This reading really has me stuck in a moral dilemma. There are many facets to the problem of foragers and the crash of cultures. On the basic level, through out history it can be seen that when cultures crash into one another, just like automobiles, the bigger more substantial car wins. But the situation becomes more complicated when the element of cultural sovereignty and self determinism is added to the mix. Considering those elements when cultures crash into one another, who wins? I think adding theses elements brings in the assumption that the two cultures and groups of people are somehow equal, regardless of their size, technical achievements, and all the many other factors that can describe a culture. Starting with this assumption of cultural relativism, I think, is pretty dangerous. I think that it creates an ethic that is removed from the practicality and reality of the situation. Regardless of how a group chooses to live, if the situation changes away from their favor, they must adapt. Seeing the cultures as equal, doing anything that detracts from their ability to maintain the way they choose to live is seen as immoral. The thing that is missing in that chain of ethical logic is that a group of people do not choose a lifestyle in a vacuum. Cultural sovereignty and self determination has to concede to the constraints of the environment and situation. Any act that infringes upon cultural sovereignty and self determinism should therefore not necessarily be seen as blatantly immoral. If this were true then all of the economy would not work, politics would break down. It is simply not practical to try to maintain with absoluteness every groups human rights. It should rather be a maximization of these rights across a larger cross section of groups. This is how democracy works. Yes, I just said that democracy infringes upon human rights.