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Man of the Hole

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51–60 of 89 posts

Re: Man of the Hole

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the liberty though? By definition, a native from an uncontacted tribe can't make an informed choice.

The liberty is in not being forcibly relocated. Try to focus. Note how far the question has already drifted from human zoos, to just whether it's good to contact people or not. This is not an accident. It's because the human zoo comparison was never defensible; it was trivial to force you to move the goalposts.

So if you put cages over the animals in the jungle that's not a zoo because they never got relocated?

Re: Man of the Hole

#52
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s passed on through us recording their traditions

We don't always have the opportunity to even do that. And even when we do have the opportunity, there are cases where we can't , because the language is untranslatable, for example the North Sentinel islanders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_language

Yeah, you're right here. My point was more than it doesn't take biological successors to continue traditions. Was more meant to add a light of hope to an all around depressing situation.

Re: Man of the Hole

#54
What does one do, if you outlive all your relations and the world is full of man like monsters riding metal beasts?

One lifes day to day and digs a grave for oneself wherever the wind blows you. Hoping that at least in the afterlife, you will be together with the butchered.

The only way to stop poachers, is to provide the natives with area denial devices.. magnetic mines and drones. Nothing else will work.

Ironic though, that the genocide of the north, which stopped and was historically recognized as wrong, can go on in the present day south, without creating the same political fervor.

Re: Man of the Hole

#56
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably differs a lot, but the Navajo have a massively developed story-telling tradition to pass on wisdom across generations. Iirc these are symbolic and has moral or philosophical contents, similar perhaps to fables and religious miracle-stories. Encoding information in narratives is highly effective for memorization, and I believe deliberate so. Literal interpretations can be fun, but a deeper semantic interpreta…

Even if remembered perfectly and consisting only of valuable information, it's amount of knowlege that fits in a single brain. We are centuries past the point when such amount was significant.

You could distribute specialized knowledge among different people, so it's not as restrictive as a single brain. And to be fair, our most valuable knowledge today is probably encoded in few people's brain as well in the form of institutional knowledge. But I get your sentiment, writing down is an immense construction that expands the topology of knowledge by a huge factor.

Re: Man of the Hole

#58

Breaks my heart to think at how greed motivates genocides.

I suppose the state of Brazil is something that could be considered a settler colonial project and with it's continued existence this sort of thing remains doomed to happen.

The very same exact stories happened in north america too.

Re: Man of the Hole

#59
I wonder how the government officials were able to track him for decades? The Man of the Hole moved at least 50 times during that period in an area of 31 square miles (8,000 ha), which is one-third bigger than the land area of Manhattan. We see news reports about searching for lost hikers or campers, who want to be found, involving dozens of officials, volunteers, and dogs scouring the wilderness for days or weeks without success. Yet the Brazilians officials have been able to locate him many times.

I wonder if they are using some sort of aerial surveillance. Maybe looking for heat signature from a fire at night? (Assuming he knows about or even needs fire.) Or perhaps trail cameras placed all over his territory. In a YouTube video the officials are seen giving him an axe and other gifts. A GPS locator hidden in the handle of the axe? I don't believe that's the answer, but thinking about all the nature videos I've seen in which GPS trackers are attached to birds, whales, mountain lions, and even house cats wandering the garden, it is at least technically doable.

Hopefully there are some outdoorsmen here on HN who can shed light on how the tracking might be done.

Re: Man of the Hole

#60

For anyone who hasn't seen it, Aura is one of the most powerful documentaries I've ever seen. I mention it because it's also about Brazilian natives, but two that were taken in. Their bond to each other, fear of the new world, confusion, and inability to communicate are heartbreaking. The way they try to smile at the camera alone is haunting. Available free on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kGuxaY8HPjs

Thanks for sharing. Very powerful indeed. Makes one question our place on Earth.
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