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Amid Controversy, Construction of Telescope In Hawaii Halted
An anonymous reader sends word that Hawaii Gov. David Ige has asked for a week-long hold in the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea. "After more than a week of demonstrations and dozens of arrests, Hawaii Gov. David Ige said Tuesday that the company building one of the world's largest telescopes atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea has agreed to his request to halt construction for a week. 'They have responded to my request and on behalf of the president of the University and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs have agreed to a time out on the project, and there will be no construction activities this week,' Ige said at a news conference. Thirty Meter Telescope is constructing the telescope on land that is held sacred to some Native Hawaiians. Scientists say the location is ideal for the telescope, which could allow them to see into the earliest years of the universe. Ige said he hopes the temporary pause in construction will allow the interested parties to have more discussions about the project. Native Hawaiian groups have been protesting the construction of the telescope since its inception last year."
The natives should have said something before the Mauna Kea Observatory was constructed in 1968. Making all this noise now is decades too late.
What could be more honoring, holy and sacred than a telescope peering out into universe?
Should not interfere with the advancement of science.
I was sad that I didn't get a callback when I applied for a job working on the software for this project.
The land is on top of a dormant volcano away from city lights. and the "bowl" at the top makes the perfect base for it...
Not an Indian but they claim rights to the remains, this area you can't dig without hitting some ceremonial site (Washington State).
Posted to en.wikipedia.org yet some DRM prevents it from being included (ie creator of bust) http://tinypic.com/usermedia.p... and it's a damn statue.
all the land in hawaii is considered sacred.
it is an island, they buried people and constructed heiaus all over the place. there's only so many places to bury people over the course of a few hundred years. you can't swing a dead cat in hawaii without hitting something that is sacred to someone.
you ever been on the big island? no one ELSE is using the top of mauna kea for anything. it is one harsh place that can't grow weed or coffee... come get your sacred stuff out and let them build their telescope.
And the reason why there are no cities nearby is precisely because the land is sacred. When the U.S. came to Hawaii, they took much of the native people's lands. The idea of mass demolition of a holy site simply because it does not appear to comply with angio-saxon definitions of what should and should not be holy is not a matter that should be taken flippantlyly. Consider various Native American tribes practices and and ideals with regards to respect for land. It is the source of life. The act of destroying it violently could be seen as offensive.
Thirty four characters live here.
If you are reporting about a protest, you should, at the very minimum say WHY they are protesting.
This article totally fails to do that.
From TFS and TFA:
Thirty Meter Telescope is constructing the telescope on land that is held sacred to some Native Hawaiians.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
What could be more honoring, holy and sacred than a telescope peering out into universe?
Doing it while paying a suitably large bribe and paying Hawaiians. Hawaii is one of the more corrupt places in the country, and there's a lot of anti-white racism.
Although in this case it may just be an anti-science woman who doesn't conceive of herself of anti-science using her religion to justify her not wanting change to the environment. Like a Wiccan fighting your attempt to sell a public park. It's hard to tell without being involved with the local politics. So long as we give religion an elevated importance in our society, this is the crap we have to deal with.
"The irony is, backward looking is a part of the astronomy paradox, in that the farther out into space we look the further back in time we are looking, so making bigger telescopes to see farther in time, means we are moving farther and farther away from modern relevancy, actually."
http://kahea.org/blog/mk-vigne...
Tell them with this instrument they will be able to look back in time at previous Spam (the luncheon meat) shortages and will be able to plan and prevent these shortages in the future.
To be clear, I wasn't making a moral judgment either for or against. Merely stating the reasons why the site was ideal for the planned telescope.
This is more likely an expression of Hawiian nationalism which has been on the rise in recent years.
In some cases it has crossed the line into race hatred as the Southern Poverty Law Center noted a few years back.
And there are several independence groups. China has even offered to arm them.
Not to mention the natives kinda gloss over every volcano EVAR is considered "sacred land" to some tribe somewhere as...surprise surprise, primitives believed all that destructive power HAD to be angry Spirits/Gods that must be "appeased" in some fashion to keep them from bringing death with their "anger".
Seriously can anybody show me a SINGLE volcano over 300 years old on that island that ISN'T considered "sacred"?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Streetlight upgrades are to remove the blasted things. They waste energy and pollute.
No sir I dont like it.
Surely Kane, Ku, Lono, Kanaloa, Laka, Kihawahine, Haumea, Papahnaumoku, and Pele would be happy to see such a telescope constructed. The Native Hawaiians could use it to get a look at their deities.
The Hawaiian gods and goddesses
If you are a native of any kind, just start yelling that something is sacred, and nobody will be able to fight back against you.
Hate stuff being built near you? Just claim you can't build there because it is sacred ground.
Want something built, like a casino or giant housing development? Just claim the land is sacred and demand it back as 'sovereign' territory... so that you can build your casino.
You get to have it both ways!
Thirty Meter Telescope is constructing the telescope
Woah.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Whoa. I didn't say it was good or bad.
I was just replying to the suggestion that this was the fault of "liberals".
Avoiding use of land because random fuckwit thinks it's "holy" is asinine. My church says that a telescope is the pinnacle of sanctity and any holy site is utterly incomplete without one, and although I just invented my church is has every bit as much legitimacy as some millenia old superstition.
I live in Hawaii and am excited for the new 30 meter telescope. There are currently 13 telescopes at the summit of Mauna Kea.
https://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/mko...
This project has been in the works for 7 years, The local population that is against the building of this telescope has had that long to protest, but didn't actually start protesting until the project was already underway.
From what I hear on my Facebook feed from my Hawaiian friends is that they oppose the building of this new telescope because they consider Mauna kea a sacred place, as well as the sheer size of this new telescope.
The summit is sacred to ancient Hawaiians, so much that a kapu (Ancient Hawaiian law) was made that only important tribal chiefs were allowed up at the summit. (Breaking Kapu usually meant death).
So in old Hawaii only a select few were allowed up on the volcano. I don't know why anyone is complaining. in new Hawaii anyone can visit the summit and see the majestic views of the island as well as some amazing star-gazing at night.
I don't speak up on Facebook even though many of my friends are asking me to sign a petition to stop the building of the telescope as well as protesting locally (I am on Maui). Its hard since most of my friends are not very techy or interested much in science. I keep my mouth shut since I fear I will be ostracized for speaking my true opinion.
Only complaint I have, I really wish most of these telescopes were open to the public. I have never had the opportunity to look through anything bigger than a backyard telescope and it would be amazing to be able to see what a thirty meter telescope can do.
Has what Marx proposed been tried on any scale larger than a hippie commune?
The last day of school has long been unofficially designated "Kill Haole Day," with white students singled out for harassment and violence. (Haole — pronounced how-lee — is slang for a foreigner, usually white, and sometimes is used as a racial slur.)
Hot damn that's some fiery racism.
Let me tell you that the issue is far more complex and far more nuanced than any of the comments here unveil.
For some background, read this perspective from the Native Hawaiian community (http://www.welivemana.com/articles/sacredness-mauna-kea-explained?hc_location=ufi) and then also read this history from Harvard (http://www.pluralism.org/reports/view/21).
Mauna Kea is a flashpoint for Native Hawaiians because, as the Harvard report notes "it is also one of the most sacred places in the universe for Native Hawaiian people." Imagine putting an oil refinery inside the Masjid al-Haram or cell tower anchored in the Western Wall.
Sorry, no, you don't get to declare the entire top of the mountain that's the single best astronomy spot in the world, land you don't own or make any effort to maintain, as your cultural heritage location. The handful of spots up there that aren't a straight-up moonscape are already protected. Get over yourselves.
'sides, it's sacred as in the aborigines spun yarns about it while performing human sacrifice against enemies at the oceanfront heiaus scores of miles away laterally and 2 miles down. Not sacred as in lots of cultural events were actually held in the thin air at 13,000 feet atop the mountain.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
What an honor to have such an amazing piece of equipment peering back in time, to honor the history of their ancestors.
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
Has what Marx proposed been tried on any scale larger than a hippie commune?
No. Why is that?
It's certainly not because Marx's ideas are new, or because there aren't a lot of devotees of them. I posit that the reason it hasn't been tried at scale is that every attempt to scale it up breaks down as soon as you get more than a few hundred people.
Marx was a decent economist for his day, but had no understanding of human nature. An understanding of game theory, had it existed in his day, would have tremendously improved his ideas, I think. In addition, his economic theories have holes you can drive a 747 through, mainly because they seriously underestimate the knowledge component of labor, and the resulting impact of innovation, and completely ignore the value of organization. It's the latter problem that results in imposition of heavy-handed, centrally-controlled economies in all attempts to build communal societies at scale. Since Marx's structure eliminates any reasonable mechanism for self-organization of a dynamic economy, implementers try to paper it over with central committees. Unfortunately, central organization is not only horribly inefficient because the complexity of a significant economy is far beyond the comprehension of any group of humans, it inevitably creates powerful, self-interested elites. That generates resentment among the populace, which provokes top-down imposition of population control systems... propaganda, powerful secret police, etc. -- the hallmarks of the real-world communist state.
It's pretty obvious why Marxism can't work at scale, once you recognize the fact that collective ownership eliminates the ability of the economy to self-organize for efficient production. As long as the economy is small and organization is simple and obvious, it works. But beyond a few hundred people... it can't. Perhaps after we've passed the AI singularity, when all production is automated, and all organization of production as well, then communal ownership will work, and may even be essential. Or maybe not.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Kill more people, sort of like the US does with its drones on innocent civilians. Yep, way to go.
Yes, actually, there is something better about that land. First, it's 13,000 feet above sea level, outside most of the earth's atmosphere. Second, the winds above the side are unusually stable, making it easy to post-process the data with computers to get rid of atmospheric distortion.
It's one of the few places on earth you can collect astronomical data with quality comparable to a space-based telescope.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
The reason there are no cities nearby is that the mountaintop is at 13000+ ft (3400m). Not many people want to live that high up. And, to the parent, there is no "bowl" at the summit of Maunakea - it's mostly cinder cones.
The primary reasons for wanting to be on Maunakea are (1) average over 240 clear nights per year and (2) you are above most of the atmospheric water vapor.
...it made the various Game of Thrones societies look like communist utopias. And according to Wiki, (Hawaiian word BTW), it was abandoned by Kamehameha in the 19th century. I'm all for protecting burial grounds and historic sites, but 'violating' prime real estate reserved for royalty in order to advance mankind's knowledge of the universe strikes me as a win.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
The worst part of the reporting, and what nobody really wants to talk about, is the reason that the county and state pressured TMT for a 1-week hiatus - this is the week of the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival in Hilo, a time when hula halau (schools) from all over the state and several other places all converge on the Big Island. There's no way local authorities wanted to have images of 13-yr-old girls in hula costumes being arrested on the Maunakea summit. Bad for tourism, ya know...
Just for the record: none of the spills have contacted the earth. Those are "spills" like when you spill coffee on your desk. All mirror cleaning water is trucked off the mountain. There are no palila birds or mamane trees at 13,000 ft. The TMT does not plan to have a cesspool. The EIS calls for a sealed building, everything except photons are trucked in and trucked out. There has been over a decade of very detailed planning and study focused on mitigating impact from all observatories and all of these documents are freely available online.
Typical case of religion obstructing the progress of science. Luckily in this case it is a minority religion that the local administration does not take seriously anymore. Imagine if that was a place sacred to christians, like the Mount of Olives, or to buddhists, like Sri Pada (also known as Sri Kanda). The poor telescope would never have a chance.
entropy happens
Why are they always so mad?
We're we're basically splitting this country 50/50 with them.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This is the most likely reason. You see a lot of the same people protesting this as you see against a lot of other things (like geothermal power, biotechnology, tourism, ect.). They don't care what they protest, as long as they make some noise to draw attention to their cause of re-establishing the Hawaiian monarchy...with themselves as the new kings no doubt...and recreating the Hawaiian kingdom for people with Hawaiian blood. That, of course, is an inherently racist proposition. And I've snooped around those independence rallies before; I've seen these Hawaiian community leaders and independence activists play the race card in manners that, quite frankly, I think are unacceptable in an enlightened society.
They're people who live in the past, and play identity politics and pointless localism to enrich themselves by giving people something to hate on, no matter the cost (really, no different than you see in the South with those 'The Confederate States will rise again!' assholes). Of course, the Hawaiian nationalists don't care if this place goes to shit after they do as much damage as possible to achieve their goals, as long as they're the kings of shit mountain, and tough luck for everyone else, including no doubt their supporters who would then be in a much worse off position without the US and all the economic drivers the nationalists would like to see gone. It's really sad that anyone gives these assholes the time of day.
There's always one idiot who falls back on the claim that Communism just hasn't been done correctly yet.
If you use Marx's terminology then technically they're right, the farthest we've ever gotten is dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the phase before communism. Nitpicking aside, I agree with what you were trying to say, centrally planned utopias just don't match up with human behavior and so will never be a successful model.
To my knowledge, they have and there is public information available on the environmental impact statement. This work is being done by astronomers who really do care. I've seen far to many people act as if this is some big mean corporation who just wants to profit at the cost of the environment or something. I've met these people, they are scientists, who value the environment and respecting culture. And if that were the main problem, the activists should hit those issues specifically instead of calling for the scrapping of the whole thing, and also, if that were the main issue, we wouldn't have prominent activists wanting a removal of all telescopes. It doesn't surprise or convince me when people who call for the TMT stopped on every conceivable ground also call for it to be stopped on environmental ones.
You mean the hallmarks of almost every single countries today...?
Previously their most sacred site in the Universe was located where Newark NJ is now.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The sooner humanity gets off this rock, the better. Leave it for those who want to dance around in animal skins and howl at the moon.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
It's the same on almost all of the Pacific islands. Where I live, the US gave several million dollars for the local government to guild sea walls all to protect the locals from rising tides due to climate change. There have been no rising tides and not one wall has been build but lots of 54" TV have been bought as well as big-ass SUVs with tinted windows for the government officers and their families to cruise around in. Considering you can drive all the way across the island in 3 minutes at 35 miles an hour you have to really wonder......
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Also, the "Native" population only comprises about 5.9% as of the 2010 Census. There are more Filipino (14.6%) and Japanese (13.6%) alone. Various "white/caucasian" ethnic groups are about 25%. Even if you add in "Other Pacific Islander" to the Native column, it's still only 10% of the population.
Also crappy as that may be and have been, it should probably also be mentioned that the alternative was not "Hawaii lives happy and free and everything is perfect." It would have been being turned into a Protectorate or Possession of some other power - probably Japan. In the early 1920s the population of Hawaii was over 40% Japanese, and only 25% "Native."
Furthermore, Hawaii, unlike every single other exterior territory (excepting Alaska, which is very different from the rest) the USA has acquired, is now a state with full voting rights. Contrast this to Puerto Rico, Guam, the Marianas, American Samoa, etc... And let's not even get started on how much worse the native tribes in the various interior regions of the USA were treated.
While I do have some sympathy for the fact that the USA steamrollered the fuck out of lots of indigenous native populations, nevermind those it displaced to form in the first place, there do need to be limits.
"Most" is a stretch. The standard atmosphere calculator says 13,000 ft is above 1/3 of the mass of the atmosphere and below 2/3 - i.e., the density is reduced to 56% that at sea level.
Hawaii was annexed by the US decades before it became a state. There was a vote for statehood, but the alternate choice was to remain a territory - independence was never on the table, and it may just be that those who voted considered statehood the better choice of the two.
Slashdot doesn't do complex and nuanced. We (well, most of us commentators and moderators, though not I) do simple and simplified - and insult and shit all over everyone else's rights, but scream like a toddler when one of our (usually self assumed) "rights" are so much as glanced at askance.
It doesn't seem wise to try to construct such a thing without people on side.
Its too easy to protest non violently after construction with mobile phone signals and halogen lights.
I lived in La palma for a while in Europe. People here are happy to have mobile internet service and mobile reception cut mid call to improve observation. You need that level of support.
If you can get support then you have to build on another territory. I know the USA has other territories similar. I would like to be able to quote where. AFAIK what stops this is that observatories also serve military purposes and that is something that limits where they can put these things. If this aspect was more honest though the hiding behind 'betterment of humankind' wouldn't work so well.
Slightly offtopic: I find the domes really beautiful. Its the curve. If only our cities were freer from the tyranny of straight lines a bit more we might all be a lot happier and productive
A blog I run for the wealth
If someone sincerely believed the ground to be truly sacred, wouldn't a telescope that helps bring enlightenment to all of humanity be one of the *best* possible uses of the land?
I like Don Ho.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
The Pacific Islanders are a different type of "foreigner" to, for example, the English (and French and Dutch and ...) settlers in Northern America: when they first arrived in the Marquesas, Hawaii, New Zealand, etc there was no-one already there to call them foreigners!
Their exploration and settling of the Pacific is one of the great feats of human history: Migration by sea in the south Pacific: 2000 BC - AD 800:
The Pacific islanders develop a twin-hulled sailing canoe which is an extremely effective sea-going vessel. In boats of this kind they continue the process of spreading eastwards through Polynesia (Greek polus many, nesos island). The first staging posts are Tonga and Samoa. The earliest surviving trace of human occupation in these islands is about 420 BC in Tonga and 200 BC in Samoa. But colonists are likely to have arrived considerably earlier than this, since by the 1st century BC humans have reached the much more inaccessible Marquesas Islands. The final thrust, to the most remote island groups of the Pacific, takes place from the Marquesas. Hawaii is reached in about AD 400; Easter Island perhaps a century later; Tahiti and the Society Islands in about 600. The last great step in man's colonization of the planet involves the longest sea journey of all - thousands of miles southwest from the Marquesas or Tahiti to New Zealand. This is accomplished in about AD 800.
Happens that I visited that mountaintop, in the summer of 1968 when the only sign of human presence was the graded road and the foundation for the very first telescope. There was absolutely no life up there: A Marscape of volcanic cinder. Not a single tree, mamane or otherwise. I can bet that the only sewage that's up there now is the stuff you're spouting.
It's got a good balance of elevation, good seeing, dry atmosphere to look through, accessibility, and political stability. There aren't very many places that have all of those (among other factors) which is why there are so many telescopes there. The Atacama desert in Chile is one of the few realistically competitive areas (and it's better in some of those features), but it's not as accessible and maybe less politically stable.
Damn right-wing religious fundamentalists, always screwing things up. :-)
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
TMT has posted a fact sheet addressing the controversy: http://www.maunakeaandtmt.org/