Pet Humans

I saw the news story today - a team of UK reporters went into the Jungles looking for a tribe of humans untouched by modern man. They found some and visited them against the rules and now people in this tribe are dying from a simple disease brought in by the reporters. A travesty I tell you!

I read the other story today, about an 11 year old girl who died from a treatable form of diabetes. He parents chose to pray for god to heal her rather than going to a doctor. The parents are up on charges now.

Aren't these two stories the same? People are dying of diseases for which there are cures, but the cures are not administered because of the beliefs of the people involved. In the first case, people are blaming the reporters, not the tribesmen, yet in the second case they are blaming the parents. I would think that it would either have to be "we respect your beliefs in not seeking modern cures for what ails you" or "take these drugs no matter what you believe and if you do not, we will lock you up."

(Obviously there is a lot more to it than that - taking drugs that "cure" you to save your life - has so many logical fallacies that I have expounded upon in the past and in the future that I... I will try to focus on the simple abstraction for this blog post.)

The difference in the two cases, as I see it, is that the tribesmen are pets - zoo animals if you will, and are therefore not responsible for their actions, while the parents are Westernized and therefore know better. Do all Western people share the same beliefs? Should all be required to come to the same conclusions even though they have different thought processes? Is this the kick off to a long list of blogs about my theory of "The Homogeneous Others"?... back to the topic for now...

Why do we leave people around the world in their "natural" state? They are cordoned off - they are not allowed to have access to the modern world. We some how believe that they are purer for not knowing the modern world. These are all lies we tell ourselves. We should let the humans be free! Show them the modern world, and apply the same standards to them. If they let their people die of ignorance, then they should be punished as anyone else. Or we should let everyone live in their own prison, believing anything that they want with no accountability.

In my opinion, it is a travesty that we keep some humans in zoos as pets. Let's bring everyone up to standard, not keep some as lab rats so grad students can study humans in their "natural state."

The Edward