[MonkeyMalarky]

If we had a nature preserve filled with human beings that are unaware of the modern world, left to their own devices and hard lives, the difference in ethics is the entertainment factor? Say their lives aren't broadcast for consumption, is that okay? What about 10, 100 or even 1,000 years from now?

[andrewflnr]

The primary difference in ethics is whether you've forcibly relocated them. You're picking a really weird aspect of the human zoo thing to fixate on and ignoring the huge flashing sign that says "liberty". There's really no good reason to compare the scenarios. I'm a fan of Hanlon's Razor but this is the kind of obtuseness that raises genuine questions of whether you're speaking in good faith.

[MonkeyMalarky]

Where is the liberty though? By definition, a native from an uncontacted tribe can't make an informed choice.

[andrewflnr]

The liberty is in not being forcibly relocated. Try to focus.

Note how far the question has already drifted from human zoos, to just whether it's good to contact people or not. This is not an accident. It's because the human zoo comparison was never defensible; it was trivial to force you to move the goalposts.

[scotty79]

So if you put cages over the animals in the jungle that's not a zoo because they never got relocated?

[andrewflnr]

Ha, fair point, sort of. Dropping a cage on someone in situ is a very specific form of liberty denial that doesn't really have a name because no one does it.

[lazide]

Who is putting cages over anyone? And where did you get that idea?

Preserves don’t do that either.

[scotty79]

Nobody. I'm just trying to understand what makes a zoo, a zoo.

My intuition is more about not forcibly relocating but putting boundaries so that movement is restricted and safe observations can be performed for prolonged time.

[zach_garwood]

How do you figure? Every day they make the choice to live like they do, just like you make the choice to live in your town doing whatever it is you do. If you wanted to live a different lifestyle, you could pick a direction, go there, and live like the people there. They choose not to. That sounds like liberty to me.

[luckylion]

What? Stone age people made "a choice" to live in the stone age? Could they have just chosen to live in the space age instead? How does that work?

[lazide]

I’m not sure how you figure.

In the scenario you’re describing (a walled off preserve), said folks could decide to join ‘the space age’ by walking to the next valley if they wanted to.

And that is someone Stone Age folks did regularly, walk to other valleys.

In the real Stone Age, that means they see another group of Stone Age folks. In the space age scenario, that means they get exposure to some space age stuff.

So they’d be making the choice to stay, by staying, if they don’t do that.

No one is building a fence to keep them in, just like no one was working to keep ‘the man of the hole’ in. If someone does make a fenced off area around them that is impossible to escape, then sure that could be a problem. It’s a prison then.

But that’s not what anyone is proposing I can see.

They were just working to keep others from going in and screwing with him.

He knew there were others out there, he just didn’t want to be bothered - and they were trying to help him do that.

[luckylion]

> In the space age scenario, that means they get exposure to some space age stuff.

But they don't, unless they actually get exposed to it. "They've heard a machine and it was loud and terrible and knocked over a tree" doesn't mean they're making an informed decision, because e.g. they don't know surgery or antibiotics.

> They were just working to keep others from going in and screwing with him.

And that's fine, but he's not making an informed decision to stay in the the forest because he prefers that way of life. He's doing what he knows and doesn't do what he doesn't know. That's not a choice. Before Fosbury developed the Fosbury Flop, other athletes weren't choosing to not jump that way.

[mlyle]

He refused contact with outsiders.

Would you have preferred that he had been forcibly contacted and educated, to make an "informed" choice, in the name of his liberty and/or autonomy?

[lazide]

Based on other replies in the thread, it seems clear that some folks do indeed believe that.

[TedDoesntTalk]

The Truman Show

[lazide]

Were they there before without anyone going out of there way to put them there artificially?

If so, then yup, perfectly fine.

[zach_garwood]

This is veering into White Man's Burden territory.