Baltimore removes all Confederate statues overnight - Polidicks

[QUOTE=MedicWine;52582856]I'm not though. I'm saying we've already proven ourselves to be incapable of properly predicting what (and if you'll excuse the following word salad) archaeological technological breakthroughs we may make. And that destroying something is to say you're certain nobody will ever find benefit from what conclusions can be drawn from it. Imagine being somebody who archived something and destroyed it, and carbon dating later proved the timeline was completely wrong. Wouldn't you think "Damn I should've been one of the few people that held on to X item so it could be carbon dated. Good thing not everybody destroyed them" Edit: Okay extreme tangent but I cant research this at all because any time I google anything with carbon dating in it I get a bunch of "global warming and carbon dating are made up" and "carbon dating myths" articles above everything else. What the fuck google?[/QUOTE] no matter how hard we try to preserve our history for the future, no one will know more about now than us, regardless of how hard we try to preserve everything. so we might as well make sure we preserve the most important things and keep a record of everything else. don't really have any opinion on public statues being removed. i think statues are pretty, but i'm not concerned about a lot of their historical relevance. i'll glance over a plaque if they put one up though and it think thats way more effective at spreading information because a statue can't tell you what it represents on its own.

I mean yea I was specifically replying to the concept of "we know its trash" and arguing semantics over knowing versus suspecting. But to bring it back to statues yea, thats why you digitally preserve it. Takes up no space and the artistic value of it is preserved forever. Anybody can view it from anywhere in the world and even 3D print one. Ie. We take it and move it to wikipedia :v:

I am partial to the idea of taking all the discarded statues and putting them in a field somewhere and label the place "Traitor's Park"

[QUOTE=Kyle902;52582888]I am partial to the idea of taking all the discarded statues and putting them in a field somewhere and label the place "Traitor's Park"[/QUOTE] "Participation Trophy Park"

[QUOTE=MedicWine;52582856]I'm not though. I'm saying we've already proven ourselves to be incapable of properly predicting what (and if you'll excuse the following word salad) archaeological technological breakthroughs we may make. And that destroying something is to say you're certain nobody will ever find benefit from what conclusions can be drawn from it. Imagine being somebody who archived something and destroyed it, and carbon dating later proved the timeline was completely wrong. Wouldn't you think "Damn I should've been one of the few people that held on to X item so it could be carbon dated. Good thing not everybody destroyed them" Edit: Okay extreme tangent but I cant research this at all because any time I google anything with carbon dating in it I get a bunch of "global warming and carbon dating are made up" and "carbon dating myths" articles above everything else. What the fuck google?[/QUOTE] If you want us to become hoarders, sure. We can hang onto every little thing and never destroy any item ever.

[QUOTE=Paramud;52583161]If you want us to become hoarders, sure. We can hang onto every little thing and never destroy any item ever.[/QUOTE] Basically this. I work at a mid-sized museum, and the deopot is absolutely stuffed full of items. Some of them have to go, sometimes. We have Northern Europe's biggest collection of stone age axes. You wanna take a bet on how many of those hold actual historical value? Roughly five. Five of them are worth a damn to study. The rest may hold some minor value in where they're found and the amount found at the same location, sure, but that's recorded in books anyway. The axe itself is worthless. The same goes for these statues. There's a lot of value in them through knowing when they were put up, and when they were pulled down. This is an indicator of social opinions of the civil war, the south and other related issues. bdd458's statistics clearly show that the confederacy had a resurgence in 'popularity' about two generations after the civil war, in the 1900s and 1910s. Of course, this could also be connected to the economic and population boom in the area quite simply meaning more parks to put statues in, but it's an indicator I guess. Then you got this year, 2017, where they get taken down. That's another socio-political change indicated through the removal of statues due to [insert whatever modern interpretation of the confederancy you want here]. The numbers are important and valuable. The statues themselves, however? They're worthless. They simply show what some artist thought some long-dead bloke looked like. No value to them.

[QUOTE=Riller;52582810]Nope. We're not. Some things simply contain no new information. "Oh hey another pig's jaw. Another brick. Another shoe sole." We already have literally thousands of those laying around from the exact same period. To be fair, the shoe sole would probably be put in storage and be forgotten forever there. Y'all gotta stop treating history like everything's sacred and special and unique. It's really, really not. Imagine being an archeologist a thousand years from now, and finding an IKEA chair or a 2005 penny. Woop de fucking doo, those are [I]everywhere[/I], everyone has them, everyone knows when and where they're from, what they were used for and so on. They hold no new value. Throw it in the bin and go dig for something new.[/QUOTE] Hi yea future Archeaologist here (also involved with 3 different museums). No. Each object tells us something about the site its from, which is valuable. That 2005 penny example you brought up? That's a date marker for future archeaologists for a rough date of the site. That IKEA chair? Trade and style patterns of the 21st century. So basically all of those little things you call worthless, are actually important - it's why they're kept. Part of Archeaology is also going back to previous findings and restudying things and sites with new technologies, techniques, and ideas of the past. If you just throw shit out you can't do that at all. Not to mention you need that large body of artifacts to say anything about styles or phases - basically the difference between "this is a widespread style of shoe" and "we just have one". Not to mention, those things are stored not just for today, but for tomorow. You can't predict fires, or other things that might destroy what we have - so for the future's sake we keep and preserve it. So that way what does survive can be enjoyed and studied in the future. And also, my numbers show that my conclusion is likely to be right, that the height of Civil War monument building was due to the veterans dying off and the 50th anniversary of the war. I'll know for sure whenever I do the whole of the Union.

Yeah even actual rubbish from today's would be useful. Tells future people how we lived and our diet. "This specimen subsisted almost entirely on microwaved ramen noodles and mountain dew."

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52583333]Yeah even actual rubbish from today's would be useful. Tells future people how we lived and our diet. "This specimen subsisted almost entirely on microwaved ramen noodles and mountain dew."[/QUOTE] Idk if this is supposed to be a joke but that's not wrong, a lot of Archeaology works with what was once trash, middens tend to be a godsend that tell us about the diet (and depending on the kind of artifacts in the pile) the relative date of a site among other things. Archaeologists love trash.

i don't know anything about archaeology, but to be honest none of what has been said above strikes me as a good reason to keep a statue in a public place in fact, considering the amount of attention that these statues are getting right now, and the amount of media containing them, removing them might have ironically been the best act of record keeping possible

[QUOTE=bdd458;52583323]Hi yea future Archeaologist here (also involved with 3 different museums). No. Each object tells us something about the site its from, which is valuable. That 2005 penny example you brought up? That's a date marker for future archeaologists for a rough date of the site. That IKEA chair? Trade and style patterns of the 21st century. So basically all of those little things you call worthless, are actually important - it's why they're kept. Part of Archeaology is also going back to previous findings and restudying things and sites with new technologies, texhniques, and ideas of the past. If you just throw shit out you can't do that at all. Not to mention you need that large body of artifacts to say anything about styles or phases - basically the difference between "this is a widespread style of shoe" and "we just have one". Not to mention, those things are stored not just for today, but for tomorow. You can't predict fires, or other things that might destroy what we have - so for the future's sake we keep and preserve it. So that way what does survive can be enjoyed and studied in the future.[/QUOTE] Well, IKEA chairs and 2005 pennies were taken with the specific purpose in mind that they are ridiculously abundant, and finding one more or one less does not matter shit. As for coins for dating, that'd be what you'd call an 'end-coin', meaning that's simply the earliest it can be, not any sort of reliable dating. I could go out and dig down a hundred 32BC Roman denarii in my backyard together with some other junk. That doesn't make the other junk 32BC shit, that simply means it can't have been dug down [I]before[/I] 32BC. Coins are pretty terrible date-markers due to how long they stay in circulation, especially in the past. You find treasures from the high middle ages with Roman coins still in it from time to time. While that's interesting in it's own right, it does prove the unreliability of that particular dating method.

Historic value doesn't evaporate the first time an item or an example of that item is examined and recorded. In 1000 years, those 2005 pennies might be great tools for getting kids (and adults for that matter) into archaeology and antiquity as genuine historic articles, just like the low-value Roman coins are today. Yeah you can get these ancient coins for 2 dollars because there's so many of them - that doesn't make them "worthless." They're useful educational tools and just interesting items to handle, look at, and think about. Essentially you're saying I might as well smash up my bronze-age jewelry because I've already taken photos of the pieces and researched them and there's nothing more to learn from them and the fact that they survived this long is actually just worthless sentimentality. That's a stupid line of thinking. These statues are antiques which should be offered to Civil War museums around the country, and any unclaimed statues should be moved into a "statue graveyard."

Riller, I said the words "relative dating" for a reason. Yes, for more specific dating (absolute dating) you use things like carbon dating or optical luminescence (which tbh is like one of the coolest things ever). But, if a site lacks artifacts that can be dated reliably, relative dating is the method that has to be used for a site making those approximate dates important. As well, many here imply that our records will reliably exist in the future, that is not something we can guarantee and why all efforts should be made to preserve as much as possible. We may think our records will survive unfailingly into the future, but that doesn't mean they will.

Some more news on Confederate monument removal, Gettysburg National Park Service said there is no plans on removing any monuments on the battlefield or town. [URL]http://www.eveningsun.com/story/news/2017/08/15/gettysburg-park-officials-confederate-monuments-here-stay/567986001/[/URL]

[QUOTE=Die_Hard;52583607]Some more news on Confederate monument removal, Gettysburg National Park Service said there is no plans on removing any monuments on the battlefield or town. [URL]http://www.eveningsun.com/story/news/2017/08/15/gettysburg-park-officials-confederate-monuments-here-stay/567986001/[/URL][/QUOTE] I'm glad they had enough sense to keep those. Gettysburg is effectively a giant museum so of course it makes sense to keep Confederate monuments there.

[QUOTE=bdd458;52583323]Hi yea future Archeaologist here (also involved with 3 different museums). No. Each object tells us something about the site its from, which is valuable. That 2005 penny example you brought up? That's a date marker for future archeaologists for a rough date of the site. That IKEA chair? Trade and style patterns of the 21st century. So basically all of those little things you call worthless, are actually important - it's why they're kept. Part of Archeaology is also going back to previous findings and restudying things and sites with new technologies, techniques, and ideas of the past. If you just throw shit out you can't do that at all. Not to mention you need that large body of artifacts to say anything about styles or phases - basically the difference between "this is a widespread style of shoe" and "we just have one". Not to mention, those things are stored not just for today, but for tomorow. You can't predict fires, or other things that might destroy what we have - so for the future's sake we keep and preserve it. So that way what does survive can be enjoyed and studied in the future. And also, my numbers show that my conclusion is likely to be right, that the height of Civil War monument building was due to the veterans dying off and the 50th anniversary of the war. I'll know for sure whenever I do the whole of the Union.[/QUOTE] The only reason why historical archaeologists need to work with trash so much is because the vast majority of history had no written records. We don't need to examine the fossilized droppings of Pompeii to know that they ate bread because there happens to be graffiti in Pompeii saying "on this day I made bread." Archaeologists of the future likely won't have to examine the nuclear remains of an IKEA chair because IKEA happens to have a listing of that chair on their website, [url=http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S69830595/]including a description of it and high-resolution photographs in every color available[/url]. Similarly, we have [url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Confederate_Memorials_in_Baltimore_Maryland]descriptions and very high resolution photographs[/url] of these monuments available online. Simply put, we have an entered an age where we do not need to store every artifact.

[QUOTE=Paramud;52584633]The only reason why historical archaeologists need to work with trash so much is because the vast majority of history had no written records. We don't need to examine the fossilized droppings of Pompeii to know that they ate bread because there happens to be graffiti in Pompeii saying "on this day I made bread." Archaeologists of the future likely won't have to examine the nuclear remains of an IKEA chair because IKEA happens to have a listing of that chair on their website, [url=http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S69830595/]including a description of it and high-resolution photographs in every color available[/url]. Similarly, we have [url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Confederate_Memorials_in_Baltimore_Maryland]descriptions and very high resolution photographs[/url] of these monuments available online. Simply put, we have an entered an age where we do not need to store every artifact.[/QUOTE] Get back to me when you can gauruntee that past the immediate future that stuff will be digitally preserved. In 400 years, will that be available to historians? Will Ikea's servers still exist? My guess is no. Just because it is digitally preserved does not mean it is preserved from all time. You're not going to have that forever. Also, Pompeii is an outlier in that not many sites are preserved via volcanic eruption. It really doesn't matter what period you're doing, every little thing is useful Archeaologically. There was an article I read a year or two ago about a site in the US. Except it wasn't all that old of a site, it was from the past 50 years. Yet objects that may be considerrd trash were still useful in determining the story of the site. So don't tell me "the reason why" things are done in my chosen career path.

Maryland being a prime example of having the modest and efficent of people. :v: Put me under the "It belongs in a museum" camp. As much as these Confederate statures "remind us of our bad history", they ARE a symbol of a time that greatly shaped our nation and their preservation is key so that history cannot be repeated.

[QUOTE=bdd458;52584725]Get back to me when you can gauruntee that past the immediate future that stuff will be digitally preserved. In 400 years, will that be available to historians? Will Ikea's servers still exist? My guess is no. Just because it is digitally preserved does not mean it is preserved from all time. You're not going to have that forever. Also, Pompeii is an outlier in that not many sites are preserved via volcanic eruption. It really doesn't matter what period you're doing, every little thing is useful Archeaologically. There was an article I read a year or two ago about a site in the US. Except it wasn't all that old of a site, it was from the past 50 years. Yet objects that may be considerrd trash were still useful in determining the story of the site. So don't tell me "the reason why" things are done in my chosen career path.[/QUOTE] This brings me back to my earlier post, then. [QUOTE=Paramud;52583161]If you want us to become hoarders, sure. We can hang onto every little thing and never destroy any item ever.[/QUOTE] We currently and for the foreseeable future the best possible means of preserving our history, not just for a lifetime or several generations, but potentially until the end of human life itself, and you're [b]still[/b] wanting to hold onto everything on the off chance that it [b]might[/b] be useful in the future. This is, to be blunt, hoarder mentality. We will fill this planet with useless junk doing this.

Guess we might as well burn the collections of all the museums I'm involved in then, we can scans of the paintings and have pictures of the artifacts. No need for the original, you heard it here first! Digital will always be a [I]supplement[/I] to the real thing. Attempts to do away with physical collections in museums is misguided.

Suggesting that we don't need physical things because we have digital copies is absurd. Data rot is a thing. Technological shifts and orphaned digital codecs, formats happen. As a filmmaker I was told that it is worth transferring the films we make digitally to actual film strips as a way to future proof our work.

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52584928]Suggesting that we don't need physical things because we have digital copies is absurd. Data rot is a thing. Technological shifts and orphaned digital codecs, formats happen. As a filmmaker I was told that it is worth transferring the films we make digitally to actual film strips as a way to future proof our work.[/QUOTE] This would be true if we were storing all digital information on single servers and never transferring or making copies of files ever.

[QUOTE=bdd458;52584725]Get back to me when you can gauruntee that past the immediate future that stuff will be digitally preserved. In 400 years, will that be available to historians? Will Ikea's servers still exist? My guess is no. Just because it is digitally preserved does not mean it is preserved from all time. You're not going to have that forever. Also, Pompeii is an outlier in that not many sites are preserved via volcanic eruption. It really doesn't matter what period you're doing, every little thing is useful Archeaologically. There was an article I read a year or two ago about a site in the US. Except it wasn't all that old of a site, it was from the past 50 years. Yet objects that may be considerrd trash were still useful in determining the story of the site. So don't tell me "the reason why" things are done in my chosen career path.[/QUOTE] That's really all my point was, really. Didn't mean to derail the thread To bring it back to statue: we already have the ability to scan things pretty well compared the amount of craftsmanship one could've realistically applied to a piece of work from the era. And since statues are artistic in value, I think we should start scanning and making public source stuff like this. Put it up on wikipedia and let people download it. The best way thing for preservation is open source ( If everyone has access, someone will archive it. ) and democracy. (If you let "the people" archive it you get redundancy based on popularity. Can't erase a photo from the internet.) Also it makes it way easier to "add to" and as a sort of remix artist I think its a beneficial thing to make it super easy for anybody who respects a statue to be able to download its file and make changes and share it online. [QUOTE=bdd458;52584897]Guess we might as well burn the collections of all the museums I'm involved in then, we can scans of the paintings and have pictures of the artifacts. No need for the original, you heard it here first! Digital will always be a [I]supplement[/I] to the real thing. Attempts to do away with physical collections in museums is misguided.[/QUOTE] I only saw this after my post and I wanna add that this might be a very particular circumstance as pretty much all Civil War statues were (relatively) rushed.

Don't know if it deserves its own thread as we already have several on this subject, but the mayor of Seattle is [URL="Seattle Mayor Ed Murray calls for removal of Confederate monument, Lenin statue"]calling for the removal of a Lenin statue and a Confederate monument[/URL]. [QUOTE] Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has called for both the monument to Confederate soldiers at Capitol Hill’s Lake View Cemetery and a statue of Vladimir Lenin in Fremont to be taken down, saying they represent “historic injustices” and are symbols of hate, racism and violence. Murray’s statement, released Thursday, is much stronger than his previous response, where he expressed concerns about the Confederate monument to the operator of the cemetery. Lake View Cemetery closed Wednesday after receiving threats related to the monument. On Thursday, Lake View Cemetery said it would remain closed until Monday morning, “due to the controversy over Confederate memorials.” The monument, erected in 1926 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Lenin statue are both on private property. Still, Murray said, he believes they should be removed. “Not only do these kinds of symbols represent historic injustices, their existence causes pain among those who themselves or whose family members have been impacted by these atrocities,” Murray said in the statement. “We should remove all these symbols, no matter what political affiliation may have been assigned to them in the decades since they were erected. This includes both Confederate memorials and statues idolizing the founder of the authoritarian Soviet regime.”[/QUOTE]

[quote]The monument, erected in 1926 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Lenin statue are both on private property.[/quote] Then they have no right to touch them. Full-stop. [I]Seattle Mayor Ed Murray[/I] can fuck off and find something better to do with his time.

I sort of feel lucky to be living here in Lynchburg. I don't think we have any major confederate statues left in town that haven't been "historicalized" in some way. The biggest one I think is sitting right on the opposite side of our museum, and I think it's a part of it. Local news, however, has been showing other nearby towns have been getting anxious about whether or not they should remove the statues, and that has sort of seeped into some of the talk here.

something tells me that if there was a political movement centered around the right to enslave archaeologists then we'd have a lot less esoteric debate about the value of keeping their statues up on public land in major cities

Next time you see a Confederate lover support Republicans while saying Democrats enacted Jim Crow laws, tell them that Lincoln was a Republican who fought against the Confederacy. I bet you they will either shut up or become even more erratically stupid. I feel I should say this because I don't see this thrown around at all, and we need more ammo.