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I find LiDAR scanning through canopies super fascinating, but I ended up going down a different rabbit hole while reading this. I found the petition linked belo

I find LiDAR scanning through canopies super fascinating, but I ended up going down a different rabbit hole while reading this. I found the petition linked below after a cursory look into the doctor of archeology mentioned within this article. I wonder how this work fits into the aspirations mentioned within it. To me that petition brought up thoughts about how one might manage projects like this with respect to local population, and if/how efforts like this can aspire to maximize positive impacts for local populations, relating to economic mobility. It also brought up concerns about the worst parts of colonialism/neo-colonialism, namely the looting and suppression of local populations for the economic interests of foreign or state related interests. I wonder how the archeologist in question changed his methodologies (if at all) in response to the petition. https://www.change.org/p/society-for-american-archaeology-remove-dr-richard-hansen-from-the-society-for-american-archaeology https://www.change.org/p/society-for-american-archaeology-re...

AlotOfReading 4y ago
I wish Hansen would go into a quiet retirement somewhere. He's notorious in the American archaeological community and frankly something of a political bogeyman for many of the political groups in Central America. He's been accused of everything from being involved with human/drug trafficking groups, to rigging elections, to pursuing shadowy mormon illuminati goals. He hasn't done any favors to his reputation by associating with unsavory individuals like Mel Gibson for funding and helping to produce whatever the hell Apocalypto was. The Mirador basin his project is named after is widely considered to be nonexistent and not an isolated geographic region in its own right. I don't personally believe much of the stuff that's been said about him (having never met the guy) because it's so cartoonishly evil, but he's so politically radioactive that anything he might try to do to benefit local communities is never going to get their support.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  Apocalypto was a fun movie, I liked it.
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    Hey, you do you. Mayanists absolutely hate it for what I consider pretty decent reasons. Some historical inaccuracies would normally be tolerable, but Apocalypto's inaccuracies tend to dehumanize the Maya it depicts. Worse, it was produced less than a decade after an internationally recognized genocide in which modern Maya people were portrayed as bloodthirsty savages by propaganda using similar stereotypes. You can still find the old reviews from academics in various places like [1]. [1] https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/02/apocalypto.html https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/02/apoc...
    - throwawaylinux 4y ago
      I don't think it portrays them that way at all. If it did claim to have any bearing on reality it shows good and bad. War and slavery and murder and atrocities by the ruling class down to foot soldiers. I can watch movies fictional or not about Nazis, as well as Vietnam, Iraq, Cambodia and other western interventions and wars -- without thinking that somehow portrays white or European people as bloodthirsty savages. I think it's pretty infantilizing to think a movie like that is "problematic", doesn't surprise me to see this kind of ultra-PC high horsemanship coming from academia but I think their fanciful claims about the risk of hate crimes and neo nazis due this film are a load of unsubstantiated and unscientific claptrap that they're just making up.
      - AlotOfReading 4y ago
        The movie uses a modern Mayan language for dialogue, uses Maya actors and depicts a religion still practiced today. Moreover, practitioners of that religion were being actively killed for their practice only a decade prior. The analogy with nazis and europeans seems pretty different to me. In the interest of having a more interesting discussion though, what would you require beyond the existing content of the film to consider it "problematic" (to use your word)?
        throwawaylinux 4y ago
solardev 4y ago
Without any context, the bill that Hansen ~~is sponsoring~~ supposedly wrote is pretty terrifying in and of itself: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3131/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/313... It's asking the US Congress to stick its tentacles further into Mexican and Guatemalan affairs, encouraging US investment for tourism and law enforcement. Why are we meddling in their affairs and taking over their management?
joshuaheard 4y ago
If you disagree with his proposal, then lobby against it based on the merits. Trying to attack him personally by cancelling his professional membership is wrong.
- Gabriel_Martin 4y ago
  I don't know why you'd assume my observations are an attack on him personally, or try to characterize me as cancelling him. Apparently he's somewhat noteworthy? I just shared related information I found interesting and comment worthy. It feels you'd prefer I stifle my reflection on the petition I found and the thoughts I had? Seems a bit like being cancelled for not limiting my perspective to the proposal and commenting on anything related I'd read upon googling the people in the article.

AlotOfReading 4y ago

I wish Hansen would go into a quiet retirement somewhere. He's notorious in the American archaeological community and frankly something of a political bogeyman for many of the political groups in Central America. He's been accused of everything from being involved with human/drug trafficking groups, to rigging elections, to pursuing shadowy mormon illuminati goals. He hasn't done any favors to his reputation by associating with unsavory individuals like Mel Gibson for funding and helping to produce whatever the hell Apocalypto was. The Mirador basin his project is named after is widely considered to be nonexistent and not an isolated geographic region in its own right. I don't personally believe much of the stuff that's been said about him (having never met the guy) because it's so cartoonishly evil, but he's so politically radioactive that anything he might try to do to benefit local communities is never going to get their support.

throwawaylinux 4y ago
Apocalypto was a fun movie, I liked it.
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  Hey, you do you. Mayanists absolutely hate it for what I consider pretty decent reasons. Some historical inaccuracies would normally be tolerable, but Apocalypto's inaccuracies tend to dehumanize the Maya it depicts. Worse, it was produced less than a decade after an internationally recognized genocide in which modern Maya people were portrayed as bloodthirsty savages by propaganda using similar stereotypes. You can still find the old reviews from academics in various places like [1]. [1] https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/02/apocalypto.html https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/02/apoc...
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    I don't think it portrays them that way at all. If it did claim to have any bearing on reality it shows good and bad. War and slavery and murder and atrocities by the ruling class down to foot soldiers. I can watch movies fictional or not about Nazis, as well as Vietnam, Iraq, Cambodia and other western interventions and wars -- without thinking that somehow portrays white or European people as bloodthirsty savages. I think it's pretty infantilizing to think a movie like that is "problematic", doesn't surprise me to see this kind of ultra-PC high horsemanship coming from academia but I think their fanciful claims about the risk of hate crimes and neo nazis due this film are a load of unsubstantiated and unscientific claptrap that they're just making up.
    - AlotOfReading 4y ago
      The movie uses a modern Mayan language for dialogue, uses Maya actors and depicts a religion still practiced today. Moreover, practitioners of that religion were being actively killed for their practice only a decade prior. The analogy with nazis and europeans seems pretty different to me. In the interest of having a more interesting discussion though, what would you require beyond the existing content of the film to consider it "problematic" (to use your word)?
      - throwawaylinux 4y ago

solardev 4y ago

Without any context, the bill that Hansen ~~is sponsoring~~ supposedly wrote is pretty terrifying in and of itself: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3131/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/313... It's asking the US Congress to stick its tentacles further into Mexican and Guatemalan affairs, encouraging US investment for tourism and law enforcement. Why are we meddling in their affairs and taking over their management?

joshuaheard 4y ago

If you disagree with his proposal, then lobby against it based on the merits. Trying to attack him personally by cancelling his professional membership is wrong.

Gabriel_Martin 4y ago
I don't know why you'd assume my observations are an attack on him personally, or try to characterize me as cancelling him. Apparently he's somewhat noteworthy? I just shared related information I found interesting and comment worthy. It feels you'd prefer I stifle my reflection on the petition I found and the thoughts I had? Seems a bit like being cancelled for not limiting my perspective to the proposal and commenting on anything related I'd read upon googling the people in the article.