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Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

uncontactedtribes.org

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Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#101

Post by forensic »

mwhite wrote: post #74
xenophanes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should give them access to technology and to our way of life. Our way of life is better. Preserving their backwards culture so they can continue lives of misery and suffering is just as disgusting as the Prime Directive. Help is exactly what I would want from advanced alien visitors. I don't want them to respect my culture just because it is mine; I want something better for myself, not cultural relativism. There…

Define "better". Primitive people's lives are short, yes. But that they are uncomfortable and brutish is at best an uninformed value judgment that supports the narrative of civilization. By any good measure of happiness, they are probably happier than us. Most of them would die from diseases of civilization in the event of contact, anyway, so I don't really see how western medicine potentially extending their lives a…

The shortness of tribal people's lives has been greatly exaggerated. In fact, it's pure myth.

The book Sex at Dawn demonstrates this using the latest anthropology and archaeology if you want to know more.

Until recently, it was normal for tribal societies to live longer on average than agricultural societies. All of the statistics that support the idea that tribal life is short were done very poorly and skewed by abortion/infanticide.

Tribal societies would have the same lifespans on average as our society does today and perhaps even longer because they had far healthier diets and always got lots of exercise.

However, they would keep their numbers low through infanticide and eugenics. For instance a baby with birth defects would often be allowed to die and abortions using certain drugs were normal.

Anyway, the idea that tribal life was brutish, solitary and short is utterly wrong on every point.

The science indicates clearly:

- it was less brutish on average with more social harmony and warfare was less painful for all involved

- it was not short at all, quite the contrary. Only modern agricultural societies, through scientific medicine, have begun to approach the lifespans of tribal societies who are not interfered with. This was just a myth from the very start.

- it was not solitary. Our society is solitary. In a tribal society, every person is surrounded by lifelong friends and relatives at every moment of every day for their entire lives. Modern man can scarcely imagine the depths of human bonding that tribal societies experience.

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#102

Post by sorbus »

rglullis wrote: post #55
goldins wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting - can you link to any sources?

"The photographer that took the picture, José Carlos, has admitted that the tribe has, in fact, been known about since 1910. He created the hoax "in order to call attention to the dangers the logging industry may have on the group." http://www.geekologie.com/2008/06/fake_uncontacted_amazon_tr...

If you read the source linked to in that article, the hoax wasn't that the tribe was uncontacted; it was that it was only just discovered. However, the fact that it's been known of for so long certainly does suggest that there has been at least some contact.

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#103

Post by Charuru »

d3x wrote: post #80
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so bad about leaving them alone? I would bet they are much happer than the majority of the FB and Twitter obsessed narcissist that I run into every day. What is so bad is you making the decision for them -- one way or the other. It's that kind of pompous paternalistic attitude that caused all kinds of pain and misery. If they are happy with a life expectancy of 30, of having mothers die in childbirth commonly…

Your reply is so laced with hypocrisy its disgusting. How do you know their lives are so bad? From what the video showed they seem to be doing just fine. I would rather be A West coast armchair philosopher than an elitest who feels he is so superior to other people that I have the right to be condescending when discussing their way of life and I have the obligation to convert them to my way of thinking. FYI: one of t…

Hypothetically what would you do if these tribes had a system of slavery?

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#104

Post by xenophanes »

raganwald wrote: post #53
xenophanes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should give them access to technology and to our way of life. Our way of life is better. Preserving their backwards culture so they can continue lives of misery and suffering is just as disgusting as the Prime Directive. Help is exactly what I would want from advanced alien visitors. I don't want them to respect my culture just because it is mine; I want something better for myself, not cultural relativism. There…

How does your perspective differ from the perspective of the missionaries who attempted to bring "salvation" to indigenous peoples around the world? How does your perspective differ from the perspectives that led to the imposition of the Residential Schools? https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Canadian_Indi... Also, nothing I wrote says anything about providing them with access , it says something about de…

I readily acknowledge we may agree more than it first appears given the particular emphasis we each chose. But I do think there is substantive disagreement here within the realm of non-violent (and, dare I say it: civilized) ways to approach the matter.

The very idea of having a way that "we" deal with "uncontacted tribes" is collectivist on both ends.

Individuals should do whatever they want without violating anyone's rights.

Your way of phrasing the situation has systematic collectivist bias that implies things like withholding access to some individuals in their tribe if a tribal leader doesn't want us. And it implies central planning/organization (what "we" do).

When you don't let any individual who wants to interact with them, without violating their rights, do as he pleases, then you are restricting access.

When you divide the world into different countries, tribes, etc, and restrict the free flow of people, information, trade, etc, worldwide across all borders, then you are restricting access. When you draw a sharp distinction between aliens and human, that is species prejudice. Making a big deal out of what collective group people are from is the real nationalism, xenophobia, racism, or whatever. I see all people as individual people and that's it.

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#105

Post by orangecat »

paulitex wrote: post #75
xenophanes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should give them access to technology and to our way of life. Our way of life is better. Preserving their backwards culture so they can continue lives of misery and suffering is just as disgusting as the Prime Directive. Help is exactly what I would want from advanced alien visitors. I don't want them to respect my culture just because it is mine; I want something better for myself, not cultural relativism. There…

"Our way of life is better" Ahh yes, the colonialist's mantra. Even more of a historical failure than the communist manifesto. Go look at how life 'improved' in sub saharan africa. Or the profoundly sad state of natives all over the world, in Canada, Australia, US, and beyond. Our way of life is not better. It is not for everyone. We have huge wealth and health disparity, large scale violence, drug addiction and home…

Our way of life is not better.

Yes, it is. Would you trade places with them? Would you want your children to?

We have huge wealth and health disparity

Which we could certainly eliminate by destroying all our wealth and abandoning medicine. The only thing that should tell you is that "inequality" is a poor metric.

And none of this implies that it would be acceptable to forcibly impose our civilization on anyone. It does imply that we should offer them the choice.

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#106

Post by Mz »

As far as the argument of contact or no contact, I don't have an answer but I think the issue is that contact often destroys the culture rather than helps it grow and evolve.

I have read some things that indicated native americans lost in part because they adopted guns and abandoned bows. They lacked the means to make or money to buy the type of oil that would work in cold weather and used lard instead, which firms up in the cold. They would keep their guns under their blankets with them to keep the lard warm enough for the guns to work. Just adopting one piece of technology did not resolve their problems and it was a technology they were ill equipped to adequately maintain.

I am reminded of a scene in "Lawrence of Arabia" where he tells the Arabs "If you take English engineers, you take English rule."

Where you have a large, "evolved" culture with a density of people, material goods, information and so on, contact with a culture that is less "dense" (in terms of numbers of people, amount of material goods, etc) tends to simply wipe it out, sometimes literally killing all members (because microbes in large communities evolve rapidly and become more virulent -- Americans who move to Europe, which is more densely populated, routinely wind up with a horrific flu shortly after moving there, far worse than the flu bugs typically caught in the U.S. This is common knowledge in the military community/among military families who have ever lived over there.).

I wish a knew a means to gently make contact and offer options. I think that would be the ideal. I have no idea if it is achievable.

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#107

Post by lwhi »

Groxx wrote: post #70
lwhi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I call BS.

Then you need some philosophy, metaphysics, and Lincoln-Douglas style debate classes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln-Douglas_Debate edit: how about a starting point (in no way intended to be snide / insulting, I'm entirely serious about this): Murder is wrong, right? Why? Completely objectively , why?

My previous reply was a bit terse - sorry.

I was referring to two (apparent) opposite points of view, and it seemed like you were using semantics to disagree. I read the last part of that sentence as you personally stating that the OP had a moral obligation, which I now realise might have been incorrect.

--

I understand that people form their own moral compass, and that views differ - but sometimes, I think there are issues which are so universally felt that the whole of society has to learn how to deal with them in a united way.

There are so many examples of self-proclaimed 'superior' societies dominating and assimilating smaller cultures which aren't able to defend themselves.

Many of these examples are well documented and - now that we have the benefit of hindsight, we can see exactly what kind of effect was left behind.

I think most people can agree that gross injustices took place.

--

Would you voice any objection to a holocaust denier?

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#108

Post by ugh »

seanos wrote: post #99
raganwald wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never actually said we shouldn't contact them or offer assistance. Before I go to the gym, I'll argue what I think is with your point. For those who think they should be left in isolation, why is it bad to contact them and expose them to our civilization, but good to invent new things and businesses and cultural systems in our civilization? For example, entrepreneurs invented television and birth control. These inv…

I think it's because when we invent television we don't lose anything. Once we show these people the modern world, there is no going back. It makes it a difficult moral dilema.

When we invented cars we lost our own culture’s tradition of riding horses. It used to be the case that everyone knew how to ride a horse, now only a select few decide to preserve that tradition. Even they ride only for sport and fun, a cheap imitation of what it meant to ride a horse 200 years ago.

Cars viciously destroyed the role horses play in our society, that part of our culture is forever lost.

(I’m not sad.)

Re: Aerial footage of uncontacted Amazon tribe

#109

Post by seanos »

d3x wrote: post #35
xenophanes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should give them access to technology and to our way of life. Our way of life is better. Preserving their backwards culture so they can continue lives of misery and suffering is just as disgusting as the Prime Directive. Help is exactly what I would want from advanced alien visitors. I don't want them to respect my culture just because it is mine; I want something better for myself, not cultural relativism. There…

I really hope you are kidding. If not this is so typical of the american way of thinking. Yes, we are so superior lets convert them all to our [insert culture, religion etc...]. What is so bad about leaving them alone? I would bet they are much happer than the majority of the FB and Twitter obsessed narcissist that I run into every day. While we are at it lets make sure they all become good christians too because any…

"If not this is so typical of the american way of thinking. Yes, we are so superior lets convert them all to our [insert culture, religion etc...]. "

Why is this the typical american way of thinking? Surely every culture believes theirs is superior, otherwise they wouldn't have adopted it.

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