Mission to find never-contacted Amazon tribe to stop “catastrophic” jungle war | Hacker News Reader

Mission to find never-contacted Amazon tribe to stop “catastrophic” jungle war

mirror.co.uk

38 pointsbkohlmann54 comments

The dynamics of this situation are weird. Leave them uncontacted for however long out of principle, monitor them from above, commit to preserving their culture, but then intervene and try to manufacture a truce between tribes (thereby interfering with their culture) because we want to keep them around.

"Hey guys, uh, you know, we were pretty happy to just let you do whatever, but we've been watching you for a while and you've started taking risks. We're not real fond of risks. Would you prefer not taking risks for us please? It would make us feel much better about letting you do whatever you like if you didn't take any risks."

The prime directive lover in me tends to agree with such logic (I am also a brazilian born/raised in the Amazon) but try to extrapolate that scenario to some extraterrestrial "overlords" telling us the same thing in a pre-nuclear winter situation. I would rather stick to their plan than risk my own ass. Of course, I know, that's a reductio ad absurdum type of argument but still...

Ironically, I wouldn't mind if aliens came down and told us we were being stupid some time soon...

We would still have to listen, however.

Would we?

If we're foolish enough to get to the point of self-destruction in the first place...

I feel like they are late....

Right. We're treating them like zoo animals. What kind of existence is that?

It's an existence with no meaning like any other.

I'm upset by the whole thing for the reason of how some people think isolation is appropriate in allowing this situation to even occur. It's maddening to think a more advanced civilization in space could be observing us in similar fashion as these people with their kids and who have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world. Ugh.. seems so cruel.

And groups like the Amish show that it's possible to uphold traditional ways of life even when exposed to modernity. The Amish let their teenagers live in the outside world for a few years and decide for themselves whether they want to return to the community or become generic Americans. The strategy seems to work: the Amish are growing tremendously.

There's a great sci-fi world based around this premise, called The Culture Series by Iain Banks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_(series)

But the reason for intervention isn't just "risks" but the decimation of an uncontested population due to disease caused by a previous intervention. In other words, it seems as though the "prime directive" has already been violated and this is damage control.

I understand that we might now feel obliged to intervene. I think the weirdness for me comes from the fact that we are watching them, and the paradoxes it introduces.

If we weren't watching them, they would potentially go to war, some of them would likely die, and there is a chance that more would die of disease. But we would be none the wiser.

But since we are watching, we perceive a risk that they don't, and we now feel an obligation to mitigate that risk through intervention. We want them to be independent but they are our dependents. We want them to be free but we must restrict their movements. We want them to be untouched by disease but must expose them to it in order to minimise exposure. We take pride in the fact they are untouched yet we must touch them in order to maximise their untouchedness. It is weird.

They haven’t been left uncontacted for some prime directive like reasoning. It is because the every time it has happened before the primitive tribesmen die from exposure to our germs which thy have no antibodies for.

Which nation should they belong to? They likely consider themselves to be their own 'nation', and have for a long time. Simply because Brazil is now a thing, does not necessarily mean that Brazil should own these people and that these people should consider themselves to be a part of Brazil and be subject to its laws. There are arguments either way.

You assume that these people have no 'law' of their own. Though I cannot say either, it is entirely possible that distinguish between the ways a person is killed and they are punished accordingly. Simply because it is not your law doesn't mean they don't have their own.

The article states these tribes are rivals. They may consider themselves at war. Soldiers are not tried for killing other soldiers (within reason) in wartime, so why should rival tribesmen be tried for killing other tribesmen when they are at war?

Well the logic is that just choosing not to be part of a country is insufficient. Otherwise separatist movements would be extremely successful.

A separatist movement that predates the state?

I can draw a map and say this is my country. But, if I don’t ever mention it to the people living there then de facto that land is not part of my country.

You also need to convince an army to agree with you.

“Choosing not” and “not choosing (by being unaware that some outside entity has claimed your region as its subject)” are not the same.

Why should we do something about possible violence that could kill people?

Because we can. We've got the tools and people to prevent this stuff, and they can't really do anything about it. So we should, if it saves lives.

Hypotheticals about "countries" and "laws" are pretty irrelevant. Laws are enforced by people with the ability to enforce them. And right now, that's us. So let's use that power to save lives.

> Nation: A large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular state or territory. [1]

They are their own nation(s). The question is if they have (or should have) a monopoly on violence [2] in their own territory and/or are self-governing in other aspects of life.

[1] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/nation

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

They are their own nation(s).

That's what I said.

The question is if they have (or should have) a monopoly on violence [2] in their own territory and/or are self-governing in other aspects of life.

That's up to their nation to decide.

> That's up to their nation to decide.

No, it's up to the entity with the greater ability to enforce their will to decide, which in this case would be the Brazilian government.

Whoops. I think this was supposed to be a reply to jnbiche [1], though I can't confirm if the reply makes sense anymore. Not sure how that happened. Sorry for the confusion.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19539155

A moderator raised it to be a top-level comment because its original parent was flagkilled, and yours was a fine comment which seemed to stand on its own. Sorry for the confusion.

(It's on my list to write code to supply a link to the original parent when we do that.)

If you find this story intriguing, the book "Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo Shaman's Story" is an amazing journey into a similar culture of cyclical violence between neighboring tribes.

This is a horribly cynical interpretation but the new Brazilian President has said he wants to open the Amazon to logging and he doesn't care much about the indigenous people[0]

Of course if he tries anything the international community etc will protest, but if this 'rescue mission' (read: death squad with plausible deniability) can't stop the 'catastrophic jungle war' in time then the tribes kill each other off, there's no outcry and the logging begins.

[0]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/31/tribes...

These tribes of dozens of individuals are not what prevents logging for happening. The mission will use boats and an helicopter on a long trip just to reach the place. What would be the economic viability to estabilish a commercial operation there?

The indigenous people that prevents some of the logging in some places are much larger ones with total contact with the rest of society for centuries that live in much more accessible areas

It's not without historical precedent. Look at the Congo under King Leopold for one example. Everyone is in the accessible areas, not as many in the harder to reach places that makes it extremely economically viable for them to set up shop there.

Like I said it's a cynical interpretation and I hope I'm wrong, but this is literally history repeating itself.

Shake hands. Kill tribe with common cold.

The article states the government tries exactly to prevent this from happening since the isolated tribe is about to have contact with a non-isolate tribe:

> Anthropologists now fear that, as well as the prospect of both tribes launching deadly attacks on each other, the potential of contact between the Matis and the other, as yet still isolated Korubo tribe, as well as the desire expressed by the breakaway tribe to reestablish contact with their relatives, could lead to a breakout of disease which could bring the ancient tribe to extinction.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com