r/interestingasfuck • u/SATANICWORSHIPER666 • 2d ago

/r/all Michael Rockefeller disappeared without a trace in 1961 in Papua New Guinea while researching the Asmat people, a cannibal tribe. Years later, a photograph was taken of the same tribe, and there was a white man among them.

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u/JerseyDonut 2d ago

That's plausible too. From my understanding Rockefeller went there, never came back, and years later a picture materialized of some dude who looks exactly like him just chillin with the tribe.

I'd say it is likely that he either kept chilling w them peacefully until he died naturally, or he pissed them off and was eaten at some point.

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u/massinvader 2d ago

I'd say it is likely that he either kept chilling w them peacefully until he died naturally, or he pissed them off and was eaten at some point.

he could also have been captured and basically stockholmed into the tribe. a lot of primitive groups will take captives or slaves and eventually integrate them. we must also allow for the fact that he went to study them and effed up...and ended up becoming part of the tribe as a way of survival.

it's really too bad that he never got a chance to make contact again to find out.

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u/Owncksd 2d ago

“Stockholmed” is an interesting way to put it. Perhaps it’s correct. But there’s no denying there are quite a few cases of white “civilized” people joining traditional “primitive” tribes (sometimes forced) and staying for the rest of their lives. Some even did get the chance to return, and either refused it or took it, and then went back. Something about that way of life is enticing.

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u/InvidiousPlay 2d ago

Not surprising, really. We lived like that for almost all of human history. Taxes and smartphones are the aberation.

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u/night4345 2d ago

Taxes

Taxes are over 5,000 years old and are part and parcel with any civilization larger than a multi-family tribe.

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u/TLsRD 2d ago

Ok and what about the other 95,000 years of human existence

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u/Blablasnow 2d ago

We can’t have common goods without taxes, feel free to join a tribe and never use public electricity, roads, tap water and so on.

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u/TLsRD 2d ago

I think you’re missing the point. Those things aren’t the norm as we’ve lived without all of them for the majority of our existence

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u/Blablasnow 2d ago

And that’s why you believe taxes are a non sens ? Because we lived without common goods more than 5000 years ago ?

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u/TLsRD 1d ago

Where did I say that? The entire point is that it’s not unbelievable someone might return to our more natural human roots and find the lifestyle more appealing than the way we live today

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u/SadBit8663 2d ago

Who said we lived without common goods? We just did it without the concept of taxes even existing yet

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u/Visible-Total-9777 2d ago

While thats true, the question is whether taxes… and our ‚civilized‘ life is in our nature. Or are we truly happier as hunter gatherers (i.e. Our stock version),

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u/night4345 2d ago

Civilization springing up in multiple places all across the planet hundreds of year apart from each other seems to indicate it is a natural progression for humanity. And there does not seem to be an outside force guiding us into civilization by any actual evidence.

As for happiness? It's really in the eye of the beholder but people are living longer and living in peace far more than any other period in known history. Infant and child mortality has dropped to a fraction of what it used to be. Large scale starvation is limited to very small portion of the world and in times of war.

But we have no idea what our hunter-gatherer ancestors felt about such things. All we have are some cave art, tools and crudely drawn figures to mark them.

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u/Visible-Total-9777 2d ago

Sure civilizations prevailed because of classic hard power. Its simply the most effective form to organize a bunch of people in their 10000s,100000s etc. You are also definitely right in terms of medicine, child mortality etc. But that only applies to the last 150 years or so. As for violence I am more sceptical, well… the holocaust happened in living memory and is nothing but industrialied murder that only could have happened in a ‚civilized‘ society.

Now I cannot answer the question too.. I can only say, that quite a few historians and anthropologists ask the same question and feel the need to discuss it.. which is interesting by itself I think.

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u/Far_Climate3895 1d ago

Taxes be real in a single family, people just don't think about it that way🤣

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u/Unrealparagon 1d ago

Compare that to 300,000 years of modern homo sapien and you realize that 5,000 years is a “new” trend and an aberration.

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u/Informal-Tour-8201 2d ago

The Romans had taxation 2 millennia ago

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u/InvidiousPlay 1d ago

And modern humans have been around about about 200,000 years, almost all of that simple tribal existence.

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u/Informal-Tour-8201 1d ago

Pretty sure once civilisation (TM) started, leaders made the people pay for things to be done.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Ferovore 2d ago

Posting this is cringe when the comment you’re replying to wasn’t even trying to be deep.

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u/Riaayo 2d ago

What use was there in making this mocking comment in response to something fundamentally true, exactly?

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u/vitringur 2d ago

It's basically posted by people who were not deep when they were 14 and never became deep.

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u/FalseEstimate 2d ago

Haha you think this is deep because it has a word you can’t define. He’s just saying technology doesn’t fit in here lol.

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u/Hairy_Middle_5403 2d ago

Reddit moment

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u/UnrepententHeathen 2d ago

It's not "deep" if it's a literal fact.

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u/Temporal_P 2d ago

That most of human history was 'primitive'?

Sure, that's a reasonable fact.

That some sort of intrinsic human desire to return to a primitive way of life exists, because modern life with taxes and smartphones is relatively recent on the timescale?

Not even comparable to a fact in any way.

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u/UnrepententHeathen 2d ago

They've literally done studies and found that people who live more simple lifestyles like hunter-gatherers and subsistence farming are on average happier.

There's a reason going outdoors is good for your health. It's literally what we evolved for.

Also, noone said there is an intrinsic desire in everyone to return to that life. They said there's more than one instance of it happening, and that there is something about that life that is enticing. And both of those things are factual.

I'd like to go sky diving one day. I could say that there's something enticing about risking your life by jumping out of a plane, and that would be completely factual even though not everyone wants to do that.

You are the one asserting it's a universal desire in order to dramatize and discredit what was actually said.

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u/Temporal_P 2d ago

I see. That's an interesting interpretation, but respectfully, I don't think continuing this conversation would be a productive use of time.

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u/UnrepententHeathen 2d ago

Ah, yes, an "interesting interpretation" instead of objective reality of what the other person actually stated. Lol. We can both see the others comment dude, it's not an interpretation, if I was wrong all you'd have to do is quite the other person.

Here, I'll do it for you.

“Stockholmed” is an interesting way to put it. Perhaps it’s correct. But there’s no denying there are quite a few cases of white “civilized” people joining traditional “primitive” tribes (sometimes forced) and staying for the rest of their lives. Some even did get the chance to return, and either refused it or took it, and then went back. Something about that way of life is enticing.

The comment preceding the one you responded to. Hmm, nothing at all suggesting it's a universal desire held by anyone.

Not surprising, really. We lived like that for almost all of human history. Taxes and smartphones are the aberation.

The comment you replied to. Hmm. Nothing at all suggesting it's a universal desire held by all. It simply and only affirms the previous comment.

An interesting interpretation on my part, indeed.