Isolated groups (religious, indigenous, etc.,) should be de-isolated.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Isolated groups (religious, indigenous, etc.,) should be de-isolated.

Liberal_L33t: Apr 9, 2005; by WE B Boo-ourgeois

Your Sledgehammer posted:

A thousand times this. There's an assumption in the OP that bears examination, and it's the assumption that civilized life is objectively better than indigenous/noncivilized life. Not only is that not necessarily the case, but I can actually think of two instances where civilization is the clear loser when measured up against noncivilized lifestyles (which I'd define as any lifestyle that includes hunting/gathering as the primary mode of subsistence):

1. Sustainability. In a little over a century, industrialized society has radically altered Earth's climate, acidified the oceans, left us with only 60 years of viable topsoil remaining, and caused an extinction event on the order of magnitude of asteroid collision. Indigenous lifestyles, on the other hand, have been ecologically stable for hundreds of thousands of years.

2. Mental Health. I know this one sounds ridiculous, but humor me. Anthropologists have shown time and again that mental illness is nearly unheard of in uncivilized peoples. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that their lifestyle results in more contentedness, life satisfaction, and just a better perspective on life in general. If you don't believe me that mental illness is incredibly rare among the noncivilized, I'll gladly provide citations. Contrast that with roughly 1 in 5 Americans suffering from some form of mental illness every year.

I know this is from many pages back but I just feel like reiterating that both of these are unmitigated bullshit, including the second point.

Effectronica posted:

People declaring that it's okay to treat uncontacted people as children (which is what paternalism means) provide the strongest example of why compassionate contact is largely impossible- too many people refuse to look at these uncontacted people as fully human.

The experiences and lifestyles of such cultures are starkly limited to the point that cosmopolitan outsiders are fully justified in holding paternalistic attitudes towards them. This is not any fault of theirs, but by the standards of a modern society, such people essentially suffer from a form of socially-reinforced mental illness and should be treated as such.

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Liberal_L33t: Apr 9, 2005; by WE B Boo-ourgeois

Your Sledgehammer posted:

Did you even bother reading your own link? Because it doesn't refute either of the points I made (hell, this section explicitly discusses a decline in overall health and a rise in social divisions as a result of the Agricultural Revolution. But yeah, neither declining health nor a rise in social divisions could possibly influence mental health, so what do I know?).

Not sure how you are planning to argue against my point about sustainability, considering that anyone could confirm it by reading a single shred of scientific research on what is happening to the environment, or by just, I don't know, walking outside and looking around. If you don't understand that our current lifestyle is wildly unsustainable, then I don't know what to tell you.

The kind of lifestyles you are championing is equally unsustainable for socio-political reasons, which is to say "Existing at the mercy of natural forces and primitive social systems is a living hell that most people will choose to escape from, given the chance." Note that these 'uncontacted societies' are usually only able to maintain control over their members and prevent desertion to modern settlements because of geographical barriers like oceans and forests. Any efforts to return to the nightmarish state of primitivism you idolize would unavoidably resemble the latter stages of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge purges.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2015 20:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Isolated groups (religious, indigenous, etc.,) should be de-isolated.