Isolated Tribe in Amazon Found

[General Zod]

Care to try addressing the actual point instead of proclaiming a sarcastic reiteration of my argument is a strawman?

Which point jackass? I was never arguing against the fact that we have modern medicine to defeat most common diseases, but trying to suggest that we could successfully inoculate all of them before a number of them are killed and likely start mistrusting the people they've just met (hence becoming more xenophobic) is naive.

Especially considering the fact that a good deal of them are likely to view inoculations with suspicion and mistrust, and maybe not even accept them at all. With all of the anti-inoculation knuckleheads we have in the modern world, how do you think a bunch of superstitious tribals are going to react to getting things injected into their body?

I'm also not arguing we shouldn't make contact, but that any contact needs to be made carefully, which for some absurd reason you translated as not making any contact at all.

[Kanastrous]

Modern medicine is clearly no different from what we did when the tribe shaman prayed to the fire gods to heal us. Oh, wait. I'm sorry, that is a strawman.

Yes, it's *your* strawman. Which I'm glad you recognize.

I see below that you argue that their stone-age level of medicine is not at the same level as modern science, it is superior. My mistake.

And of course you can quote exactly where I wrote that. Or not, since I didn't. If they are still around, it demonstrates that they have practices which work for them, in their environment, and at their level of population size and density.

By all means show me how stone age living provides clean water,

Collected rain water. Natural streams. Water-holding plants.

You'd last three minutes in a jungle, without help, wouldn't you? Even someone with zero formal training in jungle survival - like me - ought to know that much.

That their own medicine is superior is beyond even defending,

Since 'superior' isn't my position, I don't need to defend it. If they have adequate ability to treat themselves - which, still being extant, and based upon knowledge gleaned regarding other forest tribal groups, they likely do - then all of the cons against invading their turf, weigh more heavily than that particular theoretical benefit.

Agriculture lets them have food all the time rather then being dependent on successful hunts and the whims fo the seasons.

And living in a rainforest, with fairly consistent climate year-round, surrounded by edible plants and animals, doesn't let them have access to food, all the time?

If they do *need* agriculture, what makes you assume that they have not developed it, themselves? Have we evidence in hand, that there isn't a plot of tubers, maize, or other staple crop, outside the frames of those pictures? Got some evidence, of that absence?

Your communication example just goes beyond retarded and into "kill yourself you ignorant slut" range.

Wow, name-calling. Aren't *you* just a super genius. All bow to Ender, he can sling kindergarten insults. Clearly an intellect to be reckoned with.

You don't believe that aiming their weapons at the plane, communicates anything, at all? Really?

Does it occur to you at all that the entirety of human existance consists of us working our assess off to get away from the way of life you now look back upon fondly?

The existence of such tribes is proof that you don't understand the meaning of the word, entirety.

That given the option of joining the rest of us or staying the way they are, some of them might choose to not be living on the edge of death all the damn time?

You haven't made an inch's progress toward supporting the assertion that this particular group lives "on the edge of death all the damn time."

Although the question regarding their degree of interest in joining "the rest of us" (whatever exactly that is intended to mean) is an interesting one.

[Ender]

I can't believe I'm having to defend the idea that modern civilization is superior to the stone age on this board of all places.

And of course you can quote exactly where I wrote that. Or not, since I didn't. If they are still around, it demonstrates that they have practices which work for them, in their environment, and at their level of population size and density.

The average lifespan for their level of tech is in the mid 20s. No, it clearly doesn't fucking work.

Collected rain water. Natural streams. Water-holding plants.
You'd last three minutes in a jungle, without help, wouldn't you? Even someone with zero formal training in jungle survival - like me - ought to know that much.

Bacteria, parasites, toxic runoff from the aforementioned logging. You were never in the scouts, were you? They teach you the importance of things like boiling water to make it sterile for a god damned reason.

Since 'superior' isn't my position, I don't need to defend it. If they have adequate ability to treat themselves - which, still being extant, and based upon knowledge gleaned regarding other forest tribal groups, they likely do - then all of the cons against invading their turf, weigh more heavily than that particular theoretical benefit.

Average lifespan for their level of tech is ~25 years. That is less then a quarter of the theoretical maximum, and 1/3rd of what the first world does. More to the point, to have such a low average requires a very high child mortality rate.

But hey, kids dying all the time clearly "works for them." And modern civilization is clearly just a "theoretical" benefit.

And living in a rainforest, with fairly consistent climate year-round, surrounded by edible plants and animals, doesn't let them have access to food, all the time?

No, it doesn't. It puts them at the whims of a successful hunt and how often the can find a wide enough variety of edible plants with sufficient nutrients. Studies of the food chain and predator prey relationships aside, did you never go to the zoo? They have displays up all over the place explaining how hard it is for those at the top of the food chain to get by.

If they do *need* agriculture, what makes you assume that they have not developed it, themselves? Have we evidence in hand, that there isn't a plot of tubers, maize, or other staple crop, outside the frames of those pictures? Got some evidence, of that absence?

So we see a reuters video of the entire fucking camp, there are no fields, but hey we don't know if there is one beyond it! Also, we don't know that Rusell's teapot isn't there or not.

Stepping beyond your blatant idiocy, even if we assume that those trees we see instead of fields are really just corn, they are still going to be massively behind the rest of the world.

Wow, name-calling. Aren't *you* just a super genius. All bow to Ender, he can sling kindergarten insults. Clearly an intellect to be reckoned with.

You don't believe that aiming their weapons at the plane, communicates anything, at all? Really?

Do you actually contend that responding to a "fight or flight" stimulus is the same as even a rudimentary form of communication as speech? I doubt it, but you have to know you can't, which is why you started whining about threat displays being valid communications instead of a basic stimulus response.

In the event that you are dumber then I think (and that would be tricky), by all means lets see a comparison of the size of the body of information they have at hand that those arrows will transmit and the bandwidth thereof.

The existence of such tribes is proof that you don't understand the meaning of the word, entirety.

Really, so you don't think those bows and huts are a result of their tribe trying to improve itself over time instead of being dependent on what they can get from nature? You don't think those bows are refinements over more primitive designs? You contend that if we made contact none of them would try to get away from where they are now?

You haven't made an inch's progress toward supporting the assertion that this particular group lives "on the edge of death all the damn time."

Look again dumbshit, I provided two links showing the life expectancy of humans at primitive levels of technology. To have a low average lifespan, you need a high infant mortality rate to drag down the bell curve. If the average lifespan isn't very long, and most die when they are young, then on average they are pretty fucking close to death.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Evidence that they are "living on the edge of death all the damn time?"

Average life expectancy for their level of tech is in the mid 20s.
linka

If wikipedia is right then it may be lower, depending on where you would place these guys techwise.

Like how you completely blew off all the rest of my points though.

And? Who is to say that we necessarily should be living as long as we do? WHat in the hell gives us the right to impose those decisions on someone else's culture?

[ArmorPierce]

The development of an agricultural life style actually brought down the health and life expectancy of human society. The benefit of agriculture is that it is able to support a larger population. Hunter/gatherers have a healthier life style however. Look at what the introduction of the modern world has wrought on most tribes in south America before you state that we should introduce them.

Anyway I 've seen this story before. They were known to be there by some though some including the president of the country denied that they existed. I believe these are some of the first pictures of them and their village however taken to show that they do indeed exist.

[Darth Lucifer]

Could it be the Lamanites from the Book of Mormon?

[Uraniun235]

there's some serious Captain Picard shit going on in this thread

[Dark Hellion]

Now we just need Shep to advocate preemptively nuking them so they can't become strong enough to challenge us.

[FSTargetDrone]

Protected or not, these people may eventually run into outsiders who are less than concerned with their welfare, so perhaps it is best to now attempt some kind of amicable meeting.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And? Who is to say that we necessarily should be living as long as we do? WHat in the hell gives us the right to impose those decisions on someone else's culture?

Ethics.

We're imposing nothing; our duty, however, is give them the option. Come on, Aly, this isn't rocket science. If they want to go back to the woods, fine, but we have an ethical duty to introduce them to the improvements of the modern world that could make their lives objectively better.

[Straha]

And? Who is to say that we necessarily should be living as long as we do? WHat in the hell gives us the right to impose those decisions on someone else's culture?

Think this through. Ender isn't saying we have to impose anything on them. You are. By saying "This is the way they are and this is the way they must remain, and any contact with them is forbidden" you are imposing on them their current way of life, whether they'd like to improve it or not.

Nothing says they have to live like we do. But we have the god damned duty to go over there and offer them the option to have medicine, better food, decent birthing facilities, toilets and legal representation to protect them from others. As a start. They don't have to take it, but we should give them the option. And if we didn't give them that option... it's almost barbaric.

[Kanastrous]

I can't believe I'm having to defend the idea that modern civilization is superior to the stone age on this board of all places.

I thought that you were defending the idea that the first and best thing to do upon discovering a stone-age society, was to try and drag it into the 21st century.

The average lifespan for their level of tech is in the mid 20s. No, it clearly doesn't fucking work.

Please provide specific evidence that the life span of contactee Indian tribes like this one, are substantially improved by contact with outsiders. Or that any aspect of their lives, really, can dependably be expected to improve upon contact with outsiders.

Can you imagine other criteria beyond life-span?

Bacteria, parasites, toxic runoff from the aforementioned logging. You were never in the scouts, were you? They teach you the importance of things like boiling water to make it sterile for a god damned reason.

Not a problem with rain water, or with water taken from cut plants, which act as filters. Do they teach that, in the scouts?

Average lifespan for their level of tech is ~25 years. That is less then a quarter of the theoretical maximum, and 1/3rd of what the first world does. More to the point, to have such a low average requires a very high child mortality rate.

Again, no conceivable criteria, beyond life span? Looking at the experience of other contactee tribes, do you expect their quality of life to improve?

But hey, kids dying all the time clearly "works for them." And modern civilization is clearly just a "theoretical" benefit.

You seem to know a lot about the specific statistics regarding this tribe's experience. Have you been secretly living with them?

And living in a rainforest, with fairly consistent climate year-round, surrounded by edible plants and animals, doesn't let them have access to food, all the time?

No, it doesn't. It puts them at the whims of a successful hunt and how often the can find a wide enough variety of edible plants with sufficient nutrients.

And the fact that they live where they live, suggests to you that they can't find edible plants, with sufficient nutrients? How do you imagine they have persisted, all these years, without enough food to survive on?

Studies of the food chain and predator prey relationships aside, did you never go to the zoo? They have displays up all over the place explaining how hard it is for those at the top of the food chain to get by.

I don't think a comparison between omnivorous human group hunter-gatherers and (usually solitary) apex carnivores (top of the food chain, yes?) is a particularly valid one.

If they do *need* agriculture, what makes you assume that they have not developed it, themselves? Have we evidence in hand, that there isn't a plot of tubers, maize, or other staple crop, outside the frames of those pictures? Got some evidence, of that absence?

So we see a reuters video of the entire fucking camp,

I don't have knowledge that that is the entire fucking camp. Or that there are not other settlements, within a few miles' radius. Given the difficulty the surveillance people had, finding this encampment, it's easy to suppose that there is more that they did not find.

Also, we don't know that Rusell's teapot isn't there or not.

Wouldn't matter; without trade links to the outside they'd have nothing to brew in it, anyway

You don't believe that aiming their weapons at the plane, communicates anything, at all? Really?

Do you actually contend that responding to a "fight or flight" stimulus is the same as even a rudimentary form of communication as speech? [/quote]

These aren't dogs, they're human beings. Brandishing a weapon at an unknown intruder is not interchangeable with simple fight-or-flight.

The message behind the raised weapons is crystal clear: fuck off and don't come back.

I doubt it, but you have to know you can't, which is why you started whining about threat displays being valid communications instead of a basic stimulus response.

See above. You seem to display a real contempt for these people; first they operate only at a fight-or-flight level, now they display only 'basic stimulus response,' which puts them about on par with amoebas. Nice.

In the event that you are dumber then I think (and that would be tricky), by all means lets see a comparison of the size of the body of information they have at hand that those arrows will transmit and the bandwidth thereof.

"Leave us Alone." If you can't extract that message from their actions, you have no business suggesting that anyone else is dumb.

Really, so you don't think those bows and huts are a result of their tribe trying to improve itself over time instead of being dependent on what they can get from nature?

Isolated societies like this tend to plateau, once their technology reaches a certain point, which it likely did a very long time ago. They reach a technological and social equilibrium suitable for their environment. And since they are not evidently "working their asses off" to get away from their present way of life, your use of the word "entirety" is clearly wrong. Every last aboriginal society, in fact, that reached and remained at that equilibrium (in Australia, Papua-New Guinea, the American Indians, north and south, etc, etc, etc) proves you wrong in that regard.

You don't think those bows are refinements over more primitive designs?

I haven't examined them, and am not an anthropologist, and so can't make a conclusion.

Are you an anthropologist? Have you examined their tools at first-hand, with the training necessary to make that hard-and-fast conclusion?

In any case, it may be an example of the kind of plateau I described earlier.

You contend that if we made contact none of them would try to get away from where they are now?

I never contended any such thing. In fact, that question - would anyone want to leave and join the outside world, sight-unseen - is about the only interesting thing you've posed, so far.

If the average lifespan isn't very long, and most die when they are young, then on average they are pretty fucking close to death.

Word games. Minute-to-minute, is any given individual of their group so much closer to death, than I am? I doubt it.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

As it is, I don't think we should outright contact them yet.

For the moment, there is no real need to do so. The retainment of their land isn't dependent on contacting them, and unless I'm mistaken, they're not at immediate risk of dying out.

On the other side, as great as modern medicine is, initiating contact with them *will* be very dangerous, and probably make a lot of them very sick, if not dead. Not to mention the severe psychological fuckbomb of being essentially taken against your will be god-people you don't understand, poked and prodded, and generally having your entire universal paradigm fucked over. Unless that's the *only* way to keep them alive, why put them through that sort of hell?

I mean, yeah, ethically giving someone the option of better sanitation, higher technology and hygiene, and a chance to see a bigger world is fine on paper. But I have a really hard time believing that you can do this to a completely isolated tribe without fucking a majority of them over psychologically and physically.

[Kanastrous]

And? Who is to say that we necessarily should be living as long as we do? WHat in the hell gives us the right to impose those decisions on someone else's culture?

Ethics.

We're imposing nothing; our duty, however, is give them the option. Come on, Aly, this isn't rocket science. If they want to go back to the woods, fine, but we have an ethical duty to introduce them to the improvements of the modern world that could make their lives objectively better.

Are they equipped to make that choice, with any real conception of what they are getting into?

Look at the track record of primitive aboriginal societies contacted by the modern world - is it in the main a list of successful transitions and adaptations to modernity? Or is it in the main a litany of alcoholism, exploitation, plague and despair? Is there really reason to expect that contact with this group, will somehow be magically better, and more beneficial to them, than it has been to their predecessors?

[Straha]

And? Who is to say that we necessarily should be living as long as we do? WHat in the hell gives us the right to impose those decisions on someone else's culture?

Ethics.

We're imposing nothing; our duty, however, is give them the option. Come on, Aly, this isn't rocket science. If they want to go back to the woods, fine, but we have an ethical duty to introduce them to the improvements of the modern world that could make their lives objectively better.

Are they equipped to make that choice, with any real conception of what they are getting into?

Is anyone? Really though the point is that if the contact is handled not from the perspective of "If you want, we'll give you medicine and enough sanitation so you don't kill yourselves and leave you alone. But only if you want, so we can help you." and not "What will it take for us to get your land?" (as it has been through 90% of other aboriginal contacts) this shouldn't go too poorly. And even if it does turn out damaging psychologically, I think a much increased life expectancy and more mothers and children surviving child birth is worth the (temporary) cost.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Look at the track record of primitive aboriginal societies contacted by the modern world - is it in the main a list of successful transitions and adaptations to modernity? Or is it in the main a litany of alcoholism, exploitation, plague and despair? Is there really reason to expect that contact with this group, will somehow be magically better, and more beneficial to them, than it has been to their predecessors?

My point exactly. It's fucking easy to say, "We're giving them options!"

Let's take a look at what 'giving them options' entails:

First off, they don't speak the language, they've probably never even seen any humans outside their tribe. If you don't want them dying out from any number of mundane illnesses we're immune to, you're going to have to put them through a severe battery of medical examination, innoculation, testing, etc. There's no guarantee that the testing will work, or take effect fast enough to stop a significant number of them from either dying, or being put through an agonizing hell of disease and likely permanent debilitation from it.

Then there is the fact that you'll have to sit them down and try to reach a common ground on language, though I doubt they'll be too eager to do that after being put through the previous medical stuff.

After actual communication is established, you then get to show them things it takes most interconnected civilizations decades, centuries, millenia to adapt to.

So, from their point of view:

A few weeks after the shining, droning wasp-god appears in the sky, a bunch of very strange looking... things, people maybe? Show up. They babble a lot, and you can't understand them. Without warning, they come into your tribe, take all of your prisoner, and keep you in what you see as cages. You are poked a bunch of times with very sharp objects, and are forced to sit under other loud objects while they continue to babble and watch. A lot of you get very sick, some of you die.

You have no idea what the hell's happening or why, all you know is that these things came out, took over your village, separated you from each other, violated your bodies, tortured you, and made a lot of you sick.

By this point, you probably don't have the most positive view on these things. They then try to sit you down and teach you their language. It's highly questionable whether or not you'd even be able to, let alone want to.

If you do somehow manage to learn their language to reasonable comprehension (I'm guessing years of work here, but more knowledgeable people can probably correct me), they then tell you that you were put through this hell so that they could give you 'options' for a 'better life'.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

My point exactly. It's fucking easy to say, "We're giving them options!"

Let's take a look at what 'giving them options' entails:

First off, they don't speak the language, they've probably never even seen any humans outside their tribe. If you don't want them dying out from any number of mundane illnesses we're immune to, you're going to have to put them through a severe battery of medical examination, innoculation, testing, etc. There's no guarantee that the testing will work, or take effect fast enough to stop a significant number of them from either dying, or being put through an agonizing hell of disease and likely permanent debilitation from it.

Then there is the fact that you'll have to sit them down and try to reach a common ground on language, though I doubt they'll be too eager to do that after being put through the previous medical stuff.

After actual communication is established, you then get to show them things it takes most interconnected civilizations decades, centuries, millenia to adapt to.

So, from their point of view:

A few weeks after the shining, droning wasp-god appears in the sky, a bunch of very strange looking... things, people maybe? Show up. They babble a lot, and you can't understand them. Without warning, they come into your tribe, take all of your prisoner, and keep you in what you see as cages. You are poked a bunch of times with very sharp objects, and are forced to sit under other loud objects while they continue to babble and watch. A lot of you get very sick, some of you die.

You have no idea what the hell's happening or why, all you know is that these things came out, took over your village, separated you from each other, violated your bodies, tortured you, and made a lot of you sick.

By this point, you probably don't have the most positive view on these things. They then try to sit you down and teach you their language. It's highly questionable whether or not you'd even be able to, let alone want to.

If you do somehow manage to learn their language to reasonable comprehension (I'm guessing years of work here, but more knowledgeable people can probably correct me), they then tell you that you were put through this hell so that they could give you 'options' for a 'better life'.

This whole argument is a massive fucking strawman. Pay some guy to live in a house by their village for a couple of years after learning their language, teaching them how to purify water and use alcohol for basic antiseptics. You've just massively improved their lives without all this bullfuckery red herring shit about "taking them and putting them in cages". Jesus, did you miss the entire point? We're not FORCING them into doing anything.

[Straha]

First off, they don't speak the language, they've probably never even seen any humans outside their tribe. If you don't want them dying out from any number of mundane illnesses we're immune to, you're going to have to put them through a severe battery of medical examination, innoculation, testing, etc. There's no guarantee that the testing will work, or take effect fast enough to stop a significant number of them from either dying, or being put through an agonizing hell of disease and likely permanent debilitation from it.

These people do not live in total vacuum. Contact with other tribes (who tend to speak similar languages) is rare but not totally unheard of in the depths of the Amazon. A simple solution is to recruit people from tribes which have been contacted and have discourses with the authorities. Load them up in a helicopter and then drop them off near the camp. Use them as an interlocutor to explain the situation to the nearly isolated tribe. If the tribe turns it down, we've tried. No harm done. If the tribe accepts then progress can begin.

[Kanastrous]

I don't think it's a strawman to observe that a lot of groups like this, have not benefited from contact with the outside. Or to ask why we should be so sure that this group's experience will be different, that we're willing to charge ahead and place them at a whole new set of risks, when they appear to have figured out a working modus vivendi for themselves.

[Alyrium Denryle]

And? Who is to say that we necessarily should be living as long as we do? WHat in the hell gives us the right to impose those decisions on someone else's culture?

Ethics.

We're imposing nothing; our duty, however, is give them the option. Come on, Aly, this isn't rocket science. If they want to go back to the woods, fine, but we have an ethical duty to introduce them to the improvements of the modern world that could make their lives objectively better.

And what kind of track record do we have when we try? You know history better than I do Marina, but last I checked, out track record doing these things was pretty fucking bad.

Think this through. Ender isn't saying we have to impose anything on them. You are. By saying "This is the way they are and this is the way they must remain, and any contact with them is forbidden" you are imposing on them their current way of life, whether they'd like to improve it or not.

Oh please. Lets go through this step by step.

1) someone says hello
2) tribe contracts disease
3) we have two choices. a) we can let them die, destorying not just their way of life, but their very lives b) we can treat the disease, further exposing them to disease, as well as introducing a major worldview-fuckover to their lives which they are not psychologically equipped to deal with.

By the very nature of making contact, we will be forcing them to adapt to at least large portions of our way of life, or die. They will never be able to go back to their prior way of life, they will suffer social problems, in addition to new foreign pathogens, and will not be able to integrate into larger society.

We might be able to send a lone anthropologist. Someone who has so many antibiotics and innoculations against disease that you can siphon off their blood to cure illness in its own. But trying to bring to them all our advances has NEVER in the history of our trying to do so as a group of western cultures, actually worked.

They have not changed, they have not developed agriculture, because they have not needed to, in evolutionary terms. Their hunter-gatherer lifestyle works for them, they maintain their population in dynamic equilibrium with their environment, if they survive childhood their life-expectancy is probably not actually as bad as Ender suggests. Average life expectancy is a bit deceptive because it counts in infant morality, and when you have five kids, two of which die, that tends to drop the population average down a tad, even if the rest live well past reproductive senescence

Also: ethics lesson. There is no universal Should. There is no universal ethic that says we actually DO have a duty to bring these people our improvements. Our ethical systems evolved to function within our culture, within the particular set of circumstances in which we live. it is faulty reasoning to try to apply our ethical system to what their situation requires. The best course of action is to not impose, and leave them the fuck alone

[Alyrium Denryle]

Oh! And I forgot to mention the inevitable horde of well-meaning but misguided missionaries who will systematically destroy their culture, whether they want them to or not.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Is there no way to ban missionary work in the area?

[Kanastrous]

A perimeter of land mines?

Maybe the damned things can be put to a good use, after all.

[Straha]

Oh please. Lets go through this step by step.

1) someone says hello
2) tribe contracts disease
3) we have two choices. a) we can let them die, destorying not just their way of life, but their very lives b) we can treat the disease, further exposing them to disease, as well as introducing a major worldview-fuckover to their lives which they are not psychologically equipped to deal with.

Don't strawman. With the proper method of approaching the tribe and contacting them we can reduce to next to nil the possibility of passing on communicable diseases to them, which renders the entire "We'll be forcing them into our custody, forever!" fantasy moot. And if done through another tribe they'll be insulated enough from western culture as to make any "cultural contamination" minimal, at worst.

Your fantasy, I might add, also side-steps two very important issues. First, if contact really will make them go extinct without our help, then we'd better make sure it's a responsible entity makes contact with them and not, say, illegal loggers who wont give a shit for their welfare. Second, if we're imposing a "No contact" cordon on them aren't we already doing what you're saying must happen in your gloom and doom scenario? Namely taking charge of them and saying that we're the ones best informed to govern their future?

That thought-process, that we know best and they should have no input, sickens me a little inside. We have the duty to give them an option, and then to respect their choice. Whether their choice is telling us to get the fuck off their land, a grateful acceptance of medicine and some anti-biotics, or the choice to try to integrate more with "western" culture. That's the long and short of it.

[Kanastrous]

That thought-process, that we know best and they should have no input, sickens me a little inside. We have the duty to give them an option, and then to respect their choice. Whether their choice is telling us to get the fuck off their land, a grateful acceptance of medicine and some anti-biotics, or the choice to try to integrate more with "western" culture. That's the long and short of it.

I doesn't impress me as reasonable, to suppose that a stone-age society can be given a sufficient grasp of what the outside world is like, to make an informed choice. And if you aren't enabling the making of an informed choice, you're doing them no favors.

If we're sending someone in to talk up the virtues of antibiotics, crop rotation and water-purification tablets, I hope we're responsible enough to make sure the pitch includes a detailed rundown of what has happened to so many groups like their own, once in contact with the larger outside world. Hearing that, I wonder how enthusiastic they'd be. Heck, I wonder if anyone on the first-contact team would make it out, alive.

And, for all the talk about antibiotics, clean water, etcetera, is that really the experience of tribes like these, post-contact? In nations where people in the urban centers can't rely upon supplies of medicine and clean water, it seems pretty dishonest to suggest that we can count on a small group of forest-dwellers being better cared-for.