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A reclusive tribe in the Amazon finally got hooked up to the internet, thanks to Elon Musk — only to be torn apart by social media and pornography addiction, elders complain.
Brazil’s 2,000-member Marubo tribe has been left bitterly divided by the arrival of the Tesla founder’s Starlink service nine months ago, which connected the remote rainforest community along the Ituí River to the web for the first time.
“When it arrived, everyone was happy,” Tsainama Marubo, 73, told The New York Times.
“But now, things have gotten worse. Young people have gotten lazy because of the internet, they’re learning the ways of the white people.”
The Marubo are a chaste tribe, who even frown upon kissing in public — but Alfredo Marubo (all Marubo use the same last name) said he is anxious that the arrival of the service, which delivers super-fast internet to far-flung corners of the planet and has been billed as a game-changer by Musk, could upend standards of decorum.
Alfredo said many young Marubo men have been sharing porn videos in group chats and he has already observed more “aggressive sexual behavior” in some of them.
“We’re worried young people are going to want to try it,” he said of the kinky sex acts they’ve suddenly been exposed to on screen.
Porn is like alcohol. Under moderation, consuming it is usually okay (although not explicitly healthy) but heavy consumption can lead to real problems.
I understand where you’re coming from, but there’s some significant differences between the two.
The biggest being: alcohol is physiologically addictive. If you’re addicted to alcohol and try to stop, you very likely will suffer from a variety of physical symptoms of withdrawal. Alcohol use itself inhibits brain function and cognition that can lead to a downward spiral of bad decisions that is far beyond anything porn can do.
Any amount of alcohol is bad for you, even a small amount. There are some argued health benefits- the argument for reducing stress, for example, but it’s pretty close to scientific consensus that alcohol is not worth the benefits.
Porn on the other hand… It’s controversial and difficult to find great research because of the history of social, political, and religious stigma and the reliance on self-reporting for studies. However, pretty much every claim that it’s bad has been debunked, except in those rare cases involving compulsive disorders. The one solid physiological affect I can find it that it probably lowers blood pressure. There are some possible social affects that are much trickier to study and isolate- empowering women and de-stigmatizing sex.