I can understand why we feel the need to protect uncontacted tribes, but as an individual I wonder how they feel finding out the rest of the world has all this amazing stuff and cheap easy eats but was keeping it from you on purpose.
Sounds like a great plot for a story. Could also do a sci-fi one where aliens turn up, discover (e.g.) peanut butter, and end up enslaving the human race to mass produce it for them to take back home.
Fish is probably the only wild animal/plant with masive consuption. (That is the closest to we all decide that nobody herd/cultivate, only hunter/gather.)
And then I began to wonder what if we could isolate a whole country from the effects of LLMs. I know, impossible, but what if. They get to keep the old internet and all. A fork in the road. Just no LLMs at all. I wonder, after a few decades, how it would turn out comparatively to the rest of the world.
Or what about no internet? No computers? Would that country really turn out that bad?
Hubris at the individual level is rather easy to discern. At the civilizational level, it's a bit harder.
The thing is this feeling always happens to be “stop things right at the point that I grew up in”. The Amish felt similarly in the 1800s which is why they cut their beards in a way so as not to be confused with Continental soldiers despite there no longer being Continental soldiers.
If everything else falls apart the Amish will be out in the middle of nowhere doing their thing. If you want to see what it looks like to stop the clock, go talk with them. They’ll happily have a chat with you if you buy some furniture from them.
Heck, my friend was Amish for most of his childhood. Then his parents pulled him out of it. Then he fell in with the wrong crowd and struggled with heroin addiction for several years before getting clean. And that’s a far, far smaller cultural shock than an uncontacted tribe. Sometimes he says he wishes he could go back.
There are definitely countries that'll be isolated from them. It's just most of those countries are also isolated from everything else. Eg. North Korea
I believe many of the remaining tribes are more or less aware of the outside world and choose to keep their lifestyle. For example I wouldn't be surprised if the famously isolationist North Sentinelese people have some idea of what has happened to nearby assimilated tribes and choose to have none of that.
> how they feel finding out the rest of the world has all this amazing stuff and cheap easy eats
I wonder how they feel finding out the rest of the world has some nasty infectious diseases and people there need to work their asses of for 30+ years to pay their mortgage and have a roof.
Less infectious diseases like colds etc. that spread human-to-human seems likely given the isolation and lower population numbers. Where would the diseases come from?
Of course, if they don't have access to antibiotics, they have other much worse kinds of sickness to deal with, and even their relatively simple lifestyle will be hard to maintain without hard work...
As I understand it, when corporate start setting up pineapple and sugar plantations in Hawaii they found they could not get cheap labor from the Hawaiian people themselves. And why would they? Between fish and fruit they have all the food they need. A simple structure (on the preferred side of the island) is all you need for shelter.
A roof, walls, windows and net in the windows to keep mosquitoes away at night, and avoid malaria and similar mosquito transmited illness. I'd add Chagas-Mazza that is tranmited by other bug but it's probably endemic there.
Also, tap water or at least a well.
During tje first year, children get like 20 or 25 vaccines. Some of the ilness are very rare and they may not know them, but other are just severe diarhea caused by a common bacteria. And add antibiotics for other common problems.
The mortgage gives you a roof that far surpasses the comforts of what would be a royal palace for an uncontacted tribe. If you're ok with a lifestyle on the level that they get (with hard, dangerous work), you can have it quite easily in today's society.
Go far enough into a forest and you'll likely be left alone when you build a primitive hut, except that now an hour of work buys you a lighter, a knife of unachievable quality, a pack of pills that save you from dying from infection, or "firewood" (a propane cartridge) for days.
> If you're ok with a lifestyle on the level that they get (with hard, dangerous work), you can have it quite easily in today's society.
There are very few places left in the world where that is true.
Governments basically all hate stateless people. There's been a long history of forcing "civilization" on stateless people "for their own good", but really it's because they can't be easily controlled or taxed.
Snow is gently falling outside my windows. They're triple glazed, so I'm in a T-Shirt. The entire heating system was somehow accidentally switched off for nearly a week this winter, and yet the internal temperature only dropped a few degrees.
There's things I wish were different in the world I find myself living in, but there are also many developments that my parents found magical over the course of their lives.
The argument here is that this is exactly how (mostly) European societies hell-bent on colonization have been justifying their actions for five hundred years, with different variations of "amazing stuff" (salvation, weapons, trade goods, technology, medicine...). It's almost universally led to these tribes being subjugated, enslaved, exploited or just murdered outright. Humanity has a terrible track-record on this topic, and we should learn from our mistakes and just leave them alone.
I wasn't judging the rightness or wrongness of it, or historical events, I just wondered how an individual would feel about the situation. Star Trek examines the feelings of aliens who find out about tech and then about the prime directive, but that's just speculation.
If you know so much about European colonization then you might also know the topic of “contact with then” vs “avoid contact” is almost as old as the colonization itself.
I hope the irony of “our amazing stuff,we know better” and your statement of “just leave them alone” isn’t lost on you.
At the bottom, under related coverage, I found a link to a subsequent article mentioning his return to the tribe. There is a video at the top of that article.
I understand there are lots of reasons to protect the tribes, but I'm really disturbed by the article as it states "Funai told locals not to discuss the incident". Why an "incident"? the situation described by the article doesn't seem at all to be an incident, but rather normal and ok
Also "Funai officials arrived soon after, and [...] he was taken to a nearby facility operated by the group", why not just let him live and go back to his people? (even though he would go back later) also the article states that they couldn't communicate right away with him, so did they force him to go with them? why so much situation for a guy who wandered around and found some people to talk to? maybe looking for some help?
> Why an "incident"? the situation described by the article doesn't seem at all to be an incident, but rather normal and ok
In colloquial use, "incident" has recently taken on a negative connotation because people don't generally use it except to refer to situations they would rather not elaborate upon. But in the slightly-formal language of newspaper writing it is frequently used to refer to the event that the article is talking about without repeating themselves. In this context it is neutral and has no negative connotation.
My imagination is they will be snarky and disappointed, comparing it unfavourably with the stories of golem-equivalents, just as we do by comparing them with Commander Data:
> Gurak of the Deep Green squinted at the gleaming figure before him, arms crossed, expression caught between boredom and mild professional disappointment. “Hnh,” he grunted, rapping a knuckle against its polished chest. Solid. Clumsy joints. No proper soul-stone, just blinking lights like a drunk firefly. The shaman’s stories had warned of stone men who walked and talked, ancient servants of forgotten gods, but none of them had beeped apologetically when poked. He spat thoughtfully into the dirt. “You’re one of those, then,” he said, turning away. “Try not to fall in the river. The last one rusted.”
I would guess he couldn't conceive the concept of a computer, a machine immeasurably more complex than anything he has seen before, considering he even has trouble understanding a lighter. To him, ChatGPT would just be a mystery the same way the computer was one.
Not because he is stupid, just because he completely lacks a frame of reference, the same way our children today would be stumped by a rotary wheel telephone or a vinyl cylinder, or our Area51-esque scientist not able to understand a truly alien spacecraft.
Every sufficiently developed technology is indistinguishable from magic, yada yada
I’d like to see a YouTuber like Mr. Beast or somebody pick up a member of an uncontacted tribe and take them on an incredible journey all around the world showing them all the cities and technologies and food that we have and then in the end send them back to their people.
But you know they will also pick up a lot of "things" along the journey around the world and take it back to their people (provided they themselves make it back alive in the first place), don't you?
this is Prime Directive territory; what would you, the YouTube audience, Mr. Beast, all have to gain? How does a member of an uncontacted tribe consent to something so far outside their experience, and understand the risk of how their life may be changed by such an experience?
If aliens descended down upon the Earth, with amazing technology, and said do you want to come with us for a few days, to see some real shit, and then we will return you back home safely, how many people would say yes?
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadand mostly unhealthy in comparison to self hunted / self-planted food.
There's a big reason why the vast majority of people choose to buy their food.
Or what about no internet? No computers? Would that country really turn out that bad?
Hubris at the individual level is rather easy to discern. At the civilizational level, it's a bit harder.
Probably though TV was the beginning of the downward spiral.
If everything else falls apart the Amish will be out in the middle of nowhere doing their thing. If you want to see what it looks like to stop the clock, go talk with them. They’ll happily have a chat with you if you buy some furniture from them.
Heck, my friend was Amish for most of his childhood. Then his parents pulled him out of it. Then he fell in with the wrong crowd and struggled with heroin addiction for several years before getting clean. And that’s a far, far smaller cultural shock than an uncontacted tribe. Sometimes he says he wishes he could go back.
Joke would be on humanity.
I wonder how they feel finding out the rest of the world has some nasty infectious diseases and people there need to work their asses of for 30+ years to pay their mortgage and have a roof.
Of course, if they don't have access to antibiotics, they have other much worse kinds of sickness to deal with, and even their relatively simple lifestyle will be hard to maintain without hard work...
As I understand it, when corporate start setting up pineapple and sugar plantations in Hawaii they found they could not get cheap labor from the Hawaiian people themselves. And why would they? Between fish and fruit they have all the food they need. A simple structure (on the preferred side of the island) is all you need for shelter.
So they brought in Chinese laborers.
Also, tap water or at least a well.
During tje first year, children get like 20 or 25 vaccines. Some of the ilness are very rare and they may not know them, but other are just severe diarhea caused by a common bacteria. And add antibiotics for other common problems.
Go far enough into a forest and you'll likely be left alone when you build a primitive hut, except that now an hour of work buys you a lighter, a knife of unachievable quality, a pack of pills that save you from dying from infection, or "firewood" (a propane cartridge) for days.
There are very few places left in the world where that is true.
Governments basically all hate stateless people. There's been a long history of forcing "civilization" on stateless people "for their own good", but really it's because they can't be easily controlled or taxed.
There's things I wish were different in the world I find myself living in, but there are also many developments that my parents found magical over the course of their lives.
If you know so much about European colonization then you might also know the topic of “contact with then” vs “avoid contact” is almost as old as the colonization itself.
I hope the irony of “our amazing stuff,we know better” and your statement of “just leave them alone” isn’t lost on you.
Also "Funai officials arrived soon after, and [...] he was taken to a nearby facility operated by the group", why not just let him live and go back to his people? (even though he would go back later) also the article states that they couldn't communicate right away with him, so did they force him to go with them? why so much situation for a guy who wandered around and found some people to talk to? maybe looking for some help?
In colloquial use, "incident" has recently taken on a negative connotation because people don't generally use it except to refer to situations they would rather not elaborate upon. But in the slightly-formal language of newspaper writing it is frequently used to refer to the event that the article is talking about without repeating themselves. In this context it is neutral and has no negative connotation.
Recently? That use has been attested since at least 1913.
What if he'd contracted a disease?
> Gurak of the Deep Green squinted at the gleaming figure before him, arms crossed, expression caught between boredom and mild professional disappointment. “Hnh,” he grunted, rapping a knuckle against its polished chest. Solid. Clumsy joints. No proper soul-stone, just blinking lights like a drunk firefly. The shaman’s stories had warned of stone men who walked and talked, ancient servants of forgotten gods, but none of them had beeped apologetically when poked. He spat thoughtfully into the dirt. “You’re one of those, then,” he said, turning away. “Try not to fall in the river. The last one rusted.”
Not because he is stupid, just because he completely lacks a frame of reference, the same way our children today would be stumped by a rotary wheel telephone or a vinyl cylinder, or our Area51-esque scientist not able to understand a truly alien spacecraft.
Every sufficiently developed technology is indistinguishable from magic, yada yada
I'm not sure how to show that it is 100% automatic, and it's not just a TV with a hidden guy on the other side that is very fast and good at drawing.
I think Pratchett and Gaiman did it best:
> he's a carpenter from Galilee, his travelling opportunities are limited
(And he wasn't as enlightened by the experience as you might have hoped.)