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Take Nothing, Leave Nothing: On being banned from the world’s most remote island
- greggyb 12y agoThis excerpt is truly one of the best things I've read recently: > It stems from a somewhat bizarre British government decision, taken during World War II, to reclassify some of its more remote island possessions as ships. Tristan was transmuted into HMS Atlantic Isle, and its role was to patrol (from its rock-hewn state of immobility) for any German U-boats that might be lurking in the southern Atlantic. To compound the fantasy a small party of sailors was posted there to man the ship
- emmelaich 12y agoReferring to land bases as HMS dates from 1805. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_frigate Which doesn't negate the reason for this particular decision of course.
- ars 12y agoAlso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier
- cperciva 12y agoMy grandfather once told me the story of a Nazi propaganda broadcast which attempted to damage British morale by (falsely) announcing the sinking of a "ship", only to backfire when they used the name of a stone frigate. Unfortunately I can't find any reference online, so the story may be apocryphal; has anyone else heard this?
- funkyy 12y agoHow would this backfire? -by revealing the truth to soldiers in propaganda controlled media? -by not allowing for fake news to enter news circulation in Britain? -or maybe to try to uncover the truth in state owned German newspapers? I don't see any field for backfiring.
- Crito 12y agoBy making the Germans seem ridiculous to the British, rather than demoralizing the British.
- ableal 12y agoForgive me, but to me what sounds like propaganda is the story itself, as in "Ah ah, those dumb liars got caught" in a lie they never told ...
- rglovejoy 12y agoI recall that during the first Gulf War, Iraqi propaganda broadcasts were telling American servicemen that their wives and girlfriends back home were carrying on with Bart Simpson.
- madaxe_again 12y agoHere you go: http://www.ukings.ca/hmcs-kings-wardroom http://www.ukings.ca/hmcs-kings-wardroom They apparently claimed to have sunk.... a college. Edit: Also, http://www.secret-tunnels.co.uk/FwdH-Haw.htm http://www.secret-tunnels.co.uk/FwdH-Haw.htm Either it's apocryphal or the kriegsmarine had a knack for making silly announcements. I'm inclined to think the former, and that it was more likely black propaganda to make the enemy appear stupid.
- cperciva 12y agoReplying to myself since it's too late to edit: /r/AskHistorians came through with this: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/344o4f/ww2_german_propaganda_broadcast_to_uk_claimed/cqrbk7u http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/344o4f/ww2_ge...
- Turing_Machine 12y agoThe U.S. Navy has also been known to do this. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Desert_Ship_(LLS-1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Desert_Ship_(LLS-1)
- analog31 12y agoI wonder if it has something to do with the career advancement of the service members who are stationed there, i.e., if there is some sort of higher prestige (or pay) for people who have served on a ship.
- bandrami 12y agoYes. Officers above a certain rank have to be on a "rated" ship, and IIRC the stone frigates were all 4th-rates, which meant a senior Post Captain (later just a captain) could be in command there and not lose his seniority. And in fact, the first stone frigate command (of a rock in the Atlantic) was given to the lieutenant who had led the assault that took the island. Since the act gave him promotion to Captain, he couldn't command his old cutter anymore, so they came up with the stone frigate idea. Later on it became more of an unofficial punishment; a way to take a commander who was too senior to just keep on the beach and put him somewhere that he wouldn't do too much harm. For any "Master and Commander" book series fans, Jack was threatened with being sent off to a stone frigate in I think "The Yellow Admiral".
- brudgers 12y agoA practical application of duck typing. Both are a bunch of dry people surrounded by water. @anchor is a constant for one and a variable for the other.
- stickfigure 12y ago"And what else floats in water?" "Bread" "Apples" "Very small islands"
- mcguire 12y agoA better one: "For though I sedulously followed the rule of taking nothing and leaving nothing, it suddenly seemed to me that my very being on the island, and my later decision to record my impressions of that visit and the impressions of earlier visitors, had resulted in a series of entirely unintended and unanticipated consequences—consequences that were as inimical to the islanders’ contentment as if I had plundered or polluted there. "I had no understanding whatsoever that by repeating that naval officer’s memoir, I could hurt the feelings of anyone. To my clumsy, unthinking, touristic mind, the notion seemed quite absurd. To be sure, old Kenneth Rogers had explained it to me kindly—but I had chosen to ignore his warning, to dismiss his assertion of feeling. I had failed, even for one second, to consider what he and his fellow islanders might think—because I held to an unspoken assumption that as a visitor from the sophisticated outside, I knew better, and that I had something of a prescriptive right to do with him and his like, more or less as I pleased...."
- abandonliberty 12y agoAppears to be a legal oddity. Renaming the islands to boats must have seemed an easy solution at the time. >Under section 67 of the Naval Discipline Act 1866, the provisions of the act only applied to officers and men of the Royal Navy borne on the books of a warship.
- logicallee 12y agoNo effing way. I'm sorry, no way. This is like the Simpsons with: Homer, I'm in a rhubarb of a pickle of a jam here. I was all set to go off on vacation when I get called up for jury duty. Oh, it's a corker of a case. Seems a man drove up onto a traffic island and hit a decorative rowboat full of geraniums. Now they're trying it as a maritime offense.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- damian2000 12y agoThe Royal Australian Navy does this too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Stirling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Stirling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Albatross_%28air_station%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Albatross_%28air_station%2...
- antimagic 12y agoMy personal favourite is HMAS Harman - located about 100km from the ocean... https://encrypted.google.com/maps?q=HMAS+harman&hl=fr&ll=-35.346495,149.202576&spn=1.321763,2.883911&sll=38.134557,-95.712891&sspn=40.42861,92.285156&hq=HMAS+harman&radius=15000&t=m&z=9 https://encrypted.google.com/maps?q=HMAS+harman&hl=fr&ll=-35...
- SomeoneWeird 12y agoDon't forget HMAS Cerberus[0] which is also a suburb. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Cerberus_%28naval_base%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Cerberus_%28naval_base%29
- blueskin_ 12y agoHasn't the US done this too, even if not recently then at least historically? The Royal Navy still does this today though.
- teh_klev 12y agoThe British MOD's Vulcan Naval Reactor Test Establishment at Dounreay in Caithness in the north of Scotland used to be known as HMS Vulcan [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dounreay#Vulcan_NRTE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dounreay#Vulcan_NRTE
- rodgerd 12y agoAs an aside, Winchester's books on the development of the Oxford English Dictionary are wonderful, especially "The Surgeon of Crowthorne".
- moioci 12y agoI highly recommend "Krakatoa."
- ceequof 12y agoThe British Empire also holds a similar tiny island in the Pacific: Pitcairn, population 67, inhabited by the descendants of the Mutiny on the Bounty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty It is mainly notable for a contentious rape trial in 2004: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_sexual_assault_trial_of_2004 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_sexual_assault_trial_o... Long form Vanity Fair article, which is sufficiently similar to the OP that at first I thought I was rereading the same essay: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/01/pitcairn200801 http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/01/pitcairn200801
- syntheticnature 12y agoI had the same reaction, though I'll note that it rapidly becomes obvious it's a different story.
- typish 12y agoI visited Pitcairn Island a few years ago, staying with an island couple. It's a great place to explore and I found the islanders friendly and welcoming. There is an aspect of wariness I think with outsiders amongst them - especially those who are journalists or involved in media in some aspect. They've been bitten before and had their lives written about (Dea Birkett's book Serpent in Paradise comes to mind).
- douche 12y agoInteresting, I had thought that the Bounty mutineers had died out because of lack of genetic diversity/lack of resources already. Not quite the same, but there are islands in the St. Lawrence in Quebec that are similar backwaters. My father has been hunting snow geese on Ile-aux-Grues, just across from Montmane, Quebec. At this point, there are only about a dozen families on the island that stay there and continue doing the guiding/dairying lifestyle that is traditional year-round.
- typish 12y agoWhen the outside world came into contact with the Pitcairn settlement there was one mutineer left, John Adams. There were Tahitian women alive as well who were part of the Bounty story, having been retrieved from Tahiti after the mutiny. One of them, Teehuteatuaenoa, gave her account of the aftermath in an interview from Tahiti: http://www.fatefulvoyage.com/pitcairn/pitcairnDJenny.html http://www.fatefulvoyage.com/pitcairn/pitcairnDJenny.html More on Teehuteatuaenoa and the history here: http://www.demtullpitcairn.com/teehuteatuaenoa.html http://www.demtullpitcairn.com/teehuteatuaenoa.html The island did suffer from lack of resources as the population grew. This lead to two migrations. One to Tahiti in 1831 and another to Norfolk Island in 1856. The latter is where many Norfolk Islanders can claim their ancestry from. Some islanders returned from Norfolk and re-settled Pitcairn soon after that migration. With regards to genetic diversity, there have been many 'outsiders' that have settled and married with islanders. These were often the result of visiting whalers and shipwrecked sailors. You'll find most of the ancestral lines on Pitcairn have a mix of the initial mutineers, their Tahitian wives and outsiders giving genetic diversity.
- ars 12y agoIf you don't feel like reading the article, he was banned because he wrote a book exposing some private details of the lives of two residents. He was OK with it because the details were publicly available, but not easy to access. The residents were not happy about it. He feels bad about it, and won't fight it even though he would win. He concludes by asking tourists to try to have a greater feeling for the people you visit.
- stefantalpalaru 12y agoAlternative version: Writer was banned from remote British island with 275 inhabitants and a gene pool restricted to 7 families. Apparently he wrote about a lieutenant's memoir in which he mentions being interested in a local girl during WW2. The woman is still alive and her husband did not like the story being written about. The writer is not satisfied with this rather simplistic ending to his article, so he creates a narrative of insensitive tourists that make natives sad. The final message is that tourism is a plague on society and we should all just stay at home.
- Dylan16807 12y agoI wouldn't use the word exposing for something that was already in a book and known by enough people to be an annoyance. I also wouldn't use the phrase private details for "she talked with some guy one night, nothing ever came of it".
- vacri 12y agoThere may be more to the story than the innocent "nothing came of this" that the protagonist originally wrote.
- Dylan16807 12y agoBut if there was, it was explicitly not in the book. And the article author couldn't have published anything about that because he wouldn't know. So the worst case is he republished an innocent story about someone that also had a non-innocent story. That doesn't make sense for a ban.
- jredwards 12y agoThe author seems to come to grips with the islanders' scorn, and apparently agrees that it was improper of him to retell this story. ...which he is retelling again in this article. I'm a little confused about the true depths of his contrition.
- dfan 12y agoHe addresses that near the end.
- thieving_magpie 12y agoThe purpose of telling the story the first time was for selfish reasons. The purpose of retelling the story now is for selfless reasons. I'm betting he thinks the islanders can tell the difference.
- yellowapple 12y agoThat, or since he's already banned, he has nothing to lose.
- betenoire 12y agoHe didn't think he had anything to lose the first time, either.
- benbreen 12y agoRelated - an article I wrote about the settlement of Tristan da Cunha and the history of micronations last year. [1] There are also some fascinating clips of the island on Youtube (including the odd, 19th century sounding variant of British English spoken there) if anyone is looking for interesting procrastination material. [2] [1] http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/7/the-king-of-the-islands-of-refreshment http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/7/the-king-of-the-islands... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKRvtk-GI0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKRvtk-GI0g
- javert 12y agoThey sound pretty American. More than British people, for example.
- mml 12y agoNot surprising. People interested in such things say that the southern U.S. accent is closer to 18th century British English than current British English is.
- vacri 12y agoWhich British accent? One linguist says that you get a noticeable difference about every 25 miles in the UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7843058.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7843058.stm
- javert 12y agoProbably almost any of them. All the British accents I've ever heard sound less American than the Traistain de Cunha islanders.
- IndianAstronaut 12y agoThe level of inbreeding on that island is quite scary. Although if they purged a lot of the deleterious alleles from the population, if they outbred with others, they could produce much healthier offspring and a lower likelihood of various genetic ailments.
- jacquesm 12y agoTourism is a double edged sword. Large chunks of the world with very fragile eco-systems, sometimes the last few of a species depend on the tourists for their income. But tourists don't have quotas and too many of them destroy the thing they seek to find. It's a delicate balance. Kudos to mr. Winchester for realizing that all by himself on that boat, it's a hard realization that the best tourists are the ones that you can't see.
- chetanahuja 12y agoCase in point, Maldives: "Maldives island swamped by rising tide of waste" http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/29399966-e80b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/29399966-e80b-11e4-9960-00144feab7... It's one of the most beautiful places on earth that you must visit to truly appreciate. But each extra person generates a load on that fragile ecosystem that diminishes that beauty by a little bit.
- numair 12y agoThe Microsoft billionaire who arrived on Namibia’s Skeleton Coast with five helicopters full of bodyguards, and demanded that all available local lions be collected in one oasis so that he could see and picture them. Obnoxious and disgusting.
- chengiz 12y agoWho would that be? Not Gates surely.
- zzleeper 12y agopaul allen
- dllu 12y agoAccording to the Forbes list of billionaires: http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:static_search:microsoft http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:static_sear... There are currently four Microsoft billionaires (probably fewer at the time referred to in the article): * Bill Gates $79.2 B * Steve Ballmer $21.5 B * Paul Allen $17.5 B * Charles Simonyi $1.4 B
- fensterblick 12y agoI would guess Paul Allen, who has done work in Namibia. But take his anecdote with a grain of salt - plenty of journalists have misrepresented stories.
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- Schwolop 12y agoI recently wrote a highly upvoted comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9444578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9444578) on another thread whose parent article discussed why people rarely read much any more. I railed against authors who overly enjoy the sound of their own words. As a follow-up I'd like to point out that this article kept me riveted right through. It was interesting, intriguing, and written without the multitude of irrelevant tone-setting sentences that plague so many so-called "long-form" articles today. In my humble opinion, well worth a read!
- toolz 12y agoI'm sure your reasons are just as valid as my own for forming an opinion, but I've always wondered if the people who enjoy reading because of the linguistic qualities, rather than the content, are really just spending too much time looking for ways to feel superior. Then again, maybe I'm being critical in an attempt to feel superior. Who knows and/or who cares I guess.
- bshimmin 12y agoIt's possible just to enjoy the beauty of words, you know.
- shiro 12y agoExcerpt from Stephen King's "Hearts in Atlantis": [After talking on the books with good story but not good writing, and the ones with good writing but not good story] "Read sometimes for the story, Bobby. Don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words---the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers that won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book."
- sneak 12y agoThe Crying of Lot 49 is one of my favorite examples of a book that tells a story about basically nothing, yet happens to be an absolute marvel to absorb. It has nothing to do with feeling superior and simply reveling in masterful use of language. Does it make one feel superior to watch a world class athlete perform? Reading Pynchon or DFWallace is a pretty similar emotional experience, in my book. 😎
- unexistance 12y agoheh this island reminds me of Odd John's island before they supposedly self-destruct
- seany 12y agoWhat a bunch of cunts.
- pp19dd 12y agoI've been fascinated by this island for the past 10 years now. It was an isolated community where you could study its composition in an entirety of its isolation. The island has charming place-names such as "Ridge where the Goat jump off" and "Down where the Minister land his things." The island's official website, tristandc, is put together by the villagers themselves. Thus I wondered, where do they get their electricity from? So, I corresponded with the island's administrator (who, along with the village's doctor, is from England - only 'foreigners' or outlanders allowed on the island.) The only outlanders who are permanently allowed on the island are anyone who's been shipwrecked, which is how there are two Italian families there now (or is it one?) He explained that there's a crayfish factory owned by a South African company on the island that employs roughly half of the villagers. The factory is powered by diesel generators and for their exclusive deal with the islanders, the generators power the village. The other half of the employed villagers work "for the government." He didn't really expand on that point, but I took that to mean that part of the jobs are the make-work kind. Because of the harsh climate, the dominant food is the potato and the administrator, Mike Hadley, told me many of the dishes are potato based. The villagers drink an ungodly amount of alcohol per capita, and every year they crew boats to the nearby Gough island where they collect bird eggs for eating. Rest of their supplies are shipped once or twice per year, so saying that they buy in bulk is an understatement. The islanders are very shy and self-aware of what's perceived as their backwardness. But they appear to be rather charming, in their own way. Whale oil trade made the remote island attractive for resupplying whaling ships, but after the industry's collapse the islanders got cut off. Their genetic pool got cut in half after a single boat capsized and men were lost in a storm. Their speech patterns, fashion and culture lagged behind the times- almost literally by centuries. Their reconnection to modernity happened after the volcano erupted post WWII, and the islanders were evacuated to London for a couple of years. And now, they let tourists on for a few hours and charge a steep fee for a visa stamp. The island is in middle of nowhere. You really have to pull up a map and slowly zoom out until it sinks in that they're basically living on a desolate volcano: https://goo.gl/maps/CTLn9 https://goo.gl/maps/CTLn9 But for all its remoteness, the island "caught" a floating oil platform back in the mid-2000s with all its serial numbers filed off, and claimed salvage rights. And of course, at the time I wanted to move to the island and bring them wind turbines.
- ggchappell 12y agoI looked into the quote from Pascal. It turns out to be from his "Pensées" (Thoughts). In the original French, the passage in question reads: > Quand je m'y suis mis quelquefois à considérer les diverses agitations des hommes, et les périls, et les peines où ils s'exposent dans la Cour, dans la guerre d'où naissent tant de querelles, de passions, d'entreprises hardies et souvent mauvaises, etc., j'ai dit souvent que tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre. One English translation (http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/pascal/pensees-contents.html http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/pascal/pensees-...) renders this as follows: > When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. I think I would translate that last bit as "... I have often said that all the unhappiness of men derives from just one thing: not knowing how to sit still in a room."
- kweks 12y agoIt's a lot more subtle than that. | "de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre." Is literally: "To not know how to remain at rest in a room" There is certainly no mention of one's own room, but it is a conclusion one could draw from the previous paragraph: these issues would certainly be avoided if one did not leave their house, but without additional context, it's not the only conclusion. From the given context, my interpretation is closer to its literal core: people cannot content themselves to be still, in a state of calm. People routinely and actively flee moments of calm, moments of idle. Glance around public transport, and you'll see people cramming every second with something - the ageless inability to remain calm in a room.
- damian2000 12y agoHis book, Outposts, is a really decent read. Not as good as his original bestseller, The Surgeon of Crowthorne though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outposts:_Journeys_to_the_Surviving_Relics_of_the_British_Empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outposts:_Journeys_to_the_Survi... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Surgeon_of_Crowthorne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Surgeon_of_Crowthorne
- MattyRad 12y agoPersonally I think the first half of the article was fantastic, then it tapered off toward the end. But ultimately, my takeaway is that we should be more considerate in all aspects of our lives about how our actions affect others, which is a good resolution, even if the moral of the article was a bit muddled by the end.
- greggman 12y agoI had a hard time getting the point of this article at the end about why he shouldn't have written the original story. Anyone have an insight or some other way to get that point across? All I can imagine is the guy who didn't want the story told was upset because it reminded him his wife was longing for that other guy but otherwise it's really hard (as a dumb american) for me to understand why that story would bug anyone. And it's certainly hard for me to understand why the author would get banned by the island rather than just hated by the guy who brought up his wife's innocent history. I loved the article. Well written and certainly compelling to read and fascinating all the way through. I'm just wondering what I missed or some other way to see it and truly grok it.
- hvidgaard 12y agoIt was the revalation that what he, and evidently you, think is innocent, is not de facto true. It was not innocent to them, and he realized that he was warned of this but didn't respect it. It illustrates a great point about freedom of speech: You are free to say what you want, but that does not mean it's without consequences.
- jmharvey 12y agoFree speech means that even though your speech can have consequences, but those consequences can't come from the government, as was the case here.
- lmm 12y agoIt doesn't, or at least it shouldn't. It doesn't make any difference whether it's a government, a corporation, or an individual who's stopping you speaking. The first amendment only applies to the government, but the first amendment is only one part of free speech.
- unionpivo 12y agoI disagree. It makes big difference weather its government or somebody else. Government has too much power(guns) so it must be checked, and strict rules on what they can and can't do established. On the other hand private entities, should be allowed to say for them self what you can or can't do with their equipment (work PC's, phones) and on their premises (digital and physical: homes, offices, blogs, forums, ... ). This is fundamental for private ownership to have any meaning. And if you don't like rules that this private entity has established you can go elsewhere. (anti monopoly law's should ensure you have that option ; but they are not always perfect or applied) So freedom of speech should only apply to governments.
- tatterdemalion 12y agoI finished this article thinking it must be fiction. I had heard of an island in the Atlantic called Tristan da Cunha, and I figured the general outline was similar to what the article says, but the way the more and more unusual details of the story accumulate makes it read beautifully like someone trying to pull your leg. Amazing that it seems to be true.
- Peroni 12y ago>the women knit large woolen sweaters called “ganzeys,” Now that's fascinating. 'Ganzey' is a perfect phonetic pronunciation of the Irish word for sweater which is 'geansaí'.
- seszett 12y agoThat's just a an evolution of the pronunciation of "Guernsey"[0]. I'm not sure how they say it but it doesn't sound very far from the original to me (and the Irish doesn't seem very different either). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernsey_(clothing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernsey_(clothing)
- Peroni 12y agoAh, TIL. I had no idea. Thanks for that.