[Modernjan]

This idea once struck me after watching an episode of Star Trek TNG where there was a planet where the few remaining tribal societies (such as Native Americans) from Earth had moved to to be left alone and exist parallel to mainstream society. While they never called it a relief valve I thought to myself it could work that way for a modern society.

Considering that a hunter-gatherer society provides the best standard of living second only to that of a modern society with andvanced healthcare an abundance of food, it should be worth considering to be allowed to exist in parallel. In addition they could prove to be a valuable genetic bank because they can maintain and increase humanity's natural immunity against a range of (tropical) diseases.

Face it, our modern society grants a comfortable lifestyle to most but it comes at a huge price for the average citizen: having to follow a multiple year vocational or college/university education, getting up ridiculously early 5 or 6 days a week (tell me who's idea it was that most jobs should begin at the crack of dawn, so I can piss on his grave), being stuck in a traffic jam for one or two hours per day, working a job you hate for 40-60 hours a week, the temptation of drugs and unhealthy food, the pressure of having to pay bills, dealing with crime, etc... part of the population is not cut out for this (because of upbringing, experiences, genetics, or a combination of these) and fall prey to a life of crime, addictions or chronic unemployment (and end up being miserable and costing society a lot of resources).

Wouldn't it be better to have protected parallel hunter gatherer societies in remote parts of the world take in the misfits of modern society (with permission from all parties involved of course)? These could be based around existing ancient societies to prevent the formation of scary cults and make sure there is someone to teach the new arrivals how to survive in their new environment.

The only reminders of modern society these people would have would be free clinics and primary and secondary education for their children with education and healthcare for tribal children being paid for by the governments of modern society because the children didn't choose to be born outside of modern society and should have the opportunity to join modern society when they turn 18, and healthcare for tribal adults being paid for by a fund that collects the proceeds of certain tribal activities (guiding tourists, collecting medicinal plants for pharmaceutical companies, taking in people who would otherwise end up in jail or rehab, donations from new members who give up their Earthly possessions (a requirement to keep rich people from living it up on pristine tribal land) and decide to give part of it to the tribal fund, in addition the fund should be an official charity).

So is this a good idea (from an ethical/social sciences point of view, I don't want this to become a discussion about the legal difficulties of letting French misfits move to a tribe in Brazilian territory)?

[U184]

I would say yes, yes we as a large advanced civilization should hold off on contaminating other cultures. Lets face it though, most cultures WANT to be contaminated.

The questions really become:
1. Is an advanced culture responsible for those who have not reached the same level?
2. Is there greater good in leaving them to their own resources, or should they be allowed to benefit from said advancements?
3. Is the world being deprived of new advancements by interfering with the new and diverse growth that advancing cultures represent?

I think it is a bit of all of the above, but I mostly think that #3 should be considered the most important. IMO any interference should be offered as basic medical and health services and helping to educate the populace in question, while interfering as little as possible in any other ways.

[Eran]

Face it, our modern society grants a comfortable lifestyle to most but it comes at a huge price for the average citizen

I am not sure I agree. The lifestyle you describe is chosen by most people who want to maintain a standard of living common in the modern world, and far exceeding that available to hunter-gatherer societies.

A person could choose to work much less, as long as the standard of living is comparably reduced. For example, you could move to a rural area, work as an occasional farm-hand, sleep under the wide open skies, refrain from using modern medicine, and consume primarily vegetables, supplemented with the occasional rabbit or wild bird for meat.

You would work no more than the average hunter-gatherer did, and enjoy a comparable or higher standard of living.

Most people today, of course, would find sleeping under the wide skies night after night unacceptable, and would be willing to work harder to provide themselves and their families with a roof. But that's their choice.

[ness31]

I'm hangin' with the savages.

[Modernjan]

I am not sure I agree. The lifestyle you describe is chosen by most people who want to maintain a standard of living common in the modern world, and far exceeding that available to hunter-gatherer societies.

A person could choose to work much less, as long as the standard of living is comparably reduced. For example, you could move to a rural area, work as an occasional farm-hand, sleep under the wide open skies, refrain from using modern medicine, and consume primarily vegetables, supplemented with the occasional rabbit or wild bird for meat.

You would work no more than the average hunter-gatherer did, and enjoy a comparable or higher standard of living.

Most people today, of course, would find sleeping under the wide skies night after night unacceptable, and would be willing to work harder to provide themselves and their families with a roof. But that's their choice.

I don't think many people to choose their lifestyle and that was the whole point. You can't really live off the land in most modern nations because all of the land has been developed one way or another. You'd be hard pressed to find pristine hunting/gathering areas, clean drinking water or just enough space to roam without tresspassing in Denmark or Hong Kong and child protective services would take your children away because your lifestyle is not recognized and is therefore not supported through specialized education and healthcare.

[Rei Murasame]

This topic wasn't about what I thought it was going to be about.

At any rate, I will still say it. A solution to the psycho-social problem that you are talking about has already been proposed without having to run a parallel society of backward savages alongside liberalism.

The conveniences of modern society are not the problem, the problem is individualism and liberal ideology in general. And when I say 'liberal ideology', I am referring to basically any iteration of it, including the iteration that presumes to describe itself as 'conservative'.

Begin solving the problem by progressively sublating (and thus effectively 'abolishing') liberalism.

Warning, Third Position preaching beyond this line:
----------------------------------------------------------------

Liberal freedom thus supposes that individuals can be abstracted from their origins, their environment, the context in which they live and where they exercise their choices, from everything, that is., that makes them who they are, and not someone else. It supposes, in other words, as John Rawls says, that the individual is always prior to his ends. Nothing, however, proves that the individual can apprehend himself as a subject free of any allegiance, free of any determinism. Moreover, nothing proves that in all circumstances he will prefer freedom over every other good. Such a conception by definition ignores commitments and attachment that owe nothing to rational calculation. It is a purely formal conception, that makes it impossible to understand what a real person is.

Is it little wonder that people feel a bit uncomfortable? People can't be expected to live like that forever.

People are frustrated because they want to live in a community, but liberalism keeps stealing it from them. The random manifestations of people acting non-rationally in inappropriate ways comes from the fact that they've been alienated from themselves and from the land, and they have not been presented with any idea for a unity of purpose or any ritual in which they can act out their allegiance to that purpose.

The solution to that is not to regress to the stone age but actually to please stop being liberal-capitalists.

Pearson does not use the exact phrase 'group selection', but does use the terms 'intra-group selection' and 'extra-group selection'. Intra-group selection is selection within a group resulting from competition between its members. Extra-group selection (meaning literally outside-group selection) could mean selection between individual members of different groups, but it is clear from the context that Pearson intended it to mean primarily selection between groups as a whole. Pearson regarded himself as a socialist as well as a good Darwinian, and was keen to rebut claims that socialism was incompatible with natural selection. Pearson argued that as human society becomes more advanced, competition and selection within groups becomes less important, as it gives way to co-operation and collective action, whereas competition and selection between groups (tribes, nations or races) becomes even stronger.

These early writers on group selection seldom gave much attention to the problem raised, but not solved, by Charles Darwin in the Descent of Man: if the qualities promoting group success, such as co-operation and self-sacrifice, conflict with individual success within the group, how is the conflict resolved? Bernard Bosanquet's essay does however at least address the problem. His answer is essentially that there is no conflict. As society evolves, it creates a new selective environment for individuals, and this favours co-operation: 'the struggle for existence has, in short, become a struggle for a place in the community; and these places are reserved for those individuals which in the highest degree possess the co-operative qualities demanded by circumstances' (p.294).

Okay, so we should acknowledge that the rationalisation of the economy was an inevitable product of technological advancement and take it one step further to the total rationalisation and planning of society as a whole.

But for what purpose? The 'tribal' purpose, of course:

The state has to act in the interests of those who came before them, those who are presently alive, and those who will come after them. This is so that we can safeguard our existence as a distinct people forever, and along the way possibly discover the Reason that lies behind our existence and explore the unexplained laws of nature and the special powers latent in humans.

And to dispel the Terror of History:

In the homogeneous and infinite expanse, in which no point of reference is possible and hence no orientation is established, the hierophany [appearance of the Sacred] reveals an absolute fixed point [Sacred Space], a centre. [...] The manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world.

In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythic hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time [Eternal Return].

But of course all religions are not equal, that word 'sacred' is not used lightly, it it not a synonym for 'holy', it is its deliberate opposite:

The sacred involves unconditional respect for something; yet monotheism, in a literal sense, outlaws such respect, placing it outside the Law. For Heidegger, the sacred, das Heilige, is quite distinct from traditional metaphysics and from the very idea of God. We say, to use an antimony favoured by Emmanuel Lévinas, that the sacred vests itself as a mystery in this world, that it is based on an intimacy between man and the world, in contrast to holiness, which relies on the radical transcendence of the Other. Paganism sacralises and thereby exalts this world, whereas Judeo-Christian monotheism sanctifies, and thereby deducts from and diminishes it.

Sacred spaces - and one need look no further than India or Japan to find fabulous examples of such shrines and groves and community areas - demarcate a planar rift, where stepping across the boundary into that sacralised zone appears to halt the profane time for whoever crosses it, because profane time cannot flow inside that space. Inside that space is sacred time, which is the suspended era, a sort of golden land, an era which is removed from history because it is the origin of it! Everything outside the sacred space ultimately should be embraced by and oriented around that centre. This is necessary to fix the problem.

So I think that's as much as I can think of to say on this at the moment. For those of you who might be reading this post and actually thinking, "Oh my goodness, I'm somehow agreeing with Murasame but she is scary", don't worry, Potemky-sensei has an explanation for that:

The majority of the population never really abandoned their pre-Enlightenment ideas regarding politics or social issues. However, they have been indoctrinated to regard certain master signifiers, such as 'communism' or 'fascism' as being 'evil', and therefore automatically reject any discourse governed by these master signifiers. This is why Communists or fascists often find it relatively easy to get ordinary people to agree with them on most things so long as they avoid those master signifiers. Bourgeois liberalism actually has rather shallow roots, despite its pervasive nature in modern society.

[Modernjan]

@Rei Murasame

Yeah, about that... I was kinda going for a solution that would not destroy capitalism (because no one seems to have a viable alternative for it) or modern, secular society (which is necessary to maintain medical advances and protect the hunter-gatherer societies from say, asteroid impacts).

P.S. why do you call them "backward savages"? Because they use less technology than us?

[Sungazer]

I agree with and would support OP's notion.
It's actually pretty much what my own political position is about.

[Rei Murasame]

I was kinda going for a solution that would not destroy capitalism (because no one seems to have a viable alternative for it)

I didn't know that we were running short on alternatives these days.

or modern, secular society (which is necessary to maintain medical advances and protect the hunter-gatherer societies from say, asteroid impacts).

Depends on how you want to define secular. Besides, the whole point of my post was not to have a hunter-gatherer society at all, and to remain 'modern' and technological. Unless you are assuming for some reason that any form of religiosity will destroy science?

[Dr House]

Most of this proposition is inane. Allowing native ethnic groups land to live as hunter-gatherers is fine, but funding a completely alien outgroup, for no greater benefit to society, and allowing them to use Western education to set up a parallel (and parasitic) society, is completely assfuck retarded.

[U184]

^Why be so specific? Apply the same arguments to 2nd and 3rd world Countries.

[Dr House]

^Why be so specific? Apply the same arguments to 2nd and 3rd world Countries.

Same shit. There's no reason for the ingroup to fund an alien outgroup for no return of investment.

[Sungazer]

Wouldn't cost much, apart from giving them land and keeping people from pestering them. Perhaps some minor subsidies to volunteers willing to establish themselves in such an alternate society. The return in investment would be diversity; which does - contrary to the notion of beneficial homogeneity - carry biological and cultural advantages. Furthermore, malcontents may opt to switch societies instead of mucking things up for their fellow "crime-free citizens".

[Modernjan]

Most of this proposition is inane. Allowing native ethnic groups land to live as hunter-gatherers is fine, but funding a completely alien outgroup, for no greater benefit to society, and allowing them to use Western education to set up a parallel (and parasitic) society, is completely assfuck retarded.

There would be benefits, as I explained. The modern societies would have reduced crime, unemployment and addiction rates (all of which save governments money) and the hunter-gatherers would preserve key genes for humanity. In addition humanities ecological footprint would be reduced a bit.

As I also explained some of the hunter-gatherer children would choose to join modern society and get a job, so their education has not been wasted. Medical care is a human right so you can't call it a waste no matter what and it would be partially funded through money the hunter-gatherers make off eco-tourism, donations and selling medicinal plants to modern society.

[Modernjan]

I was kinda going for a solution that would not destroy capitalism (because no one seems to have a viable alternative for it)

I didn't know that we were running short on alternatives these days.[/quote]

We have plenty of alternatives, just no viable ones... Except for the hunter-gatherer society but that could never sustain 7 billion people.

[Eran]

You can't really live off the land in most modern nations because all of the land has been developed one way or another

I didn't suggest you can live off the land. I suggested you can find a lifestyle that would be superior to hunter-gatherer life in two ways:
1. You wouldn't have to work quite as hard, and
2. You would enjoy a higher standard of living.

I suggested taking occasional employment as a farm-hand, and sleeping under the sky, eating primarily vegetables (perhaps with the occasional hare or chicken).

My point is that replicating hunter-gatherer standard of living is extremely cheap, but would be totally unacceptable to modern people.

[Dr House]

There would be benefits, as I explained. The modern societies would have reduced crime, unemployment and addiction rates (all of which save governments money) and the hunter-gatherers would preserve key genes for humanity.

If that's the problem you're trying to solve, apartheid is probably cheaper and more effective.

[Modernjan]

I didn't suggest you can live off the land. I suggested you can find a lifestyle that would be superior to hunter-gatherer life in two ways:
1. You wouldn't have to work quite as hard, and
2. You would enjoy a higher standard of living.

I suggested taking occasional employment as a farm-hand, and sleeping under the sky, eating primarily vegetables (perhaps with the occasional hare or chicken).

My point is that replicating hunter-gatherer standard of living is extremely cheap, but would be totally unacceptable to modern people.

It is a fundamental misunderstanding that living like you describe would yield a higher standard of living and cost less work than being a hunter-gatherer. They only work 3-6 hours per day, that includes commuting and they spend much less time on cooking, maintenance and cleaning as well. They've had it better than us "civilized" folks until we invented worker's rights, hygiene and modern medicine in the early 20th century and in many ways they are still better off. So an 18th century lifestyle would not be better.

[Eran]

But their standard of living was abysmal. They had no houses, heating (other than open fires) or cooling. They didn't have clothes in the modern sense (wearing animal skins or plant stuff). They had a very narrow diet, again of a quality that would be considered unacceptable today.

Working 3-6 hours today, a person could easily earn enough money to pay for such minimal standard of living.

[Rei Murasame]

We have plenty of alternatives, just no viable ones...

Well, you are pinning yourself into that corner by your own hand then, when you claim that there is no viable alternative to liberal-capitalism. What leads you to believe that there is no viable alternative?