[doodlebugging]

It's unfortunate that you tagged the Sentinelese as rapists and abusers of their spouses in your first comment.

That's being pretty judgemental, like a bible-thumper would be, off to save people who aren't necessarily interested in being saved from a situation that may never have been part of their worldview.

Sometimes it's better to leave things alone. Western civilization doesn't have an answer to every question and for too many cultures in the past, contact has meant that we effectively killed them while making an effort to save or assimilate them.

In my view your reply suggests that you have strong cultural biases that education may help you overcome. Reading is still fun as it always has been. Grab a book and step outside your bubble.

I'm gonna need to read up on some of the materials that others have linked to see whether there is historical evidence of this abusive behavior that you think is part of their culture.

EDIT: I just read the Atlantic article linked by u/marc_abonce in this thread. I see nothing in that to support your assumption that the men are rapists and spouse abusers. In contrast, I see strong evidence of a group of people who suffered greatly in their interactions with western colonizers.

[emmelaich]

The presence of 'maybe' means it's a possibility, not an assumption.

[doodlebugging]

The presence of maybe does indeed denote that there is a possibility that the statement referenced could be true or untrue.

>Or maybe they rape and beat their woman, suffer from high infant mortality and often die excruciating deaths after moderate injuries like a broken arm or cut.

The comment as written though leaves no doubt about the intent of the commenter which appears to me to be demonizing people from another culture with no evidence offered to support their demonization.

I have read material in several of the links supplied in this thread and so far have found no evidence of rape, spousal abuse, child abuse or neglect, etc.

The links supplied by others, including a link in one to a web archive of most chapters of a book by a group called "The Andaman Association" have so far in the sections that I have read, made no mention of these things. That post and the link were deleted before I finished composing a reply but the post had some good information about regional language families, potential origins of the people on North Sentinel Island, etc.

Anyway, the user who made that comment left no doubt about which side of the maybe they agreed with and that is why I have responded as I have. Their biases are quite apparent.

You are correct though that maybe definitely means maybe and clearly suggests in general usage that things could go either way.

[emmelaich]

Has there has ever been a society without rape and other violence? Sure, maybe North Sentinelese are an exception.

Certainly, some tendency to violence is evident.

[rendx]

Errr, yes, it looks like plenty? You may want to read up on tribal cultures. I suggest the 1978 classic "Columbus and Other Cannibals" by historian Jack D. Forbes as a start, it's a short read.

[Chris2048]

> The comment as written though leaves no doubt

> the user who made that comment left no doubt

Can you back that lack of doubt up with anything? Or is it a function of your own eagerness to construct a straw-man?

[doodlebugging]

>Can you back that lack of doubt up with anything? Or is it a function of your own eagerness to construct a straw-man?

You're asking whether a set of replies to a user named xadhominemx are straw man arguments when that user has taken each opportunity to live up to the implications of their user name.

I'm not sure I can help you if you are having trouble spotting the obvious bias in their replies.

In the universe of possible responses to the part of my original comment at the top of this thread that they extracted for their initial reply they specifically chose to attack the beliefs of the people characterizing them as "absurd".

When reminded that many cultures that do not have written histories have been found to convey their traditions and knowledge orally in stories and songs over many generations, they replied with another, more vicious cultural attack instead of a rational acknowledgement that perhaps they had forgotten something they may have had an opportunity to learn during some part of their education.

In that reply they suggested an alternate view that the people are rapists who abuse their spouses and neglect their children. This is another instance where they chose an attack over a rational conclusion supported by evidence.

When I challenged their objectivity they doubled down on their earlier replies confirming their own biases in the process.

Then they skipped the thread when I suggested that their biases were showing and that they should educate themselves.

I'm not seeing a straw man here.

The points that I made and they took issue to are supported by anthropological research and historical accounts and their suggestions have no supporting basis in fact when you dig into the links that I have provided and that others have provided on the thread.

xadhominemx clearly stepped into a thread with an agenda driven by their personal biases and when challenged with facts, skipped out without offering any support of their own biased agenda.

No straw man. Perhaps you agree with xadhominemx in some or all of the things they suggested and you stand ready to offer supporting arguments that they have chosen to dodge. I'll follow this thread for a while because I like interesting discussions.

I appreciate your reply and look forward to the next installment.

[doodlebugging]

There is so far no option to reply to your reply further down the thread so I will attempt to do that here with apologies for not keeping it in sequence. Maybe this is nested too deeply.

>Has there has ever been a society without rape and other violence? Sure, maybe North Sentinelese are an exception.

I am reading a book now that was linked in a comment that has since been deleted. It is quite interesting and may have answers to your questions since it covers much of the history of the region and its inhabitants and describes their customs as observed by people who encountered them and noted what they saw.

So far, several chapters in I have found no accounts of rape though I haven't read the chapters in order and it is possible that this will be covered in chapters that I have not read.

>Certainly, some tendency to violence is evident.

There's plenty of violence but the events seem to be nuanced by the context in which the contact occurs with some contacts leading to immediate violence, others to ambush violence, and still others leading to friendly gatherings with celebrations and gift exchanges. All depending on the context of the contact and the composition of the groups if there had been a history of contact between them.

One thing that I did run across was a mention that children, male and female, are celebrated equally with no evidence of child neglect or abuse or infanticide due to the baby's sex. A reason given for this is the low birth rate making every child important to the survival of the group. The low birth rate may be an infertility issue, it may be related to marriage customs where an older man marries a younger woman but not vice versa, or it may be an adaptation to the group's knowledge that there are limited resources on an island and so it makes sense to control the number of inhabitants so resources are not depleted.

Anyway, the book is out on the wayback machine and if you have an interest in anthropology, pre-history, etc it feels like it lays out all the things we know about the region and its inhabitants, where they came from, etc and is interesting reading with National Geographic style photos (all black and white) of some of the islands and the peoples. [0]

Enjoy!

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20070406235017/http://www.andama...

[aetherson]

Hacker News tries to discourage rapid back-and-forth angry posting by making it impossible to reply to messages deep in the thread for a little while after they are created. If you wait a bit, you'll see options to reply to even deeply threaded messages.

[emmelaich]

Good reading, thanks for the link.

[doodlebugging]

You're welcome. There's a lot there to absorb and even then there is still so little known about the North Sentinelese in particular but the reader can gain an understanding of many things about the region and the original inhabitants from contemporary and modern accounts. All in all like you say it is good reading.

[cvalka]

Innovation, science and technology. These things make us special as human beings. If there are any human civilizations unwilling to engage in those things, they should be absorbed and assimilated.