# Idiot missionary gets killed
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [November 21, 2018, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892 "2018-11-21T14:07:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 13
### Author:  [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2018, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/241 "2018-11-26T23:47:00Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> While I’m happy to acknowledge having shamelessly snipped this from your post, and will even cop to it being a bit of a dirty trick, nothing I snipped would change the naked meaning of this sentence had I NOT snipped it; therefore, it feels like a small triumph to see someone with your posting history submit it.
>
> It doesn’t exactly rise to the level of an assertion that an equitable distribution would be a good thing, but it’s a start. 😃
That shows a fundamental misunderstanding between the leftist POV and the hardcore capitalist (like myself) POV, real capitalists know and ought be honest that the system creates winners and losers, inequity is intrinsic to making the wheels of the system turn. Even a fairly hardcore capitalist might be in favor of poverty alleviation, but we’re not going to advocate for true equity where Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have exactly as much resources as me or you, as we believe that would destroy incentives that make the system function.
Or shorter version–we don’t view inequity as intrinsically bad.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2018, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/242 "2018-11-27T00:31:40Z")
I just looked up the island on Google Maps. It has a copyright trap labeled “Happy Sentinelese Spa”. Not good taste there.
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2018, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/243 "2018-11-27T01:21:44Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> Plenty of societies have stockpiles of “rare resources” that aren’t guarded. **In fact in the United States a large portion of stockpiled goods are not guarded at all.**
I’m trying to figure out what you’re referring to with this statement. Are you talking about agricultural commodities? Bulk food? Manufactured products?
Can you provide an example to back up this claim?
---
### Author:  [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2018, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/244 "2018-11-27T01:27:58Z")
> [@TruCelt](#):
>
> . . . Nobody has the slightest idea about any of that. The official guesstimates of the population are anywhere from 50-500 people.
> . . .
> What little evidence we have indicates that they are doing a fine job of getting along without us.
> . . .
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> I love when someone makes a post like this and in so doing spreads misinformation of their own. The official estimates of their population have varied over time, . . .the upper end of that range suggesting it could be as high as 500 people is based on contact and survey from many decades ago.
> . . .
> you trying to apply analysis to a few frames of video and extrapolate it to an entire tribal culture is just as bad–if not worse, and frankly pretty stupid.
> . . .
> Again, an assumption based on only a small amount of evidence
> . . .
> Medical diagnosis via brief video clip at a distance is…fucking stupid?
> . . .
> Actually what little evidence we have suggests. . . It is **little evidence** , so we should afford it a low confidence value . . .
I would refer you back to my comments. I acknowledged both that there was very little evidence available, and that nobody can possibly know the full truth.
Choosing to ignore those qualifiers and then calling the resulting comments stupid is, well . . . made even more interesting when you then mirror the qualifier “what little evidence.”
I’ll also just note that I mentioned the range of official “guesstimates” for their numbers. One might notice that a “guesstimate” implies even less certainty than an “estimate” mightn’t one? Here again you have crossed out the qualifier and called the result stupid, then acknowledged that you yourself found an estimate that high, though less recent.
In short, your assessment of my intelligence seems to say very little about _me_.
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2018, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/245 "2018-11-27T01:30:29Z")
> [@Railer13](#):
>
> I’m trying to figure out what you’re referring to with this statement. Are you talking about agricultural commodities? Bulk food? Manufactured products?
>
> Can you provide an example to back up this claim?
I hear we’ve got stockpiles of cheese. If most of it is “government cheese”, I can see why it wouldn’t be guarded.
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2018, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/246 "2018-11-27T01:39:42Z")
> [@Yllaria](#):
>
> I hear we’ve got stockpiles of cheese. If most of it is “government cheese”, I can see why it wouldn’t be guarded.
Out here in farm country, there are shit-tons of wheat, corn, and other grains in elevators and bins which are unguarded. There are also thousands (millions?) of head of livestock in feedlots and pastures that aren’t guarded.
However, I would not recommend pulling your truck into an unguarded pasture and attempting to pilfer some of those cows.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2018, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/247 "2018-11-27T14:41:59Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> That shows a fundamental misunderstanding between the leftist POV and the hardcore capitalist (like myself) POV, real capitalists know and ought be honest that the system creates winners and losers, inequity is intrinsic to making the wheels of the system turn. Even a fairly hardcore capitalist might be in favor of poverty alleviation, but we’re not going to advocate for true equity where Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have exactly as much resources as me or you, as we believe that would destroy incentives that make the system function.
>
> Or shorter version–we don’t view inequity as intrinsically bad.
I think you are confusing equity (fair) with equality (the same)
---
### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2018, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/248 "2018-11-27T14:44:12Z")
[quote=“Measure\_for\_Measure, post:225, topic:824892”]
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> I poke around the internet earlier today. International Christian Concern says he wasn’t a formal part of their group. Beyond that, it’s murky. Chau was able to charter a boat after all; my guess is that he had the support of some religious operation.
I am now reading that he might have been associated with All Nations (whatever that is, but I assume its got something to do with mission work and the great commission)
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2018, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/249 "2018-11-27T16:33:04Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> …but we’re not going to advocate for true equity where Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have exactly as much resources as me or you, as we believe that would destroy incentives that make the system function.
Please provide an example where somebody, anybody, has advocated a position that everybody in this country should have the same net worth.
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> In fact in the United States a large portion of stockpiled goods are not guarded at all.
And I’m still waiting for an explanation or example of what you meant by this statement.
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### Author:  [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2018, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/250 "2018-11-27T16:54:58Z")
> [@Railer13](#):
>
> I’m trying to figure out what you’re referring to with this statement. Are you talking about agricultural commodities? Bulk food? Manufactured products?
>
> Can you provide an example to back up this claim?
I mean think about your local environment where you live. Tons of people leave valuables out in their yards that aren’t guarded, people go on vacation and leave bikes outside. Farmers frequently bale hale and leave the bales in their fields for a long time unguarded. Livestock is frequently unguarded. Most food and cash crops are not guarded at all.
Depending on how we define “guard” (i.e. if a basic security system counts as guarding or not) the vast majority of businesses leave their premises unattended and unguarded every single day. There’s a huge amount of construction and industrial valuables that are left mostly unguarded. One reason copper theft got so popular is exposed copper pipes were frequently in semi-deconstructed houses that weren’t watched or guarded at all.
A lot of things in our society there’s a predicate understanding people shouldn’t steal them, and that frequently is all that’s required to protect them. There are thieves who work on the margins and exploit that fact. But the unguarded nature of things isn’t a prioi proof of “equitable distribution of resources” in our society. We have societal norms against stealing that factor into it, for example. We don’t know how Sentinelese society is ordered who or really gets to control the tribe’s resources. They could be very egalitarian, but they may not be.
> [@Railer13](#):
>
> Please provide an example where somebody, anybody, has advocated a position that everybody in this country should have the same net worth.
I don’t see where I ever made the claim anyone was advocating that.
> [@](#):
>
> And I’m still waiting for an explanation or example of what you meant by this statement.
Well sonny it’s a message board, a day or so for me to check back in isn’t that unreasonable–and other people have already provided examples in my absence. The idea that creating a pile of “valuable resources” that is left unguarded on an island where only members of a small tribe live (and that kill outsiders, so unguarded is actually questionable) is evidence of anything just isn’t true. Drive around any part of America and actually pay attention to your surroundings and you’ll see all kinds of things equivalent in value to hunter-gatherer foraged commodities being left out in unguarded heaps.
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2018, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/251 "2018-11-27T17:32:17Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> I think you are confusing equity (fair) with equality (the same)
No, I don’t agree. Even communism never advocated that people should get _equal_ amounts, it advocated that they should be allocated resources according to their needs - i.e. (in some sense) equitably, not equally. Capitalism does not advocate either equal _or_ equitable allocation of many resources.
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2018, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/252 "2018-11-27T18:49:03Z")
Well, dude, you said:
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> Plenty of societies have stockpiles of “rare resources” that aren’t guarded. In fact in the United States a large portion of stockpiled goods are not guarded at all.
I was asking where these unguarded stockpiled goods might exist, and I was expecting an example of ‘rare resources’. Instead, you gave examples of bicycles, bales of ‘hale’, and livestock. I don’t consider farmers storing products or managing livestock as being stockpiled. Neither are bicycles in backyards.
Then I asked where anybody has advocated a position that everybody in this country should have the same net worth. You responded by saying
> [@](#):
>
> I don’t see where I ever made the claim anyone was advocating that.
But in this post, you stated:
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> we’re not going to advocate for true equity where Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have exactly as much resources as me or you
I asked where anybody has ever advocated that position. If nobody has, why even mention it?
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### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2018, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/253 "2018-11-28T16:13:34Z")
> [@TruCelt](#):
>
> Here is a[video of actual Sentinelese](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Gy2RJoMe4nQ)receiving coconuts from outsiders peacefully. If he had only done a youtube search before he went he’d have known how to begin a friendly encounter.
His encounters began somewhat friendly. Then they told him to leave, and he persisted in “declaring Jesus” at them, so they got more insistent that he leave. This lead to arrows and destruction of his canoe.
> [@](#):
>
> The amount of misinformation in this thread is alarming. This one knows that their numbers are declining, that one knows they -must- be practicing infanticide, another knows their maternal health statistics; no, you don’t. Nobody has the slightest idea about any of that. The official guesstimates of the population are anywhere from 50-500 people.
>
> As for the concerns about abuse, I invite you to review the video above. See how that woman wades into the water and gently guides a man back to the shore? That is the act of a person who is accustomed to gentle treatment of herself and others.
Where in this thread has someone mentioned infanticide or that the men abuse the women? The only abuse claims I saw were with respect to a white British guy who oversaw the region for a while in the late 1800s.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2018, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/254 "2018-11-28T16:38:22Z")
I was somewhat surprised to find that North Sentinel is not really that remote. It’s only about 15 miles as the crow flies from Port Blair, the largest city in the Andaman Islands, which has a population of 100,000. That’s about as far as Nantucket is from Cape Cod. While the Andamans themselves are off the beaten track, they have three times the population of the US Virgin Islands. It is very remarkable that the North Sentinelese have been able to maintain their isolation when they are so close to a population of that size.
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2018, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/255 "2018-11-28T17:36:56Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> That’s about as far as Nantucket is from Cape Cod.
People from Nantucket can be a bit wild, too. Although, according to an extensive body of literature, they tend to be lovers rather than fighters.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2018, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/256 "2018-11-28T18:06:31Z")
nm
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2018, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/257 "2018-11-28T18:09:05Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> I was somewhat surprised to find that North Sentinel is not really that remote. It’s only about 15 miles as the crow flies from Port Blair, the largest city in the Andaman Islands, which has a population of 100,000. That’s about as far as Nantucket is from Cape Cod. While the Andamans themselves are off the beaten track, they have three times the population of the US Virgin Islands. It is very remarkable that the North Sentinelese have been able to maintain their isolation when they are so close to a population of that size.
Yup, the Andamans have about 300,000 people.
And I say the North Sentinelese are in fact neither isolated nor uncontacted except in a technical sense and have not been for decades. They’ve been dealing with and fending off poachers, illegal fishermen, drug and arms smugglers for a long time with a mix of open hostility and hiding. How do I know that? Because the Andaman Islands attract such illegal activity and creeps know no borders. The rest is my conjecture.
Their foreign policy seems entirely reasonable to me.
Another plug for lengthy 2000 article in American Scholar: [The Last Island of the Savages - The American Scholar](https://theamericanscholar.org/the-last-island-of-the-savages/#.W_7ZhuKIaAc)
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2018, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/258 "2018-11-28T19:02:29Z")
> [@Riemann](#):
>
> People from Nantucket can be a bit wild, too. Although, according to an extensive body of literature, they tend to be lovers rather than fighters.
Whereas the peoples of Martha’s Vineyard are totally corrupted by modern society, and are no longer of interest to anthropologists. They might was well be mainlanders.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2018, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/259 "2018-11-28T19:28:35Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#):
>
> Eventually you’ll be dead too. Should people be able to trespass on your land and actually hasten your death by exposing you to diseases that you wouldn’t worry about had they not been trespassing?
You generally don’t get to kill people in most places just for trespassing on your land.
In seems strange to me that, “indigenous people” or not, that this is ok.
---
### Author:  [@Wilson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wilson)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2018, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/260 "2018-11-28T19:28:41Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> I was somewhat surprised to find that North Sentinel is not really that remote. It’s only about 15 miles as the crow flies from Port Blair, the largest city in the Andaman Islands, which has a population of 100,000. That’s about as far as Nantucket is from Cape Cod. While the Andamans themselves are off the beaten track, they have three times the population of the US Virgin Islands. It is very remarkable that the North Sentinelese have been able to maintain their isolation when they are so close to a population of that size.
While I agree it’s remarkable, there are a few things that help explain it -
Most of the population of the Andamans (including Port Blair) is on the eastern side of Great Andaman. The western side of Great Andaman is much less developed, in fact a significant part of the western shore opposite North Sentinel is where the Jarawa, the last tribe to be contacted on the main island, live. A lot of that is set off in a reserve for them.
And the islands directly to the east of North Sentinel are mostly a marine park, so they aren’t populated.
Whether (or more accurately, when) the Sentinelese ever had contact with the other Andamanese tribes, possibly before British settlement, I’m not sure. I don’t think the canoes the Sentinelese use now are open seaworthy, but obviously they got to the island somehow in the past…
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