US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe • Hacker News Board

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#61

Post by cLeEOGPw » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:30 PM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #55

mherkender wrote: post #10

Wow, his father sounds like a piece of work. He decides that culture is the only real reason he shouldn't marry someone who was "about 9 to 12" when he's 36. Then his long absences put her at risk of being brutally gang-raped, which happens. She ends up in the US, and eventually goes back without her kids. He tells his kids nothing about her, why she left, who she is, but still has his son beg her to come back in fro…

> He decides that culture is the only real reason he shouldn't marry someone who was "about 9 to 12" when he's 36. This is why I hate cultural relativists. They use it as an excuse to throw morals and common sense out the window.

This is why I hate overly touchy-feelies. They use their emotional sensitivity to throw analytic thinking out of the window and then persecute people who are not like them.

Where do morals and common sense come from, eh? Culture. Common sense is literally a sense that is common to a certain group of people. Morals are also mutually accepted limitations to each other behavior.

So yes, morals and common sense of your culture are out of the window when dealing with another culture. Just because you have a strong opinion doesn't mean you're right.

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#62

Post by jacquesm » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:31 PM UTC

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #33

Here's an interesting documentary about the whole affair: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrets_of_the_Tribe

FTLA:

"Alice Dreger, an historian of medicine and science, and an outsider to the debate, concluded in a peer-reviewed publication that most of Tierney's claims (the movie is based on claims originally made by Tierney) were "baseless and sensationalistic charges".

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#63

Post by [deleted] » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:34 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #44

All: The coincidence of an HN user being personally close to this story is so remarkable that we have put James' comment [1] at the top of the thread, using the same method we occasionally use for moderation announcements. This is very rare—I don't think we've ever done it before. It does occasionally happen that one commenter is uniquely close to a story, or knowledgeable about it, in an HN thread. I've thought for…

[deleted]

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#64

Post by jacquesm » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:34 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #44

All: The coincidence of an HN user being personally close to this story is so remarkable that we have put James' comment [1] at the top of the thread, using the same method we occasionally use for moderation announcements. This is very rare—I don't think we've ever done it before. It does occasionally happen that one commenter is uniquely close to a story, or knowledgeable about it, in an HN thread. I've thought for…

Except for one little detail, it's not the subject of the article that shows up but a close friend.

If one of my close friends would show up in a thread about me and would start to distribute present-day details about my private life and about my family members that are not currently public I would be less than happy. Maybe jameswburke has full support of the subject(s) about these disclosures but for all we can see here he does not.

The whole affair looks like a tragedy for all involved to me and I think it would be much better to just stick to the information already in the public eye (assuming we have to discuss this sort of thing at all) until all subjects involved (such as David's sister) indicate that they are on board with having this stuff divulged.

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#65

Post by omegaworks » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:35 PM UTC

>They also have no word for “love.”

This is the kind of thing that makes the article unambiguously Western-ethnocentric. They obviously know the concept of love. His mother wept tears of joy at the arrival of her son.

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#66

Post by arjie » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:46 PM UTC

Good grief, both the anthropologists described in the article sound like disagreeable people. The father with all his marrying of a child and then abandoning her, and the other female anthropologist who was mean to the kid.

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#67

Post by sixQuarks » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:49 PM UTC

wwwwwwwwww wrote: post #42

sixQuarks wrote: post #12

If the facts of this article are correct, the father seems to be clinically psychotic

> the father seems to be clinically psychotic i dont think you know what this means

Actually, I meant psychopath. Psychotic has a different meaning - I stand corrected.

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#68

Post by askar_yu » Sun, May 25, 2014, 10:00 PM UTC

jafaku wrote: post #54

phaus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Old men marrying children is common in many parts of the world. There are quite a few shitty people in the world. As much as many of us hate to admit it, there are also quite a few shitty cultures. Any 36 year-old man, from any culture that has ever existed, that finds it acceptable to marry a 9-12 year old and then start raping her when she's 13 is a piece of shit. Any culture or individual that condones such behav…

Yeah our culture is the best! Everyone else is wrong!

I don't think it's fair of you to imply what he did not imply. Despite all the 'cultural-sensitivity' and what not, there are some lines that have to be drawn and stated bluntly and unapologetically. In that respect, I could not have said it better than the parent comment, and 100% agree with below statement:

" Any 36 year-old man, from any culture that has ever existed, that finds it acceptable to marry a 9-12 year old and then start raping her when she's 13 is a piece of shit. Any culture or individual that condones such behavior shouldn't exist anymore."

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#69

Post by haberman » Sun, May 25, 2014, 10:00 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #39

mherkender wrote: post #10

Wow, his father sounds like a piece of work. He decides that culture is the only real reason he shouldn't marry someone who was "about 9 to 12" when he's 36. Then his long absences put her at risk of being brutally gang-raped, which happens. She ends up in the US, and eventually goes back without her kids. He tells his kids nothing about her, why she left, who she is, but still has his son beg her to come back in fro…

Old men marrying children is common in many parts of the world. http://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_58008.html http://tooyoungtowed.org/

Even if you are subscribing to the morals of that tribe, then he wronged her by leaving her "undefended" and vulnerable to the gang rape she endured while he was gone.

(This is of course assuming that the article is accurate and fair. If the article is accurate, it's hard to defend the father's actions no matter how you look at them).

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#70

Post by jacquesm » Sun, May 25, 2014, 10:10 PM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #56

ars wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sex tourism He married her. It's really not the same thing.

And then he just left, so I'm not sure what "marriage" even means in this context. Under our laws it would be something more like "statutory rape" but I do wonder what actually applies here. This isn't something I've looked into, just something I saw on 20/20 or some similar show once, so you might be right that it only applies to those setting up tours or going on them rather than to conduct that happens overseas.

This sort of thing happens every now and then, even when there are no indigenous tribes involved:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jul/15/childprotection.so...