Prime Directive.
The Forbidden Island
141–150 of 288 posts
Re: The Forbidden Island
#142I'm pretty late to leaving a comment, so it won't get a lot of exposure. Let's just leave these people the fuck alone. What threat are they under? Curious assholes like us. There are probably less than 1000 people on that island, all descended from people tens of thousands of years ago. There are more people than that that visit an Apple store on a Tuesday before 2pm. Leave them alone. We don't need to assuage our 10…
This sort of comment is exactly what is wrong what the world.
What is your expertise in this area? Are you a anthropologist??
I suspect you are just one of these sick people who like the idea mini zoos with humans in them.
These are human beings. They deserve access to modern medicines like the rest of us of the world even if you lose this precious zoo.
How are their women treated? That is the ones who don't die in child birth? Going off other primitive societies probably not great no matter what the Hollywood idea of how these societies operate and everything is great.
This sickness of how the majority of the population would never ever want to live like this if they had a choice but somehow the people living it are having the time of their lives is bizarre.
For all we know this island is just another North Korea and although I respect nations statehood I don't pretend it's somehow a moral decision not to get involved.
Re: The Forbidden Island
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ameni…
"I would assume they have a better quality of life than the majority of the planet" I'd agree with you that they probably have a more enjoyable day to day experience, however I also would bet that they have an infant mortality rate that is astronomical even by 3rd world standards. And that they have an average life expectancy which isn't hard to beat in the 3rd world. I'm not saying that these 2 things justify us for…
The United States is 35th in infant mortality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mor...) - and the US is 33rd in life expectancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...). You just said you didn't know their two statistics in those categories, but a hunch may be enough to go in and shake things up for them.
Re: The Forbidden Island
#144I'm pretty late to leaving a comment, so it won't get a lot of exposure. Let's just leave these people the fuck alone. What threat are they under? Curious assholes like us. There are probably less than 1000 people on that island, all descended from people tens of thousands of years ago. There are more people than that that visit an Apple store on a Tuesday before 2pm. Leave them alone. We don't need to assuage our 10…
I don't know… suppose some highly advanced aliens with for the most part benign intent found us. Would you really like them to "stay the fuck away"? I, for one, would love for our technology to leapfrog ahead centuries, even though it would completely change our culture. The disease part can be handled today. We could go visit them in hazmat suits. And I know I'm being really generous when I'm comparing the modern wo…
Considering they have no marketable skills or education, how could their situation get any better? There are tons of poor people in the world who die from easily preventable diseases that you could help instead if that's your true motivation.
They are a self-sufficient people that don't seem to be screwing up the world nearly as much as we are... why would we even assume we're superior? Maybe we're just jealous?
Re: The Forbidden Island
#145Fun tidbit I read while searching for more info about these people. Evidently, some explorers sat in their boat just offshore in 1970 as some of the male warriors were on the beach. The explorers threw the men some gifts but refused to leave. How did the natives respond? Why, the women emerged from the jungle and immediately engaged in a giant orgy with the warriors, of course.
Dont mess with a good thing.
Re: The Forbidden Island
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> It's not about inequality, it's obvious that the rich should get richer faster. That the rich get richer faster and hoard more and more wealth while others fine their wealth decreasing over time is inequality. > 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, etc..). This is the trickle down theory,…
I've heard multiple references of the world wide poverty rate dropping by half in the last 20 years, here's a summary.
http://finallygoodnews.net/2013/06/20/half-way-there-world-w...
and the original article
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-bill...
Re: The Forbidden Island
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 disgu…
They're not jumping off a cliff. They've been doing fine (insofar as they're surviving with a small population) for some 60 thousand years. First contact alone will probably kill them with diseases (a well-documented phenomenon).
More akin to a guy standing on a ledge of a cliff, albeit precarious but doing fine; if you try to help him, he'll probably fall and die fast. He knows this, and he's telling you to stay the he11 away.
That said, I am sympathetic with your basic view. Les Stroud's Beyond Survival was fascinating, but the recurring theme of "and this ancient people is about to die out or lose their culture" struck me as "well, if doing stupid things[1] isn't survivable then maybe those ways should change, and the consequences of sticking to them are natural." The Sentinese however seem to be holding it together pretty well; not advancing, but living on what is otherwise a stereotypical tropical paradise island (food growing on trees, good climate, water), methinks they've achieved some form of comfortable equilibrium and are doing pretty well (I'm sure some here on HN are thinking "I'd like to join them").
Someone mentioned above "your 100 kids will leave the island, move to India, and become call center employees". That vs. where & how they're living now, I'm not so sure "bring[ing] them to our society in a humane manner" really is. Someday it will happen, someday modern life will crash into their ancient and stable culture, someday they will have to deal with new diseases and cell phones and high-speed transport, and "someday" probably isn't very long from now.
"But the kids need to do X and Y and Z!" my wife declares. "They're content and playing nicely with their toys and crayons," I'll reply. "Let them enjoy it a little longer."
[1] - the clincher was a tribe that fishes by dangling bare hooks in the ocean for hours while sitting on poles. I'm amazed that culture lasted so long. Yeah, they need some help.
Re: The Forbidden Island
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People die all the fucking time. Its what people do, we die. Yes, and it's a problem! We should be doing everything we can so that people finally STOP DYING. And we should strive especially hard when it's children dying because their parents are too used to everyone dying to ASK FOR HELP. Now, in some cases it's difficult. We can't do it for everyone just yet. But in this case it's not. >These people, if the suppos…
> Yes, and it's a problem! We should be doing everything we can so that people finally STOP DYING. There is a difference between dying as a result of problems in our society and dying as the inevitable result of having been born. Societies generally have fix their own issues, other people cannot do it for them. As outsiders who know nothing of the society of the people living on this island, we cannot and should not…
>dying as the inevitable result of having been born
Dying is not the inevitable result of having been born (or rather, dying before the heat death of the universe is not).
>As outsiders who know nothing of the society of the people living on this island, we cannot and should not attempt to change their society to a way we feel more appropriate, that is literally genocide.
Genocide: ..any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
It's definitely not literally genocide.
Re: The Forbidden Island
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't be serious. How many children are you willing to condemn to extremely premature death because of your noble savage illusion? Yes, our 'oh so clever technical ways' are not perfect. But they are so much better. Perhaps these people are just as happy as we are. Even so, their stillborn children are still dead. They almost certainly see more murder and rape. How can you condemn people to living like that, even…
* Childhood diseases * Stillborn children * Murder * Rape Good point. Since in joining modern society they'd be missing out on those things those things that no longer ever occur, a fair trade would be to introduce them to consumerism and all of the lovely, healthy, meaningful things that includes.
You make some pretty shitty and arrogant assumptions. Don't judge other cultures by your own horrible standards.
And thank you for illustrating my point better than me.
Re: The Forbidden Island
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think he made the point quite well. "No" means "no", and they're saying "no" pretty emphatically and consistently - and no amount of "but I'll make your life so much better" trumps that.