Uncontacted Peoples

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Observe their habits and customs, and provided they don't sacrifice humans or something, send an embassy.

I never understood where people decided that non-intervention in such situations is moral. After all, they probably don't much care dying of disease, and we wouldn't benefit if say, small-pox turned out to still be around. Is it good that they have never heard the word democracy? Helping them, guiding them into the 21st century, educating them, healing them, this would be good. Laughing at them as they continued to sit in the cave of ignorance strikes me as immoral indeed.

Many primitive peoples have a rudimentary form of democracy.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Okay, I'll concede that point. Still, the whole point of disease, modern agriculture, roads, economy...

Contact with the "advanced" cultures will probably doom their culture. If they have been surviving on their own, then let them be.

ruveyn

And what's wrong with "dooming" their culture? Penicillin alone would be worth it, I think, depending on their situation. Hows about we send an embassy and ask them?

The Himba in Namibia are a cautionary tale. A stone age culture, in which sex is so integral that you'd think they were Bonobos. 10 husbands/wives (women can have multiple husbands) is common among higher ranks. Sex with those you are not married to is acceptable. Periodically, they do business with Namibians, it's how they survive. One of these introduced HIV, which, with a culture like that, spread like wildfire. It is impossible to be completely cut off. Something will happen to force modern society onto them, and we must respond accordingly. We could say that the Himba should be left alone, or we could bring them medicine to slow AIDS. Which is more moral.

If they don't ask for help then don't give it.

ruveyn

So, we just have to wait for them to pray to their gods when someone is dying. That's an invitation. If they don't know there's help available, how can they ask for it?

I have no problem from dooming their culture if it means they can actually survive. Better to have your culture destroyed and your children alive than the other way round. Though, establishing an embassy (with a medical clinic, obviously) would be the way to do it. If they want help, they can come for it, and if they decide that rape or human sacrifice is an acceptable way to act, then we can go for them.

As this hypothetical culture I presume has been living in isolation for untold centuries, I doubt they're all going to die any time soon.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Perhaps because there is more to the world than the western worldview, which is currently destroying the world due to it's excesses and lack of respect, which you just exemplified so well.

What is more respectful than sending a diplomatic mission (an embassy) to let them know options are out there than to decide without their input that it would be better for them to go without, say, the polio vaccine? If they turn the embassy away, that is their prerogative as a sovereign people. Don't you think it would be better for them to have a choice as to whether or not science is worth learning? Do you think that they'd be completely devoid of curiosity about the world at large? Deciding for them from an ivory tower is disrespectful to the core. Let it be their choice.

I say make contact, so long as it can be done without killing them all by introducing a disease new to them.

Making contact with them won't necessarily be the end of their culture, as it is my understanding that there exist tribes that have made contact with the outside world that still choose to live much as they did before contact. Others maintain some of their own cultural traditions and adapt others from the outside world. These are human beings after all, and they can choose for themselves wether they want to adapt outside technology and customs into their lives or not. To me not giving them the option to change by not letting them know there's a bigger world out there in the interest of protecting their culture is treating a tribe of humans like zoo animals. Keeping them in a cage because it amuses you. If they want to have modern technology, wear modern clothes, or convert to an outside religion, who are you to tell them no? So long as they are given an honest description of the outside world and not a sales pitch, leave it up to them.

Also, not only would they benefit from our knowledge of medicine, they may know of medical herbs that could benefit us. It's happened before.

And if they are practicing human sacrifice or something, intervene without asking. (assuming you won't kill more people by infecting them.)

You think they don't know about you? In most cases, news travels fast. In many of those cases, they have had a couple of hundred years to hear about you. They know of you. They know what you do. Just because you haven't walked in and introduced yourselves does not mean they are ignorant of you - natives pass information although everywhere as a matter of survival. The fact that you have even neglected to consider that alone tells me enough.

Introducing something like the MMR or other vaccines will end up having many of them dying from the vaccine itself - especially in the cases of the sick, the elderly and the children - or if you introduce multiple. If it does not, it will weaken their immune systems much more than it would yours, and leave them open to other natural diseases they would otherwise have immunity against, thus doing the same thing by proxy.

They have science. Just because you do not recognise it as science in the western sense of the word does not make it any less valid.

And this is what I mean - you instantly assume they do not know of you, that they do not have science, that they have no system of education or knowledge, that they have no knowledge of the outside world. You assume that your way is inherently "better" with absolutely no regard or recognition of their own ways and systems of doing things might be just as knowledgeable as your own or perhaps even more so, just in different ways. You see this as a way one street in which you foist things upon them - this same attitude which lead to the largest genocide in modern history.

Why are you on the internet, Kjas? I would think that i would be a bit to western and imperialist for you. Consequently, me and the other folks at Ivory Tower have decided that you're not going to be given the option to connect to it, lest we be considered to be foisting it upon you. We have also decided that we don't want to force medical technology upon you or your family, so active from now, all hospitals will turn you away...

I'm reminded of the tribe that came out of the forest a while back and asked to join white man's tribe...

I'd rather the individuals in the tribe got to make the choice for themselves, rather than letting the rest make it for them. We'll simple put our embassy a short walk way from their settlement, and if anyone wants to discover modern healthcare, the scientific method, and sky TV, they are welcome to join us for a drink. Just make sure they can metabolise whatever they're drinking...

Again, you're in favor of making blanket assumption on this groups behalf, Kyas.

And I never said they were know-nothings. I said they didn't know us. Even if they've heard of us, they don't know us. Unless you've lived in New York or DC or Tulsa or whatever half your life, you don't know us. And to suppose you do with just the information that you've heard... that is disrespectful. That's why I suggested observation before contact. Let them talk to us, learn about us, and form their own opinions regardless of whatever Zach de la Rocha's been saying this week.

Sure, they have science, after a fashion. Something tells me that if they've been stuck in the middle of the Amazon with little outside contact for god-knows-how-many years, they probably won't be familiar with the heliocentric solar system, or germ theory, or hell, circulation. Much of science was built by scientists the world over exchanging facts and information, comparing discoveries and making independent ones. It is an enormous communal undertaking. I strongly doubt that this hypothetical tribe would have gotten past displacement, and even that's a stretch.

I notice you use the second person to refer to our society? Why is this exactly? Distancing yourself? Why are you so hostile to the West?

I am not suggesting sending in the conquistadores. I'm just saying let's parlay. Better to talk with the government, or the Peace Corps, or a UN delegation than with those who come later. It hurts no one, and can benefit them greatly.

And I say the biggest favor we can do for them is to not do any favors for them. Let them be. If they lasted this long without us they will last a while longer without us.

ruveyn

How sustainable do you think that would be? The reason they've lasted so long is because they were unknown. If they become known, there will be someone who uses them to profit. Tourists tramping about, anthropologists, biologists, sociologists, and so on and so forth. Sooner or later, society will encroach regardless of whether or not we contact them. Better to nip that situation in the bud and contact them in a way that gives them future legal protection, treaties and the like.