<story><title>The Forbidden Island</title><url>http://www.neatorama.com/2013/07/08/The-Forbidden-Island</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>homeomorphic</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know… suppose some highly advanced aliens with for the most part benign intent found us. Would you &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; like them to &amp;quot;stay the fuck away&amp;quot;? I, for one, would love for our technology to leapfrog ahead centuries, even though it would completely change our culture.&lt;p&gt;The disease part can be handled today. We &lt;i&gt;could&lt;/i&gt; go visit them in hazmat suits. And I know I&amp;#x27;m being really generous when I&amp;#x27;m comparing the modern world to benign aliens, but properly managed (as access to the island already appears to be) surely we can approach them in a decent way?&lt;p&gt;That they violently defend themselves is of course a highly complicating factor.&lt;p&gt;I guess all I&amp;#x27;m saying is that &lt;i&gt;not establishing contact&lt;/i&gt; is also a choice that we&amp;#x27;re making on their behalf. Is deciding that they &lt;i&gt;can&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; parttake in modern society any more OK than deciding they must? Can we not contact them in a way where they get to choose?&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Edit:&lt;/i&gt; I certainly agree that we as humans have an absolutely horrible track record on these kinds of things. But it&amp;#x27;s been a while now, hasn&amp;#x27;t it? Can&amp;#x27;t we pull this off by now? These guys are our brothers and sisters - should we at least not have a chat with them to see if they really want to be left the fuck alone, or if they might want to not die whenever they get an infected wound, or half the time they have kids, or whenever they break a leg? Hell, it might well be that &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; of them want to be left the fuck alone, while some would like to see the world. How come those latter ones have to stay on that island just because we say so?</text></item><item><author>geuis</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m pretty late to leaving a comment, so it won&amp;#x27;t get a lot of exposure.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s just leave these people the fuck alone.&lt;p&gt;What threat are they under? Curious assholes like us. There are probably less than 1000 people on that island, all descended from people tens of thousands of years ago. There are more people than that that visit an Apple store on a Tuesday before 2pm.&lt;p&gt;Leave them alone.&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t need to assuage our 10 second collective attention span by ruining their lives, destroying their history, and effectively ending a lineage thousands of years old.&lt;p&gt;These people probably have their own ideas about the weird shit washing up on their beaches and the crazy stuff in the sky that drops outsiders and food from time to time. Leave them to it. It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter what they think, no matter how curious you think you are.&lt;p&gt;Leave them alone.&lt;p&gt;For the physics-minded, think of them as a sample of humanity in Schrödinger&amp;#x27;s box. It&amp;#x27;s not a cat, but people. Except in this experiment, any direct observation will absolutely kill the people. Any exposure to disease, customs, or technology without their explicit choice will kill them. Maybe they don&amp;#x27;t physically die, but their lineage will end.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sampo</author><text>One one hand:&lt;p&gt;Most of the Australian aborigine people had walked out of the desert by the 1960&amp;#x27;s, but in 1984 a family of 9 that had lived in the desert, finally also walked out to reunite with their relatives [1]. The relatives had already lived ca. 20 years in an Australian village nearby.&lt;p&gt;When they finally saw the comfortable lifestyle their relatives had enjoyed already for 20 years, they were quite angry [2] that they had been left living in the desert, and not contacted earlier:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;They told us there was plenty of food and water came out of pipes,&amp;quot; Yardi said.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;The older ones were angry that their long-lost relatives – who they had not seen for nearly 20 years – had left them out in the desert eating lizards while they lived in what they saw as the lap of luxury,&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;I like this life,&amp;quot; Yardi said. &amp;quot;I much prefer it to the old ways.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Warlinipirri said: &amp;quot;I wouldn&amp;#x27;t go back.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pintupi_Nine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Pintupi_Nine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.heraldsun.com.au/archive/news/lost-tribe-happy-in-modern-world/story-e6frf7l6-1111112932308&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.heraldsun.com.au&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;lost-tribe-happy-in...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The Forbidden Island</title><url>http://www.neatorama.com/2013/07/08/The-Forbidden-Island</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>homeomorphic</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know… suppose some highly advanced aliens with for the most part benign intent found us. Would you &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; like them to &amp;quot;stay the fuck away&amp;quot;? I, for one, would love for our technology to leapfrog ahead centuries, even though it would completely change our culture.&lt;p&gt;The disease part can be handled today. We &lt;i&gt;could&lt;/i&gt; go visit them in hazmat suits. And I know I&amp;#x27;m being really generous when I&amp;#x27;m comparing the modern world to benign aliens, but properly managed (as access to the island already appears to be) surely we can approach them in a decent way?&lt;p&gt;That they violently defend themselves is of course a highly complicating factor.&lt;p&gt;I guess all I&amp;#x27;m saying is that &lt;i&gt;not establishing contact&lt;/i&gt; is also a choice that we&amp;#x27;re making on their behalf. Is deciding that they &lt;i&gt;can&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; parttake in modern society any more OK than deciding they must? Can we not contact them in a way where they get to choose?&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Edit:&lt;/i&gt; I certainly agree that we as humans have an absolutely horrible track record on these kinds of things. But it&amp;#x27;s been a while now, hasn&amp;#x27;t it? Can&amp;#x27;t we pull this off by now? These guys are our brothers and sisters - should we at least not have a chat with them to see if they really want to be left the fuck alone, or if they might want to not die whenever they get an infected wound, or half the time they have kids, or whenever they break a leg? Hell, it might well be that &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; of them want to be left the fuck alone, while some would like to see the world. How come those latter ones have to stay on that island just because we say so?</text></item><item><author>geuis</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m pretty late to leaving a comment, so it won&amp;#x27;t get a lot of exposure.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s just leave these people the fuck alone.&lt;p&gt;What threat are they under? Curious assholes like us. There are probably less than 1000 people on that island, all descended from people tens of thousands of years ago. There are more people than that that visit an Apple store on a Tuesday before 2pm.&lt;p&gt;Leave them alone.&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t need to assuage our 10 second collective attention span by ruining their lives, destroying their history, and effectively ending a lineage thousands of years old.&lt;p&gt;These people probably have their own ideas about the weird shit washing up on their beaches and the crazy stuff in the sky that drops outsiders and food from time to time. Leave them to it. It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter what they think, no matter how curious you think you are.&lt;p&gt;Leave them alone.&lt;p&gt;For the physics-minded, think of them as a sample of humanity in Schrödinger&amp;#x27;s box. It&amp;#x27;s not a cat, but people. Except in this experiment, any direct observation will absolutely kill the people. Any exposure to disease, customs, or technology without their explicit choice will kill them. Maybe they don&amp;#x27;t physically die, but their lineage will end.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>userulluipeste</author><text>The (Star Trek&amp;#x27;s) Prime Directive is not something worthwhile to be considered here? The representatives of these people (the ones with bows and other kind of weapons that dare to face the outsiders) are stating clearly their policy. Maybe it is us that must get over our desires to intrude supposedly on someone else&amp;#x27;s benefit.</text></comment>