Maybe we'll get sick and die. Why assume that it can't work both ways?
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Uncontacted tribe photographed in Brazil
- Thread starter The Squire of Gothos
- Start date
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My position is: I see the need to protect them from illegal loggers, criminal scum who want the trees they live among, and will happily kill anyone who stands in their way.
If nothing is done to stop this, then this tribe's first contact with the outside world might well also be their last, coming when it does out of the barrels of the guns of illegal tree-choppers.
But beyond that, I don't have any problem with making contact and introducing to them the knowledge of the existence of the outside world, and as good a conception of its breadth extent as could be conveyed to them (probably pretty vague IOW).
I think people here on this board particularly are going to be thinking too much in terms of Star Trek's "prime directive" which basically amounts to stay out, stay quiet, ignore them until they come out and bump into you. Which is not really the best thing to do in the real world. If nothing else, keeping them safe from the loggers is probably going to have to involve making contact with them at some point. I doubt the battle can be fought around them and they kept blissfully ignorant.
If nothing is done to stop this, then this tribe's first contact with the outside world might well also be their last, coming when it does out of the barrels of the guns of illegal tree-choppers.
But beyond that, I don't have any problem with making contact and introducing to them the knowledge of the existence of the outside world, and as good a conception of its breadth extent as could be conveyed to them (probably pretty vague IOW).
I think people here on this board particularly are going to be thinking too much in terms of Star Trek's "prime directive" which basically amounts to stay out, stay quiet, ignore them until they come out and bump into you. Which is not really the best thing to do in the real world. If nothing else, keeping them safe from the loggers is probably going to have to involve making contact with them at some point. I doubt the battle can be fought around them and they kept blissfully ignorant.
^I think this is similar to my opinion, and your argument is sound. They are likely to be disturbed eventually, and its better to be with good well meaning people than amoral people. Contacting them is a good idea.
But even if that wasn't the case, there is no reason to maintain strict isolation. But we shouldn't damage their culture or impose our world upon them. For them to gain knowledge of us and our ways isn't harmful - it's part of their evolution and learning. We're the tribe next door. There are probably things we can learn from them too.
They may react to our existence in two ways:
(1)They want to learn more about us and discover aspects of our world that might benefit theirs. We can offer and share our knowledge, to teach each other what we know. This should not be advertising our ways as superior, but alternative. We should be careful to point out things like sustainability and ecology, and what burdens and privileges our lifestyle choices create. The language barrier could be a hurdle though, and we'd be wise to take lessons from Darmok and Jilad.
(2) They don't want anything to do with outsiders. We should respect their privacy and culture, but never close the door on them completely.
But I will reemphasise what I said earlier: "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."
But even if that wasn't the case, there is no reason to maintain strict isolation. But we shouldn't damage their culture or impose our world upon them. For them to gain knowledge of us and our ways isn't harmful - it's part of their evolution and learning. We're the tribe next door. There are probably things we can learn from them too.
They may react to our existence in two ways:
(1)They want to learn more about us and discover aspects of our world that might benefit theirs. We can offer and share our knowledge, to teach each other what we know. This should not be advertising our ways as superior, but alternative. We should be careful to point out things like sustainability and ecology, and what burdens and privileges our lifestyle choices create. The language barrier could be a hurdle though, and we'd be wise to take lessons from Darmok and Jilad.
(2) They don't want anything to do with outsiders. We should respect their privacy and culture, but never close the door on them completely.
But I will reemphasise what I said earlier: "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."
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I don't see any insult here. In fact, I would see it as an insult if someone who still blieves in all this religious superstition would be trying to silence me.
And that could be taken as an insult by anyone of a religious persuasion. I've encountered more than a few religious folk who take great umbrage at their beliefs being called "superstition." (And, for the record, I keep a copy of the Bible right next to Bullfinch's Mythology on my bookshelf, so I've been down this road more than once.)
Hence my comment about putting a stop sign on this particular thread diversion before someone says something they're going to regret even if they do think about it first. Not an official order or anything, just seeing a landmine and trying to keep people from stepping on it, that's all.
Not to beat a dead horse but are we somehow missing the fact that I was offering my comment in RESPONSE to a clear and overt political wise-crack?
Thus:
Or are we simply taking offense at comments of a religious nature here?
No, I didn't miss it at all, Zachary. That's why I said "religious and/or political" in there early on.
My specific reply that you quoted was to what Oso Blanco said about "religious superstition," and was merely trying to raise the subject that such commentary can be considered offensive, and thereby a landmine that perhaps nobody wanted to step on, even unintentionally.
My specific reply that you quoted was to what Oso Blanco said about "religious superstition," and was merely trying to raise the subject that such commentary can be considered offensive, and thereby a landmine that perhaps nobody wanted to step on, even unintentionally.
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Fascinating...
I say contact them. They probably want to be left alone (shooting at the planes is probably more of a "stay away" or "leave us alone" than actually trying to hit and "kill" the plane) but with the loggers, Brazil's growing population and standard of living its going to happen eventually anyway. Also just because you contact them doesn’t mean you have to drag them into our way of living. Plus I think after contacting them it would be easer to offer them some protection from loggers and vise versa.
Also with the aliens thing. Sure we might try to shoot them down, make contact, or who knows. But "Aliens" might actually you know be aliens and it might be as hard for us to comprehend their technology or communicate with them as it is for animals with us. People point out this "savages" as examples but remember you can teach them about our tech because despite them being savage and primitive we are of the same species. Try teaching an animal about our tech and ways. You get some success like monkeys/apes/etc using computers to communicate, silly pictures of squirrels on bikes, etc but there is only so much you can teach them. I think it we might have the same problem with actual "extra terrestrials."
I say contact them. They probably want to be left alone (shooting at the planes is probably more of a "stay away" or "leave us alone" than actually trying to hit and "kill" the plane) but with the loggers, Brazil's growing population and standard of living its going to happen eventually anyway. Also just because you contact them doesn’t mean you have to drag them into our way of living. Plus I think after contacting them it would be easer to offer them some protection from loggers and vise versa.
Also with the aliens thing. Sure we might try to shoot them down, make contact, or who knows. But "Aliens" might actually you know be aliens and it might be as hard for us to comprehend their technology or communicate with them as it is for animals with us. People point out this "savages" as examples but remember you can teach them about our tech because despite them being savage and primitive we are of the same species. Try teaching an animal about our tech and ways. You get some success like monkeys/apes/etc using computers to communicate, silly pictures of squirrels on bikes, etc but there is only so much you can teach them. I think it we might have the same problem with actual "extra terrestrials."
Well humans do have an unusual will to learn for sake of learning. Other animals seem less interested in being so innovative, and their efforts are only ever as means to an end - usually a banana or seed or nuts or whatever. They don't learn and study for sake of academia.
If alien technology is literally unlike anything we've experienced, then we have no starting point, and no grasp of what we're dealing with. But the chances are we will. Alien technology will likely have 'innards' that we can disassemble, map and examine. By learning what bits are connected where, we get a sense of its structure and layout. We also have tests which we can subject things to - electron microscopes and things to see fine detail. If some stage does behave in a way we don't understand, at least we'd know that there is something there to learn. These are all things we can work with ; 'handles' we have on the alien technology; places our thoughts can spread out from.
For an alien technology to be truely unlike anything we've experienced, it would have to be composed of unconventional material. For example, humanity does not understand at all what is the nature of mind and consciousness. It is something we don't study or investigate, simply because we don't know where to begin. Some people cut up brains, and study electrical signals inside them, but that doesn't seem to get us any closer to understanding what mind and consciousness is. All they have are electronic circuits.
Alien technology might be a technology built upon mind and consciousness, and have an ambiguous relationship with matter. In the Starcraft universe they call it Psionics.
However, if they travel here in material starships, have material bodies, and are interested in us - biological material entities, it suggest some sensible limits on how different we can be. So their technology is more likely than not to be fathomable.
Perhaps that is the human strength, and what sets up apart from other animals?
That learning is our strategy, and if something is observed to behave in an unfamiliar way, we know that there is something there to learn.
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The question becomes whether there is a limit to our ability to learn, understand and even perceive. Every other example we have ever witnessed would suggest "yes". There IS a ceiling on human intelligence.
Take the premise that a jet airliner goes down in the jungle of Africa. A group of Chimpanzees come upon it. Now, I don't care how long or how hard the chimps work on it (assuming they'd have any interest in the first place), they will NEVER understand what it is they've discovered. They will not be able to reverse engineer it. They will never fly it. Not only is their intelligence too limited, they likely could not even appreiciate or perceive it was a vehicle.
WHY would humans be different? Yes, absolutely we have high capabilities than apes. But what if they are exactly that--HIGHER but not UNLIMITED capabilites? There may be beings in the universe with intelligence (not just knowledge, experience and technology greater than ours) as high above ours as we are above insects. Sure, WE have not figured out how to travel the stars. Our current understanding suggests it's impossible. But what if there are aspects to the universe that we simply cannot PERCEIVE or appreciate due to the INHERENT limitations of our species?
Consider a housefly banging away on a pane of glass, trying to get outside. It doesn't know why it can't get out. It probably isn't even AWARE the glass exists. The pane is too complex for the perception of the animal. We can look at it and say, "hey, ya just gotta go around it". Could be for another species more inherently intelligent than ourselves, that the methods of traveling the universe are every bit as obvious.
It damages the human ego to suggest we may be limited in what we can understand. But every other species EVER encountered has a ceiling on both perception and understanding of the universe around them. Are we REALLY the only one which doesn't?
Brazil is no back water nation, they have a huge and diversified GNP so they can correctly investigate this tribe the right way. Sure you can't have loggers and miners encroaching on their turf but a team of high speed anthropologists should be detailed to make contact and give the world a report. I want to hear their story...without being intrusive.
A sort of Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle applies to cultural contact: the act of observation changes what you observe.
I object to the notion that these people are stupid or unevolved (whatever than means). We all operate on fight of flight instincts, and when something utterly alien appears and swoops down on you, you are probably either going to bolt or defend yourself. I mean, seriously, you don't KNOW if this thing is friend or foe, so do you take the risk that it's harmless?
The only real difference between us and them is technological sophistication and local customs. Microwaves are just another method of preparing food, just as AIM-9 missiles are just a more techologically savvy way of killing someone than a bow or spear.
I object to the notion that these people are stupid or unevolved (whatever than means). We all operate on fight of flight instincts, and when something utterly alien appears and swoops down on you, you are probably either going to bolt or defend yourself. I mean, seriously, you don't KNOW if this thing is friend or foe, so do you take the risk that it's harmless?
The only real difference between us and them is technological sophistication and local customs. Microwaves are just another method of preparing food, just as AIM-9 missiles are just a more techologically savvy way of killing someone than a bow or spear.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
I vote we make contact with the tribe and pretend to be Gods.
OR
We wall them off like I said before and place miniature cameras everywhere and have a TV channel dedicated to them and have it something like Big Brother or The Truman Show.
OR
We wall them off like I said before and place miniature cameras everywhere and have a TV channel dedicated to them and have it something like Big Brother or The Truman Show.
That's very interesting.Hi Zach. I always look forward to reading your posts.
You know, I usually argue this subject on the other side of the fence. I'm still quite happy with the strength of the scientific post I made above, so this time I'll approach the notion of learning from the philosophical perspective.
Part of the problem of intelligence is the belief that is can be numerically measured as in IQ, and the difference between human and ape is numerically quantifiable in the same way.
But there is a fundamental difference between problem solving and understanding. Problem solving is just a set of motions that achieve a result, that happens through a combination of trial and error, imitation, instinct, and rote. All animals do problem solving. It is part of survival.
Even you are asking a question that an ape probably wouldn't -- you're speculating beyond your perceptions. An ape might not imagine there is anything to understand, and interprets reality via the the problem solving skills he employs daily.
That would place a limitation on his/her ambitions, and his/her attitude towards say, an aircraft.
Most animals don't approach the world cerebrally, but instinctively. Humans are conditioned from birth to develop cerebrally, not instinctively.
So what you've led us to is creatures' "understanding of the universe around them."
Well this is where Descartes and Berkeley have something to say.
We can always dream of realms beyond the recognizable reality. SciFi is built upon those dreams. And true enough, all of this -- the universe and physically what we are -- could all just be a simulation on somebodies computer. What we call physics and mathematics could be arbitrary rules programmed into that computer, and as we've known no other, this is reality for us, where we live inside a Matrix of sorts (Read Here).
The world we perceive may have no bearing on what is really real, so the knowledge and understandings we take pride in may be as artificial and arbitrary and meaningless as the illusion that has been pulled over our eyes.
In short, this possibility undermines any hope we have to gaining "true knowledge" about the universe. Anybody who is interested in learning "true knowledge" has their ambition halted by this possibility. It is something of an anticlimax for humanity to have evolved to a state where they realise, not only that they know nothing with any certainty, but also that they (as individuals) are incapable of knowing anything other than our own (individual) existence.
That is one definite limitation of the human species. We are entities incapable of understanding anything, we just like to believe we do.
...just in an out wanted to say how much I enjoyed Jadzia's perspective through this thread.
Also it occurred to me that maybe the overflight interrupted a ceremony of some kind and that's what provoked the menacing response with the bows and spears.
It takes a lot of time/effort to paint yourself red in a hunter gatherer subsistence society...so that had to be a special day for those people. I wonder if any of the great thinkers about these things made any connection to the movement of the moon or the position of the sun ..like some kind of equinox....something along those lines?
Also it occurred to me that maybe the overflight interrupted a ceremony of some kind and that's what provoked the menacing response with the bows and spears.
It takes a lot of time/effort to paint yourself red in a hunter gatherer subsistence society...so that had to be a special day for those people. I wonder if any of the great thinkers about these things made any connection to the movement of the moon or the position of the sun ..like some kind of equinox....something along those lines?
Maybe they scrubbed up for the annual passing of The Great Plane
Makes one wonder if they'd develop a religion based around air traffic timetables, being able to predict when the next plane comes over and which direction it is heading just as we once did with the planets.
Oh, and thanks for the thumbsup, antimatter.
Jadzia x
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Maybe they're building an idol of the plane as we speak.
Perhaps these folks might end up as a "Cargo cult"..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
this could be the undoing of this culture, I really think limited and protected contact will be the order of the day...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
this could be the undoing of this culture, I really think limited and protected contact will be the order of the day...
I say we drop a prop of C3PO and see if they worship that. Just to add icing on the cake, it will have an audiotape inside with C3PO retelling the star wars story to Ewoks.
Lost tribe not so lost after all
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