Uncontacted tribe photographed in Brazil
- Thread starter The Squire of Gothos
- Start date
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
The problem with tribes like these is that they're so primitive and zero educated that they'll be nothing but savages. Tribes like these should be located, contacted and forced to be integrated into modern society.
My question is, why? If they aren't bothering anyone, who cares?
Yeah, because that worked so well when the British and the churches tried it a century ago.
Y'know I was thinking about this and the thought came to me... anyone who doubts that an overt first contact between humans and extra-terrestrial aliens would involve the humans pointing every weapon we have at them (and maybe an itchy finger or two letting fly) should have all doubt removed with one look at this picture.
As far as these people are concerned, the plane passing over their village might as well be an alien spacecraft. They don't understand it, and they in tried and true human style, came out and met the not-understood with "guns drawn" (bows.. but you know what I mean by the phrase).
I saw this on TV this morning, very interesting.
You're right, Deimos, modern humans behave exactly like cavemen. This is incontrovertible proof that alien contact can only lead to bloody, bloody war. We probably all deserve to be exterminated for our barbaric instincts.
Fire, that statement was crazy. When did you get your degree in anthropology?
You're right, Deimos, modern humans behave exactly like cavemen. This is incontrovertible proof that alien contact can only lead to bloody, bloody war. We probably all deserve to be exterminated for our barbaric instincts.
Fire, that statement was crazy. When did you get your degree in anthropology?
It's interesting that there's seemingly been no technological progress for these people for probably 10,000 years. Their bows for instance, are very much like the ones their ancestors (and our's used) thousands of years ago. One would think that at somepoint one of their people would have come to the conclusion (either on purpose or by accident) that the recurve bow is a superior weapon/tool than their normal longbow.
No, we absolutely should not do that, because then they'll all get sick and die. This is explicitly stated in the linked article.
They've been living like this for what?... centuries?? As long as they are happy with their lifestyle, what right do we have to corrupt that?
I always get an uncomfortable feeling in these situations, where lost tribes are discovered, and how things inevitably unfold as they're forced to integrate into the modern world, whether its through reeducation or being moved along.
Sometimes it feels suspiciously like the modern world is looking for validation and approval from them. Having them embrace our industrialization and commercialization with happy smiley faces, it kind of redeems us. We long to be positively evaluated by the innocent and uncorrupted, to quell those anxieties we have everyday about the state of the world; whether or not we are on the right path; whether or not we are good righteous people. We effectively use them as a therapy for our postmodern angst... Who then is being saved?
And issued keyboards, no doubt; it would explain a few things.
There are some people i'm reading on other boards saying
Well, it's not a bad thing for us. We came by it naturally over hundreds and thousands of years. Or, in the cases where we didn't, the wounds have mostly scarred over. Just because their decedents a few hundred years from now might be okay with living in our society doesn't mean we should kidnap, indoctrinate, and infect them now.
No, this is irrelevant Samurai. These people from the other boards are making a feeble attempt to see irony where it doesn't actually exist. Those people are saying nothing insightful or empathetic regarding the futures of these tribes-people, they're just trying to have their voice heard for sake of ego.
Modernization is not a bad thing, but it is necessarily evolutionary. It is a highly relative, subjective, and multifaceted concept, and we would be misguided to insist that our modern world is a better world for them.
The point is that isolated tribes have their own cultures, their own ways of doing things -- ways which work for them. As far as we may assume, they are happy and content living as they are. Let them evolve and modernize in their own comfortable ways. If they want to adopt our lifestyles, then great, I'm happy for them. But if they don't, their privacy and culture should be respected.
But they won't ever evolve and modernise unless we (the other 99.99999999% of humanity in the mainstream world) make contact with them and begin a process of increasing interaction.
The way you begin interacting with an uncontacted tribe BTW is you start moving towards their territory through the lands of other tribes along the way. Eventually you'll get a slightly-less-uncontacted tribe with a knowledge of the totally uncontacted tribe in the next valley over (or whatever), and probably a somewhat compatible language. Before the slightly-less-uncontacted tribe there was a little-bit-less-uncontacted tribe and before that maybe a vaguely contacted tribe, and before that a slightly contacted tribe... you get the idea.
It may take a string of people from increasingly close tribes, and each translating into the language of the next tribe "over the hill" so to speak (starting with a far away, "fully contacted" tribe that knows Spanish, or a Spanish-speaking Brazilian or Peruvian that knows the language of the far tribe) and working one's linguistic way towards the uncontacted tribe. A process kinda sortaway remeniscent of walking artillery up to a target.
You raise actually a very interesting point; that apparently there has been no significant innovation among these people since prehistoric times. It makes one wonder what really is the spark for creativity really is. Necessity has often been cited as a key element but you'd think that even if they were perfectly content and happy as clams, taht someone would have HAPPENED upon some innovation in the last upteen millenia.
BTW, what I think would be hilarious now is if a plane were to once again over-fly the villiage but this time air-drop back down to them hundreds of PHOTOS of these same natives brandishing their bows into the air. What would the conversation around the camp-fire be on THAT night!!
Tribesmen- Oh nabtu do I really look that fat?
Tribesmen 2- is it politically correct to say they stole my soul with that picture?
The tribesmen in black reminds me of the native in the remake of king kong
Is this always a bad thing? Joining hands and singing Kumbaya isn't always enlightened. Sometimes it's stupid.
I don't believe modernization is always quite so "forced"; it can't take root without some degree of embracing. Unless people just bulldozed the place, I mean.
It's fallacious thinking to believe that people who have not developed modern technology are somehow less intelligent. I wouldn't wish to have a battle of wits on their home turf. What they have achieved is a way of life that has successfully managed their existence for thousands(?) of years. To just dismiss that is to miss quite a large piece of understanding about them, blinded by our own value system, which has yet, may I add, to prove it's effectiveness over such a span of time.
The reality is, the modern world will eventually encroach into their culture and the children will lose the old ways. No matter what, people have the ability to make their own decisions. The embracing of culture is one of them.
It's fallacious thinking to believe that people who have not developed modern technology are somehow less intelligent. I wouldn't wish to have a battle of wits on their home turf. What they have achieved is a way of life that has successfully managed their existence for thousands(?) of years. To just dismiss that is to miss quite a large piece of understanding about them, blinded by our own value system, which has yet, may I add, to prove it's effectiveness over such a span of time.
The reality is, the modern world will eventually encroach into their culture and the children will lose the old ways. No matter what, people have the ability to make their own decisions. The embracing of culture is one of them.