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Comment by homeomorphic | Hacker News Reader

> A. it is clearly what they want.

We all encounter at times fellow humans who want something that clearly is based on lacking information. Of course we respect such things, but only up to a certain point. We often do try to help people see the bigger picture - sometimes we do say "I hear you say that that is what you want, but have you considered the fact that...".

> B. contact with us is likely to be deadly to them.

This can be remedied with technology. A crude solution would be to land in hazmat suits and have a chat. I don't know how we should deal with the bows and arrows though.

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A. Yeah, except we never tell them the down side. We arrogantly assume our oh so clever technical ways are better. Sadly we are still not mature enough to decently make contact with such people.

You can't be serious. How many children are you willing to condemn to extremely premature death because of your noble savage illusion?

Yes, our 'oh so clever technical ways' are not perfect. But they are so much better. Perhaps these people are just as happy as we are. Even so, their stillborn children are still dead. They almost certainly see more murder and rape. How can you condemn people to living like that, even if they want to because they don't know any better?

Don't you dare bring out the fucking "oh the children" argument. People die all the fucking time. Its what people do, we die.

These people, if the suppositions are to be believed, have been able to survive and reproduce for tens of thousands of years. They don't need your pity or "help".

If you sit back for an hour or so and re-read your comment 10-20 times, you'll realize what a Western missionary statement it is. Basically, your mindset seems to be similar to the "save the heathens" mindset of 18th - 19th century Europe in regards to the US and Australia, among other places.

Surely we can't save them in body, but if we convert them before they die then they'll be saved in the light of the Lord. Hala loola or whatever.

Yeah, I'm serious. Leave them alone.

> People die all the fucking time. Its what people do, we die.

Yes, and it's a problem! We should be doing everything we can so that people finally STOP DYING. And we should strive especially hard when it's children dying because their parents are too used to everyone dying to ASK FOR HELP.

Now, in some cases it's difficult. We can't do it for everyone just yet. But in this case it's not.

>These people, if the suppositions are to be believed, have been able to survive and reproduce for tens of thousands of years.

Oh, that makes it all right then! Let's stop any kinds of aid, it's not like people will go extinct. Most of them will die, but some will survive and reproduce, and that makes it all right!

> Yes, and it's a problem! We should be doing everything we can so that people finally STOP DYING.

There is a difference between dying as a result of problems in our society and dying as the inevitable result of having been born. Societies generally have fix their own issues, other people cannot do it for them. As outsiders who know nothing of the society of the people living on this island, we cannot and should not attempt to change their society to a way we feel more appropriate, that is literally genocide.

>dying as the inevitable result of having been born

Dying is not the inevitable result of having been born (or rather, dying before the heat death of the universe is not).

>As outsiders who know nothing of the society of the people living on this island, we cannot and should not attempt to change their society to a way we feel more appropriate, that is literally genocide.

Genocide: ..any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

It's definitely not literally genocide.

> Genocide: ..any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

> (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

> It's definitely not literally genocide.

That is such an incomplete definition of genocide. No doubt genocide commonly is used to refer to physical violence, but cultural genocide is a real and well documented phenomenon. Pulling a dictionary definition of a large concept like this is insulting and is a farce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide

* Childhood diseases

* Stillborn children

* Murder

* Rape

Good point. Since in joining modern society they'd be missing out on those things those things that no longer ever occur, a fair trade would be to introduce them to consumerism and all of the lovely, healthy, meaningful things that includes.

Are you suggesting they are as common in the modern society as they are in a savage one?

I'm suggesting that your suggestion that we solve those medical problems for them while introducing them to the negative cultural influences of modern society is not really a fair trade.

Especially when these people(and possibly a handful of others in the Amazon) are literally the last remaining people on earth to be unaffected by modern man.

Edit: See this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6069163

They could be. What do you know? These people have a culture that spans 60 thousand years, way longer than anything that forms the basis of our culture.

You make some pretty shitty and arrogant assumptions. Don't judge other cultures by your own horrible standards.

And thank you for illustrating my point better than me.

Please look up "Sarcasm".

Please read the last few bullet points here and then kindly take your foot out of your mouth:

http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/articles/3109-questions-and...

Screw the karma on this one.......

Oh the children? Whats next, terrorists and pedophiles? Go get an education.

OK, how many kiddies in the fabulous USA live under the international levels of poverty? Around 9,000,000 ,right? 9M kids "condemned" just for living in the wrong country? And you want to interfere with proud people living their way on a island? You want to wade in and force western ideals and so on on to them?

And how dare you compare western happiness to that of a tribes people. You sound as arrogant and disgusting as we Brits must have 400 years ago. Please learn from our mistakes.

And just because your culture might well rape and murder their way to a false sense freedom, it does not mean others will or do.

How dare you so arrogantly and ignorantly judge them. People have the right to self determination, whether the West likes it or not. That is actually something I would risk my life for. That is freedom.

If the people venture out and want to be part of us, of course, we open our arms to embrace them. Mean while, leave the the hell alone.

Ofc stop using innocent children for your arguments.

They are better, objectively.

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