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Comment by Zurrrrr | Hacker News Reader

He's talking about the fact that Aboriginals, not unlike Native Americans, reject any attempt to explain their origin via science as they stick to the story of their origin that comes from their religion, and see the science based origin as disrespectful.

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> Aboriginals, not unlike Native Americans, reject any attempt to explain their origin via science as they stick to the story of their origin that comes from their religion, and see the science based origin as disrespectful.

No, they do not all do this, and I'd caution you on speaking for a people that aren't a monolith within their mobs in the first place.

Aha I thought about replying to the parent comment.

(Long time no see)

Haha hows it going mate! There's a lot of sweeping generalisations in this thread. Should be expected considering the audience, I guess, but it's still disappointing

Would assume you're of or closely affiliated with Aboriginal heritage given the phrasing. My assessment of this is that if this were to become part of the established history of indigenous Australians, quite a bit of the narrative around 'ownership' changes dramatically.

I doubt it, either way they were here before Europeans who declared them non-human and assumed ownership of the landmass based on that declaration.

For the international audience, that UK assumption of "Terra Nullus" was knocked back and overturned by the Mabo decision of 1992:

    In Mabo v. Queensland (No. 2), judgments of the High Court inserted the legal doctrine of native title into Australian law.

    The High Court recognised the fact that Indigenous peoples had lived in Australia for thousands of years and enjoyed rights to their land according to their own laws and customs.

https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/mabo-case

I'm sorry, did all Europeans declare them non-human? What a sweeping weak sauce generalization about an entire group of people.

Ahh, sweet gotcha you found there fella. I don't think I need to explain to you the difference between members of the British government declaring Australia Terra-Nulius (with approximately 0 outcry from their citizens) and some bozo deciding that all Indigenous Australians don't believe in science. If you cant see the difference it's only because you choose not to.

It doesn’t, though. It doesn’t matter if they’re genetically intermixed with Indians at some point in the last few thousand years. They were still here before White Australia was. And where I live, we still fought wars to eradicate the local mobs. We still stole children from them, not that long ago.

Got a source for this fact? Generalising opinions to a whole race is rarely wise. Perhaps like anyone else with religious beliefs, those who are offended simply want their culture respected.

> those who are offended simply want their culture respected

Even more so, in this case, considering my country's historical "handling" of ATSI culture, and the mobs in general.

some of them may not want their legal privileges backed by historical narratives compromised by scientific findings; this is very common with native american tribes, for instance the lipan apaches in texas. additional science can only hurt their position with respect to the BIA.

no:

The (only recently created) legal privileges of native title are severely limited and can be effortlessly extinguished. These limited privileges are based on (belated) recognition of prior occupation, but irrespective of how long people were here before colonisation.

on the other side of the ledger, significant legal harms are imposed on predominantly Indigenous regions, including apartheid-style laws that are applied on the basis of race, and lower standards of basic services provided through dedicated streams again predicated on race.

there are reasons to believe that some groups with legal claims have no legitimate grounds and only point to fragmentary records of prior occupants that they can provide no evidence of connection with. perhaps if you can manage to think past the scary words you can recognize that some people exploit systems to their advantage.

what reasons, what legal claims, and most of all: what advantage do you imagine Indigenous Australian people might gain on the basis of the extent of their heritage?

the sustained deficit of public housing? the lack of safe drinking water? the big blue signs slandering entire communities as drunken perverts? the mass sackings to force people onto quarantined welfare? the draconian star-chamber powers granted to the ACC? the systemic theft of hard-won social infrastructure?

because all of these 'advantages' are granted to anyone living in predominantly Indigenous postcodes of the NT, regardless of how long you dare to admit their ancestors were here.

i agree those are tragic, but those are not the people i am talking about

And I'm saying the place to have that fight is with the putative Aboriginals and not here on HN where everyone is just talking about the science.

I mean, I get it. People are mean. People are unreasonable. Lots of good discussion can't happen because people are mean and unreasonable. But you're not making things better by assuming bad faith and throwing shade at everyone else preemptively. That's just being mean and unreasonable.

It was very insightful for me to know that its common amongst Aboriginals there to have that view. I will corroborate it elsewhere now what I know what to look for.

Suggest you look at most popular mastheads in Australia, in particular the state funded broadcaster to see the phenomenon play out in reality.

No reason to say that though. The person you replied to was saying it is a shame it is an emotionally charged discussion and he is right. That one particular discussion on HN might not be emotionally charged doesn't negate his point.

Were you just pretending not to understand?

The best way to get an emotionally charged discussion on Hacker News is to put a caveat that it's unfortunate that a topic is emotionally charged. It's a lightning rod and discussion bridge for people who just want debate controversial issues. I certainly have been on both sides of it.

I mean, if we are going to make these kinds of broad generalizations and comparisons, could we at least change “Native Americans” to “Christian fundamentalists”.

It’s not any less true.

Sure, let's change it to that. Does talking about "Christian fundamentalists" make you more comfortable than talking about "Native Americans"?

It doesn't seem difficult to find groups that reject science when it conflicts with their beliefs. Doesn't this make a stronger case for the person to whom you're replying? Humans are far from avoiding appeals to emotion, and that's doubly true for politically charged topics, which this very much is.

what I've noticed in my lifetime is that the attempted narratives of mainstream science continue to edge towards original local knowledge.

if locals abandoned their knowledge and accepted the 40,000ya story told when I was a kid, they'd be out by just as much given the 80,000ya now indicated by artefacts at M2, Madjedbebe; the oldest site of continual human habitation.

If I'm understanding you correctly, there are some things revealed by science that seem to match some kinds of ancient knowledge, but that could easily just be coincidence.

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