Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Disillusionment (Rehash)

Perhaps this is a stale retread of what other people have said but:

I just considered the Cargo Cults that Ms. Mork told us about. These people honestly believe that US airplanes dropping cargo off are gifts of the gods. I mean, who could blame them? If you saw a giant thing come out of the sky and present you with food and strangely-dressed pale men, you might be a bit excited.

Who are we to disillusion them? Is it wrong to tell them this is an ordinary part of the society that they live parallel to? They are isolated; how should we expect them to know anything about us? There are likely still a few dozen tribes that have never been in contact with other humans in the "outside" world. Should we ruin their world by coming into contact? It's kind of fun to discover what outsiders would think of, say, airplanes, but it's like another Schrodinger's Cat: we'll never know what they think unless we barge in and perhaps ruin the outcome.

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