Full story of the missionary killed when trying to convert an "uncontacted" tribe

Some people take paper recycling very seriously.

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A few months ago two women from the power company rang the doorbell. My mother nearly didn’t let them in, thinking they were JW.
Which would have been a shame as I would have missed the opportunity of rattling them a bit by telling them how “official” their plastic cards made them, with a sub-5minutes online search for a plastic card printer. Somehow they didn’t know that people used printers to make those cards. I wonder if all people who ring doorbells in pairs are “impaired” when it comes to rational thinking.
Fake utilities agents stealing from people is apparently a problem here.

In the video one of the Sentinelese guys grabs his penis and shakes it at the people in the boat! I wonder what that means in their culture.

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As soon as he illegally landed his canoe on the shore and started preaching,

It seems odd to me that we simultaneously acknowledge the right of the Sentinelese to exercise control over their own territory when it comes to shooting interlopers, but don’t question the right of India to set laws regarding who can land there.

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Hint: Examine all the profound differences in real power between the groups involved.

If the Sentinelese were close to a billion people, endangering the basic physical existence of a group that numbered in the hundreds, it would be a different story, don’t you think?

Also if the Sentinelese were religious missionaries who were recklessly risking genocide of a more vulnerable people, “out of the best intentions”, I’d also be okay with the Indian government trying to prevent it.

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We take an interest in opressed minorities in places like China and North Korea. So why are the Sentinelese any different? Is it because we don’t actually know what goes on, on their island?

Indigenous self-government isn’t necessarily equivalent to “oppressed minority”.

Hassling them seems to be the quickest path to oppressing them here.

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No, you’ve entirely missed my point.

I’m not saying the Indian government should be trying to prevent the Sentinelese from shooting missionaries, I’m saying we should be questioning why we acknowledge the right of the Indian government to declare landing on Sentinelese territory illegal.

Because the international consensus is that those laws are keeping those people alive, without being forcibly assimilated and decimated by the likes of measles.

If a country has a law that you can’t pass through their territory to attempt genocide on a vulnerable people, I don’t think anyone should spend a lot of time arguing against it.

Laws are unjust when they diminish human rights, not when they, in the main, support them.

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I agree. I’m Jewish, and we have blessings for different types of foods. I came up with one for non-kosher food, which is “Blessed are you G-d, Lord of all creation, look, a monkey!”

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He died because he was brainwashed into doing something rather douchebaggy.

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I’m not sure that satisfaction or sympathy are the only choices, to be fair.

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Didn’t mean to sound like I was in any way rebuking your sadness. Just wanted in expressing my not sharing it, at least not much, in this situation, to be clear that I derive no satisfaction in his death. So, no good grumpy cat from me, but also no tears for the late missionary.

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Shame for the state of humanity comes to mind.

He was religiously radicalized, and taught by many different people that you can “help” people even as you cause your own or other’s deaths.

He wasn’t on a suicide mission, but he was absolutely okay if other people died, or if he died. He was completely comfortable and supportive of the idea of being a martyr, (even if he might not have thought of choosing it first). He shares some of the responsibility for ignoring the easily learned lessons of the genocidal history he knew. Other people share responsibility for teaching him that religion was served by risking people’s lives avoidably.

Religion isn’t “I’ll go to a crowded place and throw a knife in the air and God will tell me who He wants to live.” That, in essence, was what he was doing.

He then rationalised his actions the same as any other religious fundamentalist that causes unnecessary human loss, looks like. It’s a waste of human potential, but it’s still a tragedy caused by fatally mistaken people.

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ah yes… @ 5:20 the obvious leader of the clan displays the universal sign of peace.

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Read the BBS rules.

Don’t claim that John Allen Chau (or anyone else) was mentally ill, unless you have proof that they had been diagnosed with a mental illness by a psychiatrist who has assessed them in person.

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I have not read the article, so I don’t know if this issue was even raised, but the contact they had with his corpse may already result in a genocide. If they picked up any pathogens handling his corpse, they could all well be dead within a few years or less. To me, that is the saddest thing about the whole affair. One hubristic fundamentalist is all it takes.

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Just to be pedantic, genocide requires one to deliberately kill off a large group of people.

Fortunately something like small pox has been eradicated and the worst diseases that lead to epidemics have been largely contained, so it is unlikely he was in contact with them.

Something simple like a cold virus even an isolated group should fight off fine. They still have immune systems, and probably fairly robust as they have to deal with a lot more bacteria and parasites than the average person does today.

If you’re going to be pedantic, get it right. Genocide is about destroying a people or a people’s culture. It doesn’t need some magically perfect intent. This guy was knowingly risking genocide, because he educated himself about the other genocidal incidents that happened to many of the surrounding groups, because of people acting identical to his plans. He just thought God would give him a personal miracle, or that everyone would be happier in heaven.

Ignorant. Completely ignorant. Please read about the dangers of the most basic flus on remote people. It doesn’t matter what their immune systems deal with locally, it’s the introduction of strains they haven’t encountered.

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WHITEY: since you are an ignorant heathen we can take your land

INDIGENOUS PEOPLE: OK, OK, we’re Christian, we’re Christian, praise Jesus!

WHITEY: since you’re one of us now we can take your land

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