Observing this discussion, it occurs to me (not for the first time) that it would be nice if people discussing the topic took each other's words literally, didn't take them to mean anything beyond the literal meaning.

xenophanes says "Our way of life is better" and argues for "giv[ing] them access to technology and to our way of life" and against "[p]reserving their backwards culture", "actions that maintain them in that lifestyle", and "[t]rying to minimize contact". Then raganwald appears to hear "It's justified to force them to follow our way of life" appended to xenophanes's post and proceeds to argue against this (mentioning two historical examples); it takes another post by xenophanes to explain that he neither said nor meant that.

Elsewhere, d3x says "You are basically saying that your beliefs and way of life are so superior and better than theirs that you must convert them", and the italicized part is, again, not part of what xenophanes said. xenophanes replies saying "I did not advocate forced conversion", plus a bit of ranting about a "left wing way of thinking" which probably led to enough downvotes to keep it at 2 and provoked a 10-point reply devoted solely to the "left wing" comment and a 9-point reply devoted half to it and half to the original topic.

Also, DanielBMarkham jumps in with a reply to d3x, making basically the same points as xenophanes--saying "If they are happy with a life expectancy of 30, [etc....], if they want that life, let them have it", arguing to "show and tell them what they are missing and let them decide", arguing against "inaction" and "let[ting] people suffer when we can help them stop [i]f they so desire". And d3x replies arguing against "[the idea that] their lives are so bad" (which does address what he said), "feel[ing] ... that I have the right to be condescending when discussing their way of life-" (which at least addresses his comment, though I think it's unfair) "-and I have the obligation to convert them to my way of thinking" (which is not what he said). d3x also draws a comparison between DanielBMarkham's arguments and historical arguments to justify slavery, a reductio ad absurdum that might conceivably be aimed at Markham's actual arguments, but that I imagine was aimed at an argument d3x read into Markham's comment.

This entire tree of discussion is full of this sort of putting-words-in-your-mouth. Even xenophanes's reply to raganwald's original comment may be guilty of this--raganwald originally argued against "massacring technologically inferior peoples" and "keep[ing] them alive but destroy[ing] their culture and identity while mouthing platitudes about how we were helping them", which does not say anything about the deliberate "preserving their backwards culture" or "[t]rying to minimize contact" that xenophanes proceeds to argue against. xenophanes doesn't directly say something to indicate that this is intended as a rebuttal to raganwald's comment, and it was his first post in this thread (I think), so maybe he was just making a general statement of his position (which I personally would upvote)... but I could also interpret it as yet another misguided rebuttal to things someone didn't say and didn't mean.

So, guys, please become more autistic and interpret things literally; it would cut out the need for a lot of the anger and "No that isn't what I said" noise in this thread.

I'm joking about the autism, but seriously, there are 277 comments on this story and I think reading-and-replying-to-things-that-weren't-written is the reason for most of them.