Tribe meets white people for the first time

We can probably drastically reduce infant mortality without fully integrating them into modern society. Medical missionaries can be sent to that end. No one wants to lose a baby/child if they don't have to.
 
The question though is can their lifestyle support the increase in population from a drop in infant mortality?
 
I doubt that such an intensive intrusion would leave such cultures in their isolation. Rather I would assume that seeing the foreign "miracles" of outside society, tribe members would seek to disintegrate with their tribe pretty soon. But I agree that your approach seems to be the most considerable assuming that I might be wrong.
@Ajidica Good point, some doubts surely seem justified. Though I don't know.
 
The question though is can their lifestyle support the increase in population from a drop in infant mortality?
You'd have to educate them about that too (though modern man is hardly a good role model in that regard).

I doubt that such an intensive intrusion would leave such cultures in their isolation. Rather I would assume that seeing the foreign "miracles" of outside society, tribe members would seek to disintegrate with their tribe pretty soon. But I agree that your approach seems to be the most considerable assuming that I might be wrong.
@Ajidica Good point, some doubts surely seem justified. Though I don't know.
I dunno, tribes are generally happy to pick up improvements from outside (metal tools for instance) without necessarily wanting to give up their homes/cultures & go live in some slum in a city. I'm sure it would make them curious though & many, especially young people, would want to go exploring in the outside world.

I don't really like the whole "ooh, look at me, I'm a magic man, I have matches" thing that white explorers tend to do to impress their technologically less advanced brethren & instead try to teach them about science slowly & in ways they can understand. Without modern hospitals I imagine they can still decrease infant mortality by leaps & bounds with just some basic knowledge. After all, in the 1st world homebirths are generally no more risky than hospital births.
 
I TOUGH A MAN GRRRRR! I BRAVE WARRIOR!!!!! AAHHH

I HEART AVATAR!!!!!!!

HUNTER GATHERER NUMBER 1111111111!!!!!!!

THIS IS SPARTA!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!111!! oh wait I guess the Spartans were "effeminate" farmers.
Actually, the Spartans had an entire population enslaved to do all their hard work for them, so they were pretty much the grotesque epitome of what Pangur was talking about. :crazyeye:

Meh. I'm just not all that impressed by primitive lifestyles that are endorsed by people who are sitting at their PC/Apple in their air conditioned house/apartment with a fridge chock full of food, 911 service a call away. Who more than likely have never actually went into the wilderness, fashioned a spear, used it to kill an animal, skinned and dressed it and built a fire to cook it. Don't even talk about doing it in a part of the world where they wildlife is as likely to kill you than vice-versa.

Now if there was a member of an uncontacted tribe on here who could tell us about his life maybe I'd be more inclined to pay attention. But oh wait. That wouldn't work would it? Oh well.
I think that you're confusing the arguments that are actually being made. What's being said is that a hunter-gatherer lifestyle is preferable to agrarian poverty, not that it is the best of all possible lives. That's a very different argument, and you're not really responding to it.

I doubt that such an intensive intrusion would leave such cultures in their isolation. Rather I would assume that seeing the foreign "miracles" of outside society, tribe members would seek to disintegrate with their tribe pretty soon. But I agree that your approach seems to be the most considerable assuming that I might be wrong.
The American Indian Wars would certainly indicate as much.
 
I must've missed that post (not much lost). BTW, Avatar was an absolutely terrible movie, every single character was boring and stereotypical/cliched.
 
These Papuans are nothing compared to the sentinelese at the North Sentinel island in the Andaman. 60,000 years isolated in a small atoll and counting... This is the closest anybody have been to them:


Link to video.
 
And here's a compelling argument that unless you are in the middle class of a economic front-runner, pre-agricultural lifestyles have it better. http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html

Hardly seems progressive to move someone from hunter-gathering success to aggro-industrial poverty.
 
But blah blah blah potential blah blah blah unrealistic estimation of the opportunities open to third-world slum dwellers!
 
And here's a compelling argument that unless you are in the middle class of a economic front-runner, pre-agricultural lifestyles have it better.
Hardly seems progressive to move someone from hunter-gathering success to aggro-industrial poverty.
The author didn't make any comparison to industrial poverty, let alone poverty in an economic front-runner, but farmer-poverty in the past and in modern still generally poor countries. And to apply his conclusion on everything except the middle class in an economic front-runner is very ridiculous and not at all supported by the article.

However, old-fashioned 18th-century industrial poverty and some industrial poverty beyond that would equally fail in comparison to the tribe life I imagine, I'll give you that (in the second half of the 18th century, England had a life expectancy of 17 years, while the article claims tribes to have had 20-something-years).

On the other hand, as the author admitted, hunter-gatherer-culture requires you to also either kill your infants unless born into a 4-year-cycle if other methods of prevention fail or are even known and on the long run tribes must kill each other so the overall number of humans isn't too high to be sustainable (which they will at latest when those tribes are forced to rival over food - like all the other species). Meaning, the higher quality of life in a tribe requires to control population density by deadly force.

Still, for those that were allowed to live, the article makes an IMO convincing case for how a hunter-gather-life was in quality superior to other ways until the industrial age lead us to climb to even knew heights of quality of life.

Though by quality of life I am referring to objective standards rather than the actual emotional fulfillment, where IMO a hunter-gatherer-lifestyle remains to have unique benefits.
 
But blah blah blah potential blah blah blah unrealistic estimation of the opportunities open to third-world slum dwellers!

If the question is of the best hunter-gatherer societies have to offer, versus the best The Rest of the World can muster, then going to the poorest part of Delhi might not be the most charitable comparison. :rolleyes:
 
If the question is of the best hunter-gatherer societies have to offer, versus the best The Rest of the World can muster, then going to the poorest part of Delhi might not be the most charitable comparison. :rolleyes:
It all depends on measurement. I'd be willing to bet the average civfanatic is lonelier than your average hunter-gatherer despite being in the top tier financially of "civilized" human beings.

Anyway, comparing hunter-gatherers to the wealthy within our society is kind of pointless because they can't choose between being a wealthy person within civilization and being a hunter-gatherer, they pretty much have to choose between being a poor person within civilization or being a hunter-gatherer (perhaps with some rare exceptions).

Historically most haven't had a choice at all, it's been either death or forced assimilation.
 
Anyway, comparing hunter-gatherers to the wealthy within our society is kind of pointless because they can't choose between being a wealthy person within civilization and being a hunter-gatherer, they pretty much have to choose between being a poor person within civilization or being a hunter-gatherer (perhaps with some rare exceptions).

Pretty much. The first adult generation to join civilization would have a hard time. Most employers are not going be impressed with a resume that says "Can clean, scrape and prepare human skulls for display" but say if their ancestors had left the jungle a generation or two before, who knows. I guess it would depend on the country/society they joined.
 
If the question is of the best hunter-gatherer societies have to offer, versus the best The Rest of the World can muster, then going to the poorest part of Delhi might not be the most charitable comparison. :rolleyes:
Why- you think that hunter-gatherers who integrate into industrial society are all going to move to Connecticut? Seems to me that the only real comparison to be made is with the prospects they actually have, and, in most cases, those aren't tremendously sunny.
 
http://anthropology.lbcc.edu/handoutsdocs/mistake.pdf

I think Jared Diamond covers the topic well.
He does, but leaves unanswered the question of why don't people choose such a wonderful lifestyle today? The intellectual arguments for it sound great on paper, but they are not strong enough to convince anyone to actually go back to an H&G lifestyle. It is too damn hard and what we have is actually better. I do like JD, but wonder if he is still living in a house and driving a car.
 
He does, but leaves unanswered the question of why don't people choose such a wonderful lifestyle today? The intellectual arguments for it sound great on paper, but they are not strong enough to convince anyone to actually go back to an H&G lifestyle. It is too damn hard and what we have is actually better. I do like JD, but wonder if he is still living in a house and driving a car.

Birdjaguar, if you read Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee and Guns, Germs and Steel, you'll see that part to be clear. Basically, history is not like a rich teenage girl shopping in a mall spending daddy's money on anything she pleases. You don't get to choose being a hunter-gatherer.

Anyway, Diamond does not advocate changing lifestyles to hunter-gatherer. He just points out that it was better for most than agriculture in terms of quality of life, and actually his primary thing is advocating greater care of the world's resources.
 
Yah, there are probably some gaps in Diamond's article that would've been covered if you have read Guns, Germs and Steel, Collapse or the Third Chimpanzee. Reasonable I suppose, he had to fit alot of information into 2 pages of a science magazine. :p
 
Why- you think that hunter-gatherers who integrate into industrial society are all going to move to Connecticut? Seems to me that the only real comparison to be made is with the prospects they actually have, and, in most cases, those aren't tremendously sunny.

Because it's not fair to compare the best of one lifestyle to the worst of another. If you make comparisons like that, then just about any lifestyle can look better than another. So it is only fair to either compare the worst with the worst or the best with the worst. If you do it like that, then modern society is still the more attractive choice in both cases.

You also cannot discuss the merits of one lifestyle over another just by reading other people's research. The only way you can make a valid assessment of two different lifestyles is to actually live both lifestyles. Since you have already lived in the modern world, I suggest you get out in the wilderness and survive without any modern assistence.

Also, I think it was Narz who said we should give them medicine without forcing them to integrate into our society. I completely disagree with this sentiment. If these tribals want access to ANY help from us, then they will have to do what any other modern citizen has to: get a job and pay taxes. I don't see why they deserve free help at the expense of citizens who have actually earned assistence from their government. Basically, my attitude towards them is that they either contribute to our civilization and reap the benefits, or hold on to their traditions and watch their babies die. The choice is theirs.
 
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