soon became sick, and two of them died. The other four were returned to the island." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island

Re: The Forbidden Island

#28

Post by finnw »

dirktheman wrote: post #15
terhechte wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always fly drones around. Edit: Non-Lethal, Non-Army drones. Just flying cameras to see what's happening there, or how they're living. Even better, really small cameras that look a bit like slow-moving birds.

I think it would freak them out. A metal bird, making strange humming noise, hovering over their heads... A couple of years ago I was driving on the I-95 from Las Vegas to Tonopah. Out of nowhere, a predator drone came up and flew next to our car for a good couple of hundred yards. A strange and somewhat frightening experience, even for someone who knows what drones are. Besides, the thick jungle canopy wouldn't allo…

Why would it freak them out any more than the helicopters which they have seen before?

Re: The Forbidden Island

#29

Post by derleth »

6ren wrote: post #23
derleth wrote: post #18

Just think: A life without the damage wrought by modern antibiotics, dentistry, surgery, and preventative medicine! Where if you get sick with something that a week's worth of pills would clear right up, you're gonna die in pain! Paradise! Yep, nothing quite like the Noble Savage, who has the dignity to die of something you've only heard about in old novels.

The archaeological record shows that tooth decay increased dramatically with agriculture, and prior to that, was much less frequent than today. It's one step forward, two steps back - at least, for dentistry. Many of our dramatically beneficial advances - such as covered sewage and vitamin-supplemented bread - solve problems that did not exist for less densely populated hunter-gatherers. The big problem for them was…

OK, nobody disputes that they have better teeth than my circa 1800 ancestors did, but I very likely have better teeth than they do now, so who really wins here?

> The big problem for them was carrying capacity, meaning you had to migrate, fight the tribe next door... or practice infanticide. Overcoming these is the true achievement of our age.

This is a point I wish I had made.

Re: The Forbidden Island

#30

Post by derleth »

dirktheman wrote: post #21
derleth wrote: post #18

Just think: A life without the damage wrought by modern antibiotics, dentistry, surgery, and preventative medicine! Where if you get sick with something that a week's worth of pills would clear right up, you're gonna die in pain! Paradise! Yep, nothing quite like the Noble Savage, who has the dignity to die of something you've only heard about in old novels.

Well, they seem to be doing allright for the past 65,000 years... I'm the first to admit that I probably wouldn't last a week there. It seems quite romantic, living on a deserted island, without the antics of our society. But gathering food and water is hard, or even near impossible for us. These people however, seem to have found a way to survive. I'm assuming that, because they have lived in such a closed ecosystem…

> Well, they seem to be doing allright for the past 65,000 years...

They've survived. Humans can survive terrible things.

> I'm assuming that, because they have lived in such a closed ecosystem for so long, they have different diseases than we have.

Not really, because their ecosystem is not closed. Birds and fish and so on still bring parasites, insects fly around, and malaria is malaria wherever you go.

> I'm also assuming that for the diseases and medical conditions they have, they probably can find medicinal plants in the forest.

But not good ones. We've never once found plants which make anything nearly as good as penicillin, and there's no reason to expect that we ever will.

> I doubt however they have the same life expectancy as we do!

And they may well have to practice infanticide, and/or go on bloody campaigns to keep the population down low enough they don't starve.

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