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Shipbreaking

edwardburtynsky.com

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Re: Shipbreaking

#81

Post by teruakohatu »

spicybbq wrote: post #79
aredox wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trajectory of the last French air carriers - the Foch and the Clémenceau - is a good illustration of the mess it can be, even for former military flagships. Those military ships are of course full of asbestos - more than usual - and heavy metals. The Clémenceau was supposed to be dismantled in Spain, but when the marine nationale saw it being towed to Turkey, they cancelled the contract and got it back. Then anot…

Alang is an interesting place to look at in Google maps. Make sure to check the street views. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Alang,+Gujarat,+India/@21....

Very interesting. I spotted quite a lot of totally enclosed lifeboats along the main street, including what looked like a business selling enclosed lifeboats. I didn't imagine there was a used market for enclosed lifeboats but a google lead me to Alibaba and they go for hundreds to 10s or 1000s of dollars.

Re: Shipbreaking

#82

Post by dippydipdips »

mattlondon wrote: post #68
CaptainOfCoit wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in particular turned you off, the capitalistic nature of the story? From the Steam page, this is how the game publisher describes the game: > We offer you the privilege of helping turn humanity’s past into its future by salvaging ships in zero-g. Each one is a puzzle, and how you solve it is up to you! Carve your way in, salvage everything, and maximize your profit. Seems relatively vanilla, besides the capitali…

I am not sure really - I think there was a lot of strongly-accented "yee haw cowboy" type stuff from the NPC voices? Kinda wildwest in space? That is where my mind goes when I think of it, and I remember a distinct feeling of dislike.

I think you're thinking of Breathedge, not Hardspace: Shipbreaker.

Re: Shipbreaking

#83

Post by almostgotcaught »

boringg wrote: post #78
Waterluvian wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only imagine the conditions his "workers" worked in back then given how poor the conditions still are today. I think scenes from ship breaking, electronics recycling, and other recycling efforts sent overseas could fit in, as-is, to a film like Blade Runner.

Those industries don't pay well to anyone involved but are a global benefit. Such a strange world we live in.

Is there a word for this specific kind of ambivalence where you label a pitiable, miserable set of circumstances "strange"? As if it's on the same level as the strong nuclear force? Maybe "motivated ambivalence".

There's nothing strange about it just as there's nothing strange about cobalt mining conditions in Democratic Republic of Congo: exploitative trade agreements, political corruption, and apathy.

Re: Shipbreaking

#84

Post by s1artibartfast »

boringg wrote: post #78
Waterluvian wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only imagine the conditions his "workers" worked in back then given how poor the conditions still are today. I think scenes from ship breaking, electronics recycling, and other recycling efforts sent overseas could fit in, as-is, to a film like Blade Runner.

Those industries don't pay well to anyone involved but are a global benefit. Such a strange world we live in.

Why is that strange? At no time in history have jobs paid according to their benefit.

Re: Shipbreaking

#85

Post by s1artibartfast »

Teever wrote: post #56
mschuster91 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still would not prevent just selling the LLC at the end of the ship's useful life. And I'm not sure how to effectively police that.

Find the names of the people involved, get a warrant and use the full power of that impressive global surveillance system that we've created to fight the global war on terror to surveil them and find evidence of other crimes that they've surely committed and prosecute the fuck out of them for that.

Seems like a lot of work to prevent India from breaking ships it wants to break.

Re: Shipbreaking

#86

Post by Cthulhu_ »

jopsen wrote: post #48
mschuster91 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, West should stop dumping their garbage to the rest of the world. Actually the export of ships to be wrecked in Asia already is banned under EU law and international treaties - and sometimes, even company owners can and do land in jail for violating them, as it happened to Georg Eide [1]. The difficulty lies in the fact that many ships aren't registered in the EU countries, but in small countries like Antigua…

We could require that ships they dock in EU harbours are owned by countries that are party to some international anti-ship breaking agreement. But it's a lot of paperwork :)

But that might put the EU at an economic disadvantage; it's hubris to believe the rest of the world will bend backwards to meet EU's rules.

I mean they do, see cookie banners/GDPR, Apple, etc, but still. I'm of the unsubstantiated opinion that all the laws make the EU a less desireable market. But that's a policy based on morals instead of economics / relentless capitalism.

Re: Shipbreaking

#87

Post by jabl »

A few comments here mentioned that old ships being broken up have a lot of asbestos. I would have assumed this would have been an issue on very old ships, but some cursory web searching suggests that it's still prevalent even in relatively new ships.

IMO rules (https://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Safety/Pages/Asbestos.aspx ) say roughly that:

- Ships built before 2002 may contain asbestos, but it should be "managed properly".

- Ships built after 2002 can contain asbestos in a few specific applications.

- Ships built after 2011 can't contain any asbestos, period.

Unfortunately, it seems reality fails to follow even these modest regulations. One can assume that "managed properly" doesn't include having workers with no PPE ripping out asbestos insulation and then just leaving it lying around on the beach, as seems to be the norm in 3rd world ship breaking. And not only in breaking up ships, even newly built ships can contain asbestos. E.g. from https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/more-than-65-of-...

> John Rendi, General Manager, Environmental Services, Maritec, said: “Although newbuild ships are delivered with an asbestos free declaration, in many cases asbestos has been found onboard during subsequent surveys, or port state inspections."

Re: Shipbreaking

#88

Post by Cthulhu_ »

CaptainOfCoit wrote: post #54
mattlondon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to love that game. I gave it a good go, but just could not bring myself to want to play it. I think the story and narrative just put me right off of it from the very outset for some reason. I don't know why but it was a total turn-off. Also the zero-G thing made sense from a setting-perspective, but the slowly-slowly-drifting-around with limited control was just frustrating and infuriating in equal measure.…

What in particular turned you off, the capitalistic nature of the story? From the Steam page, this is how the game publisher describes the game: > We offer you the privilege of helping turn humanity’s past into its future by salvaging ships in zero-g. Each one is a puzzle, and how you solve it is up to you! Carve your way in, salvage everything, and maximize your profit. Seems relatively vanilla, besides the capitali…

Unashamed capitalism is a bit of a trope in sci-fi, reminiscent of Starship Troopers (the film) and Helldivers (spreading Democracy in space!); it being over the top is its own kind of criticism.

Re: Shipbreaking

#89

Post by kratom_sandwich »

usful wrote: post #74

Wow Ed Burtynsky on the front page of Hacker News! I worked on his film Anthropocene ( https://theanthropocene.org/film/ ). Also recommend the film Manufactured Landscapes by him, which he also gave a TED talk about ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2Dd4k63-zM&t=930s ).

I adore this movie as well as his other movie "Watermark"! Any anecdotes you are willing to share from the set?

Re: Shipbreaking

#90

Post by maxglute »

I think there's some pretty sublime shots of shipbreaking in Burtynsky's manufactured landscapes. Reminds of that scene of Kirk riding his motorcycle in Star Trek 2009 with the foggy silhouette of a titanic starship in the background of middle America ship yard. I love the vibes of seeing the absurd scale of human construction.
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