This looks like a fluoroscope, basically an X-ray that is constantly turned on. The tech is looking at a live X-ray view, not a film transparency.
The radiologic exposure for both of them is orders of magnitude higher than a normal x-ray that we think about. A normal xray exposes you for less than a second, this is bombarding him with X-rays the entire time he is standing there.
It’s bad for them, but imagine this doctor. He has to examine every one of them every day. If he didn’t die of cancer he must not have lived very long.
Just because a guy in the past was a doctor doing shitty things is no reason to shit on x-ray techs. We really shouldn’t put one type of work above another.
X-ray techs don’t have a hippocratic oath to violate. That’s the thing separating the two in this context. If you don’t want to call him a technician, that’s fine, but he disqualified himself of being a doctor and I hope he got same the cancer he was giving out.
I dont understand why your shitting on this guy. Whats he supposed to do, organize a coup in the slave mine? How do you know the tech wasnt trafficked himself?
Basically the miners there are more likely to be coerced, through things like having been fined and the "pass" system, not trafficked.
In the case of the technician, he is almost certainly a free person. Working class whites normally earned at least 10x the wages in SA mines, even for the same job. But it is unclear whether he belongs to the Apartheid classification "white" or "coloured" (who had less rights and lower pay).
What people are shitting on is his participation in a system of oppression and segregation which devalued the lives of Black people. These mines had incredibly high tuberculosis rates too. He is also using medical technology in a reckless way that causes harm.
But I think you are right in pointing out that to some extent he is a victim of his situation /lack of education, even if he has more privileges and a better situation than the Black mine workers.
I do wonder whether this was actually an effective way to look for them. Even with modern high resolution x-ray imaging it may be difficult to see the contrast between soft tissues and diamonds since they’re both primarily carbon
I mean if everyone tells you “we have a machine that can see through skin and can check if you have hidden diamonds” that would probably stop any attempts at theft that way. Even if it doesn’t actually see them. Also, diamonds out of the mine would be uncut, and probably easier to see.
Indeed, not a whole emerald mine, the same source:
We located reporting from as far back as 2009 and 2014 that said when Elon Musk (“Elon” hereafter) was a child in South Africa in the 1980s, his father (“Errol” hereafter) at some point owned “a stake in an emerald mine” near Lake Tanganyika in Zambia, not South Africa.
According to the article, the “rumor” started in 2014 when Elon went on an interview tour and SAID that his dad had an emerald mine to multiple publications. He told an elaborate story to one about riding in his dad’s plane full of emeralds and ak-47s
The research couldn’t find financial proof of any claimed debt, since Elon won’t provide any. But “hand shake” deals about illegal emerald smuggling tends not to have a paper trail.
Then, a year after this article came out, Elon tweeted “I’ll give a million doge to anyone who can prove it existed” and his dad replied that it existed and that Elon had been there.
Errol also went on an interview tour (after this article was posted) and told multiple publications that he did own a share of an emerald mining business. But Elon wasn’t lying because it technically wasn’t in a hole, but an outcropping!
Since changing his mind on the subject, Elon had since only admitted that his start up was supported by selling his own PC for 2k, a 5k gift from his “bro” and 8k from some other guy. But later a SmAaLL LoAn (as they like to say) of 200k from his dad and others. But that was later, you guys.
Everything I said was noted in the original source (including getting money from his dad, his own claims of being extremely wealthy, etc) but Elon’s subsequent tweet offering money for evidence and his dad replying to confirm that he owned one was great hilarity that I first saw on Reddit directly linking to Twitter.
I don’t get why people focus on the emerald mine aspect. Turning 200k into billions would be impressive regardless of where the initial cash came from, if he wasn’t just some lucky schmuck who’s shitty website got bought out in the Dotcom bubble.
Edit: Yikes, goes to show that Lemmy users can’t finish reading a comment lol
I’m not the person you replied to initially, I never said he didn’t have emerald money. Lol did you think it’s just you and one other person on the internet?
And apologist? The fuck are you talking about, my point is that Elon Musk is a fucking loser that won the lottery in the Dotcom bubble. Websites aren’t expensive, he didn’t need capital. He’s a narcissist who got lucky and mistook it for genius.
But seriously, can you people really not read two sentences before deciding someone is a “billionaire apologist”? Jesus dude.
“I don’t get why people focus on the emerald mine” and “Turning 200k into billions would be impressive no matter where the money came from” – both are things you said, both excuse the things we were talking about. Yes you called him a dip shit too. But apparently an impressive one.
I know you weren’t the initial comment, but this is a thread, which means you’re continuing a conversation. Away from the cruel exploitation of emeralds mines to who cares and he’s an impressive dip shit.
We’ll never know if 200k to billions is impressive because nobody else gets to have a 200k loan from their dad except wealthy people
I actually didn’t call him impressive. My quote: “would be impressive […], if he wasn’t […]”. But it is impressive that Elon Musk triggers so much rage in you that you can’t even read a comment that’s agreeing with you on what a fuck he is.
Have you ever actually had a conversation or do you just argue back and forth? This is how it works, you thread to related topics. This is a related topic.
Business loans don’t only come from a parent lol. Obviously the wealthy are born with a privilege that no bank loan can match, but there are wealthy entrepreneurs that didn’t start off with rich parents. There are also plenty of entrepreneurs that didn’t turn 200k into billions. I think we can pretty safely deduce that an ROI of 6 orders of magnitude is not standard practice, regardless of who your parents are. But again, you’re missing my point, that this “impressive feat” was actually all just dumb fucking luck.
“Nope just you” – You accused a dozen people who voted you down of not being able to read. You specifically said Lemmy users can’t read, so maybe the entire user base? By the way I didn’t vote down anything. You also tossed in a “you people” for good measure.
The “…” part dismisses the important bit of "regardless of where it came from. So it’s not read as “would be … if” but instead “would be … regardless” which might be everyone’s confusion by your comment?
Which doesn’t continue the conversation, but dismisses it.
I’m sure there are plenty of people getting 200k dollar loans out there. Vast vast majority? Nah. That’s the “we” I’m talking about. It at least seems like each billionaire came from rich families, even though it’s trendy to pretend they’re self made, but we can’t prove anything either way because it’s all hidden. Self made with Harvard connections for the win!
Oh, and yes I hate Elon Musk, like anyone who is using their power/influence to cause harm to others. Dude’s attacking Wikipedia right now for fucks sake.
People pile on downvotes before they finish reading a comment, welcome to the internet. If you think downvotes mean anything then you must be real new around here. But the bizarre part is that you’re still arguing like I’m disagreeing with you lol. You pretty much just expanded on what I said about wealth privilege in #4 in an argumentative strawmaney way to make an entirely different point than where we started, so who’s moving goalposts?
Got it, downvotes are random from stupid people who don’t read I guess. Except that time it was “just me” then it went back to the others, too, again.
Instead of arguing that you disagreed, I offered a suggestion of why (now 22 people) thought you were being dismissive or apologist or otherwise didn’t like your comment (unless they’re all just stupid and can’t read).
And replying to your thought on “plenty of entrepreneurs” is a strawman? You brought it up. I was talking about getting money from family. The ones who had college paid for and got family loans and pretend to be self made. Then you brought up bank loans and entrepreneurs. So I did what you said and continued the thread. Websites like to make lists of handfuls of people who didn’t do it with connections.
This is pretty far down the list as far as reasons to not buy diamonds. They’re not rare. They’re not special. It’s a rock with limited industrial use.
For added context, they’re still cutting the hands and feet off of dependents (including children) of miners to ensure they work hard.
Yep… that diamond belongs to rich capitalists in the Global North and most definitely not to people born in South Africa - and that hasn’t changed all that much, really.
Yeah, I was wondering whether this was worse for the miners or the examiner. I’m sure that today modern technology protects the examiner more thoroughly and that they still don’t care about the miners. But I could be wrong. Maybe they don’t care about the examiner either.
My grandfather died in his 50s likely due to constant exposure from industrial xrays in the 50s and 60s. He was a college educated white guy in the US, so I’m guessing they give even fewer fucks about these guys.
This is the reason why you can only get so many medical scans per year, to limit exposure. I’m sure the corporations who are running the equipment for non-medical reasons couldn’t give less of a shit, since caring doesn’t usually drive profits.
It’s truly horrendous and should have never been allowed.
Galton introduced fingerprinting in South Africa as an experiment after Indians introduced it to him. Managing miners using fingerprints was one of those moments capitalism and colonialism converged on science and technology and shaped the global sector we now call identification.
For more, read The Biometric State by Keith Breckinridge.
You might be thinking that getting an x-ray every day is bad for the miners, but this is a ye-olde look through machine. Yes it’s bad for the miners, but the guy looking at it is putting his face and uppee body right in the beam here. And I’m guessing he does hundreds of these a day.
Then again, old timey x-ray machines were pretty soft, so (edit) AND the miner is getting big dose of alpha and beta radiation too. And at least the technician isn’t breathing coal dust, so it’s probably a toss up who gets cancers first.
X-ray tubes, old and new, use high energy electrons that impact a metal to create the beam. Alpha and beta emission is from radioactive decay which is an entirely different phenomenon. But yes bathing your body in X-rays is bad for you
Sorry, I had a brainfart there. You’re completely right.
The tube itself emits xrays, but soft xrays have a very high chance of being absorbed by Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen. And since that’s mostly what makes up a human, that’s kinda bad.
Also he’s digging up diamonds, which is in rocks full of radioactive materials. Diamond mine tailings are famously radioactive (and interesting) due all the thorium and radium in them.
Both people in this picture are being abused by the company. The difference is that the company also lets the white guy abuse the black guy, and for that reason, the white guy feels superior.
This is one of those things you see in fascist governments. As long as people are able to abuse someone, they’ll accept a much worse station as well as a lot of abuse themselves.
@Tar_alcaran ... if the miners even lived long enough to get cancer.
Diamond miners during Apartheid were working in unsafe conditions for ridiculously low wages, often coerced into being there, and at relatively high risk of tuberculosis.
holy crap but makes sense. When I was a kid they did not initially use the lead covers and then later they did. Seems like between 70 and 80 they started treating them much more seriously.
And then someone pointed out the little measuring machine with the sliding parts on the ruler works just as well without the whole “staring into a primary x-ray beam all day” thing
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