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People Are Stacking Too Many Stones

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Re: People Are Stacking Too Many Stones

#21

Post by gumby »

downer59 wrote: post #17
gumby wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, open pit mining does ruin the landscape, but we make a collective calculation that it's worth the cost in some locations‡, just as we designate other locations to be left as pristine as possible. In natural habitat let's make the impact as low as possible -- ideally leaving no trace. ‡ Almost nobody is at the extrema of "mine all the things!" or "do no mining at all" -- clearly some is needed -- so I consider…

My new year's resolution for 2019: stack lots of stones everywhere I go. At all times.

Sorry to hear that. I spend a lot of time in the backcountry and would rather not deal with your visual pollution -- a billboard of your presence. Why not just do the rock stacking in your own back yard where it will (apparently) be appreciated?

Re: People Are Stacking Too Many Stones

#22

Post by downer59 »

gumby wrote: post #21
downer59 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My new year's resolution for 2019: stack lots of stones everywhere I go. At all times.

Sorry to hear that. I spend a lot of time in the backcountry and would rather not deal with your visual pollution -- a billboard of your presence. Why not just do the rock stacking in your own back yard where it will (apparently) be appreciated?

My point in posting such a response is that it’s actually a mistake to complain about this.

My revulsion is the use of the internet as a bragging platform, in general. It doesn’t matter if it’s a walled garden or a fediverse of open source aggregators. People showing off and hamming it up to score points is the root cause, and any attention, even negative is going to fan the flames.

Particularly if people develop a sense that you’re going to step on their efforts to goof off and play drunk jenga in the woods with popsicle sticks, which is the tone this argument projects to most people.

If it’s not this, it’s love locks or any other insipid passtime that erupts for a few years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_lock

Graffiti never dies, it just takes on new forms, and moves to new areas, growing at a fixed rate proportional to the population, just like litter.

To be honest, I’d rather go back to last week, when we were more worried about the giant microplastic garbage patch in the Pacific ocean gyre. It’s probably a more pressing issue than rearranged rocks being moved a few feet, here and there, in zones already tightly controlled by humans to seem artificially wild.

Re: People Are Stacking Too Many Stones

#23

Post by gwright »

iratewizard wrote: post #19
froindt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>can cause erosion and damage ecosystems >Oh please. This is so far from an actual concern that I struggle to summon the energy to even shrug about it. It is causing noticeable impact though. I recently went to Iceland which has had rapid tourism growth since about 2008. There is a place along Ring Road (the road around the whole island) where long ago, a rock was placed on a stack for good luck in their travels. [1…

Iceland has a population of 300k and brought in more than 2m visitors last year. 10% of its GDP and 30% of export revenue. The vast majority of tourists in Iceland are very respectful, but Iceland's hasty decision to bootstrap its economy after 2008 with tourism despite a lack of infrastructure has its costs. The way I see it, Iceland is lucky to have attracted so many higher quality guests.

I was in Iceland this past June and the mismatch between the number of tourists and the infrastructure at the national parks and scenic overlooks/stops was enormous.

I have no idea what the right number of tourists for Iceland is but at several locations the facilities (restrooms, food services, shop) were small and completely overwhelmed by the number of busses that were stopping in quick succession.

I was on a cruise and unfortunately the logistics of port calls tends to create very bursty traffic patterns with large number of tour busses disgorging visitors in quick succession at these under-sized locations.

For example the facilities at Goðafoss were undersized: https://www.google.com/maps/@65.6860127,-17.5395264,3a,37.5y...

On the other hand the facilities at Geysir were much better: https://www.google.com/maps/@64.3100169,-20.3013397,3a,75y,1...

Re: People Are Stacking Too Many Stones

#24

Post by hirundo »

A notable feature of stacks of stones is that they're easy to knock over. So if you don't like them, knock them over. It'll make you feel good, to the extent that you don't like them. So it's a way for stackers to help topplers feel good about themselves. Toppling stones is actually strangely satisfying, like stomping a sand castle, starting a domino avalanche or exploding a death star. Cumulatively the number of stacks will reflect the balance between stackers and topplers, so it's democratic.

Myself, I don't care, but I have other pet peeves that I do care about for very little reason. Stickers that are hard to remove from products, for one. Now that requires urgent action.

Re: People Are Stacking Too Many Stones

#25

Post by notacoward »

downer59 wrote: post #12
justinator wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh please. This is so far from an actual concern that I struggle to summon the energy to even shrug about it. I guess it should say, "locally". I don't disagree there's far worse things damaging the ecosystems of the world, but if there's a trail, and people keep hiking off trail to make rock stacks, that area will get damaged, locally . It's like if someone built a path through your backyard. Great, there's a path…

Yes. Yes they will. They will shrug. The local authorities will shrug at you. All the time. They will tell you to deal with it, and pay for your own fence. In fact, they'd be more likely to intervene, if you build a fence that's too big. A fence made out of stones, even. Stacking too many stones to make an excessively large fence, to prevent people from stacking stones. Imagine.

In the real world, police enforce trespass laws all the time. It's far better than having to deal with the fallout after a direct confrontation between trespassers and property owners, in most cases.

Re: People Are Stacking Too Many Stones

#26

Post by downer59 »

notacoward wrote: post #25
downer59 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Yes they will. They will shrug. The local authorities will shrug at you. All the time. They will tell you to deal with it, and pay for your own fence. In fact, they'd be more likely to intervene, if you build a fence that's too big. A fence made out of stones, even. Stacking too many stones to make an excessively large fence, to prevent people from stacking stones. Imagine.

In the real world, police enforce trespass laws all the time . It's far better than having to deal with the fallout after a direct confrontation between trespassers and property owners, in most cases.

The results are actually mixed and varied.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=skateboarders+v...

Re: People Are Stacking Too Many Stones

#27

Post by frabbit »

gumby wrote: post #21
downer59 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My new year's resolution for 2019: stack lots of stones everywhere I go. At all times.

Sorry to hear that. I spend a lot of time in the backcountry and would rather not deal with your visual pollution -- a billboard of your presence. Why not just do the rock stacking in your own back yard where it will (apparently) be appreciated?

It's middle class graffiti. The sort of people that moan about tags on a wall are off stacking and piling like fools. Like graffiti artists the point is exactly to not do it in their own yards... it's like dogs having a wee every couple of yards.

Re: People Are Stacking Too Many Stones

#28

Post by frabbit »

justinator wrote: post #6

This is somewhat of a problem on mountain routes, where stack stones are sometimes used as navigational markers (cairns). The ethics of Leave No Trace say not to leave these cairns. Many times, people will put these up to aid others, but their route deviates from what could be a better/safe alternative. Or at least a different opinion on what one is. Then, you have two sets of cairns, each going off in its own way. U…

It gets even better in Canada: not content with merely leaving unsightly traces of their presence for other hikers, the stone stackers go the added mile and make bastardized Inukshuks, thus combining their graffiti with cultural appropriation.

https://capstoneseminarseries.wordpress.com/spring-2015-volu...

Re: People Are Stacking Too Many Stones

#30

Post by gumby »

downer59 wrote: post #22
gumby wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to hear that. I spend a lot of time in the backcountry and would rather not deal with your visual pollution -- a billboard of your presence. Why not just do the rock stacking in your own back yard where it will (apparently) be appreciated?

My point in posting such a response is that it’s actually a mistake to complain about this. My revulsion is the use of the internet as a bragging platform, in general. It doesn’t matter if it’s a walled garden or a fediverse of open source aggregators. People showing off and hamming it up to score points is the root cause, and any attention, even negative is going to fan the flames. Particularly if people develop a s…

Well the good news is the 1/r2 rule applies to people too (just go to the beach -- the huge mass of people is close to the entrance, and density drops off in a lovely bell curve). Hunters (in the California at least) are rarely far from their truck, especially in winter (for most species of game). The rock stackers are more likely to be in a national park presumably because they are accessible and have that vital wifi access.

There's lots of true wilderness (e.g. BLM land in the US, far northern Canada, etc) which are the opposite of "tightly controlled", mostly inaccessable to motor vehicles where you can travel for weeks without seeing another human.

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