281–290 of 378 posts
Did anyone else notice how healthy they looked?
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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…
First off, can we not call it "Western medicine?" Because what you're calling "Western medicine" happens to be practiced all over the world. I'd prefer to call it "science-based medicine" or "evidence-based medicine", although I will admit the applicability of those labels is more range-based than absolute.
However, you're right. Western medicine isn't the only medicine in the world. There's also voodoo-based medicine (with "voodoo" representing any variety of "ancient chinese secret"-type of treatments). So which would you prefer to be treated with? "Western" medicine, or voodoo medicine?
Also, "While we are at it lets take them our aids, diabetes, obesity etc..."
You do realize AIDS originated in sub-saharan Africa, right? Not exactly the heart of modern civilization.
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There is only one class of medicine in the world, and is scientific. what is considered scientific is very often defined by culture though. I bet those tribes consider their shamans scientists, even though they won't pass our western scientific criteria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_medicine
"By definition, Alternative Medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call Alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine. " --Tim Minchin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk
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There is only one class of medicine in the world, and is scientific. what is considered scientific is very often defined by culture though. I bet those tribes consider their shamans scientists, even though they won't pass our western scientific criteria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_medicine
"By definition, Alternative Medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call Alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine. " --Tim Minchin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk
You know that Golden Rule?" Not the one that VCs quote, but the one that goes "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you?" We should think about that when we choose how to deal with uncontacted tribes. It may be that one day another intelligence will need to decide how to deal with us, and on that day I hope we can say, "Yes, we used to have a habit of massacring technologically inferior peoples we encounte…
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…
Myself, I think Shaw grokked it perfectly with his "Don't do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same".
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"do or do not" is a false dichotomy? Any contact causes change, so the only way to prevent forcing change is to prevent all contact.
Or they could go, "Oh, wasn't that weird!" and then forget about it.
You know that Golden Rule?" Not the one that VCs quote, but the one that goes "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you?" We should think about that when we choose how to deal with uncontacted tribes. It may be that one day another intelligence will need to decide how to deal with us, and on that day I hope we can say, "Yes, we used to have a habit of massacring technologically inferior peoples we encounte…
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 do you measure how civilized a culture is? If it is their choice to remain un-contacted, they should be free to live that way. You cannot make an assumption that they would die young. Their bodies would have developed systems to counter most of the natural viruses and other health aspects there. Their upbringing would have taught them the skills to live in harmony with the forest. Their brains would not have developed the adequate techniques to survive in our society. Getting them out of there is the worst possible thing that you can do to them. They have got their technology and we have ours.
What is comfort to you is only a conditioned response? Car is a great comfort only if you want to travel long distances. They have crafted their lifestyle in such a manner that they do not need such comforts. Most of their building materials and techniques would take care of air conditioning and cooling. They consume so few resources that their carbon foot print is probably negative.
As far as education is concerned, we use this education to survive in this society, to earn, to create and transact with goods and so on. Their society is not built on such structures and transactions. They would have different structures and transactions. One is not necessarily superior or inferior. They are merely different.
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Excuse me - it might be that I'm tipsy but did you just call appeasing gods ridiculous while presenting the execution of witches as something less ridiculous?
yes, he did. it's a little absurd, but I believe his main point is still valid. the inquisition &etc were as much about cultural conformity and control than about espousing a culture of violence. while ridiculous the question is not to compare ridiculousness levels but to compare the _reasons_ that people were doing the ridiculous things they did. killing people for the express and explicit purpose of killing people…
They shouldn't have done it...
..at least by our standards today. It is always difficult to judge historical people because we are, even from an early age, in possession of more facts than they were.
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Treat people as you would like to be treated if you were them. I wish I had 100 upmods to give. This is exactly what I was saying elsewhere, we should think about how we would want to be treated. Would we want medicine and education offered to us? Would we want the option for some of our elders to live out the rest of their lives in a traditional manner? Would we want bulldozers knocking down our trees? Would we want…
I'd want to be left alone - give one example of colonialism that worked out well for indigenous people, and I'll maybe change my mind.
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"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 do…
Honestly, I don't know how did you get so many upvotes. I mean, we have this huge imbalance problem of equality between different peoples right now, which could be easily solved if only the "superior" whites in Europe and the United States would vote down the anti-immigration rules.
The situation of poor sub-saharan people, whose way of life was irremediably "improved" by superior European colonialism, would very much be improved if they were allowed to travel and work freely in all over of Western Europe. The same goes for the United States and its hinterland in Latin America.
And let me tell you what would happen were we to contact these tribes. Half of them will die from a disease like normal influenza, while the rest will be either lost to cronic alcoholism or to the Brazilian favellas. We've seen all this happen before.