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The Forbidden Island

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Re: The Forbidden Island

#111

Post by Ygg2 »

ekianjo wrote: post #83
rndmize wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subsistence farming isn't a reference to famines, its a reference to inequality. My point was that even today, the majority of the civilized world spends their time doing endless agricultural labor for minimal benefit, even though one would think that we would have a better alternative implemented by this point (especially since anthro studies have shown that by and large hunter/gatherer societies spend much less tim…

You focus on the wrong thing. It's not about inequality, it's obvious that the rich should get richer faster. You don't expect the rich to have a 1 dollar salary increase while the poor gets the same thing. Obviously not. So, of course the gap is widening. And it's not necessarily a problem, because even the super rich can't spend all of what they earn, and that money ends up being recycled in the economy (investment…

What?! It's all about inequality. The problem isn't everyone is getting richer it's that some are getting waaaay richer than other, they are grabbing the powers, making decisions and isolating themselves from the consequences of those decisions.

You can drain a lake for thing X until your lake runs dry. Who is least susceptible to change? Those with money . Either they move or they buy water).

The high Gini coefficient correlates and probably causes so many bad effects it shouldn't be ignored. It's not the one and only measure, and there are other important measures but it is a very good predictor of social unrest.

Re: The Forbidden Island

#112

Post by Anderkent »

annnnd wrote: post #100
Anderkent wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The representatives of these people are hardly in a situation where they can make an informed decision. Even if they were, they have no right of condemning their children to such life.

That doesn't really matter. If a girl refuses to go out with you, she might not be in a position where she can make an informed decision. And she is possibly depriving her future children of a magnificent father, condemning them to life without you. But you should still respect her "NO". On a more serious note, given some historic evidence how our contact with other tribes ended (pick any tribe, anytime, anywhere) I…

But if a man is jumping of a cliff because he thinks he can fly, you should not respect his 'NO' when trying to catch him.

Your serious argument is one of the little valid points raised so far. And I agree, we might not be in a position to help them now. But the statements that even if we could bring them to our society in a humane manner we still shouldn't, because they're clearly fine as they are... That just disgusts me.

Re: The Forbidden Island

#113

Post by monsterix »

vr000m wrote: post #74
monsterix wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and those islands are also protected by the Indian Navy quite diligently. It's important to prevent curious assholes from touching the island for two reasons: 1. These tribes have not developed medical immunity against the kind of diseases we're host to. 2. They're truly wild and curious like us too. Protecting the former quality needs a restraint from our side. I've been to Andaman & Nicobar in 2004 and did feel…

except a lot of the tribes were further reduced to paltry sizes after the tsunami. If I remember correctly from my last visit in 1996/97, the census numbers for some of the tribes were already around ~100. Since Port Blair is on the middle island of the Andaman land mass, it has affected all the other tribes on that island. Especially the Jarwa. North andaman (Jarwa) tribes at the time were hostile, which I believe s…

Yes, you're right. The Jarwas can be seen up close with a few Government officials from India in this post Tsunami effort [1].

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLf0rxicKr0

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlRSsvB4iLE

Re: The Forbidden Island

#114

Post by dmayle »

Kliment wrote: post #65
derleth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Penicillin is made by mold. I'm not sure if molds count as plants, but it's definitely not a synthetic substance.

Yes and no. It's not synthetic, but it's not naturally occurring, either (at least, not at levels that are useful). A lot of work went into the production process before penicillin actually became viable as an antibiotic (hence the 16-year gap between discovery and first wide scale use):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production

Re: The Forbidden Island

#115

Post by nazgulnarsil »

gokhan wrote: post #70

On leaving / not leaving them alone: "... They make it clear they want to be left alone." "But could this be because they don’t see the benefits of ‘our’ way of life? If they knew, might they want to join us?" "They won’t get the chance. In reality, the future offered by the settler society is to ‘join’ at the lowest possible level – often as beggars and prostitutes. History proves that tribal peoples end up in a far…

This needs to be higher. Many commenters seem to be acting as if the choice is between mud hut and glorious western way of life.

Re: The Forbidden Island

#116

Post by Chris2048 »

annnnd wrote: post #100
Anderkent wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The representatives of these people are hardly in a situation where they can make an informed decision. Even if they were, they have no right of condemning their children to such life.

That doesn't really matter. If a girl refuses to go out with you, she might not be in a position where she can make an informed decision. And she is possibly depriving her future children of a magnificent father, condemning them to life without you. But you should still respect her "NO". On a more serious note, given some historic evidence how our contact with other tribes ended (pick any tribe, anytime, anywhere) I…

> If a girl refuses to go out with you

I think you're unnecessarily conflating this with another topic entirely.

Re: The Forbidden Island

#117

Post by Chris2048 »

gokhan wrote: post #70

On leaving / not leaving them alone: "... They make it clear they want to be left alone." "But could this be because they don’t see the benefits of ‘our’ way of life? If they knew, might they want to join us?" "They won’t get the chance. In reality, the future offered by the settler society is to ‘join’ at the lowest possible level – often as beggars and prostitutes. History proves that tribal peoples end up in a far…

Beggars and prostitutes in their own society? does 'joining us' literally mean buying a one way ticket to NYC?

Re: The Forbidden Island

#118

Post by userulluipeste »

rndmize wrote: post #76
eshvk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> thousands of years of war, famine, plague, slavery, and endless grinding inequality (still haven't quite fixed that one it seems) to get where we are now? Are you trying to tell me that these "noble savages" didn't have war, didn't have famine or inequality?

Tribal warfare was usually a matter of establishing boundaries. If I remember my history correctly, this was pretty clearly demonstrated in battles between Native Americans and European colonists in the 16 and 1700s. Tribal attacks were closer to raids - warriors would fight, some people would die, but damage on a lasting scale was minimal. Colonist attacks, on the other hand, were going to war in the civilized measu…

You are depicting war among tribes as being a lesser evil than the ones carried among nations. It would be better to compare the tribes' war with clashes among Eurasian ancient cities and later among medieval houses, in which "warriors would fight, some people would die, but damage on a lasting scale was minimal" would be valid for both. That kind of war was carried for thousands of year, and comparatively only little time-span holds the "total war" style.

You are also speculating about tribal social environment. For the most part of human history, the main factor for establishing relations was power enforced through violence. The size of the community didn't matter much, we have domestic violence even now. That "sort of equilibrium between its members" was/is assured most likely by brute force or its projection.

Re: The Forbidden Island

#119

Post by dirktheman »

Anderkent wrote: post #109
pcrh wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't anyone think of the children? /s

If someone was raising their children in a similar quality of life in a western society, they would have their children taken away by social security. Do you disagree?

No, I don't.

But these people don't live in a western society. They don't share our cultural beliefs of what is good or civilized. They live by a whole different set of rules and conventions. We can't just go there, impose our vastly superior beliefs upon them with the argument that it's for their best because WE believe that.

Have you ever travelled to another continent? If you're American or from Western Europe, try going to Japan. Or somewhere in Africa, off the beaten path. You're likely to experience a culture shock, right? You can do two things. You can think 'I can't believe these fucktards, why the hell would they want to live like this, now where's the nearest Motel 6' or you can accept the fact that their culture is just different. I'm not speaking in terms of better or worse, just different.

They don't need our help and they don't want our help. We have showed time after time that 'helping savages' does not work. Native Americans? Unless you think the inabriated guy with the poncho selling roadside flatbread is actually happier than his ancestors, it's hard to argue we did a good job helping them. Numerous tribes in South America now have to deal with alcoholism, crime, murder. The ones that don't are just smart enough to evade us.

Ask yourself this: should we contact these people if we were certain that our contacting them would lead to their loss of culture, and most likely would wipe them away? Do you think that, despite ALL the times where we screwed up entire tribes, this time it will be different? Why is it our responsibility anyway to 'help' them, even against their will?

Re: The Forbidden Island

#120

Post by pcrh »

Anderkent wrote: post #109
pcrh wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't anyone think of the children? /s

If someone was raising their children in a similar quality of life in a western society, they would have their children taken away by social security. Do you disagree?

For one, we don't know enough about their quality of life to say anything about it. I would assume they have a better quality of life than the majority of the planet, in particular it is likely to be better than the majority of urban dwellers and subsistence farmers in the 3rd world.

If you wanted to give them the quality of life enjoyed in the nicer parts of the US or Europe you would have to provide all those amenities for them, and it is in any case unlikely that they would appreciate them the same way that you do.

The only likely benefit that "we" could provide would be medical care for infections or easily treated disorders. That would have to be balanced with the high likelihood that contacting and attempting to integrate them would actually kill most of them. Anything else is a egocentric view of what is good for mankind.

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