http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16816816

"Chance encounters near an isolated Amazon tribe have resulted in the most detailed pictures ever taken of them."

Here's an idea. LEAVE THEM ALONE. This will not end well.

Jeez, I'm always torn by these things. FTSOA, suppose that their little society was one in which women were sorely opressed, or a readily curable debilitating disease was rife. Do we ignore the conventional entitlements of individuals (freedoms, health...) in order to preserve a culture? For whom or what exactly are we acting (or not acting)? If I can cure your leprosy at the cost of destroying your view of the world, how do I decide? It's not like you can make an informed choice, because the information itself would undermine your culture.

(Guerilla medicine? Sneak in at night with a vaccine kit? )

Still, I'm pretty sure that what you don't do is send in the Jesuits...

j.mills wrote:Jeez, I'm always torn by these things. FTSOA, suppose that their little society was one in which women were sorely opressed, or a readily curable debilitating disease was rife. Do we ignore the conventional entitlements of individuals (freedoms, health...) in order to preserve a culture? For whom or what exactly are we acting (or not acting)? If I can cure your leprosy at the cost of destroying your view of the world, how do I decide? It's not like you can make an informed choice, because the information itself would undermine your culture.

(Guerilla medicine? Sneak in at night with a vaccine kit? )

Still, I'm pretty sure that what you don't do is send in the Jesuits...

Shit man, I know, I know. Its hard. But we are not talking about millions of people here. I say leave them alone or the next we are going to know about them is when we find, in 5-10 years, there culture and lives in shatterd bits.

j.mills wrote:Jeez, I'm always torn by these things. FTSOA, suppose that their little society was one in which women were sorely opressed, or a readily curable debilitating disease was rife. Do we ignore the conventional entitlements of individuals (freedoms, health...) in order to preserve a culture? For whom or what exactly are we acting (or not acting)? If I can cure your leprosy at the cost of destroying your view of the world, how do I decide? It's not like you can make an informed choice, because the information itself would undermine your culture.

(Guerilla medicine? Sneak in at night with a vaccine kit? )

Still, I'm pretty sure that what you don't do is send in the Jesuits...

It seems to me that if these people have survived thousands of years in the Amazonian rainforest their health is probably well in order.

Not necessarily. Isolated peoples in Papua New Guinea had all kindsa nasty stuff: lots of 'elephantisis' or whatever it's called; kuru; lotsa tapeworms... Tropics ==> parasites' paradise! They're probably well adjusted to living with whatever health problems arise, but it might be that a few doses of antibiotics could change their lives.

Separately: they killed a guy for trying to talk to them. Do we call that murder?

Anyone seen "V".

This time the goodguys aint gonna win.

DougC wrote:

j.mills wrote:Jeez, I'm always torn by these things. FTSOA, suppose that their little society was one in which women were sorely opressed, or a readily curable debilitating disease was rife. Do we ignore the conventional entitlements of individuals (freedoms, health...) in order to preserve a culture? For whom or what exactly are we acting (or not acting)? If I can cure your leprosy at the cost of destroying your view of the world, how do I decide? It's not like you can make an informed choice, because the information itself would undermine your culture.

(Guerilla medicine? Sneak in at night with a vaccine kit? )

Still, I'm pretty sure that what you don't do is send in the Jesuits...

Shit man, I know, I know. Its hard. But we are not talking about millions of people here. I say leave them alone or the next we are going to know about them is when we find, in 5-10 years, there culture and lives in shatterd bits.

The Brazilian government has exerted some very good efforts at keeping those people from being contacted, note the headline "inadvertent contact," or something to that effect. They fly patrols over the lands these folks use and shoo illegal logger and others away as a matter of routine. They've been at this many years now. The very first photos of these folks were taken from the air and swept the media what, three or four years ago? That's when we learned a lot about how the Brazilian government has been handling the situation and the fact that a number of different small groups were being closely watched for unwanted intruders.

These folks do reside very near the Ecuador border and the logging companies, which no doubt pose the biggest threat to these folks, come onto their lands from that country. Brazil has been urging Ecuador to corral their loggers and keep them the hell out of Brazil, but not much as come of this, logging pressure remains high, every very high.

But I do think we can count on the Brazilians to continue their good efforts of protecting these people while leaving them entirely alone.

EDIT:
The foregoing is almost all jibberish in terms of the people who are the subject of the article noted in the OP.

My apologies.

Also, when I wrote "Ecuador" it should have been Peru.

But this particular group lives in the same general area as the folks in Brazil to whom I referred, they may even be related. I think they're all resident of the same drainage basin, some of which is in Brazil and some of which is in Peru.

For a story on uncontacted groups in Brazil, go here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7426794.stm

Let's hope the Peruvians do as good a job of protecting these people as the Brazilians have done. Logging remains the issue.

j.mills wrote:Not necessarily. Isolated peoples in Papua New Guinea had all kindsa nasty stuff: lots of 'elephantisis' or whatever it's called; kuru; lotsa tapeworms... Tropics ==> parasites' paradise! They're probably well adjusted to living with whatever health problems arise, but it might be that a few doses of antibiotics could change their lives.

Separately: they killed a guy for trying to talk to them. Do we call that murder?

I'd call it self defense.

Have they accepted Jesus Christ as their personal shopper?

There was a (very) brief piece about this on the 7:00 news last night. My impression was that the local authorities there are asking people (the curious, the interested, the intrepid adventurer types) to keep their distance and leave them alone.

Not just from the point of view of it being, perhaps, the decent thing to do seeing as they've indicated they want nothing to do with outsiders.
But more importantly because it's likely they have no resistance to the bugs we carry... things like influenza, measles, and no doubt before too long, gonorrhea, etc etc.


Here's a documentary, from 1970, about a different tribe located in Brazil. There's no epilogue, so no indication of what happened to them.

The Kreen-Akrore are a forest Indian tribe living in the Amazon basin of Brazil who successfully managed to evade the cameras and crew accompanying the Villas Boas brothers during their attempt to make first contact with these hostile and entirely unknown people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhAvuPlhdNA

j.mills wrote:...Still, I'm pretty sure that what you don't do is send in the Jesuits...

Unless there's a good chance they'll kill the Jesuits...

j.mills wrote:Jeez, I'm always torn by these things. FTSOA, suppose that their little society was one in which women were sorely opressed, or a readily curable debilitating disease was rife. Do we ignore the conventional entitlements of individuals (freedoms, health...) in order to preserve a culture? For whom or what exactly are we acting (or not acting)? If I can cure your leprosy at the cost of destroying your view of the world, how do I decide? It's not like you can make an informed choice, because the information itself would undermine your culture.

(Guerilla medicine? Sneak in at night with a vaccine kit? )

Haven't we already come up with an answer to all these questions?

What if they want to be contacted?

Savages... Quick! build a giant electrified fence around them and throw in 500 remotely controlled cameras! It's the tribesman show! ...

Just contact them before the christians do (many of whom believe in spreading 'the good news' to every human being in the world so that Jesus can return..).

Rome Existed wrote:What if they want to be contacted?

I don't think we need to worry about that:

An account of the attack by anthropologist Glenn Shepard underlines the fact that the tribe is fearful of forming ties with the world around them.

Wuffy wrote:

JoeB wrote:Savages... Quick! build a giant electrified fence around them and throw in 500 remotely controlled cameras! It's the tribesman show! ...

Just contact them before the christians do (many of whom believe in spreading 'the good news' to every human being in the world so that Jesus can return..).

We have a cable channel out here dedicated to watching a Panda.
An entire cable channel. I think it occasionally has commentators and such. Not sure just seen it a few times while changing channels.