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> goodbye European economy Even mass defusing (which no one is suggesting) would not tank European economy. It would barely be a blip actually. We are talking

by brmgb 6y ago

> goodbye European economy Even mass defusing (which no one is suggesting) would not tank European economy. It would barely be a blip actually. We are talking about tunnels in the middle of nowhere. The "Zone rouge" is pretty barren. Any large remains of WW1 in cities have been dug up by urbanisation a long time ago. Defusing mostly concern unexploded ordinance from WW2 and there is at most one major event a year in Europe as a whole. It is certainly not "constantly blocking business for days in major cities".

CaptArmchair 6y ago
But Europe isn't just "major cities" either. I have family living in old WWI Western Front area which, today, is mostly a mix of agriculture and industry. Yearly, tons of ordinance are still dug up by farmers working their lands. Building and road construction is still hampered by discovering un-exploded shells or human remains that require careful handling. To put things in perspective, in Belgium alone between 1918 and 2014, some 513 shells exploded claiming 896 victims of which 360 died. 150 tons of ordinance are dug up each year and stored awaiting defusing. I remember my great-uncle stowing shells he found on his land to the side for pickup by the authorities. I've been told countless times by him to not touch anything found by the side of the road whenever we visited them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest And that's discounting the 35.000 tons of munitions - including chemical weapons such as mustard gas - which were dumped into the sea a few miles of the Belgian coast. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mustard-gas-leak-north-sea-first-world-war-weapons-dump-belgium-knokke-paardenmarkt-a8897656.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mustard-gas-... Nobody is arguing for mass defusing, or mass excavations of these sites. I don't argue for them as well for good reason. It's massively dangerous to begin with, and the complexity is enormous and hard to comprehend. The first thing archaeologists are taught is this: the best place to preserve artefacts for the long term is in situ. Digging means destroying the context: there's only one chance to capture the story as told by what you find. And doing that in a way that respects the site isn't cheap or easy. The problem here is that a rogue citizen archaeologist decided to start a peeve with national authorities, rather then considering things pragmatically. By turning to the newspapers (Le Monde) they effectively endangered the site. For sure, it's painful to not know what happened to a long lost ancestor in a War, but there's also a lot to be said to leave things as is until there is an opportunity to find out in a respectful manner.
- vladvasiliu 6y ago
  > The problem here is that a rogue citizen archaeologist decided to start a peeve with national authorities, rather then considering things pragmatically. By turning to the newspapers (Le Monde) they effectively endangered the site. For sure, it's painful to not know what happened to a long lost ancestor in a War, but there's also a lot to be said to leave things as is until there is an opportunity to find out in a respectful manner. While I agree with your point about the danger this poses to the site, this looks to me like exposing vulnerabilities in software. If this guy managed to find the tunnel, who's to say some other "looter" wouldn't have found it, too? At least, according to TFA he's not running around telling people where it is, so this looks kind of like the "responsible disclosure" approach. The other looter might just have made a mess of the place looking for whatever it is looters look for.
  - CaptArmchair 6y ago
    > While I agree with your point about the danger this poses to the site, this looks to me like exposing vulnerabilities in software. If this guy managed to find the tunnel, who's to say some other "looter" wouldn't have found it, too? I'm a historian myself. The historical records isn't just a few meters of files that can be easily accessed at will. We are talking about literally miles upon miles of brittle paper in boxes which are often summarily identified through records management. If you're lucky. Contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of administrative records isn't digitized. We are talking about painstakingly retrieving box after box, one by one, from archival depots and sifting through them in hopes of finding a clue or a trace. And then you have to cross reference what you've found with other sources - if you're lucky - to ensure that you're on the right track. From TFA: > Working on the Paris metro in the 1990s, he travelled daily to the capital and used his spare time to visit military archives in the Château de Vincennes. For 15 years he accumulated descriptions, maps and prisoner interrogations - but to no avail. That's 15 years of piecing bits and fragments, hoping to catch a lucky break: > But then in 2009 he chanced on a contemporary map showing not just the tunnel but also a meeting of two paths that had survived till today. With painstaking care, he measured out the angle and distance and arrived at the spot, now just an anonymous bit of woodland. > At least, according to TFA he's not running around telling people where it is, so this looks kind of like the "responsible disclosure" approach. I find this questionable based on what the story tells us. First, in most countries, you can't just get on and dig wherever you fancy. France included. You're legally obligated to declare historical finds to the authorities for later archaeological surveys. All of that comes with licenses and permits to ensure that whatever is unearthed, is unearthed in an ethically sound fashion. This is what the article writes: > One night in January last year he led a team that brought a mechanical digger to the spot his father had identified. They dug down four metres, and what they found proved they were indeed at the entrance to the tunnel. Why did they dig at night in the woodlands? Did he have a permit from the authorities? This isn't something the article discloses at all. It's just assumed he did secure necessary authorizations. Second, in those 10 months between the first dig in January of 2020 to confirm the location, the publication of the article in Le Monde in November of 2020 and the visit of the BBC journalist in March 2021, were enough for others to find the spot and start digging overnight. Clearly, others caught wind of the exact location. It means someone has disclosed the location. Maybe someone from the January team? Maybe the Malinowski's themselves in an unguarded moment? Moreover, the BBC journalist got to visit the exact spot. How did they arrive there? Who did they turn to to request to visit the spot? The authorities? Malinowski? If it was the latter, ask yourself this: is he really to be trusted to only have taken a select few journalists to the exact location? Or did he indulge in other requests as well? It's not just the article in the BBC and Le Monde. Digging a bit deeper shows that the story was broken in multiple national and regional outlets in France. Can you be certain that they were the only party looking for the tunnel? Remember, they already knew the location back in 2009 after 15 at least 15 years of research. Again, I can understand the frustration, but this wasn't the way to approach the issue.
Xylakant 6y ago
> Defusing mostly concern unexploded ordinance from WW2 and there is at most one major event a year in Europe as a whole. It is certainly not "constantly blocking business for days in major cities". If you mean “constantly” in the sense of “every day” the yes, it’s not constantly. It’s however, constant enough to be reminded constantly - multiple times every year in Berlin alone. Last one I can recall was Feb 24th this year in Spandau. In 1994 one exploded when it was excavated https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/explosion-einer-fliegerbombe-aus-dem-2-weltkrieg-in-nachrichtenfoto/548111923 https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/explosion-... In 2019 a major shipping channel in the region was closed for at least 2 month https://m.maz-online.de/Lokales/Oberhavel/Oranienburg/Oranienburg-Nach-Bombenfund-Kanal-wochenlang-gesperrt https://m.maz-online.de/Lokales/Oberhavel/Oranienburg/Oranie... It’s so common here that it’s not big news unless the bomb is exceptionally large.

by brmgb 6y ago

CaptArmchair 6y ago

But Europe isn't just "major cities" either. I have family living in old WWI Western Front area which, today, is mostly a mix of agriculture and industry. Yearly, tons of ordinance are still dug up by farmers working their lands. Building and road construction is still hampered by discovering un-exploded shells or human remains that require careful handling. To put things in perspective, in Belgium alone between 1918 and 2014, some 513 shells exploded claiming 896 victims of which 360 died. 150 tons of ordinance are dug up each year and stored awaiting defusing. I remember my great-uncle stowing shells he found on his land to the side for pickup by the authorities. I've been told countless times by him to not touch anything found by the side of the road whenever we visited them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest And that's discounting the 35.000 tons of munitions - including chemical weapons such as mustard gas - which were dumped into the sea a few miles of the Belgian coast. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mustard-gas-leak-north-sea-first-world-war-weapons-dump-belgium-knokke-paardenmarkt-a8897656.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mustard-gas-... Nobody is arguing for mass defusing, or mass excavations of these sites. I don't argue for them as well for good reason. It's massively dangerous to begin with, and the complexity is enormous and hard to comprehend. The first thing archaeologists are taught is this: the best place to preserve artefacts for the long term is in situ. Digging means destroying the context: there's only one chance to capture the story as told by what you find. And doing that in a way that respects the site isn't cheap or easy. The problem here is that a rogue citizen archaeologist decided to start a peeve with national authorities, rather then considering things pragmatically. By turning to the newspapers (Le Monde) they effectively endangered the site. For sure, it's painful to not know what happened to a long lost ancestor in a War, but there's also a lot to be said to leave things as is until there is an opportunity to find out in a respectful manner.

vladvasiliu 6y ago
> The problem here is that a rogue citizen archaeologist decided to start a peeve with national authorities, rather then considering things pragmatically. By turning to the newspapers (Le Monde) they effectively endangered the site. For sure, it's painful to not know what happened to a long lost ancestor in a War, but there's also a lot to be said to leave things as is until there is an opportunity to find out in a respectful manner. While I agree with your point about the danger this poses to the site, this looks to me like exposing vulnerabilities in software. If this guy managed to find the tunnel, who's to say some other "looter" wouldn't have found it, too? At least, according to TFA he's not running around telling people where it is, so this looks kind of like the "responsible disclosure" approach. The other looter might just have made a mess of the place looking for whatever it is looters look for.
- CaptArmchair 6y ago
  > While I agree with your point about the danger this poses to the site, this looks to me like exposing vulnerabilities in software. If this guy managed to find the tunnel, who's to say some other "looter" wouldn't have found it, too? I'm a historian myself. The historical records isn't just a few meters of files that can be easily accessed at will. We are talking about literally miles upon miles of brittle paper in boxes which are often summarily identified through records management. If you're lucky. Contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of administrative records isn't digitized. We are talking about painstakingly retrieving box after box, one by one, from archival depots and sifting through them in hopes of finding a clue or a trace. And then you have to cross reference what you've found with other sources - if you're lucky - to ensure that you're on the right track. From TFA: > Working on the Paris metro in the 1990s, he travelled daily to the capital and used his spare time to visit military archives in the Château de Vincennes. For 15 years he accumulated descriptions, maps and prisoner interrogations - but to no avail. That's 15 years of piecing bits and fragments, hoping to catch a lucky break: > But then in 2009 he chanced on a contemporary map showing not just the tunnel but also a meeting of two paths that had survived till today. With painstaking care, he measured out the angle and distance and arrived at the spot, now just an anonymous bit of woodland. > At least, according to TFA he's not running around telling people where it is, so this looks kind of like the "responsible disclosure" approach. I find this questionable based on what the story tells us. First, in most countries, you can't just get on and dig wherever you fancy. France included. You're legally obligated to declare historical finds to the authorities for later archaeological surveys. All of that comes with licenses and permits to ensure that whatever is unearthed, is unearthed in an ethically sound fashion. This is what the article writes: > One night in January last year he led a team that brought a mechanical digger to the spot his father had identified. They dug down four metres, and what they found proved they were indeed at the entrance to the tunnel. Why did they dig at night in the woodlands? Did he have a permit from the authorities? This isn't something the article discloses at all. It's just assumed he did secure necessary authorizations. Second, in those 10 months between the first dig in January of 2020 to confirm the location, the publication of the article in Le Monde in November of 2020 and the visit of the BBC journalist in March 2021, were enough for others to find the spot and start digging overnight. Clearly, others caught wind of the exact location. It means someone has disclosed the location. Maybe someone from the January team? Maybe the Malinowski's themselves in an unguarded moment? Moreover, the BBC journalist got to visit the exact spot. How did they arrive there? Who did they turn to to request to visit the spot? The authorities? Malinowski? If it was the latter, ask yourself this: is he really to be trusted to only have taken a select few journalists to the exact location? Or did he indulge in other requests as well? It's not just the article in the BBC and Le Monde. Digging a bit deeper shows that the story was broken in multiple national and regional outlets in France. Can you be certain that they were the only party looking for the tunnel? Remember, they already knew the location back in 2009 after 15 at least 15 years of research. Again, I can understand the frustration, but this wasn't the way to approach the issue.

Xylakant 6y ago

> Defusing mostly concern unexploded ordinance from WW2 and there is at most one major event a year in Europe as a whole. It is certainly not "constantly blocking business for days in major cities". If you mean “constantly” in the sense of “every day” the yes, it’s not constantly. It’s however, constant enough to be reminded constantly - multiple times every year in Berlin alone. Last one I can recall was Feb 24th this year in Spandau. In 1994 one exploded when it was excavated https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/explosion-einer-fliegerbombe-aus-dem-2-weltkrieg-in-nachrichtenfoto/548111923 https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/explosion-... In 2019 a major shipping channel in the region was closed for at least 2 month https://m.maz-online.de/Lokales/Oberhavel/Oranienburg/Oranienburg-Nach-Bombenfund-Kanal-wochenlang-gesperrt https://m.maz-online.de/Lokales/Oberhavel/Oranienburg/Oranie... It’s so common here that it’s not big news unless the bomb is exceptionally large.