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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?
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...
" there's only so many places to bury people over the course of a few hundred years. "
Do you think that you've ever been anyplace where NO ONE has ever died? Mankind has a 5000 year recorded history, and tens of thousands of years of history that weren't recorded - much if at all. Anyplace you have ever walked, you were probably in sight of a place where someone died, at some point in time. You almost certainly walk on hallowed ground, no matter where you live.
Of course, I don't worry about it much. A couple hundred years after I die, someone will probably be plowing the ground that I lay under. Cemeteries aren't exactly forever, you know.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
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!
Yeah, my first thought when reading this story was that whoever was building that observatory didn't know that any building project in Hawaii has to start with a big bribe to the natives.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"Someone else's land?" I have to believe they own the land there. Whether the natives recognize that or not, however...
You know, the natives might have some legitimate disagreements about land ownership. Just because the traditional religion is used to block projects like this doesn't mean that it is the root cause. Religion may just have been legally expedient at first and then grew into a self-perpetuating thing.
Another poster was referring to the "corruption" in Hawaii, but a brief read of the link above would suggest that US financial interests have been corrupting Hawaii for a long time. And its funny how some of the descriptions of Hawaiians on this thread sound just like descriptions of Native Americans, African Americans, and just about any ethnic group that has been traumatised by rich white people over the last few centuries...
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
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.
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.
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.
What should also be mentioned is the change in demographics. There were about 40,000 native Hawaiians at the time (1890ish).
Was it crappy that white people took over the islands? Yes. It was also completely normal for the time period. By 1900 there were more Japanese alone on the islands than natives. It's certainly not unfeasible to think that if the USA hadn't, that either Japan or some European power would have established at least a protectorate.
Look, history is a long story of people doing crappy things to other people. That doesn't mean we should wash our hands of it completely, or forget about it all, but there need to be reasonable goals. Those goals should be trying to get everyone to a reasonable footing today - things like making sure children can get an education, people can get opportunities for jobs, to build wealth, etc. We shouldn't just say "oh, well, you have the poor historical luck to be poor and live in a poor area now, so your schools will suck, etc, tough luck" for instance. If anything, that's at the heart of today's problems - the systematic past destruction of and transfer of wealth.
But at the same time, we're not going to be able to just turn back the clock. It would be insane to just think we should do something like give Manhattan back to the Lenape tribe (nevermind the rest of New Jersey, Delaware, etc), because you'd be evicting over a million people on behalf of 10,000 or so.
They absolutely might have legitimate disagreements over land ownership. I don't have a problem with that going to courts. Two centuries ago we refused to honor native american ownership claims under the argument that, basically, while they recognized it was really, really unfair, the "courts of the conqueror" can't undo the conquering. But Hawaii was a different case and there would be more interesting land ownership claims, it is more recent and there are more detailed records of land transactions.
I do have a problem with the preferred status we give to religions of whatever culture, because we're making a choice as a society to subsidize nonsense. If we're going to do it, we should make it part of arts programs, because it's fiction.
I do have a problem with someone who claims to care about science saying that studying the universe doesn't matter because we're looking too far back in time for it to be relevant, and that their right to their favorite fiction is more important than somebody else's right to build a telescope.
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
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