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Forbidden Island

#1
Secular Sanity Offline
A Man’s Last Letter before Being Killed on a Forbidden Island

"Before he was killed by an isolated tribe on a remote Indian Ocean island, John Allen Chau, a young American on a self-propelled mission to spread Christianity, revealed two things: that he was willing to die, and that he was scared.

"You guys might think I’m crazy in all this," he wrote in a last letter to his parents. "But I think it’s worth it to declare Jesus to these people."


He could have killed all of them. 

Quote:Many still continue to venture either onto or close to The North Sentinel island, even after it had become illegal to enter the three mile exclusion zone.

According to Survival International, advocates for the rights of tribal groups, as well as local fishermen, are frequently intruding into the island’s area; one was even arrested by the authorities for stepping onto the island itself.

For a variety of reasons, including violence and disease, the safety and even survival of the tribe is at risk.

Stephen Corry, Survival International’s director, said: "The Great Andamanese tribes of India’s Andaman Islands were decimated by disease when the British colonised the islands in the 1800s."

"The most recent to be pushed into extinction was the Bo tribe, whose last member died only four years ago."

"The only way the Andamanese authorities can prevent the annihilation of another tribe is to ensure North Sentinel Island is protected from outsiders." source
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#2
Zinjanthropos Offline
I wonder when humans acquired the ability to recognize a threat to their lives from unarmed strangers, even if they had no biological idea of why it was happening. I don't know whether this tribe is aware of deadly biological agents or know why they're protected but they probably know enough to keep strangers at bay and if in a last resort, kill them if necessary. I always use dispute over territory and sex as the prime reasons for human confrontation but perhaps the threat of mass deaths attributed to welcoming a nomadic visitor should also be included. I have a feeling our ancestors eventually figured out there was something deadly about allowing strangers in their midst

One man putting an entire group of people at risk for religion. A person who should have known better. This could be a new category for the Darwin Awards, removing yourself from the gene pool in the name of religion. Someone please tell me again that religion doesn't kill.
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#3
C C Offline
(Nov 24, 2018 01:55 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: A Man’s Last Letter before Being Killed on a Forbidden Island

[...] "You guys might think I’m crazy in all this," he wrote in a last letter to his parents. "But I think it’s worth it to declare Jesus to these people."

He could have killed all of them. 

Like an island version of bubble boy.

The menace of overzealous crusaders infected with either traditionalist or progressive thought-parasites never seems to cease in any era. Even those original hallucinatory gods of Julian Jaynes's speculative proposals -- in the course of ordering their hosts around like robotic zombies -- would have just amounted to proto-ideologies and conceptual orientations that had been personified into something humanoid or concrete. Infomorphs have been preying on us and spreading from brain to brain since the initial need of facilitating customs for binding individuals together in groups.

~
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#4
Secular Sanity Offline
(Nov 24, 2018 09:16 PM)C C Wrote: The menace of overzealous crusaders infected with either traditionalist or progressive thought-parasites never seems to cease in any era. Even those original hallucinatory gods of Julian Jaynes's speculative proposals -- in the course of ordering their hosts around like robotic zombies -- would have just amounted to proto-ideologies and conceptual orientations that had been personified into something humanoid or concrete. Infomorphs have been preying on us and spreading from brain to brain since the initial need of facilitating customs for binding individuals together in groups.

Boy, ain't that the truth? Flexing our power of persuasion, I suppose. Something that we're all guilty of.
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#5
stryder Offline
(Nov 24, 2018 09:16 PM)C C Wrote: Like an island version of bubble boy.

The menace of overzealous crusaders infected with either traditionalist or progressive thought-parasites never seems to cease in any era. Even those original hallucinatory gods of Julian Jaynes's speculative proposals -- in the course of ordering their hosts around like robotic zombies -- would have just amounted to proto-ideologies and conceptual orientations that had been personified into something humanoid or concrete. Infomorphs have been preying on us and spreading from brain to brain since the initial need of facilitating customs for binding individuals together in groups.

~

A little off-topic but I always assumed that two hemispheres is really about "load balancing". If we just had on master brain and no secondary, we'd tire a lot easier and wouldn't be able to stay conscious as long (which would have been an evolutionary trait to make sure predators are less likely to creep up on us) As load balancing it can lead to absent mindedness as the two hemispheres store memories separately which we can only access when that particular hemisphere is acting as primary. That's why if you swear you've misplaced something like your keys and can't remember where you put them, to jog your memory your actually attempting to reconnect with the hemisphere which was operating at the time.

Naturally we do tend to use one hemisphere as a dominant hemisphere but if we suffered an neurological injury the brain has the capacity to retrain as to which one is dominant. Anyway it's a topic to itself.
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#6
Yazata Offline
I'm not particularly sympathetic to this guy. He knew that the islanders wanted to be left alone. He knew that the Indian government (whose territory the islands are) had made it illegal to go there. Yet he intentionally set about trying to circumvent not only the law, but the islanders' wishes.

Worse than that, his motive in going there was to destroy the islanders' traditional beliefs.

His death, while extreme, might be poetic justice. (No more extreme than jumping off a cliff or stepping in front of a speeding train. Some actions are just stupid and self-destructive.)
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#7
Syne Offline
Sounds similar to the US cyclists killed in Tajikistan (98% Muslim).
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#9
Syne Offline
(Nov 28, 2018 07:29 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: John Allen Chau: Do missionaries help or harm?
"While he personally did not think of going to the islands, he speaks of colleagues of his who had talked of approaching the Sentinelese people.

"Though they weren't seriously considering it, they tossed around ideas of how to approach the people safely, how to begin to make friendly contact, how to minimise their "footprint" while at the same time reaching out to them to learn their language and culture," he says. "
Quote:Is it American exceptionalism, colonization, or just plain ole idiot compassion?

There is no such thing as American colonization. American is obviously exceptional, and many level-headed missionaries do a lot to help the people they minister to.
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#10
confused2 Offline
I have a bit of a 'view' about this. I'm not sure it is a moral 'view' - just a 'view'. It starts with man (a generic term for our species) landing on the moon. I watched the landing (live streamed) with my grandmother. She said she thought she had seen more progress than any generation will ever see again - from travel by horse to landing on the moon. My Granny's definition of progress wasn't that she had lots of money or a nice car - it was that someone had set foot on the moon.

Shifting back to the Adamani Islanders. A 'slice of the action' in western society is often little more or less than (metaphorically or iterally) a job in a supermarket. In my case the job in a supermaket is almost literal and yet I still feel I have a slice of the action. In almost any subject I can get information and/or help to full extent of my interest and ability.

I'd be perfectly happy being a noble savage for six days a week but on the seventh I'd want an internet connection.

My compaint (as an Andamini Islander) wouldn't be that I didn't get a chance to work in a supermarket - it would be that you didn't even try to tell me what was going on out there.
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