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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.
Hippie burnouts. Luddite native simpletons. There are already 4 observatories near the sacred summit of Mauna Kea. What harm would one more do? Whose state is it anyway?
an ill wind that blows no good
"Historically marginalized people are now getting their legitimate say in the process" translates to "they want to be paid a bribe, at which point the construction will stop being blasphemous". It's a shakedown.
We have no business as a society stopping building on the basis of blasphemy anyway.
... that it likely never gets built, when the article says that officials have said that they'll continue the process? You're basically just changing actual reporting into an opinion piece, and presenting said opinion as if it's in the reporting.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
I consider Mauna Kea sacred ground that should be used only for telescopic exploration of the heavens. How can these heretics deny me my constitutional right of freedom of religion? Thomas Jefferson had a telescope, and it was obviously his intent when he wrote the First Amendment that people should be free to practice telescopy in sacred places such as Mauna Kea.
Another victory of religion and superstition and the self interests of a few people who have appointed themselves as religious leaders over science and reason and public interest.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Science: 0
superstition: 1
greed: 4.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
"A tiny pressure group can stop virtually any big project, by filing court action after court action,"
The real opposition to TMT came from the Deep Greens, who tried the same tactic in the Nineties to stop telescope construction in Arizona. Republicans (astronomy is a major "industry" in AZ) beat them back by the skin of their teeth, but the Green victory in Hawaii means that the US is through as a location for any major project of this kind, barring some major political reformation.
It's an election year, so write your candidate. It can't hurt.
Sounds a lot like what happened to the company that tried to run ferry service between the islands, the government supported the company and helped them start up, 2 years (and several lawsuits) later a judge shut them down because whatever law was passed by the government was against Hawaii's constitution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In December 2008, environmental groups and the company returned to court for an appeal of the previous ruling. On March 16, 2009 the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that allowing the Superferry to operate prior to completion of the environmental study was unconstitutional.[37] The company immediately suspended service and laid off its 236 employees.
Hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment lost.... and probably hundreds of millions of future investments lost because investors won't invest in infrastructure when they have no assurance that when the government says "we need this, do it", that they really mean it.
I actually had tickets to ride the boat, but the company had already shut down before my trip.
This was actually the result of a proxy fight.
It was a proxy for the ke ea Hawai‘i movement, which is a movement that is demanding some form of sovereignty for Hawaii. they have been around forever, and they make themselves a pain in the ass wherever they can in order to attempt to draw media attention to their cause.
Their favorite hobby horses are self-determination and self-governance, for Hawaii as an independent nation, or for people of native Hawaiian ancestry to obtain "tribal sovereignty" similar to the relationship with Native Americans, for Native Hawaiians.
They generally don't care about "sacred spots" unless caring about them publicly will get major headlines.
Alphabetically, the organizations involved include: ALOHA, Hawaiian Kingdom, Hawaiian Kingdom Government, Ka Lhui, Ka Pkaukau, Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, Nation of Hawai'i, Nou Ke Akua Ke Aupuni O Hawaii, Poka Laenui, and Protect Kahoolawe Ohana (PKO).
Frankly, I'm surprised there is not a "Bring Queen Lili'uokalani Back From The Dead Society". They are unhappy with the 1893 U.S. Marine invasion that got rid of the hereditary monarchy, and they are unhappy with the U.S. annexation of 1898.
if Hawaii was still its own country, you'd have your own 1%ers
That was certainly the historical case, and going back into pre-Western-contact days, the ruling class (ali`i) were so elite that if a commoner even looked at them the commoner was subject to death.
Having said that, though, the situation, like everything here in Hawai`i, is complex. Certainly bad things happened back in 1893; it's hard to study the history and think otherwise. But that was a long time ago. What's right? I don't really have the right to be the judge of that.
However, most of the protesters overlook the fact that their ancestors were astronomers and skilled in things like celestial navigation. The ancestors might very well have supported something like the TMT. The ali`i seemed to believe in progress (a little known fact is that Honolulu was, in the days of the Kingdom, an early and enthusiastic adopter of the telephone, under the direction of King David Kalakaua).
Last spring I happened to be on the University of Hawai`i Manoa campus (the main campus, in Honolulu). There was a large group of TMT protesters spread along Dole Street. Granted, they were all very polite and behaved very well, which is a credit to their movement. But was it their movement? I stopped and listened to some of them talking; a number of them were speaking `olelo Hawai`i (the Hawaiian language). Very cool. But they really didn't know what was going on. I overheard them saying that they (at least many of them) were taking part because their UH Hawaiian Studies instructors told them they had to be there.
Sadly, you're both wrong. Keystone XL is private, is all about resource extraction (well, transportation of extracted resources) and is being eternally delayed in much the same way. In Canada, we have two more proposed pipelines that are experiencing the same opposition. ("Northern Gateway" and "Energy East")
"That was certainly the historical case, and going back into pre-Western-contact days, the ruling class (ali`i) were so elite that if a commoner even looked at them the commoner was subject to death."
And in particular, only the ali'i were permitted to go above the treeline on Maunakea. The kãnaka, or commoners, would be clubbed to death for venturing up to where the telescopes are now.
Yippee! Macrons work now. Thanks for the encoding fix, new owners!
> Fuck these savages.
I don't see why /. is losing their minds over this. It's just a straight up NIMBY issue. The people who live there don't want it, and obviously nobody has successfully explained why they should care. I don't even know if anybody has even tried. I certainly haven't seen an explanation here about why the TMT is so important, and why we must have it so bad that we should override the wishes of the local residents.
I don't know why everybody here needs to play up the pacific islander aspect, poking fun at their hokey religion and ancient weapons.
I've never seen it explained how a telescope (of which several are already up there) could possibly be a "NIMBY" issue, considering that it has exactly zero possible negative consequences for the locals. It's jot nuclear waste, it's not noisy - shit, it doesn't even block anyone's view. To say nothing of their "hokey religions and ancient weapons" being exactly what they, themselves cite in opposition: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Since you were fortunate enough to be under a rock for the last few decades, you've missed the rapid proliferation of "identity politics." The basic idea is to assert that you are a member of a sexual, social, religious or ethnic minority, so that you may characterize any criticism directed at you as inherently bigoted, racist, et cetera. It is a variant of "moral fiat high ground" argument style - the idea being to avoid debates one cannot win by making it impossible for anyone to speak against you.
You have probably seen articles/comments on /. about "gamergate;" this was simply a lot of 20-somethings with no prior interest in politics getting a crash-course in identity politics when they found a "game dev" trying to hype a very poor game on its merits as femenist-affiming art, or something. These same 20-somethings were also astounded to discover that journalists are neither honest nor principled (fancy that,) and they all got very excited. That entire fracas is a case study in how widespread exploiting identity politics has become - and how commercialized. You can reasonably expect to drum up undeserved hype (and sales) for a poor product if you cast it as pro-whatever; by writers seeking to establish their moral righteousness, or just seeking to head off accusations of bigotry or intolerance (i.e. character assasination.)
In this case, identity politics is stopping Science, which /. is fond of. Therefore many cnsider it a big deal. You may disagree with the above assesments (and you'd be a fool not to do your own research on all this and just trust my word, anyway,) but it is a description of the issue as I (and many others) percieve it.