> They see it as some great holy mission from god to go out into the hinterlands and convert the local people from their local existing belief system to their own particular form of Christianity.

Call me apologist, but I can see no real problem with that. They are willing to take risks and have enough motivation to spend resources. Whatever I think about their belief system in my opinion they are free to do that.

It's not 1800s, if the given population doesn't like missionaries, as far as I'm aware it's equally free not to listen to them. Or to throw them out.

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timcobb 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Cargo culting is still a thing, the power imbalance is still real here. Kicking people out is generally much trickier than letting them in, these aren't simple things. Remote populations aren't global idea consumers at the internet-accessible global ideas mart.

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account42 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

These missionaries don't come in with an army. Its more often small families or a couple of individual vs entire villages of natives and the "conversion" is done via talking, persistence and kindness rather than by force.

> Remote populations aren't global idea consumers at the internet-accessible global ideas mart.

Shouldn't that be a good thing according to your logic? Its not like the global ideas mart is less different from their own society than what the missionaries bring and it would be quite presumptuous to say that your beliefs or those that you consider "global ideas" are better for as yet untouched tribes than those of christian missionaries.

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ericmay 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Remote populations aren't global idea consumers at the internet-accessible global ideas mart.

Why not?

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walrus01 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

At the risk of taking the bait, what percentage of PNG highland villagers living in grass thatched huts do you think have 24x7 electricity and broadband Internet and intermediate to advanced level literacy in one of the Internet's major languages?

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ggsp 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

As someone who knows exactly nothing about PNG, I got curious and had an AI retrieve some numbers:

IFPRI's 2023 survey of ~2,700 rural PNG households (~900 in highland strata) found 57–70% of highland homes thatched; across those same strata, 8–12% were on-grid, 41–68% had solar, and 5–14% had no electricity. This nonrepresentative sample excluded communities more than two hours from motorable road or river access and "areas with known security risks".

The same study found adult literacy of 40–54% (27% for seasonal-highlands women), assessed using Tok Pisin (not English) sentences—directly for household heads and by household-head proxy for other members—and secondary/vocational completion of 4–8% [1].

Phones: the 2016–18 DHS put mobile-phone ownership at 34% of people aged 15–49 nationally [2]; a 2018 rural (lowlands, not highlands) IFPRI survey found just over half of households had no phone-owning member, and only about a quarter of the poorest quintile owned a phone [3]. Cellular connections—distinct from unique owners—subsequently rose from ~2.7M in 2019 [3] to 5.03M in early 2025 [4]; there were 2.57M internet users (24.1% of the population) in early 2025 [4].

[1] https://cgspace.cgiar.org/items/05f7b268-cfd9-4b35-aba6-71c8... (Tables 2.4, 2.7, 2.8)

[2] https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/impactevaluations/improved-ta...

[3] https://cgspace.cgiar.org/items/fd5ac6eb-5268-4db7-ac96-bf01...

[4] https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-papua-new-guin...

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ericmay 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s not bait. I don’t think the OP that I responded to was speaking about the mechanics of introducing these populations to the Internet (they’re welcome to correct me) but that they shouldn’t be introduced to such things or that the introduction would be tantamount to exploitation of some sort.

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walrus01 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I read it more as that a remote highlands PNG villager is not "innoculated" against the concept of, and is not aware of the methodologies that will be used by odd foreigners who have a well thought out plan to convert people to their specific ideology.

Like, if you're out shopping and some person starts up a weirdly friendly conversation with you that leads to a MLM sales pitch, you already know that's a thing which exists and why you're almost certainly not interested in participating even before the pitch arrives.

	▲	ericmay 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I see- your interpretation may be the correct one.

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anon291 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It is immoral to treat another human being as too stupid to be exposed to others and worthy of your protection because you view them as primitive.

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nisiddharth 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think they even have electricity, let alone the internet.

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xg15 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> It's not 1800s, if the given population doesn't like missionaries, as far as I'm aware it's equally free not to listen to them. Or to throw them out.

The given population doesn't know that though...

	▲	account42 an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That argument would necessitate treating them like children rather than adults who can think and choose for themselves. I don't think this is a healthy approach that would work out well at all.
	▲	Gareth321 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Know what? They don't know that they can not listen to people? I don't believe that at all.
	▲	relevant_stats 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You claim they think they have to listen to missionaries?