Tribe meets white people for the first time

[Traitorfish]

Everybody has something to offer. Repayment doesn't have to be with money or material goods it can be services or just a gesture that says thank you.

If you don't demand direct commercial exchange, then why do you demand an immediate, like-for-like exchange at all? The indigenous peoples themselves, for example, practice a form of generalised reciprocity that achieves much the same end. This is obviously dependent on a very particular form of social organisation, so I'm not suggesting any attempts at direct replication on our part, but it demonstrates that you're assumed model of "swapsies or parasitism" is untenable.

 

[Commodore]

So what makes you think a hunter-gatherer tribe would be incapable of that?

Well that's why I said they should do some work for us if they want our help. If they don't want our help, then they can continue as they have. Like I said, the choice is theirs but they aren't getting anything without giving something back.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well that's why I said they should do some work for us if they want our help. If they don't want our help, then they can continue as they have. Like I said, the choice is theirs but they aren't getting anything without giving something back.

Presumably the sort of interaction that would be necessary to supply them with medicine and to demonstrate its use would provide plentiful of opportunities for anthropological observation. Their permitting that seems more than enough repayment- and, indeed, from their perspective the medicine would simply be repayment for letting a bunch of white people pester them about kinship structures and what not.

 

[aelf]

Well that's why I said they should do some work for us if they want our help. If they don't want our help, then they can continue as they have. Like I said, the choice is theirs but they aren't getting anything without giving something back.

So you'll be cool with it if they said thanks and gave you some fish?

 

[innonimatu]

IThe indigenous peoples themselves, for example, practice a form of generalised reciprocity that achieves much the same end.

I was thinking just the same: that was a very tribal idea of exchange. I guess we should say, a very human one, as it still survives.

The problem with applying it between the modern world and such tries is what Narz already mentioned: they can do for us nothing we might want, except serve as subjects in a spectacle of their own lives for our enjoyment. Which, to me, seems kind of... degrading.

But this is the reality: if we give them stuff, something will be demanded in exchange, I'll bet. At the very least that spectacle. Which may not be that bad: the satisfaction of human curiosity has always been a valuable currency, after all. But it should be their choice, yes. Too bad they'll make it unaware of what they'll be offering and getting in return, but that's always the problem with exchanges involving very different people. There's more of chance than choince in it, I'm afraid.

 

[Narz]

And how do you propose to replace and maintain them? Or even make them in the first place? Or power them and give them instructions? I don't think metals and other advanced materials come pre-purified in nature. Nanotechnology isn't magic that gives you something for nothing.

There's no saying you have to stay in nature all the time. Actually, we can stick all the nature haters in the factories building the toys while I frolic with all the naked maidens in the woods, ok?

Digital devices aren't that easy to make either. And you mention the Web. Cables and satellites that need to be maintained.

Robots baby!

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

There's no saying you have to stay in nature all the time. Actually, we can stick all the nature haters in the factories building the toys while I frolic with all the naked maidens in the woods, ok?

Robots baby!

So there still needs to be some degree of industrialization. Glad we straightened that out.

 

[Narz]

The point though, is that I will not give something away for free no matter the circumstances

Don't have kids then!

The problem with applying it between the modern world and such tries is what Narz already mentioned: they can do for us nothing we might want, except serve as subjects in a spectacle of their own lives for our enjoyment. Which, to me, seems kind of... degrading.

Why is it degrading? As long as they're not misrepresented.

Is all media degrading to those it portrays?

 

[Traitorfish]

So there still needs to be some degree of industrialization. Glad we straightened that out.

Define "industrialisation". There's nothing to say that the dense industrial city is absolutely necessary for maintaining a significant level of production. I'd go so far to as to say that it quite demonstrably isn't, given how many industrial operations, historical and contemporary, have existed outside of it.

 

[Commodore]

Don't have kids then!

I already have a daughter and I fail to see your point with saying that. If you mean that a parent is supposed to give freely to their child without expectation of repayment then I would say you are wrong. It is more or less expected in our culture that children take care of their parents in their old age as a form of repayment for taking care of them when they were helpless infants.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I'd go so far to as to say that it quite demonstrably isn't, given how many industrial operations, historical and contemporary, have existed outside of it.

Did these operations produce mass spectrometers, particle accelerators, and gene sequencers?

 

[Traitorfish]

Did these operations produce mass spectrometers, particle accelerators, and gene sequencers?

They do, yeah. Just because they sit on the edge of a city, to make them commuter viable, and not outside of what we would recognise as a city altogether doesn't imply that they have some absolute functional dependence on that location. Do you argue otherwise?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Hold on. What exactly are you arguing here? That we don't need cities? Or that we don't need factories? I think I said "industrialization", not "urbanization".

 

[Traitorfish]

Hold on. What exactly are you arguing here? That we don't need cities? Or that we don't need factories? I think I said "industrialization", not "urbanization".

Well, perhaps I'm misinterpreting , but you seemed to be arguing that industrialisation demanded a certain lifestyle, which I understood as being something approximate to the urban-individualist lifestyle of contemporary capitalist society, in contradiction to the nonurban-communal lifestyle that Narz suggested. If I'm reading stuff into your posts wasn't really there, then consider whatever I've got incorrect withdrawn.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

No, I didn't mean that. Though I do wonder if a tribal society can handle complex industrial chains with its structure. How would they handle the economics of building these scientific instruments?

 

[Traitorfish]

No, I didn't mean that. Though I do wonder if a tribal society can handle complex industrial chains with its structure. How would they handle the economics of building these scientific instruments?

I don't imagine that anyone's suggesting that we actually adopt a society of isolated, self-sufficient bands, if that's what you're asking.

 

[Old Hippy]

Kind of hard to maintain research institutes without an industrial base. Making use of the fruits of such research also requires production capability. Personally, I find a societal structure that completely removes the possibility of technological advancement detestable.

yes ... my countries mining companies seem to agree with you

Australian-British mining giant BHP-Billiton announced at the end of January that it was severing all ties with the Ok Tedi copper mine in Papua New Guinea. Facing the possibility of legal liabilities amounting to billions of dollars due to environmental damage, BHP-Billiton secured a deal from the PNG government that indemnifies the company against all future compensation claims.

an hour away ... as the crow flys, from the very people in the OP video

production capability, is such a vague term, but BHP funds so many research institutes ... i suppose it dose not matter really, in the greater scheme of things

 

[Narz]

I already have a daughter and I fail to see your point with saying that. If you mean that a parent is supposed to give freely to their child without expectation of repayment then I would say you are wrong. It is more or less expected in our culture that children take care of their parents in their old age as a form of repayment for taking care of them when they were helpless infants.

So what if your kid is born with or develops a disability where they will never be able to take care of you? Leave them to the wolves?

 

[innonimatu]

Why is it degrading? As long as they're not misrepresented.

Is all media degrading to those it portrays?

Let me put it this way: would you join one of those "Big Brother" TV shows?

So what if your kid is born with or develops a disability where they will never be able to take care of you? Leave them to the wolves?

I think he's talking about broad social behaviors, not about any specific one. And it is true, you can't deny it. We do expect "something back" from our sons and daughters, and are disappointed, individually, when we don't get it. What we expect, well, that changes. It can be mutual assistance, it can simply be that they do better than they old folks, or even merely that they just do well in life. But almost all people have expectations, and usually strong feelings about those, and any parents who are indifferent get described as a "bad parent".

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

yes ... my countries mining companies seem to agree with you


an hour away ... as the crow flys, from the very people in the OP video

production capability, is such a vague term, but BHP funds so many research institutes ... i suppose it dose not matter really, in the greater scheme of things

I have no bloody idea what the hell your point is supposed to be. I similarly have no idea how "production capability" (read: manufacturing facilities and associated infrastructure) is a "vague term".