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How the Thirty Meter Telescope Ruling Will Impact Future Astronomy Projects (forbes.com)
StartsWithABang writes: If you want to explore the Universe, you need a telescope with good light gathering power, a high-quality camera to make the most out of each photon, and a superior observing location, complete with dark skies, clear nights, and still, high-altitude air. There are only a few places on Earth that have all of these qualities consistently, and perhaps the best one is atop Mauna Kea on Hawaii. Yet generations of wrongs have occurred to create the great telescope complex that's up there today, and astronomers continue to lease the land for far less than it's worth despite violating the original contract. That's astronomy as we know it so far, and perhaps the Mauna Kea protests signal a long awaited end to that.
like the Second Coming or Santa Claus or something?
The best place for an optical telescope of that size is, unfortunately, still on the earth.
Once again it boils down to how much money they're giving the natives. Not historical propriety, not ethics, nope. Just how much money the natives are getting.
. . . and tell him what these Hawaiian Terrorist are up to! Then they will be banned from entering the USA!
Um, wait . . . OK, continental USA.
But seriously:
astronomers continue to lease the land for far less than it's worth
It's not like the astronomers are building casinos with strippers there.
What's the worth of discovering the secrets of the Cosmos?
Priceless.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Even worse, consider the situation of the Hawaiian natives, pushed off of almost every island except a corner of the big one with the active volcano, pushed around regarding the original telescope placement, etc. etc. Granted, they only got there a few hundred years before Cook, but still, life took a serious turn for the worse for them ever since he landed. Now, the Haole want to just stick another telescope up on the mountain top - continuing to disregard the natives as they do for almost every issue - except, the natives actually have gotten some legal say in this matter - not surprising that they're getting up in the face of the astronomers, or anyone else who is doing something they don't particularly like.
Hopefully, the telescope is important enough to the scientific community for them to wrangle a good deal for the natives and still get the telescope they want built. Anything you do with land in Hawaii gets expensive quick, but you might be able to extend preservation zones around the peak on Maui, in exchange for continued development at the top of Mauna Kea? I don't really know what's in the elder's heads on this one, but surely something of greater value to them can be found to exchange - the question is: do we really want the telescope bad enough to pay the price?
> Yet generations of wrongs have occurred
FFS. Give me a break. Sorry, I have no white guilt. Yes, I am privileged, and so are the people complaining about it.
> astronomers continue to lease the land for far less than it's worth
A difference of opinion (on "worth") makes a market. If the land was worth so much, then they should have charged more. But, now that the astronomers are there and have committed significant resources to the project, the lessor is trying to extort them for more. That's pretty scummy.
> despite violating the original contract.
Really? The terms of the lease have been breached by the lessee? That's a slam dunk then. Go to a court to get an order of repossession.
Oh? You haven't or it hasnt worked? I guess it's not so cut-and-dried then.
This is ONE instance, that I might actually support the use of it....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
...Granted, they only got there a few hundred years before Cook...
Is "seventeen" covered by "a few"? The earliest settlement of Hawaii is about that old. There were no "English people" at that time.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
and perhaps the best one is atop Mauna Kea on Hawaii.
Im certain that opinion holds some validity in Hawaii, but here in Branson my 30 meter telescope has been praised with such critical acclaim as "do you really need that thing? it blocks out the sun" and "for christ sake its 3 in the morning turn that crap off." the residents here are far more keen to my telescope than some rinky dink hawaiian sensation, thats for sure. In fact, the astronomers community that operates my telescope has released a finding in what scientists are calling "a goddamn fact" that research has concluded I'll be in the cold cold ground before it ever gets taken down, Jessica.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Give me one good alternative that same land could be used for and I'll believe this isn't a money grab.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Funny thing about the Libertarian right. They loudly espouse the views that the only true rights are property rights, that contracts (backed by government power) are sacred, and that everything can be reduced to financial considerations.
But if anyone not of a member of their socioeconomic cohort shows a trace of being concerned about their property rights, about the violation of contractual terms, if seeking compensation in the only available way; then venom and mockery gush forth. How dare they!
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
This article is pretty off on some things.
But there’s something else to consider: something that hasn’t been properly considered for, honestly, the entire history of the world. How do the native inhabitants of the land that the telescope is proposed to be built on feel about it?
That's absolutely not true. That was considered, quite intensively. The TMT folks bent over backwards to make sure that the people who's nucleotides happen to include the certain chemical arrangement called Hawaiian were well consulted, cultural sensitivities taken into consideration, ect. They actually planned it to be built in an area somewhat not as good for viewing in order to minimize any potential impact on cultural practices on the summit. Until the popular bandwagon got rolling, most people were in support of it.
While many in the media picked up one or two of the soundbites or demands and harped on them as ridiculous or backwards, the reality of the situation is this: a culture that’s many thousands of years old was — in the same imperialist spirit as much of the world — conquered and forced to live in a world they did not choose for themselves.
Maybe thousands, though newer estimates put it at about 800 years IIRC, with previous inhabitants maybe getting killed off by the second wave of immigrants who are the ancestors of Hawaiians. Either way, no one gets to choose the world they were born into. Maybe I wanted to be a citizen of the British Empire, damned colonial rebels. If you have actual prejudice and present issues, that is a legitimate concern. Something that happened to your ancestors, even if it was wrong, not so much.
Earlier this year, many Hawaiians protested the construction of this telescope, seeking to halt its construction until their concerns were addressed.
Many of their concerns were either wrong (for example, that it would damage aquifers) or unprovable (that it would damage the 'spiritual waters' of the Mauna). What do you say about concerns like that? To be fair, mistakes were made in the past with other telescopes, so having concerns about keeping things right is absolutely justified, but that isn't the same as disregarding the environmental impact statement and spreading rumors.
I don't get why people are bending over backwards to justify this. If Christian groups try to influence others, especially science, for their religious/cultural reasons, it is wrong. When, say, Switzerland banned minarets for their 'cultural' reasons, that was also wrong...for the Swiss to say 'You Muslims are of the wrong non-native race/culture so suck it up' is bullshit and everyone knows it. If I were to say that I hold claim to a certain plot of land simply because of my race, everyone would call me an asshole, and rightfully so. That Hawaiians suffered wrongs a century ago should be acknowledged, but it does not justify the same.
There's a cost trade-off between the expense of a launch, and the expense of building a bigger mirror. That is, for the same price, you can have a really big telescope on land, or a small telescope in space.
Adaptive optics have advanced enough that ground-based telescopes have surpassed Hubble in resolution. The drawbacks of AO are that it's limited in wavelength (different wavelengths get refracted by different amounts by the atmosphere, so you can't simultaneously correct for all of them), it only works for a narrow field of view (so you can't take majestic shots of the entire Orion nebula), and the atmosphere completely blocks certain wavelengths from even reaching the ground making space the ideal place for far infrared or ultraviolet astronomy. If those constraints don't affect the type of astronomy you plan to do with the telescope, then there's little point paying a lot more to launch it into space.
While I'm agreeing that we should weigh the need for human scientific advancement against other cultural needs, we should be very careful before deciding to subjugate science infrastructure projects to stone age cultural beliefs. Just as we do not allow native Hawaiians anymore to club somebody to death just because they stepped on the shadow of their ruler, we shouldn't allow arbitrary cultural designations to decide on where science can be done. I hope we can all agree that we have now more enlightened ways of rulemaking.
So I'll just "emminent domain" away your property, give you below market value for it, and you'll be fine with it 'cause "Science," right?
This is why humanity needs to get over its reverence for religion, and why the work of people like Hitchens/Dawkins etc. toward that goal is so important. Some group of people who irrationally believe a volcano is a god should not have anything to do with out collectively gaining knowledge by building a telescope on it.
So, if it weren't for religious reasons, it would be alright to force people to give up their land? Regardless, these people have rights to the site in question. But if you need to use religion to force native people onto a reservation that's your choice. For centuries, the US and many nations have not had a problem forcing indigenous people off their land when something of value was found there. Why should the 21st century be any different?
Even worse, consider the situation of the Hawaiian natives, pushed off of almost every island except a corner of the big one with the active volcano, pushed around regarding the original telescope placement, etc. etc. Granted, they only got there a few hundred years before Cook, but still, life took a serious turn for the worse for them ever since he landed.
Not as dire as you make it sound. Firstly, The island of Niihau is owned by natives. The island of Kahoolawe is owned by natives (once it's cleaned from decades of bombing). Moreover, this is just for those who wish to bring back the monarchy (read: those who are in line for the throne). Hawaii was first settled in the first century CE. The last wave of pre-European contact immigrants arrived from Tahiti in the 1200s. Each wave decimated the existing population, to the point that menehune are now thought as part of myth / legend instead of an actual previous civilization.
Captain Cook first arrived in Hawaii in 1778. At that time, Hawaii was not united. Each island had its own king. Taboos abounded. Women could not eat bananas, shark eyes, etc for fear of being beaten to death. No one could allow their head to be higher than any one who outranks them (again, death penalty). Only the kings owned land. It was a Stone Age civilization. Captain Cook gave guns to Kamehameha I, which allowed him to unite the islands (clubs against firearm? no contest). Granted that the natives were not used to European diseases.
It wasn't until the Great Mahele under Kamehameha III in the 1830s and 1840s when non-royals could own land. Foreigners forced the monarchs to give up absolute power, giving human rights to kamaaina and haole (side note: ha'ole literally means without the breath of life; in other words, without a soul). Foreigners did overthrow the monarchy in 1893. Foreigners petitioned for US annexation. When the petition was denied, they created the Republic of Hawaii. In 1898 the US accepted Hawaii as a Territory. Hawaii was made a state in 1959.
Now, the Haole want to just stick another telescope up on the mountain top - continuing to disregard the natives as they do for almost every issue - except, the natives actually have gotten some legal say in this matter - not surprising that they're getting up in the face of the astronomers, or anyone else who is doing something they don't particularly like.
Haole is an offensive term.
Hopefully, the telescope is important enough to the scientific community for them to wrangle a good deal for the natives and still get the telescope they want built. Anything you do with land in Hawaii gets expensive quick, but you might be able to extend preservation zones around the peak on Maui, in exchange for continued development at the top of Mauna Kea? I don't really know what's in the elder's heads on this one, but surely something of greater value to them can be found to exchange - the question is: do we really want the telescope bad enough to pay the price?
Sorry, but we didn't realize that there was anything "colonialist" about science.
If Hawaii had always been independent like Fiji, the kanaka*, or commoners, would still be under control of the ali'i, the hereditary nobility, who enforced their rule with an intricate series of prohibitions on the commoners. All of Maunakea above the treeline was under exclusive control of the ali'i. No kanaka could go there, ever. Overall, the kanaka had fewer rights than Russian peasants in the time of the tsars.
So foreign astronomers come to the Big Island, and make a deal with the ali'i to build their telescopes. Some of the Kamehameha family were astronomical hobbyists, after all. I'm assuming that just as in our own history, the researchers would have to carefully avoid the altars and other sacred objects on the mountaintop, which is vast and gently sloped - Maunakea is more massive than the entire Rocky Mountains - and would be granted a concession on a small area near the summit.
Astronomy on this independent Hawaii would be just like astronomy there today, except that the common people, and whatever foreign supporters they could muster, would have no input into the process whatever.
* Please excuse my omission of the A-macron. The character set used here just swallows it.
The protests are being held by liars who lie about the true multi-racial history of the Hawaiian Kingdom, in order to shakedown the government for money.
Using Mauna Kea to study the heavens is a righteous use of land, and a sacred continuation of the Hawaiian culture, that used stars to navigate the seas for hundreds of years. Any who claim it is a desecration are racist pigs who believe that any indigenous culture must be defined only as it was originally seen by white people, instead of honoring the right of people of all ancestries to grow and change over time.
The Kingdom of Hawaii was founded with a multi-racial coalition, was replaced by the internationally recognized Republic of Hawaii through internal means, and successfully sued for annexation in 1898 to the US. Insisting that one racial group, defined by a fractional drop of blood, should be able to dominate the decision making processes of the people of Hawaii is evil, and wrong.
The telescope site is located in a small reserve that, according to an agreement signed in 1960, is the only place on the mountain where telescopes can be built. To get rights to this plot and to the access road leading up to it, the University of Hawaii had to agree to maintain the 11,000 acres around the reserve as a natural and cultural preserve. The protest movement wants to retroactively change the agreement on their own terms and for reasons they have conjured up out of the thin mountain air.
The TMT controversy could mark the same juncture in American history that the end of the Victorian age marked for the British. A nation that had led the world in science and technology reached its high water mark, and began the handover of its scientific patrimony to the next up-and-coming new country. Watch for the TMT to end up on the Qinghai Plateau of southern China, where a site at 5100 m (over 17,000 ft) has already been qualified for large telescopes.
Dig deep enough into the Hawaiian "religious" stories and you will find some surprisingly scientific basis - much more than "he created the heaven and earth in seven days" - Hawaiians have the god of Fire (Pele?) who makes the land, then a god of life (green / forest growth, I'm too much Haole to remember her name anymore and I refuse to Wiki-research a message oard post) who reshapes the land after Pele makes it, etc. etc.
The elders have been telling people not to develop in certain places because those places are "too much in conflict with Pele" or something to that effect, basically: "your house will be consumed by lava there, fool." But, westerners have ignored them and built dozens of homes which were consumed within a decade or two.
This thing about the mountaintop is more about having a sacred place of quiet reflection (which, if the elders would get their head in the game, is basically what the telescopes are doing, but I'm sure they mostly see the roads, tourists, etc.) Really it comes down to respect, respect these people for whatever their reasoning is - whether it is science masquerading as religion, religion masquerading as science, or just a bunch of ornery old coots who have been pushed around one too many times - we have a system, let it play out according to the rules.
No, the grammar was correct and the correct meaning is also the most literal.
Sloppy readers were easily confused, and clicked "reply" instead of just re-parsing when they hit the "I don't understand that" part. If it sounds absurdly wrong, the first question should always be "did it say what I thought it said?" They should at least do the double-take before deciding it is wrong.
I disagree with the presumed sentiment, but I think it accurately represents the dispute. I would say yes, seventeen is still only a few. They were there for a few years, other people came, and it has been a few years since. And this isn't land that the protesters owned when Hawaii became a State. They're presuming ownership based on race. It is just like if I, as an American, go to France and start complaining that I'm part Gualish and therefore I have a claim to parts of France that my ancestors controlled. That there were "no English people" at the time is hilarious; there were no Hawaiian people in Hawaii yet even after "discovery," because the English spelling had not yet been coined. That is the only sense in which there were not already "English people" seventeen hundred years ago. Somebody go remind the English that the Romans never invaded England, because they hadn't established national unity and agreed on a name yet.
It seems obvious that if the other 12 observatories are going to be allowed to remain, and the University was truly the organization given the responsibility to manage the land, then the University can also build another one. And that is all true, and they can. This is why the people associated with the project were not running around crying, they were just slightly bummed out about the added delay.
The only thing going on here with this ruling is that people made a stink, and the Hawaiian court made a ruling about process. Basically, this is one of those situation where public hearings were held, they were attended by involved parties, and not a single complaint was raised, and so the project sailed through the public comment phase. Then later, when construction began, people started protesting. So the Court is just making them go back and re-do the initial public comment process. There is nothing about the plans that is likely going to be required to be changed, and there is nothing about the process that is being repeated that has a significant chance of derailing the project. It is just a delay. The protesters will now have to attend the re-do public hearings and convince fellow Hawaiians that they don't want to have the awesomest telescope in the world. And then the University will make the decision. Nothing has been raised in the protests that, if true, would change the decision. Some Hawaiians are against all access to people of the wrong races to the mountains, and that has always been the case. But that is unlikely to persuade those others.
I agree that science trumps nationalism (no pun intended) and if a Qinghai location gets the TMT built, then so be it. China romps right now because when they want the bullet train to be built here, it just gets built. No soul-crushing years of political wrangling.
what they really are (were) is too technologically disadvantaged to fight back against cannon, and smallpox.
A scientist named Jared Diamond postulated that there are three things a civilization needs to survive: Guns, Germans and Steele. I'm not sure if there is any iron ore on the Hawaiian Islands, but I have never heard about Hawaiians learning how to smelt iron and forge steel. If you don't have steel, you will not be able to make guns. Now Germans are the difficult Beanie Baby to get in the set. If the Hawaiians had acquired Germans, the Germans could have smelted the iron and forged steel guns for them.
This is squarely a fault of the ancient Hawaiian rulers, like King Kamehamehamehamehameha Dole Pineapple Juice. He should have done more to offer cheap package vacation trips to trap Germans in Hawaii. Then the Germans could have produced steel guns for them to fight off the like of Captain Crunch.
As it was, the Hawaiian Civilization was just too inferior to that of the folks who were invading, with a beach towel in one hand, an musket in another.
Put 100,000 randomly selected mainland Americans on an island and give them similar challenges as the Hawaiians have faced,I think the Haole would look even more ignorant, corrupt, self serving, and generally pathetic.
I think you need to visit Hawaii sometime, to really see how it is there. There are schools, hospitals, police, dentists, doctors, golf courses, Hawaii-5-0, surf board makers, over-priced hotels, universities, US naval bases, pool halls, pineapple plantations etc, etc, etc . . .
The pioneers in the mainland US faced all the same challenges as the Native Hawaiians, and also managed to produce the things listed above.
Native Hawaiians need to wake up, smell the coffee, and check their smart phones. The latest tweet is: "You lost."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
"Haole" is a racist term for "white person," for those who don't know. It's so common that the white people have basically acclimated to it.
Actually in `olelo Hawai`i (Hawaiian language) "haole" essentially means "foreigner." It's a perfectly legitimate word which in the original is not racist, and not exclusively applied to white people. In common street talk, though, it's become a pejorative referring to whites.
There is anti-white prejudice here (I'm a Caucasian living in Hawai`i, who has studied the Hawaiian language), but I've not encountered it often. Perhaps this is because I'm older, and I believe I'm respectful to others ... perhaps it's also because I don't go to Waianae at night. I don't know, but it's not been much of a problem. I've encountered much, much worse in mainland inner cities.
There is no simplistic answer to the TMT issue, but many native Hawaiians believe that the ancient Hawaiians, who were great students of astronomy (think celestial navigation) would have supported the type of science TMT will make possible, as long as respect for the `aina (land) is maintained. But to traditional Hawaiians that's simply how life is lived, respecting the land and sea while continuing to learn and grow.
My feeling is that it would be a shame to see high-level science disrupted by a handful who don't, to my understanding, represent the majority. They call themselves "protectors" of the mountain ... is that what they really are?
Side note: as to the comment that Hawai`i is very corrupt, no kidding. New Jersey has nothing on Hawai`i.
Hawaiian culture was not very backwards. We did not do them any favors by moving in, setting up plantations, and deposing their government.
But that's the American way: send in a bunch of gringos, wait a few years, gringos complain that their American rights are being ignored, send troops or money to support their struggle for dominance/independence.
Diamond's thesis is a good story, but not generally accepted by scientists or historians. It doesn't explain some simple things, the most important of which is why didn't the Chinese conquer us all?
They had explosives, a well-developed written language, mathematics, accounting, organization, they'd conquered widely and went through the germ part, they could smelt metals and create intricate devices.
Why not them, Jared?
Bruce Perens.
Don't click on that link. It is the very real embodiment of the Billy Madison quote:
"Mr. Madison, what you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response, were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
Think I am being hyperbolic? OK,
And honestly, that is where he's at his most cogent. He goes on to argue that science is fundamentally evil because:
Niihau is actually owned by the haole Robinson family. They have decided that their great white contribution would be to segregate native Hawaiians for their island only.
While interesting from a lingual standpoint (since Niihau is really the only place that has continuously spoken olelo Hawai'i), it's kind of disturbing to think of the families there living at the mercy of the Robinson family and their strictures.
I've been to the site. Other than the buildings for the astronomy, there is nothing there other than a bunch of large rocks. Truly nothing. There is no cultural heritage. There is no natural values. It is a huge pile of rocks. There is almost no life there.
I did get to see one of the rarest plants in the world in bloom while I was there. The Mauna Kea Silversword was the only plant I saw anywhere above 10k feet on the mountain. And there were only a couple of them in the wild, due not to astronomers but due to sheep farmers.
The entire area of the astronomy complex is tiny. Much, much smaller than a suburban shopping mall. Of all the things to be getting your panties in a twist about on the islands of Hawaii, a few buildings way away from everyone on top of the mountain is at the bottom of the list. In fact, I wouldn't even bring up the big island. It is mostly empty and fairly rural - for a touristy island.
they had no Germans?
There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binaries and those who don't
Do you define culture in terms of technology?
The internal affair was between native Hawaiians and relatively recently arrived Americans. The first constitution was instituted by force and granted most power to rich white settlers, and the kingdom overthrown later with the help of U.S. Marines. So it's difficult to call that a strictly internal affair.
Kalakaua was corrupted by Claus Spreckels (aka King Claus), and the 1887 Constitution (which was imposed on Kalakaua by the Honolulu Rifles, a local militia) was a response to his poor governance. The tipping point for the 1893 revolution was Liliuokalani's attempt to abrogate that constitution that she had sworn an oath to uphold.
As for the 1887 constitution itself, you'll note that the only racial group it discriminated against were *asians*. Kanakas and haoles were allowed to vote, but asians were explicitly excluded. This anti-asian racism continued through the Republic period (because it based the franchise on those people who were franchised under the Kingdom Constitution in effect in 1893), and then continued even further after annexation in 1898 (because the organic act of 1900 continued to defined the franchise as per the Republic). It wasn't until asians *born* in 1898 came of age that asians had any political power in the islands - the Territory of Hawaii was dominated by kanakas for the first 40 years.
So the fact of the matter is that it *was* an internal affair, but you have to realize that the internal sides were more complex than "native" versus "non-native" - you had a class hierarchy that put royalty and haoles on top, kanakas next, and then asians on the bottom.
As for history books, I'm ashamed at the kind of anti-white history that is pushed in the Hawaiian History textbooks - they're terribly ignorant and lack significant nuance. Kuykendall, Dawes, Andrade and Russ have a much more deep picture.
The story of the fall of the monarchy of the Kingdom of Hawaii really begins with Lunalilo (loved by the commoners, but a drunkard) who beat out Kalakaua (backed primarily by US interests), and then Kalakaua who beat out Queen Emma (who was backed primarily by british interests), and then Liliuokalani who was still mostly held under Claus Spreckel's sway. Decades of poor government, and massive debt, drove business interests in the islands to take up arms and restore sanity to government. Racism, despite the common "native hawaiian victim" trope, was focused against asians, and the annexation to the United States was eventually accepted and celebrated by the ex-Queen herself, who rose the US flag over her house in support of Hawaiian-American sailors in WWI. Heck the first congressional representative to the US Congress from the Territory of Hawaii was none other than Robert Wilcox, who fought in a failed rebellion against the Republic of Hawaii! Prince Kuhio followed him to Congress, and was indeed a proud American.
But these protesters, they want you to think there was some sort of trail of tears, or massive invasion, or land grab, or some other parallel to the Native American experience - there simply was no such thing.
Chile is out as two other even larger telescopes are planned for the southern hemisphere so it would be redundant. Mexico and the Canary's are possible but much lower altitude negating a lot of the potential performance. That is why Hawaii was selected.
You misunderstand the politics and demographics of the Hawaiian Kingdom - you had the 1%ers (royalty, businessmen), and the 99% (non-royalty, asian plantation workers). The internal revolution was a matter between 1%ers, and had little, if nothing, to do with the 99% (save the asians, who in 1887 were disenfranchised explicitly).
Furthermore, upon annexation to the United States, "natives" were on top for decades, thanks to the disenfranchised asians, and the american tradition of universal (mostly) suffrage. Prior to being a part of the US, there were all kinds of property qualifications on voting.
If you care to learn the story of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the Republic of Hawaii, and the Territory of Hawaii, and the State of Hawaii, you'll learn that it has no parallel to the Native American experience, despite the common word "native".
So, you need Guns, Germs, and Steel, and not to be inward looking!
No, you need Guns, Germs, and Steel, not to be inward looking, and not to have over-reaching authority!
No, you need Guns, Germs, and Steel, not to be inward looking, not to have over-reaching authority, and to actively pursue overseas markets!
No, you need Guns, Germs, and Steel, not to be inward looking, not to have over-reaching authority, to actively pursue overseas markets, and to have the advantage of geography that encourages separatism rather than centralism!
...
Bruce Perens.