Isolated Tribe in Amazon Found

[FSTargetDrone]

"First contact is often completely catastrophic for "uncontacted" tribes. It's not unusual for 50 percent of the tribe to die in months after first contact," said Miriam Ross, a campaigner with the Indian rights group Survival International. "They don't generally have immunity to diseases common to outside society. Colds and flu that aren't usually fatal to us can completely wipe them out."

That is a hell of a risk to take.

I don't know, what it to be really served by introducing ourselves to them if so many may die? With nothing but a kind intent, we may be just as dangerous to them as people with evil intent. I still fear that people with less than noble goals may negatively impact them eventually (loggers, etc.) so perhaps it is best, for now, to leave them alone and do all that can be done to keep outsiders out.

[Frank Hipper]

Why in the hell are people assuming that these people don't have agriculture?

[FSTargetDrone]

Why in the hell are people assuming that these people don't have agriculture?

Indeed. In the first picture there is a "cotton basket." Where did they get the cotton? Perhaps they harvested it themselves.

[FSTargetDrone]

Whoops, that is "Cotton AND basket." But, still cotton.

[Lonestar]

Why in the hell are people assuming that these people don't have agriculture?

Eh? I read somewhere that they were cultivating Manioc.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I'll also point out that for people who are supposedly starving, they do seem to have enough time and energy to entirely paint themselves.

If the body paint is a religious imperative, they'd probably go to great lengths to maintain it even through starvation.

[Qwerty 42]

I wonder how that chopper will be incorporated in ther religion?

Airplane according to my local newspaper. It also wrote that they fired at the airplane so my guess is they didn't liked it to much.

I was just thinking that. They all definitely appear to be looking at the plane.

[Invictus ChiKen]

I'm actually with Endar 110% there are contless ways we can go about doing this. Maybe start be airdroping them better tools so they get the idea these "sky gods" are not here to hurt them.

Better bows, arrows, axes, hammers, nails and so on. Along with food with photographs of the first contact party...

[Alyrium Denryle]

I'll also point out that for people who are supposedly starving, they do seem to have enough time and energy to entirely paint themselves.

If the body paint is a religious imperative, they'd probably go to great lengths to maintain it even through starvation.

Why the fuck do you assume they are starving you fucking moron? There is no famine in a jungle, they are surrounded by food. WIld and edible plants, edible animals, and probably cultivated manioc (granted, it is primitive agriculture, just cutting back competitor plants in an area and letting their food plants take over, but still...)

The only question is wow big a population the males of their tribe can supply with meat, and how much vegetable matter the females and older children can collect or cultivate. Probably a few dozen to a few hundred people. At that point the population reaches a dynamic equilibrium and deaths (usually infant mortality and old age) match the growth rate due to living children. Each female will have between 4 and 5 kids in her lifetime, of which 3 or so survive, with the granparents dying sometime in there as well.

That is a healthy population. Not a starving one. Unless you also want to say that a wolfpack that has reached the regional carrying capacity is also starving.

[Superboy]

It's really interesting to think about these secluded tribes that have no idea what things like airplanes are. I always knew they were out there, but seeing pictures of them pointing arrows and spears at a plane is sort of surreal.

Do we really not have a safe way of contacting them without risking the spread of illness? There's no kind of sterilization that the first contacters could go through that would ensure no harmful germs could be spread?

I'm actually with Endar 110% there are contless ways we can go about doing this. Maybe start be airdroping them better tools so they get the idea these "sky gods" are not here to hurt them.

Better bows, arrows, axes, hammers, nails and so on. Along with food with photographs of the first contact party...

I don't know how effective it would be, but that's a cool idea and probably a good way to earn some trust.

I'd love to drop some camorders down there with them that could stream video back to us.

[PainRack]

no famine in a jungle, they are surrounded by food. WIld and edible plants, edible animals, and probably cultivated manioc (granted, it is primitive agriculture, just cutting back competitor plants in an area and letting their food plants take over, but still...)

The only question is wow big a population the males of their tribe can supply with meat, and how much vegetable matter the females and older children can collect or cultivate. Probably a few dozen to a few hundred people. At that point the population reaches a dynamic equilibrium and deaths (usually infant mortality and old age) match the growth rate due to living children. Each female will have between 4 and 5 kids in her lifetime, of which 3 or so survive, with the granparents dying sometime in there as well.

That is a healthy population. Not a starving one. Unless you also want to say that a wolfpack that has reached the regional carrying capacity is also starving.

Because we know from history and current tribes that they can and do undergo starvation and even when they don't, they generally don't have much surplus food? Its entirely possible that they are like the Aborgines of Australia who manipulated the environment to yield more food but that doesn't change the point that at some point in the present and future, they can and will undergo starvation and a population dip.

Without further evidence, there's nothing to tell us what their population is like.

[Alyrium Denryle]

no famine in a jungle, they are surrounded by food. WIld and edible plants, edible animals, and probably cultivated manioc (granted, it is primitive agriculture, just cutting back competitor plants in an area and letting their food plants take over, but still...)

The only question is wow big a population the males of their tribe can supply with meat, and how much vegetable matter the females and older children can collect or cultivate. Probably a few dozen to a few hundred people. At that point the population reaches a dynamic equilibrium and deaths (usually infant mortality and old age) match the growth rate due to living children. Each female will have between 4 and 5 kids in her lifetime, of which 3 or so survive, with the granparents dying sometime in there as well.

That is a healthy population. Not a starving one. Unless you also want to say that a wolfpack that has reached the regional carrying capacity is also starving.

Because we know from history and current tribes that they can and do undergo starvation and even when they don't, they generally don't have much surplus food? Its entirely possible that they are like the Aborgines of Australia who manipulated the environment to yield more food but that doesn't change the point that at some point in the present and future, they can and will undergo starvation and a population dip.

Without further evidence, there's nothing to tell us what their population is like.

Aboriginal tribes in Australia were IIRC primarily desert dwelling. ANd african tribes that live on the plains are subject to drought. Rainforest tribes are another matter. If they have a glut of multiple births they will strain their resources and may have to leave some infants exposed to predation.

However, unlike aboriginal tribes in Aus and African savannah tribes, these guys have constant weather conditions, and this means a constant supply of food. Their primary prey animals are non-migratory, and many maintain territories with relatively large stable populations. If they live in an area with a wet and a dry season (depends on where in the amazonian basin they are) the constancy of their food supply only changes in food composition.

So no. They are not like the aboriginal tribes. The dynamics of their food supplies are completely different.

As for surplus food, it is not needed. Why? Collecting surplus food is a variance reduction measure. It is useful for people that have variable environments with times of relatively plentiful food followed by periods of scarce food. Agricultural peoples between harvest seasons, or peoples that live in climes with a harsh dry season followed by brief monsoons for example.

The amount of food that is capable of being collected in a rainforest is relatively constant, and as a result the variance is not high and in need of being mitigated by storage in times of plenty. If they had surplus food, all that would occur is waste or health problems, take your pick. Or They WOULD have a population expansion and once the surplus ran out (IE budget cuts reduced our giving them food) they would be at risk of famine. If we start giving them food aid, we put them at more risk of starvation than they are already. The moment we start giving them food, is the moment they become dependent on us.

Without further evidence, there's nothing to tell us what their population is like.

There is if you have a small clue about how the dynamics of various ecosystems, carrying capacity, and food collection methods. There is if you are not a fucking idiot emplying an appeal to ignorance because you think all tribal groups are the same regardless of environments, and think you can compare the population dynamics and food collection methods of arid and semi-arid tribes with those living in the amazonian basin.

[ArmorPierce]

Why are so many people adamant that we must contact them and bring civilization to them when there are plenty of people in the world that is part of the global society but are lacking in thing such as medicine and sanitation.

To bring sanitation would require a influx of people to build it and definitely would bring disease that would kill off a number of them and require the disruption of their society in order to save them from us.

[ArmorPierce]

Why in the hell are people assuming that these people don't have agriculture?

I think people mean large scale agriculture where you have to chop down the forest to make. As if that is actually beneficial to society rather than a detriment.

[ArmorPierce]

I'll also point out that for people who are supposedly starving, they do seem to have enough time and energy to entirely paint themselves.

If the body paint is a religious imperative, they'd probably go to great lengths to maintain it even through starvation.

I recall reading in my anthropology class that most of these hunter/gatherer tribes only spend around 2-3 hours gathering food and the rest of the day is spent on what ever activity that they may have. 2-3 hours is not bad at all for a days work.

[Knife]

I'm sorry, I came to this debate late;

this is disgusting. Those who wish to play god are fucking bitches. Aly and those who want to MAKE these people be your preconceptions on stoneage nobility, seriously make me weep for mankind.

These nobel savages will at least try to better their lot, if not make it better for their children. You want to keep them and alll their kids stagnate for your own selfish needs.

White guilt, it's not just for breakfatst anymore. WTF.

Who cares if they live for 10/50/100 years? You positon makes their children couplable for the sins of their fathers rather than choosin for themselves.

They could well indeed live for generations without our aide, however a simple case of a dead herd aniimal upstream of them could wipe out the entire tribe.

I have no loyatly to a culture, however to a bunch of ignorant humans; I do have the duty of knowledge. I dont give a rats ass if their 'culuture
' dies. But if I can save a bunch of kids from inventual death via some sort of contact with the rest of the word (its coming whether or not YOU want it) then I'm willing to accept some death, especially if it's as trivial as a culture rather than actual people.

[The Grim Squeaker]

' dies. But if I can save a bunch of kids from inventual death via some sort of contact with the rest of the word (its coming whether or not YOU want it)

Do you mean eventual? And why is an almost inevitable outcome an argument for...forcing contact as an inevitable outcome? The fact that they've been discovered is not an argument to force the effects of contact and discovery on them. (the rest of your argument is though).

then I'm willing to accept some death, especially if it's as trivial as a culture rather than actual people.

Umm, did you miss the bit about at least 50% casualties expected as norm within months? (Through viruses that they lack any resistance to).
In addition, this situation could easily last for a while, there are a lot of viruses that the average western/first worlder today has that can wipe out the unresistant. (Today more than ever, even more than the Native Americans back in the day).
In addition, they're highly likely to be heavily exploited, or left with a lower standard of living if they are forced to switch from a stable hunter-gatherer life style to an agrarian one, or end up as a labour resource in the 3d world (Or for whatever group decides to move in. I find it hard to feel faith in protective laws meant to prevent this in the 3d world, the track record is dismal to say the least).

Heck, as a sidenote, the happiest place on Earth is a bunch of people living as hunter-gatherers, Vanatua.
Not working for 80 hours a week, not worrying about materialism [Very minor, this was just a condition listed, I'm not arguing that, since "Who has the bigger pelt" still would exist], better living conditions, better food/nutrition etc'

I'm sorry, I came to this debate late;

this is disgusting. Those who wish to play god are fucking bitches. Aly and those who want to MAKE these people be your preconceptions on stoneage nobility, seriously make me weep for mankind.

These nobel savages will at least try to better their lot, if not make it better for their children. You want to keep them and alll their kids stagnate for your own selfish needs.

White guilt, it's not just for breakfatst anymore. WTF.



They could well indeed live for generations without our aide, however a simple case of a dead herd aniimal upstream of them could wipe out the entire tribe.

How much of the 3d world today has access to clean water? Let's say, Africa.
The tribe could even more easily be wiped out by poachers, or the simple disease issue, mentioned earlier.

Who cares if they live for 10/50/100 years? You positon makes their children couplable for the sins of their fathers rather than choosin for themselves.

So, you want to make them choose? Once exposed, they'll have no real choice, can YOU choose to live as a hunter? No, you're forced to work, if only to keep your family sustained in your parent's frail dotage and to feed your family. How much of a choice do you have not to work, not to commute and work with large groups of people that you don't know and dislike, to avoid the army if drafted, to pay taxes, to compare yourself to the neighbour with the ferrari etc'.

I have no loyatly to a culture, however to a bunch of ignorant humans; I do have the duty of knowledge. I dont give a rats ass if their 'culuture

What should the goal be though?
More of their genes survivng to breed in the long term, after more than half die within months, and they end up in a reservation? Their happiness? Their lifespan irregardless of its quality? More of their children survivng childbirth and increasing birth rates unsustainability?
(I'm playing a bit of a devil's advocate here, I haven't decided on which side of this debate i'm leaning towards).

Also, an excellent little summary of the whole "Hunter gathering lifestyle Vs Agriculture" is in Jared M. Diamond's books "Guns, Germs and Steel" as well as "The Third Chimpanzee" or "Collapse" (One of the two, I forgot which). Excellent books irregardless though

[Straha]

Why in the hell are people assuming that these people don't have agriculture?

I think people mean large scale agriculture where you have to chop down the forest to make. As if that is actually beneficial to society rather than a detriment.

They do practice large scale agriculture. The articles mention that there was a nearby field which they also observed. People in the Amazon tend to practice a five to ten year agricultural cycle where they slash and burn a large portion of the forrest, plant and harvest and then move on. The amazon regrows itself in about four years (completely) and they come back to where they once were when it has.


This also renders your "Chopping down trees not being beneficial to society" point of view, as retrograde as it is, rather moot.

If the body paint is a religious imperative, they'd probably go to great lengths to maintain it even through starvation.

The body paint is in relation to the helicopter. It flew by a couple hours before the pictures were taken and freaked out the village. When it flew back there were no children left, and very few women, but all were painted and most were armed.

[PainRack]

Aboriginal tribes in Australia were IIRC primarily desert dwelling. ANd african tribes that live on the plains are subject to drought. Rainforest tribes are another matter. If they have a glut of multiple births they will strain their resources and may have to leave some infants exposed to predation.

No. We remember them as desert dwelling because the Europeans kicked them out of the plains and other fertile regions of Australia. Alternatively, we can also point to PNG and Polynesian tribes which have suffered from starvation despite them having agriculture.

Lowland PNG tribes in particular are primarily hunter gatherers which also practise a form of food cultivation to sustain them on their hunts, but occasionally people still die from insufficient food.

So no. They are not like the aboriginal tribes. The dynamics of their food supplies are completely different.

Yes. The orginal aborgines have more territory and range to move about in, thus protecting them from temporary flucatuations in food due to climate or other conditions.

As for surplus food, it is not needed. Why? Collecting surplus food is a variance reduction measure. It is useful for people that have variable environments with times of relatively plentiful food followed by periods of scarce food. Agricultural peoples between harvest seasons, or peoples that live in climes with a harsh dry season followed by brief monsoons for example.

And of course, fruit bearing trees are not vulnerable to insect infestation and disease, animal populations are not subject to migratory pressures and enviromental conditions? Its not as if they're living alone in the Amazon. There are other tribes and worse, modern loggers, hunters and whatnot in that region which would affect their surroundings and resource gathering.

The amount of food that is capable of being collected in a rainforest is relatively constant, and as a result the variance is not high and in need of being mitigated by storage in times of plenty. If they had surplus food, all that would occur is waste or health problems, take your pick. Or They WOULD have a population expansion and once the surplus ran out (IE budget cuts reduced our giving them food) they would be at risk of famine. If we start giving them food aid, we put them at more risk of starvation than they are already. The moment we start giving them food, is the moment they become dependent on us.

Who said anything about giving them food? However, by intergrating them into a larger economic unit, we reduce the risk of starvation by giving them relatively increased access to more resources. The problem as always is how would this intergration occur to the benefit of both sides.

There is if you have a small clue about how the dynamics of various ecosystems, carrying capacity, and food collection methods. There is if you are not a fucking idiot emplying an appeal to ignorance because you think all tribal groups are the same regardless of environments, and think you can compare the population dynamics and food collection methods of arid and semi-arid tribes with those living in the amazonian basin.

And Aborgines living in Tasmania, one of the rainforests of Australia DO suffer from starvation on times.

Frankly, with your talk of dynamics and the like, we seem to be debating different definitions of starvation. You're essentailly arguing that food gathering levels is constant, thus the population will not outrun available food supplies as it is adjusted by disease and death. I'm simply arguing that population adjustments to even a somewhat "constant" food level would include starving people to death. Its not uncommon. In Tikopia, they routinely sent old people out in canoes to die in the open seas, an "adjustment" of the population to existing food stocks, accomodating the increase in babies.

[Straha]

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.

Will this be done? The answer is probably no. You can keep your pie in the sky dreams of a perfect introduction. But that almost never happens, and it will not happen with the corrupt local governments and their business interests involved. Can you say "Merck Pharmaceuticals" and "bioprospecting"? Not that bioprospecting is bad, but it WILL be done to these people's detriment.

I'm not arguing for it to be done wrong. I'm arguing for it to be done right. There are, I'm sure, dozens of first contact plans. From "Contacting them in the name of Jehovah and showing them rightness of the Jehovah's Witnesses." to "Contacting them in the name of Allah and showing them the rightness of Allah." to "Contacting them in the name of Logs'R'Us Logging Company and showing them the rightness of being able to see the sky when you look up, and not just canopy." That being said, of course there wont be a perfect introduction, that is pie in the sky. But an introduction that offers them the chance for medicine and sanitation to save what would be hundreds of lives is worth the managable risk of a contact, if managed correctly.

As for falling prey of pharmaceutical companies, I find it amusing that in one post you argue that one powerful lobby can't possibly be kept out. And then lower down in the post argue that a powerful, and much harder to manage company, can be kept out. Nothing prevents the government from telling the Pharmaceutical corporations to keep their grubby noses out of there. Or from forcing them to work through the government for the betterment of the tribe in question. As for the allegations of corruption. Brazil is much better than it has been, corruption is no longer pervasive, though it is far reaching. Given a high profile case the Brazillian government can operate with a fair degree of transparency and autonomy. As for the Peruvian government, the problem there has been that the (admittedly once corrupt to his eyeballs) president seems to have gone too far to the light side and now has built up a large budget surplus because he wont spend money unless it can be thoroughly audited to prevent corruption. Given the nature of this case and the nature of the governments I think that there would be no immediate danger of corruption. And the long term danger is no greater than the fear that first contact might happen in a much more unpleasantly tragic way.

How pray-tell are you going to use another tribe to do this? A tribe that has already been partially westernized, does not actually speak the language these people use, and who just might be interested in their territory? Think this through.

That's the entire bloody point. Being partially westernized allows them to act as intermediaries who can understand the position of this tribe and convince it through shared experience. Language wouldn't be a real problem, the languages of the tribes in the Amazon are related to each other, and mutual intelligence can be found on a great number of issues. So you find a couple people from nearby tribes, drop them in and let them speak to each other as a man from Berlin might talk to someone from Vienna.

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.

Well now we have an excuse to increase the size of protected areas of the Brazilian rainforest now dont we?

Before you were arguing these governments couldn't keep out pharmaceutical companies. Now you're saying the government can keep out logging companies who are quite adept at not being seen or spotted?

Namely taking charge of them and saying that we're the ones best informed to govern their future?

No. In this respect we are only taking charge of our own actions. ANd this is something you forget. They are not equipped to make an informed choice.

Who the fuck are you to say whether they are or are not equipped to make a choice? Who the fuck are you to impose on these people what they have now because "It's what's better for them"?

It's as if you saw a autistic person in danger and said that you were going to "take charge of your own action" and not help them because they don't know what's better for them. The only difference is that in that case you'd be charged with negligence.

In order for them to actually make an informed choice we have to expose them to more than just the idea we plan on giving them. To give them sanitation for example, or running water, requires the logistics train involved in each of those things. Or medicine? Actually, I will save medicine, food and such for later on in this post.

GOOD HEAVENS! Who would ever want to be exposed to the idea of medicine? Or the idea that clean water is good? Or sanitation? Or water pills? Whatever would happen if these ideas got out and spread to other people? Why the consequences could be disastrous.

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.

You talk about this duty, while discarding and minimizing the massive risks involved.

Because the risks can be managed and reduced. It's why people leave their house every day when they could very well be hit by a car.

You don't need to tell them what the outside world is. You can have increments. First, medicine and anti-biotics. Then a doctor. Then more. With them always having the choice.

>snip fairy tale rant<

So, given all this. Why do they have a twenty year life expectancy, horrible risk of disease, high rate of infant mortality, high rate of loss of the child-bearing mother during childbirth, and the rest of the very well documented afflictions you can find in medical papers and historical research?

You know why tribes tend to have a low rate of disease transmission? I'll tell you. When someone gets sick either everyone else in the tribe packs up and runs or everyone else in the tribe forces the other fellow to pack up and run. And kill him if he doesn't. Of course, he's dead either way so it doesn't really matter if they kill him by arrow or through maltreatment of his disease does it? I had an anthropology professor go on a twenty minute dissertation on a experience a friend of his went through like that and comment at length about it. Frankly that attitude appalls me As does the mindset of anyone who would actually condone that treatment.

Some medicine > None at all.

Again, the medicine they actually need, they already have.

Like insulin to treat diabetes? Alcohol to put in wounds to prevent infection? Or medicine to prevent infection during childbirth? Anti-biotics for newborns. Anti-biotics for the twenty five year old man whose come down with a disease which a little bed rest, little medicine and hydration can cure but who will die otherwise? Oral rehydration equipment to prevent people dying from Cholera and, the mother of all killers, diarrhea? Or are you counting their herbal homeopathic remedies as being sufficient in all these regards?

Tell me the next time your mother falls ill and instead of taking her to the doctor you shove ginko balboa in her mouth and tell her it's all she needs.

[Keevan_Colton]

The stuff about just leaving them alone makes me feel sick. You're acting as though they're some endangered animals that we need to protect.

They're human beings, and that gives them certain rights. Take for example the most widely regarded decleration of such rights. The UN's Universal Decleration of Human Rights. It lays out lots of things that should be considered the right of every human being, regardless of race, creed, nationality, birth or anything else they could think of.

Lets take for example...Article 26:

Everyone has the right to education.

Apparently, that only applies to people who were discovered at the time it was written.


What the hell is with this noble savage crap anyway? Would you like to die at age 20?

Most of those saying that they're doing fine as is, would already be dead if they had been born there. Why is grubbing about in the dirt for a dozen years some great quality of life?

Here's a question, what would you do if one of the folk from this tribe wandered off and found out about the world beyond and wanted to return?

There's been plenty of Star Trek episodes with this kind of situation, they usually adopt the smug prime directive bullshit. What if one of the children from these tribes could become the next einstein or newton if they had a chance at education?

Maybe we should just leave them with fire spirits and rain gods though...lest we fuck with the prime directive by sharing what we have.

Asimov said "There's a single light of knowledge in the world, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere." what is our right to condemn children to die at a young age simply due to the random chance of where they were born when we have the capacity and capability to offer them a life four times as long...

[The Grim Squeaker]

What the hell is with this noble savage crap anyway? Would you like to die at age 20?

Will people please stop acting as though the average age is the age people will live to .
If you have 2 children, and on average one will die while the other lives to the age of 60, then the life expectancy would be 30. (Rome is a decent example of this being confusing, as it was an excellent example of a few throught history that once you survived the first few hours, let alone months or years of life, then your life expectancy went up through the roof).

Infant mortality skews the life expectancy very strongly. (Disclaimer: Not that it's not an unfortunate thing, and they undoubtably die at a far younger age than most pudgy people with a spare kidney and heart, let alone an actually healthy westerner)

Why is grubbing about in the dirt for a dozen years some great quality of life?

Why will they get a higher quality of life now? Maybe their great-great grand children will, if the assimilate fully and strike it lucky in a city. Higher in what terms though? (This is ignoring the predicted oil crash in many countries)

[Keevan_Colton]

No, seriously. What is stopping all these people that think grubbing in the dirt and living as a hunter gatherer is such a quality life from going and doing it?

There are wilderness areas you could wander off to and do it...if it is really such a wonderful existence, why arent you all off doing it?

[The Grim Squeaker]

No, seriously. What is stopping all these people that think grubbing in the dirt and living as a hunter gatherer is such a quality life from going and doing it?

There are wilderness areas you could wander off to and do it...if it is really such a wonderful existence, why arent you all off doing it?

Well, for one, conditioning. You could work only for enough to meet the minimum you need for food, who needs meat, luxuries, cars, trips, your own house... Being used to something is a strong argument.

Second is the lack of training. You spent your childhood learning ABC's and how to operate a computer. Others (Including many first worlders who like wilderness hikes, I once met a man who got his dad's agreement not to go to school for a year if he'd live alone in a cabin in the rockies, hunting his own food for a year. He was an excellent hiking guide). learned what herbs improve cookingvia saltyness, what plants of a snail are digestible (The green part of the innards), how to hunt and clean a fish, etc' . This also includes resistance to the lower hygenic standards to a degree (I get nasty allergies easily, and wasp stings will 50% kill me), or water.

Third is the fact that as people in the first world, our standards of living are immensely higher than what they could ever expect. The same would be true for most of the 2d world, and the elite or lucky in the 3d.
Of course, someone in Darfur might prefer having food and no guns.

Fourth is the environment, the world today is incomparably more cramped with far less wilderness, I could go off into the desert [I know how to find water, and a basic or two of the ike], but there aren't wild goats/large mammals around, deforestation has turned the area into, well, a desert, which is rather harsher than a rainforest in terms of usable land/food, especially fruits and nuts which are easy to get. (Not that I'd know which berries kill you and which are great with purple berries).

I sure as well wouldn't want to wander around in a loincloth, and I'd consider you barmy to want it, since we're so damn well off. In the first world, you're in the top 20% of humanity, as someone in the UK you're in an even better position, I'd take that over the far larger chances of "gasp" being the shaman's son and getting first choice of the animal innards

[Ender]

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.

Hey strawman. The first of many logical fallacies in this post. I have repeated said we should not drag them into the 21st century, but make contact and give them the option.

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.

You seriously want me to prove that medicine saves lives?

will this work? How about this? Its not like such agencies would exist if they didn't work.

Honestly are you even paying attention to the bullshit you are spouting here?

Can you imagine other criteria beyond life-span?

Plenty. Pretty much everything you clearly take for granted.

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

No. Reason being your claim isn't true. Do you want me to rattle off a list of toxic plants or bacteria that live in the rain forest for you?

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

YES. You would maintain that your quality of life is inferior to theirs?

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

Appeal to ignorance. Clearly objective scientific observations do not apply in this particular case just because fuckjob here doesn't want them to, despite the fact we have no reason to think so.

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?

By having an extremely high mortality rate. Why do you treat children dying as a good thing?

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.

What is the technical name for the fallacy of "denial of evidence"?

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.

Appeal to ignorance. Prove they have advanced agriculture.

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

Thus demonstrating you know shit about logic.

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.

Which is "fight or flight" - they aren't leaving their home territory, so they are fighting. It would really help if you knew whatthe fuck you are talking about.

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.

All humans still operate on basic stimulus responses and fight or flight you jackass. Go hang out at a park and watch the kids at play, see it for yourself.

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

Answer the fucking question. My contention was that our communication system was superior, you feel brandishing a weapon is sufficient. So lets see an estimate of information capacity and bandwidth. Not hard to do, Sagan did it for the whole world in the 70s.

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.

So I hold these people in low regard for pointing out that all humans react the same way, but you hold these "noble savages" up in esteem while claiming that their plateau is a result of not thinking or innovating, and not because limited resources preclude it. Gotcha.

By the way, funny thing - all those plateaued societies you mentioned? They grabbed advanced technology as fast as they could get their hands on it. Failure to measurably improve your lot in life is not the same as a lack of desire to do so.

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?

Appeal to ignorance. Bows don't grow on trees, they are the result of labor and development. They are inherently an improvement in hunting technology over time.

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

For them to validate your claims those societies would have had to turn down the offers of advanced technology when it was presented to them. Funny how that didn't happen.

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.

I don't know, I find your rampant sadism pretty fucking interesting.

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

Word games on your end. The overall average means they have a shittier position in life then we do. Ethically we should give them the option to improve.

But then you apparently think kids dying is great, so you know, there you are.