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Thirty Meter Telescope Likely Never Gets Built ... In Hawaii
An anonymous reader writes: After years of its backers of doing everything the state of Hawaii demanded in order to get permission to build the Thirty Meter Telescope, a state judge today ordered that the whole process should start over again. Since this order was instigated by the protesters, and that it appears the government favors those protesters, it appears that there is no chance TMT will ever get approval to build in Hawaii. We've been following the back and forth, back and forth story of this telescope for a while.
I'm in Arizona, where the real organizers of this protest tried the same tactics during the Nineties, when the telescope construction was on our Mt. Graham, with somewhat less success. You might want to read their manifesto:
http://dgrnewsservice.org/2015...
There are two possibilities. Either these lands are public or they are private (or could be sold to a private group). If I build a telescope on my private land, you have no right to interfere with that even if it offends your religious beliefs. If the lands are public, then trying to maintain them in a way that caters to the religious feelings of any group amounts to an establishment of religion; that's unacceptable as well.
And, of course, "native Hawaiian" is an ill-defined and corrupt concept to begin with, so "native Hawaiians" ought not to have any legal standing as a group at all. That isn't just a question of justice; if you let people retroactively interfere with property and ownership rights based on their membership in some racial group, you create so much risk and uncertainty that you scare away investments and business. Any sane businessman and investor is going to ask: if we build a new power plant or factory or dock or shopping center, how much risk do we face that some "native Hawaiian group" is going to claim that we are treading on their sacred ground and kill the project halfway through, or demand pay-offs?
That isn't just a question of justice; if you let people retroactively interfere with property and ownership rights based on their membership in some racial group, you create so much risk and uncertainty that you scare away investments and business. Any sane businessman and investor is going to ask: if we build a new power plant or factory or dock or shopping center, how much risk do we face that some "native Hawaiian group" is going to claim that we are treading on their sacred ground and kill the project halfway through, or demand pay-offs?
Especially since the Mauna Kea Telescope is just a proxy fight. This group of Hawaiians at core do not want white people on "their" islands at all. The native Hawaiians refer to anyone not of their race as Haole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , although it is mostly used as a racial epithet against Europeans.
From the article:
In 1944, Hawaiian scholar Charles Kenn wrote, "In the primary and esoteric meaning, haole indicates a race that has no relation to one's own; an outsider, one who does not conform to the mores of the group; one that is void of the life element because of inattention to natural laws which make for the goodness in man. In its secondary meaning, haole ... implies a thief, a robber, one not to be trusted.
In likewise manner, in Hawaiian schools, on the last day of school, they have "Kill Haole day", where natives are supposed to harass and attack the white students. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Southern Poverty Law Center has this to say about the incredibly racist Hawaiians:
https://www.splcenter.org/figh...
So sorry Hawaiians, I consider you to be just as racist as the southern preacher in the 1859's preaching how the bible condones owning black people, as racist as any group of KKK members, who lynch and burn crosses on lawns. As racist as any southern state you care to name.
And do not even attempt to hand me the idea that since some white people have been racist, that its okay with you being racist, because you are then condoning their racism. You are 100 percent as big a collection of racist scum as they were.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
> "The planned construction site is on land considered sacred by some Native Hawaiians."
What the *modern* natives fail to mention is that the *pre-western* natives used the top of the mountain as a rock quarry. It wasn't sacred at all. Turns out that lava erupted during an ice age, when there were glaciers on top, hardened rapidly, preventing crystal growth. Crystals fracture more easily, so the lack made for excellent stone tools, which the natives used before westerners brought metal tools.
The top of the mountain wasn't habitable for the same reason it makes an excellent telescope site - very little rain. The altitude also means it's cold, and it is high enough to induce altitude sickness if you are acclimated to sea level. So the natives didn't live up there, but rather set up mining camps to extract the rock, then took them back down. There is literally tons of archaeological evidence all over the Mauna Kea Science Reserve, the area on top of the mountain that the University of Hawaii controls. The astronomers are careful about not putting a telescope in archeology areas. There's rock debris, partial tools, shelters, etc. up there.
If it was originally an industrial site, I see no reason not to use it now for a scientific site. It's not like they are knocking down the Parthenon to build a telescope.
> We have no business as a society stopping building on the basis of blasphemy anyway.
Except the top of Mauna Kea was never a holy site. It was a rock quarry, there is evidence all over the top of the mountain. Before Westerners brought metal tools, the natives used stone ones, and the lava that erupted up there during an ice age cooled quickly, making it chip-resistant. So they set up mining camps and dug up the mountain top. They didn't live up there, not enough rainfall to grow things. That's also the reason it is a good telescope site. So the natives commuted from lower altitudes, dug up stone tools, and went back down. Not exactly a religious pilgrimage.
Astronomer here, I live and work on the Big Island. You are completely wrong to assume this means the end of TMT in Hawaii, it was pretty much what was expected to happen after the state supreme court vacated the permit last December. While the new permitting process is going to take more time (months or years, nobody knows for sure), TMT seem to be taking their time deciding on their next step and are still hoping to continue as planned. I have heard nothing that would suggest otherwise. Please understand a big project like that doesn't just up and leave after having so much invested. Supporters of the TMT here (of which there are plenty) are still hoping a new, watertight permit will come out of all this. Frankly, we're more shocked by the recent news about another batch of anti-TMT protesters being acquitted because they claimed to have "prevented a greater harm from occurring". But then again, this is Hawaii, and that's how things work here.