Despite the peaceful banana-offering encounter one day, the very next morning a different group of roughly 200 tribe members ambushed a boat and shot an arrow completely through a man named George, showing that peaceful contact can turn violent almost instantly and unpredictably.
The day after the calm, friendly banana exchange, George was ambushed by roughly 200 Mashco Piro warriors while driving a boat upriver and took a seven-foot arrow through his torso, nearly dying before being medevacked out. ✦ AI generated
Paul Rosolie · Lex Fridman · 2026-01-13 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 70:12
And George was driving a boat with people on board, and as they were going upriver, 200 of the tribe ran out, surrounded the boat, and they started firing arrows... one arrow came in just above his scapula and came out by his belly button.
verbatim transcript · starts at 70:12
70:00is the jungle, that is nature. But from their perspective, also there is a majesty and magic to the technological world. The human-created technological world of the pen and the computer, and the light bulb, that too is magical. So sometimes we - Absolutely - don't give enough credit to both: the magic of the technological world, all the incredible things humans have been able to build, and the magic of the natural world.
70:34- I mean, what we've been able to achieve, I think you and I and people that spend large amounts of time in the wilderness, especially somewhere as remote and fundamental as the Western Amazon, have a different perspective on it. Because I think that when you're born in it, you don't necessarily have the framework to appreciate how far we've come. You go, "Yeah, I got on the train today. I checked my phone. I FaceTimed
71:01my mom," and you're like, "This is all normal." And it's like we found a way to take things out of the ground and mix them together into magic devices that can do anything. And it's mind-blowing. - There's a deep optimism to that. You write in the book, which I really like, I think somewhere in the beginning, quote, "Given all the death and destruction I've witnessed, it would be easy to slip into the popular anti-human
71:25narrative that we are a plague on the planet and there's nothing that can be done, but my career in conservation has given me a glimpse into an alternate narrative. I've met people who are proving more and more that something can be done. I'm talking about real heroes, people who have dedicated their lives to redeeming the evil that is capable of being waged by the human soul, people who are guarding the flame amidst the
71:51storm, proving every day what so many have forgotten. There is still hope." And that speaks against the cynicism and apathy, and the view that humans are a destructive force in the world. That speaks to the fact that humans, with all the technological elements that we have created, can actually do a lot of good. I wrote in my notes here a quote from the great Jane Goodall: "The