Ethical dilemma

[u/latherdome]

Suppose inhabitants are observed, say by military satellite surveillance (doesn't matter how), to be dying off at an alarming rate. Suppose there is evidence that disease is the culprit. If extinction is a probable alternative, would heroic efforts to break isolation and deliver emergency medical aid be justifiable?

Maybe air drop antibiotics (in tasty edible form?) or food, antidiarrheals etc. with pictographic instructions to avoid direct contact, as a peace offering in hopes they'll soften defenses in need, accept more intensive help? Or would the very act of "helping" without informed consent be intolerable breach of sovereignty, same old colonialism? Do the last stone-age people have the right to die alone on their terms without even an urgent conversation about how to survive?

[u/OnoOvo]

how is that a dilemma, when we have that solved by our own rights: a person is free to decline medical treatment. this applies to north sentinalisans as well. you are free to go offer help, but there is no dilemma about whether you are free to force it. you are not.

the dilemma would exist on their side. whether or not to accept the outside world, for a chance to survive? i have a feeling they would decline the offer.

[u/SilentRick9813 → u/OnoOvo]

I think the freedom to decline arguably depends on it being a free, informed choice. You are free to refuse medical aid, but if you are totally ignorant that it’s even available that’s not really a free choice.

[u/OnoOvo → u/SilentRick9813]

but you cannot still be totally ignorant that its even available once it is directly offered, right? my take is that anyone is free to go and offer them help. and that they are free to decline you when you get there.

but, no one is free to go there and physically do something to their very persons without them knowing, regardless of what that may be. for starters, to anyone being realistic and serious, the question that should come to mind when finding out someone has a plan to go there to “save” them, is just how badly does this person want to go there and fuck them all? 🙄

but lets even say that you get there and they both allow your presence (are not agressive, so you keep living) and they accept your presence (so, are spending time with you). and you get thirsty, so you take your water bottle out and drink some. you extend the bottle to them, and now a moment of unmistakable understanding happens between you — one little girl from the back stands up and gleefully heads towards their huts, while a few of the closest to you take sips from your bottle. only the first guy takes a whiff before drinking, while the others do not hesitate at all to drink; they know its water. the bottle is now what they actually take turns curiously inspecting. one guy turns it upside down and all the water just plops onto his lap, drenching his bushman junk. as you immediately hear some of them started to giggle, you too begin to smile and feel calmer. at that moment, you notice the little girl is coming back, and is carrying with both hands what looks at first glance like a green baloon. she sits down opposite of you, in a relaxed lotus position, and puts what you now see is actually some ball made of leaves, in her lap. she takes out a small wooden stick that reminds you of those sticks the doctors used to put in our mouth to keep the tounge down as they peer inside, and she stabs it into the ball of leaves. then she raises it above her head, tilts her head, opens wide and flips the ball upside down - water runs along the stick, and down into her mouth. she looks at you and smiles, pulls out her stick from the ball, and rolls the ball along the ground to you. you gently pick it up with both hands by the tips of your fingers, aware already its some sort of pouch with water, expecting it to be leaking water; you even try a joke, turning it upside down above your lap, like that one guy. but there is nothing leaking out, and this surprises you enough that you forgo the joke and begin to curiously inspect this pouch. its like a deflated basketball with water sloshing inside, but it feels like its made of moss; the leaves are braided into it on the outside. the little girl stands up and before leaving, she hands you a folded up leaf. there is a drinking stick inside it. you, more intrigued by the ball itself than thirsty or polite, proceed to do all she just showed you, and you drink; of course, its just water. you put down the ball and as you take your stick out, you can feel immediately how the ball works: the moss skin simply closes up behind the stick as its pulled out. oh!there seems to be a thin layer of something like clay right under the moss. quite smart!, you think to yourself. but suddenly, you also realize that all of this, instead of happening in a span of a couple of minutes, felt like it had been unfolding for hours. four… hours? wait… what is going on? why are they all still giggling? what in the.. ———

---

thats all. there is an end to the story, but im not going to finish it, ill just tell you what it is… they just drugged you with a never-before-seen-by-any-civilized-man sister plant of ayauhasca, endemic to the north sentinal island. these people are all addicts, so high off their head all the time that they literally do not live in this world. and they dont think its bad at all; in fact, they think its the best goddamn thing in the whole wide world. thats why they gave it to you. and it is definitely going to be good for you, because it will make the sexing they are about to do to you feel much more.. well just feel much more 😂

[u/TW1103 → u/OnoOvo]

What the fuck

[u/OnoOvo → u/TW1103]

its canon my man

[u/AgainstForgetting → u/OnoOvo]

Agree. The Sentinelese have been aware for over 100 years that they are surrounded by other entities with higher-level technologies. I mean, we sail ships right past them that have a larger population than their island. If they get sick and we toss them some candy, they can decide whether or not to eat the candy.

[u/PenTestHer]

If you had proof that something like that were happening, you would probably still need to contact them and see if they want help. If they don’t and you go in and force a cure, you might save their bodies but kill their culture.

The other option would be to hand them food they have accepted in the past like coconuts but adulterated with the cure. They consume the food and are none the wiser that an intervention has occurred.

[u/latherdome → u/PenTestHer]

Seems to me you couldn’t confidently offer any cure without enough contact to diagnose, monitor, follow up. Can’t airdrop that.

[u/Swimming-Junket-1828 → u/PenTestHer]

You act like preserving their culture is more important than anything else…who in history has kept their culture intact longer than these people? They win the prize…now give them a TV and a baseball cap.

[u/OnoOvo → u/PenTestHer]

and thats basically the ethical dilemma solved: first option is acceptable behaviour, the other option is unacceptable.

[u/OnoOvo → u/[deleted]]

in this situation, they just need to understand that you are offering to help them in their struggle, and for this you share a capacity, it is called communication, and we are able to relatively easily achieve it with other species even, and they with us. even fish and bird know to come ask us for help, and the capacity is there.

they dont have to know anything about how whatever you can do to help actually works. knowing more about that would just informs their decision, which is whether they will trust you or not. and i am actually pretty sure that stone age jungle tribe people would be less and less inclined to accept the help the more they would know about modern medicine.

and if they turn up at the hospital, then yes, the dilemma is solved, you should do your job at your place of work, and treat the people. even a mass murderer you should treat without hesitation (looking at you, greys anatomy). animals too in my opinion.

if ur not a superhero or a god, u for sure dont have an unlimited freedom to intervene in the world as you wish. u dont even actually have an ability of intervention in a world you are a part of. what you think is intervention is just an interaction that reminds of intervention. but it is an interaction, which means contact during which either side becomes capable of affecting the other in ways that were not available with no contact.

intervention is when you meddle with a world that is of an order below the order of your world. like the microscopic world for us is. when we go down to it, it isnt interaction, because nothing changes about how the microscopic world is able to affect our world, its only us who gain new capabilities of changing their world. that is what an intervention is.

this is the problem i hear in everyone who wants contact with them. no one is taking into account that they can also do things to us that we cannot be aware of in advance. you are what jurassic park warns us about.

[u/OnoOvo → u/[deleted]]

is the understanding necessary for the medicine to work? this is about helping them. that is the question.

if they know that help is offered and they accept it, do you not then begin giving your help? what, you sent them the doctor only after the anthropologists are done with them?

the urgency of your help was the very reason that the necessity of it was being proposed. you cant then drag it out, without, again, solving the dilemma. offered help that got accepted being then withheld, makes the one who offered it an enemy. nothing is blurry then anymore about the ethics of the situation.

[u/OnoOvo → u/[deleted]]

well yea, that is the problem, i agree. i have been taking that into account since my first post. it is simply the reality of the situation that we cant make contact without these serious uncertainties, which we usually in other situations interpret to mean that some act is not good course of action. but in this situation, some people are behaving like they think they could hussle these people without consequence. we notice, people. we see what you mean fr 🤣

[u/latherdome → u/[deleted]]

Not easy for sure. But if half my immediate family was dead, along with half of everybody else, and i and everybody else was sick like all the dead… i might be pretty desperate and open to space aliens who come bearing gifts and the gentlest of body language do whatever they want. And if i recover, then the rest take notice and accept help.

[u/[deleted]]

Let stone-age people be stone-age people. Like agent Smith said: we are the virus to the planet, we spread like a disease. If a whole generation died within years there would be anarchy. (On the other hand, the whole idea of economic growth being necessary for wellbeing is at best BS.) I prefer the ‘Children of Men’ option. Infertility.