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Casting pig iron at the Iroquois smelter
- pfdietz 5y ago"Modern pig casting machines produce stick pigs, which break into smaller 4–10 kg piglets at discharge." -- wikipedia page on pig iron
- tomcam 5y agoI’m going to be smiling all day thinking about this use of the term piglet
- tribler 5y agoIf you like iron making. The old way is on display here, an original blast furnace from 1693 in Belgium. Very rare. http://www.mmil.be/ http://www.mmil.be/
- acomjean 5y agoIn the US we have the Saugus iron works which ran from around 1645-1670. It’s a fun visit. https://www.nps.gov/sair/index.htm https://www.nps.gov/sair/index.htm
- kodah 5y agoEvil feels like the wrong word and oddly placed at that.
- randallsquared 5y agoMany people equate "evil" and "harmful" implicitly.
- kodah 5y agoAre you saying this is more harm prevention/safteyism rhetoric?
- afandian 5y agoSeems like a direct reference to William Blake's 'satanic mills'.
- mmazing 5y agoI felt the substance of the message more than the details. Does it really detract from the essence of it? Sometimes just the realization of the underlying meaning is all that is needed to be beautiful, even if the words aren't perfect.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- DenisM 5y agoIt's a direct reference to the essay called "Photographing Evil" that is discussed in the next paragraph. If you want to bridge the gap from your article to someone else's it helps to use the same terminology. It's a bit awkward, though, and I would use the word sinister myself as a compromise, but I certainly see why they did what they did.
- kodah 5y agoI guess the summary fails to explain why this qualifies as evil as opposed to early industry or lack of knowledge. I tried to look up whether the industry knew whether these were harmful fumes and whether there were reasonable alternatives to iron production back then but couldn't find anything.
- DenisM 5y agoYou seem to believe that evil requires a priori knowledge or intent. I think there is enough wiggle room in that word to allow otherwise. Merriam Webster offers causing harm or injury to someone which would fit the article. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evil https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evil
- kodah 5y agoThat definition is a bit dated. Evil as a result does not relate to evil with intent, and using it in that context is odd in modern times. To make my example a bit more concise, if your financial planner lost you money on the market would you ever tell them, "You did an evil thing"? Of course not, but it did result in harm to you, regardless of their intent.
- ivanech 5y agoTo clarify, it's "evil" as in the problem of evil [1] – not necessarily malicious but instead anything involving suffering. This is also how "evil" is used in the essay Photographing Evil by Robert Adams. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil
- redis_mlc 5y agoEvil is the correct word when understood in context. World-wide, iron smelter and steel mill workers died within 5 years of their start date from lung damage. There was no OSHA back then. This only changed when smelters scaled up and became more automated. Note that post-WW2, 25% of Chinese farmers were recruited to work in village-level smelters (the crucible was the size of a home washing machine.) The quality and efficiency were terrible, so pointless. However the 25% loss of agricultural production was partly responsible for the death of 40 million Chinese peasants (CCP transition narrative: "Three years of bad harvests from natural disasters.") And where do you think the "ore" came from? Mostly from peasants' pots and pans and local government wrought-iron fences. Hmm ... sounds like the current White House "renewable energy transition", doesn't it?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]