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Mining firm Rio Tinto sorry for destroying Aboriginal caves (2020)
- saas_sam 5y agoMy stomach dropped reading this. How horrible.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mmaunder 5y agoThis is a year ago and isn't technical or the usual HN content. I'm curious why it's ranking. Some sort of current event I missed that's related?
- baq 5y agoHN isn't a technical-only site. Never has been.
- mikepurvis 5y agoIndeed, and even if someone wasn't interested in the historical value of what was lost, there's still the matter of the process failure that allowed it to happen (or covered up that it was happening, depending on your level of cynicism).
- teddyh 5y agoOutrage wallowing. The kind of that you get here is a bit different from what you get in publications aimed at other audiences, but that is essentially what it is.
- happytoexplain 5y agoWhat is "outrage wallowing"?
- teddyh 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outrage_porn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outrage_porn
- happytoexplain 5y agoI see - "wallowing" implies different parties and motives than the more normal concept of getting outrage-driven clicks. However, this doesn't seem to have anything to do with outrage media. It's a pretty reasonable thing to report on, and it's reported on pretty reasonably. It's both important and interesting, so the fact that it is also outrageous seems irrelevant to the implication that it shouldn't be observed or commented on. You might make an argument that nothing old should be posted, and I would disagree, but that too seems like an argument unrelated to whether or not something is outrageous merely for the sake of getting clicks.
- throwawayawy 5y agoit's pathetic to watch really, I imagine majority of the commenters here are wearing che guevara t-shirts.
- pmontra 5y agoIt got on HN one year ago too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23376236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23376236
- ivanstame 5y agoThey are coming to Serbia, shit will happen!
- Account123481-x 5y agooops
- lupire 5y agoArticle links to a 2013 article about a similar event. Mining company blows stuff up, pays a small fee, and profits handsomely. What would happen if someone blew up the mining company office due to a "paperwork oversight"? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23527303 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23527303 Dec 2020 update: RT ordered to rebuild the cave: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55250137.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55250137.amp Mar 2021 update: Execs fired, given golden parachutes. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56261514.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56261514.amp May 2021 update: Shareholders vote 60%-40% to symbolic protest of golden parachutes https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/05/06/business/rio-tinto-shareholder-revolt/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/05/06/business/rio-tinto-shareh... I'm impressed by the followup reporting. Usually it's hard to find updates on things.
- asdff 5y agoHow could they possibly rebuild a prehistorical archaeology site that they exploded?
- JRKrause 5y agoJust wait another 46,000 years and it will rebuild itself in a certain sense.
- saas_sam 5y agoI volunteer to make the replacement human hair belt.
- jonhohle 5y agoWith the removal of monuments and vacations to historic sites, I think I’m settling on this idea. Things made by humans are temporary. If not miners, then flood, earthquake, or other human pursuit would eventually wipe the slate clean. From a more local perspective, imagine moving away from an area for whatever reason and then a thousand years later someone finds your dirty dishes and Twisted Sister poster and wants to preserve it for posterity.
- vmception 5y ago> Australian Minister for Indigenous Affairs Ken Wyatt, who is Aboriginal, said it was "incomprehensible" that the blast had gone ahead, but added that it appeared to be a "genuine mistake". State laws had failed in this instance, he said. Pragmatic
- kyleee 5y agoMr. Ken Wyatt is probably on the take
- hereforphone 5y agoWhat if I told you that those caves would be the same age regardless of who inhabited them over the years
- mikestew 5y agoWhat if I told you... Then I would be validated in my belief that your reading comprehension is poor? Or do you truly believe that the caves were formed a mere 46K years ago?
- hereforphone 5y agoWhat if I told you that your reading comprehension or attention to detail may also not be on point? What if I didn't say in that comment that they were formed a mere 46k years ago, but that they existed?
- happytoexplain 5y agoYou said "What if I told you that those caves would be the same age regardless of who inhabited them over the years". One logical implication is that you think the age does not refer to the time at which the cave was inhabited, but to something else. It is reasonable to assume the only other thing you could be referring to is the age of the caves themselves, geologically. You should explain your thoughts more explicitly, rather than relying on implications delivered via sarcasm.
- hereforphone 5y agoThanks for letting me know what I should do.
- cinntaile 5y agoIt did have some consequences. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/911866159/a-mining-company-blew-up-a-46-000-year-old-aboriginal-site-its-ceo-is-resigning?t=1627497250131 https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/911866159/a-mining-company-bl...
- lostlogin 5y agoThey have recently bailed out of New Zealand, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars of waste cleanup at various sites. They had stored waste that is dangerous if it gets wet in a location that bordered a river that floods and was populated. New waste discoveries are made periodically - they are a horrible company. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/443538/rio-tinto-takes-on-some-cost-of-tiwai-pt-clean-up-but-200m-of-work-still-up-in-the-air https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/443538/rio-tinto-takes-o...
- vkou 5y agoSo, it sounds like they were responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of job creation.
- GuardianCaveman 5y agoYeah in the medical industry treating all the cancer victims who are exposed to their hazardous waste when they illegally dump maybe
- sheepshagger96 5y agoThis is an incredibly naive and ill-informed view of the value Tiwai brings to parts of NZ, especially Southland. As for the Dross, they had sold that to a company which went bankrupt before it could turn it into fertiliser.
- worik 5y agoNot so much. For the resources they use (the entire out put of a huge hydroelectric plant and serious pollution) they provide about 1,000 jobs. The opportunity cost of putting all that energy to make aluminium is huge.
- sheepshagger96 5y agoThey financed the construction of the dam and helped make NZ more relevant when it was even more of an insignificant island that it is now, they've provided stable, high paying jobs for a whole region for decades (when meatworks were closing right and center), these stable jobs have allowed families to send their children to university and have a decent life. Pollution wise they havent done so poorly, there is maybe some nastyish stuff buried on site, but other than that smelting bauxite is rather clean. They produce the most 'green' aluminiy in the world, would you rather it be made with coal fired electricity? As for providing 1000jobs, yeah, maybe directly, but those people spend money in town, not to mention the contracts Tiwai would bave with other companies in town. The economic value has been huge.
- puritanicdev 5y agoAnd they are now trying to do ecocide in Serbia as well...
- wnevets 5y agoWe're sorry [1] 1. https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/l7b4gl/south-park-we-re-sorry https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/l7b4gl/south-park-we-re...
- smnrchrds 5y agoI wish destroying aboriginal heritage got its due media coverage and widespread resistance. The topic reminds me of a satire news article about Canada, poking fun at oil pipelines passing through and destroying first nations religiously important lands. https://www.thebeaverton.com/2016/12/catholics-beaten-police-protest-vatican-access-pipeline/ https://www.thebeaverton.com/2016/12/catholics-beaten-police...
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoThis should be prosecuted as crimes against humanity, along with lengthy jail times for execs involved in the issue. They won't be, for obvious reasons.
- bpodgursky 5y agoCan we stop throwing around cries for imprisonment for things which are (1) not even obviously a legislated crime and (2) not intentional? This has become a super common meme recently. There are perfectly viable ways to financially disincentivize companies (or individuals!) from bad acts like this without building a society where the default punishment for anything zeitgeist-bad is imprisonment? Prison is a last resort when you _can't_ get people to follow laws using other means (ie, a serial rapist is not going to be deterred by financial penalties). But if a CEO or corporation is doing something clearly for profit, there is an obvious and easy way to prevent it without taking someone's life away. It's barbaric and unnecessary.
- zz865 5y agoIt seems to be an American attitude where its just normal to relentlessly imprison people who fall out of line.
- bpodgursky 5y agoI'm American! Stop doing it! It's not even the traditional law-and-order conservatives calling for this; it's leftists who just want to redirect the industrial prison system at a new target! The system is bad, no matter who you target!
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoYes, it's bad. Which is why the most appropriate solution for those who hold themselves above the system due to their wealth and influence is to stick them directly in the worst parts of it and force them to experience it for years.
- ChrisArchitect 5y agoprevious discussion when this was news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23376236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23376236 also about the guy resigning: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24448458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24448458
- rajandatta 5y agoThis is a crime against humanity - our culture and history. It's profoundly disturbing that Rio Tinto gets to do this repeatedly with no consequences. To all Australians - what the hell??
- sheepshagger96 5y agoNo one _really_ cares about some cave which some dude shat in 50k years ago
- worik 5y ago(Sorry Australians) Australia is a deeply racist society. Indigenous Australians are very much "other". Not quite people. They were only designated fully human (as in counted in the census, given most civil rights) in 1967. It took a referendum. To give the Australians their due the vote was >90%bin favour EDIT It was until 1983 that indigenous Australians had the same voting obligations as other Australians.
- bulka 5y agoWe are, you know, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HTd4Um1m4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HTd4Um1m4
- mint2 5y agoOak flat in Arizona seems sacred to the longtime local inhabitants, rio tinto’s “oops were sorry we blew up your sacred site” about Australia doesn’t seem sincere given they have spent years trying to implode oak flat and are still at it. But hey Arizonans will get a handful of jobs for a couple decades while the mineral wealth that belongs to Americans is funneled to a select few.
- sheepshagger96 5y agoBut people will be directly employed by said company and that will have knock on effects locally, would you rather not exploit your mineral wealth?
- mplewis 5y agoRead the room.
- mint2 5y agoMining booms don’t tend to have longevity, leaving behind a broken town and damaged environment. And With an international mining company, The wealth isn’t staying local or even likely in America. And as tax payers, the public is getting shafted too. If the lease actually had American tax payers seeing a fair share in return for their land being damaged and the wealth used up, and there was also an amenable compromise with the native Americans for whom that site is sacred, then yeah it could be okay even if it would be temporary jobs.
- unpopulropnions 5y agoIf it were legal to sell such artifacts, museums and collectors around the world could bid up the prices, making them much more profitable than the iron ore Rio Tinto could otherwise extract, strongly motivating them toward recovery. The natives of that land would probably be deprived of their exclusive access, and private buyers could hide their own collections from the world. But most public buyers and many private ones would be very motivated to share these precious items with the world, scientifically and culturally. The publicity increases their resale value if nothing else. How many ancient artifacts are hidden away because they are illegal to own? I might or might not have owned such an arrowhead once. If I did and still did that could make it something I had to hide. The pool of artifacts available to archaeologists and museums may well be smaller due to such perverse incentives. I know people who make home displays of arrowheads and potshards they've found. But others, not wanting to openly break federal law, keep them hidden in drawers. The law effectively hides away evidence of the ancient people that came before us. If they removed the threat we could openly celebrate them instead. The artifacts that were destroyed were priceless. If they had prices, they probably would be high, and so would be carefully preserved instead.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago> If it were legal to sell such artifacts, museums and collectors around the world could bid up the prices, making them much more profitable than the iron ore Rio Tinto could otherwise extract, strongly motivating them toward recovery. Unless they weren't. Then they'd be blown up anyway, except we'd perceive a moral right for them to do so, and it would be harder to fight back against the practice.
- AlotOfReading 5y agoAs a former archaeologist, we really don't care about random contextless artifacts. Legal or not, the stuff in your house would almost certainly not be useful for academic work. Please don't use us as an argument against antiquities laws, especially as most archaeologists are in favor of making them even stronger.
- unpopulropnions 5y ago
- javajosh 5y agoSure, but at least they put a picture of a native on their careers page [0]. "Our five values – safety, teamwork, respect, integrity and excellence – define how we treat each other and how we work together. We are committed to an inclusive environment where people feel comfortable to be themselves. And we want our people to feel that all voices are heard, all cultures respected and that a variety of perspectives are not only welcome – they are essential to our success." It's interesting that those values apply only within the company, and does not include anything about respecting natural or historical resources, or respecting local law. So, props for honesty? [0] https://www.riotinto.com/careers https://www.riotinto.com/careers
- saiya-jin 5y agoTo be fair, this is a standard corporate bullshit. Heck, our bank has almost exactly same values, also 5 in total, and the fact they showed up after series of fines from regulators re fuckups here and there, everywhere, just underlines they are created by marketing team, just in this case more inward focused one. Nobody sane obviously buys that bullcrap, not the people who come up with it, not the management, shareholders, stock holders, employees, nobody. So we can entirely ignore this, its not meant literally, or in any other serious way.
- javajosh 5y agoIsn't that giving in? It's smart - it anticipates the lie, and so prepares you for the inevitable betrayal. But wouldn't it be better if we at least pretended that people mean what they say, rather than preemptively give them a pass on their hypocrisy? The trouble with world-weary cynicism is that undermines basic human values like integrity. It sets the bar lower the more powerful an entity is. And that's the reverse of how the world should be. The bar should be higher the more powerful the entity. The degree to which we hold an entity accountable should be proportional to its power. So, my friend, I understand where you're coming from, but I would encourage you to set aside your cynicism. You'll notice that I used the word "should" in the previous paragraph. I think you're right about how it is but let's not give up on how things should be.
- nathancahill 5y agoMeanwhile, climbing has been banned in the Grampians for minor transgressions blown out of proportion. https://savegrampiansclimbing.org https://savegrampiansclimbing.org
- Gys 5y ago“But the plans were on display…” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- bilbo0s 5y agoLook, if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, I've no sympathy at all.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- partomniscient 5y agoApparently the queen is Rio Tinto's largest non-corporate shareholder. Cooincidentally she's used her powers to make herself immune from being blamed or having to worry about causing climate change. [1] Says it all really... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/28/queen-secretly-lobbied-scottish-ministers-climate-law-exemption?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/28/queen-secret...
- sheepshagger96 5y agoyeah mining for iron ore and 'climate change' have so much in common /s
- partomniscient 5y agoYou think they still use pickaxes? Let alone the downstream energy costs smelting it, working it and transporting the stuff around...
- micromacrofoot 5y agoThis is like the prank 8-year-olds play; lick someone's food and then ask if they're going to eat it.
- ivanstame 5y agoRio Tinto mars sa Drine! - The slogan They are coming now to my country (Serbia) and people are mad as hell, they don't want them here.
- wesleywt 5y agoIn the meantime rockclimbers are banned from the Grampians despite not going close to cultural sites. Just shows money talks.
- andrewstuart 5y agoIn Australia, it always costs less to bulldoze history than to pay the trivial fine.
- morpheos137 5y agoNothing lasts forever. 46,000 years is a long time for a human artefact. Eventually the sun will burn up all of them in a billion years or so.
- mgh2 5y agoAt least they apologized, instead of hiding or denying it.
- atoav 5y agoUnforgivable.
- dang 5y ago"Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Submitted title was "Rio Tinto blew up 46,000-year-old Aboriginal caves in Western Australia (2020)"
- maxwell 5y agoExactly, the original title was misleading PR speak [1] focused on Rio Tinto's bullshit apology instead of the magnitude of the site that they destroyed. Odd to see such dogmatic reverence for pg's rule to the extent that you actively remove the key information which drives interest in a post initially. How does condemning titles to bland, irrelevant, uninteresting "original" statements fit with on-topic posts meant to be "anything that good hackers would find interesting"? 1. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- dang 5y agoActually I agree that PR speak counts as misleading and can be a valid reason for changing such titles: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=corporate%20press%20release%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... I don't think I agree with your case about this one. If you really want to understand HN's approach to titles, I can explain more, but I'd like to be sure first that you aren't just trying to pick a fight about it, since that's boring and never works. One short, partial answer is that in practice, the kind of thing people do when they're trying to make titles less "bland, irrelevant, uninteresting" is actually to make them more provocative and baity, which is not at all the same thing as what the HN guidelines mean by "interesting". Provocation and curiosity not only aren't the same, they may even be disjoint states.
- crazygringo 5y agoThere's almost zero information is this article, except that the "Australian Minister for Indigenous Affairs Ken Wyatt, who is Aboriginal... added that it appeared to be a "genuine mistake"". Did Rio Tinto just not know the caves were there? Who was supposed to be responsible for them knowing -- was it their responsibility or that of the government? Did they know caves existed but not know they had historical significance? Were they following standard safety protocols and had no intention of damaging the cave, but there were unseen side effects of earth shifting or something? Articles like this infuriate me because they invite us to assign knee-jerk blame, but then don't actually give any of the information needed to make that assessment. And if this happened a year ago, surely there's a more recent more informative article that could have been submitted instead? I'm not sure what the point of submitting this particular article is -- there aren't any actionable details here on what perhaps needs to change in going forwards to prevent this type of thing from happening again.
- yesenadam 5y ago> There's almost zero information [in] this article True. There's slightly more in the inquiry report: Never Again: Inquiry into the destruction of 46,000 year old caves at the Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region of Western Australia - Interim Report (PDF) https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/reportjnt/024579/toc_pdf/NeverAgain.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/rep... This comment from elsewhere on this page has links to some related stories and updates https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27987689 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27987689