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The best we could do for them would be to give them XOs and a satellite Internet connection along with a linguist, but no easy transport out.

Consider this: you are a part of a group of people suddenly whisked 10,000 years into the future. Not only are all of your skills obsolete, but you find yourself struggling to cope in a radically alien culture. To pick up on an idea you mentioned, imagine that this future society is inhabited by Fundamentalist Christians. Who practice ritualized child abuse. And exhibit countless other peculiarities that you find nonsensical, offensive, or undeniably unsafe. You can’t ignore these things because you have to live in their world, not yours, & if you insist on doing things in the way you believe is normal (say, make breakfast or read a book), the future people are likely to call their equivalent of the police to make you stop. In the end, you’d find yourself self-medicating & possibly struggling with substance abuse problems — just as countless other contacted people struggle with drug & alcohol addiction.

That is the potential situation these uncontacted people are in. The best short term solution is to leave them alone. Although you believe they might be better off over the long term integrated into our society, they might not survive long enough to have a long term. And besides, over the long term we are all dead.

Geoff

While it’s certainly the case that some evangelicals routinely fail to show interest in the well-being of those they proselytize to, it is profoundly insulting for you to tar all evangelicals with that broad brush. I have known many evangelicals who give glory to God by selflessly helping those in need without expectation even that the recipient will convert or worship. A friend of a friend was given the money for the security deposit on an apartment by an evangelical Christian who asked nothing of her in return…. no expectation of going to church, or to accept Jesus, or anything.

“By their works you will know them.” Much good is done by Christians in pursuit of their faith; please do not diminish their altruism because it is motivated by beliefs you don’t agree with.

The spread of diseases across a galaxy of human planets is an interesting subject to consider. Each (mostly) isolated population, along with its unique environmental conditions, would evolve its own unique set of diseases very rapidly. I guess our best hope is that, by the time we are capable of colonizing other planets, our medicine will have evolved to the point where it’s capable of dealing with all sorts of diseases. I’m envisioning nanobots running through your bloodstream programmed to take out anything foreign. And then, when you arrive at a new planet, but before docking, download the data on all of their diseases and program your nanobots with exactly what to watch out for.

You know, this wouldn’t be a terrible scifi story.

Let’s hope there are still a few cannibalistic tribes left.

On a more serious note: I like your point about the risk of disease spreading and creation of a de facto second “Columbian Exchange”. If it is to be done–which seems inevitable–it should be done with the help of modern medicine.

Deep thought: In the future if humanity colonizes other planets, will the Human population become so segmented that a human from one planet can’t visit another human from a distant planet because of a deficiency in immunity? If so, do uncontacted tribes present an unparelleled opportunity for scientist and doctors to study how to merge segmented societies and deal with different immunities?

It’s not just “up to one half” that usually die during contact — in some cases it’s been everyone. Annihilation. Or genocide.

It’s not a question of them “not being able to handle it”. In reality, these peoples have mostly, if not always, had some contact in the past – for example during the rubber boom of the 19th Century. Their negative experiences have led them to *choose* not to have contact. This much we can tell from those other tribal peoples who have been contacted by outsiders (and survived to talk about it).

The real choice we can offer them is to protect their lands and *allow them* to decide when to make contact. They’re not living in some pristine isolation oblivious to the outside world — most often they’re on the run from ranchers, loggers and oil exploration teams. It’s pretty trivial for them to make contact if they want to. And maybe they will – but this must happen on their terms, not ours.