
The Most Isolated Man on the Planet - grellas
http://www.slate.com/id/2264478/pagenum/all/
======
rmorrison
Let's track him down. Give him a computer. And finally get an unbiased
opinion: vim or emacs?

~~~
Groxx
Probably cats to a file.

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LiveTheDream
Probably uses a magnetized needle and a steady hand.

~~~
tkahn6
Nah. He definitely uses butterflies.

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Groxx
That _would_ explain all the tornados...

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Mz
Kudos to the Brazilian government:

 _Advanced societies invariably have subsumed whatever indigenous populations
they've encountered, determining those tribes' fates for them. But Brazil is
in the middle of an experiment. If peaceful contact is established with the
lone Indian, they want it to be his choice. They've dubbed this the "Policy of
No Contact." After years of often-tragic attempts to assimilate into modern
life the people who still inhabit the few remaining wild places on the planet,
the policy is a step in a totally different direction. The case of the lone
Indian represents its most challenging test._

~~~
LiveTheDream
Sounds like the Prime Directive

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philwelch
Perhaps not quite as extreme. I'm sure this guy can venture to the edges of
the territory preserved to him and observe the outside world, or at least see
airplanes flying above him.

In fact, it sounds less like the Prime Directive and more like a type of basic
respect--if the man wants to be left alone and seems to be leaving us alone,
then live and let live.

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sprout
The curious thing about the Amazonian peoples is that a lot of them are
refugees on the run. We don't really know a lot about what the continent
looked like before the European conquest because most of the indigenous
peoples were slaughtered or integrated into Spanish/Portuguese society as
slaves.

So there's actually a lot of evidence that these hyper-insular tribes are
products of the conquest, and did not have this extreme a society before
Europeans arrived. In some ways, this man might be the last remnant of a
hodgepodge guerrilla army of sorts that has been fighting a losing battle for
centuries.

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jseliger
Do you have any evidence / citations for this idea? I've never heard of it,
even in articles like 1491 from the Atlantic:
<http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2002/03/mann.htm> .

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philwelch
The same author has a book, also titled _1491_ , which apparently goes into
many of these issues. It's been on my to-read list for awhile.

~~~
sprout
In addition I'd just say read up on Latin American history in general. Slavers
and missionaries worked all over the continent for centuries. It's hard to
imagine that any society survived unchanged in that environment, especially as
new societies were built up.

And when I say guerrilla army I'm being more figurative than literal. It seems
fairly obvious there wasn't a serious power structure in place outside of the
Andes, but I think that it's definitely true that the cultures we see today do
not look much at all like the pre-colonial Amazonian culture.

~~~
alabut
I've heard similar descriptions of the aboriginal people of Australia - they
only have their tribal grounds in the bush because the prime real estate they
used to inhabit is taken.

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DanielBMarkham
And yet we still wonder about the Fermi Paradox.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox>

~~~
exit
i don't think a parallel to this mans situation can go very far.

we aren't reluctant to make contact with aliens the way he is reluctant to
contact us. we wouldn't appreciate being "preserved" the way indigenous tribes
would prefer to perpetuate their traditions.

assuming aliens capable of contacting are us out there, i think the likeliest
explanation for the fermi paradox is complete disinterest. their relation to
us is more like our relation to inanimate matter than our relation to this
fellow human.

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joe_the_user
Maybe...

But it's also possible that we simply could not conceive of the kind of
transformation which the alien contact would bring about. Lots of native
tribes were actually eager to contact European explorers but had no idea that
it would lead to the more or less complete destruction of their culture. There
might be an analogy in contact with aliens but an analogy which are simply
incapable of even understanding, despite belief that we are the most advanced
thing around.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
It's also possible that we were not alive and/or could not have understood the
"howdy" when it occurred. We are but a primitive species. To think that
somehow in the last 1000 years or so somebody must have made contact in a way
we could understand -- or there is nobody -- is really pretty arrogant.

~~~
palish
How about accepting the apparent fact that we are completely alone, instead of
trying to satiate our immense egos with fantasies about why someone else would
possibly want to ignore something _so important_ as the human race?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Why would my ego be satiated by possible beings who have no interest in me?

~~~
WildUtah
_Why would my ego be satiated by possible beings who have no interest in me?_

I mean, it sure doesn't work with girls.

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ggchappell
FYI: The story of the "Lone Woman of San Nicolas", mentioned in the 5th
paragraph of the article, is dramatized in the novel _Island of the Blue
Dolphins_.

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bootload
_"... The story of the "Lone Woman of San Nicolas", mentioned in the 5th
paragraph of the article, is dramatized in the novel Island of the Blue
Dolphins. ..."_

Saw this film as a kid, pretty powerful as I remember quite a bit ~
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_the_Blue_Dolphins>

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steve19
Some documentary makers briefly filmed him:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOdCiuf5tvY>

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rokhayakebe
Can you truly imagine what his life is like if he believes he is the last man
on earth? You must be really strong to live through it.

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oz
Why would he believe that? They've tried to contact him before.

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sophacles
Why would he necessarily think those who have tried to contact him are people?
He could think only he and his tribe are people and the others are:

1\. aliens 2\. demons 3\. spirits 4\. some animal 5\. lesser humans 6\. and so
on

Numbers 2,3 and 5 are not too far fetched. Heck even in the 20th and 21st
century there are modern cultures that think this way. Racism is really all
about #5. Various fundamentalist religions have a tendency to think in terms
of demons and spirits.

It is a completely valid hypothesis that he believes he is the last man on
earth or the last 'real man' or whatever.

~~~
oz
Hmmm, I never thought of that. Good point.

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ljegou
Perhaps a scale could be useful on the zoomed map... It's isolation, so
distance, that we are talking about.

(A grumpy cartographer).

~~~
euccastro
Isolation is not about distance. The man this article refers to is more
isolated from other humans than, for example, any of the first astronauts that
were put alone in orbit.

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quickpost
This dude had a pretty impressive run of self imposed isolation:

An Island to Oneself

<http://www.janesoceania.com/suvarov_tom_neale/>

~~~
jcl
It's also reminiscent of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier in WWII who was
commanded to carry out guerrilla tactics in the Philippine jungle. Believing
reports of the war's end to be an Allied deception, he continued to attack and
raid the locals for thirty years.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda>

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cetico
FYI, related story with video footage:
[http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2007/07/m...](http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2007/07/man-
of-hole.html)

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whatwhatwhat
I disliked the way the reporter kept calling the man an Indian

It almost made me want to stop reading, but the story is quite interesting. I
wonder what the 5 foot deep pits he digs are really for. Pit fall traps
for.... vehicles?

~~~
philwelch
Edit: Now with citations!

Many indigenous Americans prefer "Indian" to "Native American". "Native
American" is a term invented by white people to make themselves feel better,
by and large.

"American Indian" is the preferred term if you need to distinguish from the
people of India.

"Charles C. Mann noted in his 2005 book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas
Before Columbus that "every native person whom I have met (I think without
exception) has used 'Indian' rather than 'Native American'."[17] Russell
Means, an activist in the American Indian Movement, said in 1998, "I abhor the
term Native American...I prefer the term American Indian because I know its
origins."[4][17]"

"Many of those who are covered by the term strongly prefer "American Indian"
over "Native American".[21][22] According to the US Census Bureau, as of 1995
50% preferred "American Indian", 37% "Native American", and the remainder
preferred other terms or had no preference.[23]"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_name_controvers...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_name_controversy)

~~~
whatwhatwhat
"every native person whom I have met (I think without exception) has used
'Indian' rather than 'Native American'."

I grew up in Nebraska and I went to primary school with a number of Native
Americans. It was considered very disrespectful to refer to them as Indians.

The Native Americans I grew up with would not put up with people calling them
indians, engens, or anything similar. If you really want to respect a native
(a real one, not just one with native ancestors) then don't stereotype them by
calling them anything other than their actual name.

If you must refer to them by race you call them by the name which they give
you which is going to be their tribe name and not some 500 year old archaic
misunderstanding of the people on earth. Or if you want to be safe you can
always call them natives, because the definition actual fits.

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wallflower
"City life is millions of people being lonesome together"

-Henry David Thoreau

"Is Urban Loneliness a Myth?"

<http://nymag.com/news/features/52450/>

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iterationx
I doubt this is the case from my Wikipedia reading,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_people>

On January 18, 2007, FUNAI reported that it had confirmed the presence of 67
uncontacted tribes

So in the last three years they contacted everybody in those 67 tribes but
this one guy? Possible, but it seems unlikely.

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ahi
Presumably the 67 tribes have more than one person in them.

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whatwhatwhat
here is some video of the guy

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOdCiuf5tvY&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOdCiuf5tvY&feature=channel)

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lecha
Wait. You mean the guy is NOT on Facebook?

