Regardless whether or not it was rhetorical, I found it off-putting, especially when the Amish (a far superior example of the point he is trying to convey) are mentioned in the same article.
If I were more -- or even at all -- versed in the geopolitics of the Andaman Islands, I may have found it more off-putting than I did. That's a fair enough point. If you're offended by this, that's understandable and I don't blame you.
What I was speaking about was more the claim that the author had veered into fanaticism. That doesn't seem true. He's working at Home Depot not becoming a hunter-gatherer let alone murdering anybody.