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Show HN: Ex Situ – Open-source spatial index of displaced cultural artifacts

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Re: Show HN: Ex Situ – Open-source spatial index of displaced cultural artifacts

#31
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.”

Crap quotes like this is what people use to justify slavery, fascism, genocide, apartheid.

Does the world really need to be reduced to binary state, people being black or white and nothing else? I know its supremely convenient mentally, this is how populists ride their huge waves and its each of us in the crowd that allow that.

I find it much more compelling to fully see some negative aspect(s) of someone's past existence while accepting that if I grew up in that era, I would have vastly different morals and probably be fine with that.

Judge others not too harshly if you may, since you will also be judged further down the line and most surely will be judged as inadequately moral or good by their standards, didn't do enough to help preventing some proper shit happening/will happen and so on, rather looked away while milking some comfy job for those sweet dollars (we all have kids and families and mortgages and dreams I know, so does everybody else).

Most people here work for FAANGs of this era for example, hardly moral corporations by any metric and some literally sowing evil ie in cancers called social networks and their gamifications or pushing unwanted ads / outright lies into every eyeball they can reach. And those companies are hardly the only black spots on current society, I'd even say purely moral work is rather rare.

Re: Show HN: Ex Situ – Open-source spatial index of displaced cultural artifacts

#32
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crap quotes like this is what people use to justify slavery, fascism, genocide, apartheid.

Does the world really need to be reduced to binary state, people being black or white and nothing else? I know its supremely convenient mentally, this is how populists ride their huge waves and its each of us in the crowd that allow that. I find it much more compelling to fully see some negative aspect(s) of someone's past existence while accepting that if I grew up in that era, I would have vastly different morals a…

I judge people exactly how my moral's and principles determine they should be judged. People love to use "of the time" type quotes to excuse slavery for example, when in actual fact it was well known at the time to be despicable.

Or perhaps a better example is "of the time" quotes to justify apartheid South Africa, a place my parents grew up in. Many friends parent's were blindly ignorant or supportive, but that doesn't mean they didn't know the facts. They just go, "that's how it was". When I know from my parent's it wasn't like that, and White and Black people knew exactly what was going on. Same could be said for Nazi Germany.

And certainly same can be said for everyone on here that works at FAANG, or Palantir or any US defense contractor. They are knowingly and willingly aiding genocide or mass surveillance. They cannot claim ignorance.

We live in a day and age where people far too easily give up their freedoms, give up moral stand points because it is difficult or divisive. Yes, that's exactly what it is meant to be.

Maybe if we judged people more harshly we wouldn't be seeing a rise in fascism today, because views are just accepted as they are. Hell no. I hope I am judged down the line. Don't be too blase about accepting shitty viewpoints because people are morally ignorant, or lack principles and in doing so divide humanity along spurious lines.

Re: Show HN: Ex Situ – Open-source spatial index of displaced cultural artifacts

#36
post #17
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair catch, it only pulls from institutions with open access APIs (Met, V&A, SMB Berlin, AIC). Not aware of an equivalent from Japanese museums, if you know one, happy to add it.

In that case, the map looks misleading, doesn’t it? It looks as though London and Berlin, for example, stand out as having dislocated disproportionately many artifacts from around the world. And on the other hand, Paris looks innocent. But in truth, London and Berlin are just being honest about it giving you open access to the data whereas Paris doesn’t. So perhaps it would be better to mark cities that do provide da…

I was slightly discombobulated by the first London link I clicked actually showing a number of artifacts from London that are currently held in Berlin.

Re: Show HN: Ex Situ – Open-source spatial index of displaced cultural artifacts

#37
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the world really need to be reduced to binary state, people being black or white and nothing else? I know its supremely convenient mentally, this is how populists ride their huge waves and its each of us in the crowd that allow that. I find it much more compelling to fully see some negative aspect(s) of someone's past existence while accepting that if I grew up in that era, I would have vastly different morals a…

I judge people exactly how my moral's and principles determine they should be judged. People love to use "of the time" type quotes to excuse slavery for example, when in actual fact it was well known at the time to be despicable. Or perhaps a better example is "of the time" quotes to justify apartheid South Africa, a place my parents grew up in. Many friends parent's were blindly ignorant or supportive, but that does…

You might want to read Hamilton’s defence of Elgin to understand how they saw the difference between legitimate and illegitimate acquisition of antiquities.

Re: Show HN: Ex Situ – Open-source spatial index of displaced cultural artifacts

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I judge people exactly how my moral's and principles determine they should be judged. People love to use "of the time" type quotes to excuse slavery for example, when in actual fact it was well known at the time to be despicable. Or perhaps a better example is "of the time" quotes to justify apartheid South Africa, a place my parents grew up in. Many friends parent's were blindly ignorant or supportive, but that does…

You might want to read Hamilton’s defence of Elgin to understand how they saw the difference between legitimate and illegitimate acquisition of antiquities.

Who say's I haven't read it? Yet, Elgin still stole the marbles. Justified it by claiming the barbarism of the Ottoman's was to blame and he was only doing good, despite this being disputed. And hilarious as his removal caused permanent and untold damage to the marbles. And the British refuse to return them even though they would be safe today.

Furthermore theft of antiquities isn't quite the same as slavery, genocide, apartheid... Although culturally relevant, it does form part of ethnic cleansing - which the British Empire excelled at.

Re: Show HN: Ex Situ – Open-source spatial index of displaced cultural artifacts

#40
This is a really cool project. Is there any way to contribute data?

Hawaii's artifacts have been displaced far and wide, The British museum alone has a stunning collection that usually sits in a basement, e.g. a small sample of their collection documented here:

https://www.artoftheancestors.com/blog/hawaii-british-museum

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