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Comment by zeteo | Hacker News Reader

It's so easy to play God hovering in the skies, and make decisions for these people's future, isn't it? Maybe they actually don't enjoy 50+% child mortality, dying of appendicitis, and having to barter a truckload of plantains for a pot and a steel machete. Why don't they send someone on the ground, to explain to them that there's a big world out there that can change their ways forever, and give them a choice whether they'd like to be a part of it or not?

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Well, you could not simply explain it to them, you would have to show it to some of them, and let them live the life, before they could make an informed decision.

Perhaps the best advice would be to contact other tribes that have been assimilated, and see how they feel about the process. Would they go back, if they could?

This has been done.

Individuals have been taken from tribes and allowed to integrate into western society.

They usually choose to go back.

link?

yes, a link would be very nice for that one.

Furthermore, I'd like to know reasons for their return, if that's the case. Also, I'd like to know what their children think, if they have them in the outside world, and what happens if they're provided some of the benefits of outside society (eg: state-of-the-art surgery from top-trained surgeons)

I read about the case study in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Dawn-Prehistoric-Origins-Sexuality...

don't have a page number unfortunately

Yeah, that's the inherent problem with this sort of thing. We say the moral thing is to show them and let them decide, but they can't make an informed decision. A lot of things sound really good when you hear about them, but wind up utterly unsatisfying when you actually have them.

Yes, informing them is not a perfect solution, and anyways there's no such thing as perfect information. Is it better though to take a decision for them, and not inform them at all?

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