But if a man is jumping of a cliff because he thinks he can fly, you should not respect his 'NO' when trying to catch him.

Your serious argument is one of the little valid points raised so far. And I agree, we might not be in a position to help them now. But the statements that even if we could bring them to our society in a humane manner we still shouldn't, because they're clearly fine as they are... That just disgusts me.

They're not jumping off a cliff. They've been doing fine (insofar as they're surviving with a small population) for some 60 thousand years. First contact alone will probably kill them with diseases (a well-documented phenomenon).

More akin to a guy standing on a ledge of a cliff, albeit precarious but doing fine; if you try to help him, he'll probably fall and die fast. He knows this, and he's telling you to stay the he11 away.

That said, I am sympathetic with your basic view. Les Stroud's Beyond Survival was fascinating, but the recurring theme of "and this ancient people is about to die out or lose their culture" struck me as "well, if doing stupid things[1] isn't survivable then maybe those ways should change, and the consequences of sticking to them are natural." The Sentinese however seem to be holding it together pretty well; not advancing, but living on what is otherwise a stereotypical tropical paradise island (food growing on trees, good climate, water), methinks they've achieved some form of comfortable equilibrium and are doing pretty well (I'm sure some here on HN are thinking "I'd like to join them").

Someone mentioned above "your 100 kids will leave the island, move to India, and become call center employees". That vs. where & how they're living now, I'm not so sure "bring[ing] them to our society in a humane manner" really is. Someday it will happen, someday modern life will crash into their ancient and stable culture, someday they will have to deal with new diseases and cell phones and high-speed transport, and "someday" probably isn't very long from now.

"But the kids need to do X and Y and Z!" my wife declares. "They're content and playing nicely with their toys and crayons," I'll reply. "Let them enjoy it a little longer."

[1] - the clincher was a tribe that fishes by dangling bare hooks in the ocean for hours while sitting on poles. I'm amazed that culture lasted so long. Yeah, they need some help.

It's not about their interests. It's about our interests of preserving that ancient culture for our research purposes.

I was going to say the same thing. Their scientific value as a primitive society preserved against all odds is something we will never see again. To destroy it on a whim would be akin to killing the last dodo for food.

Some type of hidden observation as in the movie Insurrection might be worthwhile though? Someone should ask the NSA, are they really comfortable with these people NOT being monitored constantly? They could be a terrorist threat?

Having the scientific value of their society trump the need of their people to have better health and livelihood seems a bit utilitarian to me.

Would they be better off with a desk job in some western city? That's likely out of grasp, as they would have no competitive skills compared to westerners that have trained for our economy for their whole lives. They would likely be wards of the state in a strange land, and so would their children.

Or, you know, they could live a life that makes them happy.

What about their grandchildren? They could get a good education, integrate into modern society and have the opportunity to live a way happier life than if they had stayed in the island.

> If a girl refuses to go out with you

I think you're unnecessarily conflating this with another topic entirely.

I think he made the point quite well. "No" means "no", and they're saying "no" pretty emphatically and consistently - and no amount of "but I'll make your life so much better" trumps that.

That isn't the point, he specifically likened the situation to asking out a girl; and "no means no" is an emotionally charged idiom, for that matter.

So "you should still respect her \"NO\"" - How is this relevant? He doesn't expand on why you should do this, so we can't link that logic to the situation and and, all we have is "You'd accept 'no' if you asked someone out, so you should also do so here", with no further reasoning on how the two are similar.

The adults are saying "no", the children just have to go along with that choice that was made for them. This is arguably a form of coercion because the children are being denied the opportunity to a better life.