The End of Freedom

Globalization has homogenized every corner of the world - you can eat a Big Mac and watch MTV everywhere from India, Kyrgyzstan, New Guinea, and Mozambique. We all know this, but what fascinates me is that there are still a few isolated populations who have managed to avoid contact with global civilization. In the Amazon rainforest and the jungles of New Guinea there are small pockets of people who are living more or less the same way they have for thousands of years. I'm not niave enough to believe that these indigenous people are living a utopian pre-modern existence, but they are the last free people on earth. They are the last people who are free from virtually inescapable economic and governmental oppression.

It amazes me that there are whole groups of people who have no knowledge of modern civilization - the internet, medicine, and telecommunications. What fascinates me the most is that once these tribes are contacted and assimilated, there is no going back. After these remaining cultures have been diluted and homogenized by modern western culture, there will never again be that connection to our hunter-gatherer past. Our species will cross a threshold - we irrevocably lose our already forgotten connection to our past and the environment.

These links give more detailed information about the last remaining uncontacted tribes.

Aerial images prove existence of remote Amazon tribe

Uncontacted Peoples - Wikipedia

That these tribes will eventually be contacted seems to be a certainty and there is a big debate about what to do with these last remaining tribes. Many people believe they should be left alone indefinitely because contact with civilization inevitably leads to poverty, disease, and assimilation. Others argue that since contact in inevitable, the government should take the initiative to provide them with health care, education, and development support. I believe that contact should be avoided at all costs. Of course they can not be fenced off from the rest of the world forever, but they would probably be better off if we did.