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Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

m.good.is

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Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#111

Post by mamoswined »

LaGrange wrote: post #108
humbledrone wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only very slightly. Just to be clear, are you saying that it is only very slightly better for a sheep, rather than a human child, to be maimed by a land mine? That seems to be what you wrote, but I'm having a very difficult time reconciling your world view with my own, so I'm hoping that I am somehow misunderstanding.

Both involve sentient beings. This is not about valuing children less. This is about valuing sheep more. This might be an uncomfortable world view, taking how much we depend on non-human abuse in our civilization, but it's not the only case where we built it on abuse of others, human or not.

You do realize these sheep are not pets and are not treated as such in Afghanistan, right? They will be used for milk, wool, and some will be slaughtered for meat.

This makes sense for the people who live there- the dessert is not an easy place to grow crops and a multi-purpose animal is very valuable for survival purposes. Animal rights is a tough sell in a place like this.

It seems like an ineffective non-systematic way to de-mine that damages animals that the Afghans value though.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#112

Post by mamoswined »

robotresearcher wrote: post #19
chad_oliver wrote: post #10

This is a great solution, but it seems like it is designed to follow a random path (that is, where the wind blows). How do you prevent this from creating a false sense of security, when in fact there are areas of the desert which have not been tested? I remember when I was little I built a small platform high up in a tree. My father refused to let me put a rail around it, because the sort of rail I could build would…

A truly random path would be pretty good, since you approach perfect coverage with repeated runs. Alas, the wind direction is not random, particularly in this kind of environment. An interesting demining approach is to buy the local villagers lots of sheep and pen them in the areas of concern. Once in a while a sheep goes boom. Meanwhile: wool and baby sheep as a side effect.

Multiple types of animals have been trained (EG http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/09/07/herorats.detect.l...) to detect land mines. Most animals have much more highly developed senses than ours. It is possible that the flocks of sheep would learn over time to avoid landmines. It's possibly they already do this. It would be better to teach the local people how to train animals than to damage their valuable livestock.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#113

Post by ThomPete »

I was involved in a startup that tried to find landmines using a genetically engineered plant.

The semen would be spread out over an area and then wherever there was landmines it would turn red. The other area would stay green.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aresa_Biodetection

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#114

Post by Tipzntrix »

xlevus wrote: post #23
peteretep wrote: post #21

I wonder if you could offer £10 per retrieved landmine as a bounty, and let local entrepreneurs try and work out the details...

iirc, The British did this in India but with snakes. It wasn't long until the locals just farmed snakes to sell to the British. Plus, retrieving landmines would be a pointlessly dangerous task, when all you really need to do is blow them up when nobody is around.

I hope they wouldn't start making land mines to farm.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#115

Post by nhangen »

chernevik wrote: post #102

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 nast…

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?

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#116

Post by JoeAltmaier »

batgaijin wrote: post #106
chernevik wrote: post #102

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 nast…

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'…

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.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#117

Post by OldSchool »

I find the story touching. Unexploded ordnance is a problem mainly for children in former war zones.

Imagine if the park / playground / vacant land where you played as a child was mined and you witnessed others, perhaps your friends getting killed or severely maimed there. Such an issue would weigh heavily on you for a lifetime.

While we can't seem to ban war, many countries have joined a treaty banning landmines. That doesn't help with the ~100M unexploded mines in the world already. This is a bigger problem than one would ever imagine.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#118

Post by shadowfiend »

chernevik wrote: post #102

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 nast…

“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.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#119

Post by jwcooper »

batgaijin wrote: post #106
chernevik wrote: post #102

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 nast…

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'…

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

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#120

Post by lambda »

cflee wrote: post #40
_djo_ wrote: post #13

Sadly, demining is not this simple or easy. Mine rollers and mine flails like this have been tried and tested since WWI but none have proven completely effective in finding and clearing mines. This is partially because they only work well on totally flat terrain and rapidly lose effectiveness in rougher terrain where a large number of mines are typically buried. In practice, solutions like this achieve only 50-60% ef…

Turns out that the Dutch armed forces agree[1] that it's not so easy either: "The Mine Kafon has just been tested by the Dutch Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, which has concluded that it is not suitable for mine clearance (which requires a more systematic approach), but at $50 each could be used as a cheap and safe way to identify dangerous areas that need demining." [1] http://australia.icbl.org/index_htm_files/Ma…

If you watch the video, that's all that this is claimed to do. The headline it was posted under on is.gd and here on HN claim it's for clearing mines; but at 2:50 he says "My ideal scenario would be to provide it for local people as a tool to cheaply survey this danger in their own environment."

All this discussion is because of an over-enthusiastic headline, not what the tool is actually intended for.

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