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Is your counter argument that you’re not wrong just attacking a straw man? Because it really sounds to me like you are just clueless.

Strip mining goes back thousands of years, it’s a simpler technology than making tunnels. And no it wasn’t limited to human power to crack rock several more powerful methods existed.

Roman mining literally destroyed a mountain, operating within an order of magnitude of the largest mines today. That’s what makes what you say false. It’s not some minor quibble over details you are simply speaking from ignorance.



It’s almost like you’re intentionally trying to be wrong.

You don't seem to understand how analogies work. I’m not talking about strip mining vs tunnel mining, I was comparing scale of human powered mining to mining with nitroglycerin.

I’ll let you figure out how the scale of mining “going back thousands of years” is very different from modern explosive mining on your own. Go google “iron production by year” or something. Hint: it took generations for the Romans to strip a small hill, that a modern midsize mining company can do in a few days.


If you take Pliny’s word for truth, they did achieve 10% of the scale of the largest currently operating gold mine using hydraulics at Las Medulas.

Modern geological estimates are radically lower.




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