Hacker News Reader

Comment by markx2 | Hacker News Reader

I have not read anything about this man other than this article, but I am content that he died without being subject to whatever procedures / processes / observations that would have been made had he been more closely scrutinised.

No doubt someone would have said that 'we' could learn from him, but in doing so 'we' would have hurt this man in some way - be that mental or physical.

Odd - being downvoted for what I see as having some compassion for this man. Maybe I'm missing something. If so, please explain so I can learn.

View on HN

The problem is that there is no way to know what this fella would have liked. His existence seems lonely and generally miserable, maybe he would have preferred to be contacted? Or maybe not and he was content living on his own? Right now there is no way to know. I don't think that asking people "hey, what would you like?" is "hurting" them; quite the opposite actually.

Furthermore, many – though obviously not all – people are generally quite happy to share aspects of their culture and languages, especially when they know it will die out.

Of course, actually communicating with this man has some practical barriers in terms of language but also trust considering his tribe was murdered, but I don't think it would have hurt to try and ask, as long as you don't force anything.

After his tribe was wiped out by farmers and landgrabers, he probably just wanted to be left alone.

I am saying this as a lone wolf that prefers solitude: the vast majority of people do not do well in isolation, and humans evolved as social creatures. It is far more likely that he desired companionship to solitude. Living that long by oneself tends to cause psychological problems. I think it would have been much better for him had some local anthropologist decided to earn his trust to study his culture, learned enough to communicate with him to discover his needs, hopes, dreams and desires.

Sounds like he was a remarkable and quite industrious individual.

Maybe; but the people who were genuinely interested in helping this man and/or learning from him are not the same people as those that murdered his tribe/family, and this probably isn't something beyond this man's understanding, just as we can understand that not all Germans in 1942 were genocidal camp guards.

Or maybe he did distrust all "foreigners" and just wanted to be left alone, and that's fine too. All I'm saying we could've asked.

> Odd - being downvoted for what I see as having some compassion for this man. Maybe I'm missing something. If so, please explain so I can learn.

Many people make judgments relative to a group rather than an individual. Such people wouldn't see your stance as positive because you're allowing for a loss to the group. Any cost to that individual that brings a benefit to the group would be acceptable in this worldview.

There is not much to learn about the man. There is no scientific advancement that he possessed that we don't. He is the last of his tribe with a language that will be doomed when he was gone. The obly person will benefited will be some socialogist doing a research on him but now he wont be able to add a paper to his name on that topic. Leave him alone is the best response from a compassionate human beings. Imagine every humans outsider massacre your clans whenever you see them, I really doubt you would love to be contacted by outsiders. Perhaps if you can offer heavenly pleasure say a mate (you or another willing partners?). Doubt so. So the OP is very positive...but the HN crowds are not as proven from this very instance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com