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Crap, Nighthawk posted that reference on Sake before I posted it here (though I hadn't seen it there).
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Ever wonder if this sort of thing happens to us humans on a galactic level. Are we a rare uncontacted tribe of technologically primative sentient life, totally oblivious to to the advanced interstellar society all around us? If aliens did make contact with us, would it be as mind blowing as if people from the developed world visited that tribe in Brazil and showed them all our wonders?
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:Originally posted by neo-dragon: Ever wonder if this sort of thing happens to us humans on a galactic level. Are we a rare uncontacted tribe of technologically primative sentient life, totally oblivious to to the advanced interstellar society all around us? If aliens did make contact with us, would it be as mind blowing as if people from the developed world visited that tribe in Brazil and showed them all our wonders?
I'd actually be pretty surprised if most of us who frequent Hatrack didn't think about that sort of thing fairly often.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Okay, in all seriousness, having read and viewed. That's pretty incredible. I was unaware there were still uncontacted tribes in the Amazon! Wow! Did you catch that in the past tribes have been wiped out by the common cold? Can you imagine a group of people so isolated they have no immunity to one of the most common viruses we know of? Wow!
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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The show was more...emotional than the book. I mean, I got more of a feeling about Jared Diamond's motivations in researching historical inequities, when he wept for that orphan.
Is there some way to, well, gently inoculate a tribe like this, so they can eventually not die after meeting moderns?
Posts: 575 | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:Originally posted by neo-dragon: Ever wonder if this sort of thing happens to us humans on a galactic level. Are we a rare uncontacted tribe of technologically primative sentient life, totally oblivious to to the advanced interstellar society all around us? If aliens did make contact with us, would it be as mind blowing as if people from the developed world visited that tribe in Brazil and showed them all our wonders?
First I asked myself the question: If murder is illegal in Brazil, and the tribal people commit murder amongst themselves, and it becomes known to the outside world, what is the right course of action, if any? Brazil is not the U.S, but in the U.S. constitutional rights apply to all people, not just citizens, and natives are no exception.
So following that line of thought, suppose an intra galactic legislative body has enacted a set of statutes not unlike our constitution, and they have done so in the name of all sentient life, under definitions applying to us. And they see our treatment of the world on which we live, and they intervene, are they wrong to do so? Those statutes would exist, possibly, with the interests of the galaxy and individuals at its center.
Or, as is endlessly speculated about and worked on, are they keeping themselves from us in the way that we keep ourselves from the native Brazilians, or are they trying, in the way they know, to contact us, like the Buggers, and finding that we are unable to answer, and are too different to know at all.
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Given the prodigious rate of deforestation in Brazil, I don't think they'll stay in isolation for long.
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quote:Originally posted by Sachiko: How DOES a cold kill a person, anyway? Do they die by fever, or what?
*aware of how medically ignorant she sounds*
Since cold viruses effect only the upper respiratory cells, a cold could be deadly due to viral infection, or resulting bacterial infection, like pneumonia. I'm only an EMT, and colds aren't a big part of the training, but it's relatively simple. A cold, presented to a person with zero immunity to the virus, would spread throughout the respiratory system very quickly without, I believe, the expected symptoms appearing until too late, if at all.
Remember, the 1918 Influenza epidemic was caused in great part by immune reactions to the virus that ravaged the bodies of the healthy, and spared the weak. That virus could kill in hours. With common world diseases, our immune reactions can be worse than the actual infections. But if there is no immune reaction, a virus can multiply and affect the functions of cells in unpredictable ways.
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I think there are almost certainly more intelligent species and older ones and so on throughout the galaxy. What would human civilization be like given a few million more years to develop? We are likely to become something that would seem godlike to our present selves. So that tells me the older more intelligent species than us would appear godlike to us here now.
What does this tribe think of people who can fly, heal the sick with antibiotics, and tear down a whole forest in a trice with huge machines? I wonder if they realize we're the same species as them, no more intelligent, no better, just more educated about the universe around us?
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Please keep in mind that we ARE resistant to the common cold, just not immune to it. Exposure to it could kill them simply because the effects would be so much stronger for them than we experience.
A lot of deaths to it would be caused by dehydration, and other could be cause by flu like symptoms that fill their lungs up with fluid, causing them to suffocate.
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Please note that I wasn't saying it couldn't happen-- I was just saying WOW to a group of people who might not have ever been exposed.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: I think there are almost certainly more intelligent species and older ones and so on throughout the galaxy. What would human civilization be like given a few million more years to develop? We are likely to become something that would seem godlike to our present selves. So that tells me the older more intelligent species than us would appear godlike to us here now.
According to SETI researchers and Carl Sagaan, Stephen Hawking, and many others, this is a practically an absolute certainty. The probable likelihood of a civilization remaining anywhere near our tech-level for long is minute- we've only been here a few hundred years, and we're desperately scrambling for improvement.
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Wow..... it almost makes me wonder if we might really run into another sentient species on our own planet eventually. After all, if there can still be "undiscovered" tribes... why not hyper-intelligent Dolphins? Heck, dinosaurs could still be hiding out in the depths!
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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"uncontacted" is not undiscovered. Something is known about these people, as many related tribes have been contacted in the past. As far as I know, there are no places in the world apart from south east Asia and South America where uncontacted tribes live. Those tribes are all believed to be relatives of neighboring contacted tribes.
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If they had painted themselves for war, and were pointing bows at the plane with the camera, doesn't that count as "contact"? Obviously they noticed SOMETHING was there.
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Yes, there's a number of tribes on islands off the coast of India that have never had contact with other humans - mainly because they killed anyone trying to make contact with arrows before the person was off the boat. After the recent tsunami, the Indian government sent helicopters to check if the tribes were all right. The helicopters received the same reception as you see in the South American pictures.
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But... They're still uncontacted. They've just been tracked. Nothing I read claimed they were "undiscovered", just "uncontacted." So he managed the publicity... Doesn't everyone?
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I don't see what the big deal is. Reread the original linked article from the BBC. There's nothing misleading about it, despite attempts to sensationalize this 'sudden discovery.'
Even if it was misleading, which I don't think it is, I still don't see anything wrong with that in this case. He's drawing attention to an issue of vital importance by using photos of those it's most important to in order to draw the attention. Regardless, there was nothing misleading or improper with the way it was done here.
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In the initial hype, he used the words "undiscovered" and "lost". If he hadn't, there'd be nothing he'd felt the need to come clean about.
("Prove their existence" by photographing them makes it sound like it was in doubt whether they were real or not.)
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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The article Noemon linked to in the original post reads:
quote: "We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist," the group quoted Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior, an official in the Brazilian government's Indian affairs department, as saying.
"This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence."
That's a pretty clear statement that they already knew of the tribe's existence and took the pictures for publicity reasons.
Although if the word "undiscovered" was really used in the hype, that is misleading.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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In answer to some questions in this thread:
Here in Brazil, natives are not subject to law unless they choose to leave their way of life and apply for documents (Birth Certificate, Identity Card, etc.). Then they're treated as full citizens. If it is not the case, only FUNAI (a federal agency whose solely purpose is dealing with natives) can deal or negociate any treaty with them (unless they choose otherwise, of course). Missionaries, businesmen, loggers, etc. are not allowed to approach secluded tribes. Doing so is a grave crime. Even doctors or researchers must get a federal permission first (and they're hard to get. My wife's uncle is one of the leading brazilian Anthropologysts and he always tells how strict FUNAI is, nowadays).
If someone has any question about dealing with brazilian natives or tribe in particular, I may ask my wife (who's also an anthropologist) or even her uncle.
Posts: 1785 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: I think there are almost certainly more intelligent species and older ones and so on throughout the galaxy. What would human civilization be like given a few million more years to develop? We are likely to become something that would seem godlike to our present selves.
quote: "uncontacted" is not undiscovered. Something is known about these people, as many related tribes have been contacted in the past. As far as I know, there are no places in the world apart from south east Asia and South America where uncontacted tribes live.
quote: According to SETI researchers and Carl Sagaan, Stephen Hawking, and many others, this is a practically an absolute certainty. The probable likelihood of a civilization remaining anywhere near our tech-level for long is minute
It kinda makes me wonder out of all the potential life in the universe if we are the uncontacted or undiscovered tribe. Maybe there are holographic imagages of hubble floating around some galatic interweb with a caption of "how quaint" above it.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Yeah, I've always loved that one. If find myself thinking about their revulsion with the way we communicate and sing every now and then over the years.
Honestly, that whole site looks interesting. I'd never been to it before I went looking for a copy of the story online, but I think I'll create an account so that I can explore it further.
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