Comment by chernevik | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chernevik | Hacker News Reader

It is depressing to me that a community as smart as this is so congratulatory of such inch-deep stuff. Oooh, landmines! Design! Shiny! But a fast perusal of the comments shows that this approach is at best problematic. And a deeper reading of the comments suggests this might very well be a dangerous anti-pattern.

People, you are some of the brightest and cleverest people walking the earth. And the earth has some nasty problems. They won't be solved by meaning well or looking cool.

In my early days I worked with homeless and mentally disabled people, I migrated to government policy to solve larger problems, but I was perpetually frustrated by the refusal to ask hard questions of stuff that sounded good. And you know what? I am so sorry to tell you, but there are people who have noticed this persistent absence of accountability, and who are willing to exploit it.

I have no particular reason to believe that the designer in the OP is a cynic. But you do his effort to help no favors by upvoting it to the moon because it looks cool. The informed and thoughtful critique in the comments DOES help, and a dialogue talking about the potential application of design to the problem would help still further. Here are a few ideas: - Kids ignore warning signs around mine fields -- why not design hideous boundary demons to frighten them off? - Design "clear trail" markers apparent in all weather and easily moved to reflect cleared sections? - Mapped displays of mined areas as targets for Apple vs Microsoft battles to see who can clear more? - Does the computing power of Raspberry Pi offer new possibilities for cheap clearance -- maybe gather seismographic data with controlled explosions to be analyzed for "echoes" of a landmine? - Declaring total clearance is a problem, what if there were a program that took 99% cleared land and used as grazing pasture for 10 years so the cows can find the missing bombs?

These don't strike me as half bad and I suck so I expect most of this board can come up with better and more detailed.

The guy is trying to do something and that's great. But let's not just congratulate him and move on. Let's actually think about whether the damn thing helps, and if not, how design could help more.

“But you do his effort to help no favors by upvoting it to the moon because it looks cool. The informed and thoughtful critique in the comments DOES help, and a dialogue talking about the potential application of design to the problem would help still further.“

Upvotes give a post visibility. Visibility fosters discussion. Discussion yields information, critique, and dialogue. I'm uncertain as to why you're complaining about the upvotes given that you want critique and comments.

It's a good point. Hard to distinguish upvotes for "cool!" vs "let's discuss".

I did think about about saying something about "upvote and comment" but 1) was already too long 2) wasn't sure that a sea of 300+ comments is an effective discussion.

Don't have a good answer for you.

Couldn't agree more. I learned a lot about this issue thanks to excellent, insightful and well-researched comments in this thread (thanks _djo_ and many others). If it weren't for the high vote-count, perhaps some of those wouldn't have bothered commenting in this thread.

Perhaps all it needs it changing one's own meaning behind an upvote from 'i full endorse the link' to 'this is a thread worthy of discussion'

> People, you are some of the brightest and cleverest people walking the earth.

Oh, please. It's exactly this kind of self-congratulatory bullshit that produces this community's inch-deep intellectual culture.

>>you do his effort to help no favors by upvoting it to the moon

I think you're vastly overestimating this board's power & influence.

I think people like ideas like this because the idea that USA is going to back down to some where-the-fuck-am-I place in northern Cambodia and Laos to remove the bombs we dropped is laughable: http://truth-out.org/news/item/3001:landmines-and-cluster-bo...

You act cynical and as though you have a 'realist' point of view, but nowhere do you mention holding the countries that dropped these weapons accountable. Why don't we shame them? Why don't we pay for handicapped children to come to the USA and peacefully sit in on protests? Why not make this the embarrassing issue it should be?

Embarassment is endurable, so maybe not as effective as we'd hope.

A practical cheap way to clear mines would both be useful locally, and increase the odds of some Senator pushing for a (cheap) goodwill project.

It's fun to place all blame on the USA, isn't it?

From the below link [1]: Mine clearance teams in Afghanistan report finding literally dozens of types of landmines, mainly from the ex-USSR, but also from Belgium, Italy, US and the UK. The most infamous mine used during the Soviet Union's occupation period was the so-called 'butterfly' mine. Helicopter crews dropped untold numbers (figures range into the millions) of the small mines from the air.

Also, I found this interesting. Clearly, it's not enough to demine the world, but it's more than the zero dollar amount you basically assume: [2] Despite its refusal to join the treaty, the U.S. has done more to counteract mines than any other country, spending $1.9 billion during the past 18 years through the Humanitarian Mine Action Program—roughly a quarter of the total spent on demining and other remediation activities around the world. There's been a special emphasis on helping Cambodia, which has received more than $80 million since 1993.

Reason for not signing treaty isn't too great, but there is hope: [2] The American position is complicated. The United States has not used antipersonnel land mines since 1991, not exported them since 1992, and not produced them since 1997. But the nation has a stockpile of some 10 million land mines, and prior to the '90s, it exported 4.4 million antipersonnel land mines, an unknown number of which are still in the ground. ... Nonetheless, under pressure from the United States Campaign to Ban Landmines, the Obama Administration has been conducting a comprehensive review of its land mine policy.

4.4 million exported, not clear if that includes how many they planted. This seems like it must be the majority, but it turns out there are an estimated 110 million planted in the world [3].

[1] http://www.afghan-network.net/Landmines/ [2] http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/01/landmines/jenkins-... [3] http://www.unicef.org/sowc96pk/hidekill.htm

Mine clearance teams in Afghanistan report finding literally dozens of types of landmines, mainly from the ex-USSR, but also from Belgium, Italy, US and the UK.

Grandparent was talking about Cambodia and Laos, not Afghanistan.

Also, cluster munitions are a much greater source of American unexploded ordinance (UXO) than mines. You'll find tons of American UXO in Afghanistan because of it. Each cluster has only a ~90% of detonating, and we dropped a but ton at the beginning of the war.

I like the idea because I was in Afghanistan for some time and saw humans in blue suits clearing them in that very same place. I would much prefer a device like this, shiny or not.

Since when did we become so cynical that every effort must be criticized on execution rather than lauded on effort?

The comment thread suggests that this particular effort is potentially _harmful_ in its execution.

There are concerns it might create false security. And that it mightn't be very useful to current strategies, probably followed those blue-suit guys, that do lead to proper security. For example exploded mine shrapnel can confuse mine detection gear.

I upvoted this story in the hopes that it would spark some interesting discussion. Look, it has.

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