It should help save lives and make them part of the global community. However, what Indigenous people in the South American rainforest are experiencing with their Starlink access has downsides that threaten the tribe.
How did Elon Musk bring the internet and where to? Elon Musk is the founder and still CEO of SpaceX. The tech and space exploration company manufactures communication satellites aside from rockets like the Falcon 9 or the Starship: Starlink. They already form a largely functional global network. One purpose is to bring internet access to remote areas – for example, into the depths of the Amazon rainforest. Reported on this were The Economic Times and New York Times.
Who received the Starlink receivers from whom? Musk did not provide the necessary receivers with Wi-Fi antennas himself, nor did the Marubo tribe in the South American rainforest purchase them. The American entrepreneur Allyson Reneau donated them a few months ago as part of her charitable commitment.
What would likely please Elon Musk is the Deep Dive that we present to you in the following video:
Previously, the approximately 2,000-member tribe lived completely cut off from the public and especially the internet, except for occasional visits and movements. Now they must live with the consequences. Partially, it threatens their peace.
The pitfalls of the internet
Why does the internet threaten inner peace? New York Times journalist Jack Nicas visited the tribe and describes in his experiences what he learned on site. He spoke with tribe members and asked them about the problems with Starlink.
In summary, the internet mainly distracts the young people from their duties. Some are already showing symptoms of addiction. The consumption of pornography worries especially the elders. In the community, public chastity has largely prevailed until now; even kissing outside one’s home was frowned upon.
Recently, the behavior of many young tribe members is changing towards more openness and is unfortunately also manifested in aggressive sexual behavior in some isolated cases. This and the “laziness” of some, as criticized by the tribal elders, threaten the cohesion and the traditional agricultural way of life.
How does the tribe react? According to Nicas’s report, access is now time-limited. On all days except Sundays, the internet is mostly unreachable. Only a few hours each morning and evening are the Starlink routers with Wi-Fi antennas switched on.
Is the tribe now cutting off access out of fear?
Is everything about it bad? No, there are of course positive sides. During medical emergencies, access to ultra-fast communication has proven effective. Help reaches the tribe in hours, instead of days after a call for help. And communication with relatives outside who once emigrated is, of course, simpler than ever before.
Overall, the tribal leadership has a positive view of the internet despite all the previously unknown problems. They do not want to miss out on access.
With his announcements, Elon Musk occasionally causes headaches for people in his companies. In this way, he also occasionally creates trouble at X (formerly Twitter). Because here, his statements sometimes do not contribute to increasing the company’s value. In this article about the impacts of his posts, you can read that he has now realized this too.
