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Comment by jmts | Hacker News Reader

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?

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> 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.

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.

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.

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.)

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