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Hawaii Approves Telescope On Volcano Sacred To Indigenous People (reuters.com)
A new $1.4 billion telescope will be built atop a Hawaiian volcano indigenous people consider sacred. The team of scientists fighting for the telescope won approval from Hawaiian officials on Thursday after selecting the site and applying to build there in 2009. Reuters reports: The Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources voted 5-2 to allow construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on the summit of Mauna Kea on Hawaii's Big Island, state officials said in a statement. Astronomers consider the summit one of the world's best places to view the cosmos, while Native Hawaiians say the project would disturb holy ground crucial to their connection with ancestors and the heavens. A consortium of scientists initially received construction permits from state officials in 2011. In 2015, the Hawaii Supreme Court voided that decision, saying officials did not follow the proper procedures for a "contested case hearing." That forced the state board to re-evaluate the proposal with more input from opponents. The project calls for building one of the world's largest telescopes atop the dormant volcano.
Which way does liberal outrage swing these days? Is it racist oppression by xenophobic Nazis? Or did science triumph over archaic superstition?
But at large cost as is often the case.
We will see the usual troublemakers rush back in to try and stir up more protests now.
The same ones who have been missing throughout this actual process, because creating public strife and being the center of attention is what the seek, rather than any actual improvement to peoples lives.
So why did you ask what leftwingers will do? Projecting again?
They sent some shaman (or whatever the druggy is called in their religion) to converse with the ancients and they said a gift of a few million bucks could appease them...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That mountain is not sacred
Their so-called 'native religion' is nothing but a pathetic hoax
They protested because ain't no one give them MONEY
What they are looking for is EASY MONEY
Believe it or not Spam is the state food of Hawaii. Hawaiians in general are morbidly obese fat grotesque slobs because they eat what other people consider garbage. They have no sacred volcano other than the mammoth piles of feces which each leaves in the toilet or bushes several times per day. I say build the telescope, and hire armed guards to shoot any fat bastard that threatens it.
A $1million/year is approximately equivalent to a once-off payment of $20 million well invested. That's about 1.5% of a $1.4 billion project.
The dormant volcano doesn't stop being "sacred" (whatever the hell that means) from having a building on it. Nor does it being "sacred" mean it should be offlimits for reasonable purposes that it might be put to.
Typically, the narrative would be about evil white male scientists, paving over the sacred native lands to install their phallic, oppressive astronomy instruments. But the last few times it's been on Slashdot, the general idea is "screw those indigenous assholes, I don't feel sorry for them so that makes them The Other, they may be safely oppressed because I like astronomy."
I mean, typically any outcome where white male scientists win would be loudly contested. Even if the badwhites did win in the end, poo-flinging and shitting in the punchbowl tactics would be engaged in, making them unable to enjoy their victory. But here it's precisely the opposite: the narrative is that the ignorant savages are obstructing the march of science and they must be crushed in the name of progress. Forward!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I wonder what would have happened if this volcano was sacred to Islam. I can't help suspect that the result would have been considerably different.
Finally, some good news
What could possibly go wrong ?
During one of my long walks one day, it popped in my head that the only religion that was close to being rational was Gaia worship. Whether it's the Druids or Native Americans or flaky New Agers, they are (sort of) of the rational ones.
You can stand on their God. Physical proof! And since we have evolved on this planet, we are a part of it and anything we do to harm it, harms ourselves. So, revering Gaia is actually beneficial to ourselves.
Sure there's hocus pocus nonsense and meaningless rituals - like all religions - but in a way, it has some rational element to it.
AND on May 1, young women dance around naked in some versions! I see no downside.
I always find it interesting that when the (few) native Hawaiians and their opportunistic supporters go up the mountain, they always seem to do it using the roads that the telescope facilities built and manage/maintain. I guess that part of the desecration is just a nice time saver.
to live in Hawaii are not to be messed with. Truth is there is a lot of very tall mountain ranges all around the globe, that are much taller with much dryer air and virtually no light pollution. Here is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Also, the higher the mountain the lesser density of the air, which will always result in better results. Who wants to work in Pakistan, India or Chile, if the world can be convinced that Hawaii has the best place for the telescope.
It is simply your own points being reiterated back to you. If it sounds negative to you, then maybe you're the problem...
The only place I have ever seen the strawman arguments you have made in your initial post was here on Slashdot. In other words, there is this outrage caused by others making similar strawman arguments. It's this feedback loop started by some hysterical person.
Folks here blow some companies' attempts out of proportion that want to bring more women and minorities into tech into this 'hate white male' attitude or something.
And this rage against these so called 'social justice warriors'. There are folks who are pointing out that the tech demographic skews heavily to (young) white males and some companies want to change that. So what?
But many here perceive it as white male hate. Gimme a break.
Many of you people need to get a grip and step out of your bubbles. Your perceptions are wrong.
The top of Mauna Kea is spectacular. The road is spooky if there's any fear of heights involved but the view, of the earth in this case, is stunning. And cold as it's windy up there. Well worth the really long drive up and down.
They sent some shaman (or whatever the druggy is called in their religion) to converse with the ancients and they said a gift of a few million bucks could appease them...
Perhaps you should read up on how much Native Americans have been fucked over in history because they were "inconveniently" on some land that was useful for some other purpose:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears
Natural Launch into Space!
i would suggest having a few Jesuit "brothers" on staff just in case things get a bit err Hot.
temple to the gods, which in some way that is what it is.
If everyone agrees to dance naked we're halfway to utopia. Naked doesn't mean "without sunglasses" so we can choose which uh boogie to examine.
The author of this piece has an agenda, lying by omission. There are several large telescopes on Mauna Kea. The "sacred ground" is already highly developed. The new telescope will be built on the site of one of the existing telescopes, which will be remove.
The original plan was to build on a new site. The compromise is to build on an existing site.
The summit of Mauna Kea isn't sacred like a burial ground. The native Hawaiians never went there. It's sacred like Mount Olympus was sacred to the ancient Greeks (they never went there either).
So, build a telescope on sacred ground and risk disturbing the dormant, but mighty Hawaii god of fire and destruction. Right on the tip of a volcano, where his powers are the greatest. I'm pretty sure I've seen a movie that had a plot like this and I tell you, it didn't turn out well for the scientists.
âoe...so you islanders can kick rocks.â
If it ainâ(TM)t jerbus, officials donâ(TM)t care.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
This is good we need science to win over magic more often.
This will just be a sacred volcano with a telescope on it.
Hawaii is beautiful, provides a bounty of bananas, pineapples, and macadamia nuts and has the nice Aulani resort, but the primitivism there is mind-blowing.
Until 1967, 96% of the land in Hawaii was owned by 72 private landowners, the state or the federal government. The land reform was fought until 1984.
NINETEEN FUCKING EIGHTY FOUR.
If it were up to the Hawaiians, they'd kick out the haoles, crown a new king and give up all of their private property.
No!!!!! My mummy only wears pure white underpants. No the sexy lacy ones are bought by evil daddy! Mummy will never wear those! She's to demure and nice and innocent. Even if she is forced to wear them they will all turn innocent and pure white! You people are evil!
Win for astronomy, except the Governor made UH promise to close down 25% of their existing sites on the mountain. Because reasons.
And much more importantly, a big win for the rule of law. Public land is public land, and religious considerations can't be allowed to dictate use of public land.
But you're not, so this is just projection, a guess based off what YOU would do in their position.
Mao, Stalin, and the others you refer to were not non-religious like you seem to think. They opposed religious systems which they couldn't control, and sought to replace them with the State, Party, etc. as the centerpiece. But it was still religion, merely cloaked under a different name.
Lol @ Japan. It's true isn't it? A culture that revere's and respects nature.... But f*ck anything that lives in the sea. That sea sh*t aint nature. Lol
That's our Sacred Mountain.
This is our Sacred Antenna!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I live in Honolulu, visit Puna on the Big Island pretty often.
Please do not paint native Hawaiians as anti-science, they are not.
The protesters are loud, but they represent a fairly small percentage of the population.
Protests are just part of the process of building new structures here.
Things still get built, believe me. They just take longer.
Ob astronomy reference 1 - the ancient polynesians were master navigators who relied on the stars to cross a huge seas in tiny craft without a compass or a map. They were the geeks of their day.
Ob astronomy reference 2 - Many heavenly bodies discovered in Hawaii have been given Hawaiian / polynesian names. The new scope will doubtless add more.
I'm all for a people's right to self-determination. Strangely, that's not what I hear from the protesters. The problem today is the same problem of 1898 -- yes, Hawaiians are culturally distinct from the mainland, but the economic ties are vital to their community in a fairly literal sense. Hawaiians don't like haoles, but apparently they're willing to hold their noses and take their money.
If Hawaii wants to leave the US, that's fine. We can drop them and let PR be a state, and not have to change the flag. This would be a complete economic disaster for the islands, but the same might be said of the former American colonies cutting political ties with Great Britain. If Hawaiians are saying, "give us liberty or give us death," by all means let them be liberated. What I'm not so sympathetic to is, "give us arbitrary and unlimited economic concessions for all time, or we'll stage protests."
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
your witchcraft.
I just invented tacos!
The USA was originally populated by over a million Indians. And most of them were slaughtered. Or evicted in the middle of winter and left to die. I see we carry on the same tradition over there. I clearly see by most of the posts, that your science religion was offended by their religion.
Religion impedes progress too often.
It was a bad day when that Christian guy, Copernicus, said that the Earth went around the sun.
It was another bad day when that Christian guy named Newton figured out why things fall down.
Then there was that Christian guy, Lemaitre, proposed that the universe began with a "big bang"
I could go on for a long time, but I think I have given you enough evidence to highlight your extreme ignorance.
"Religion" is a broad thing to tag as "bad". It's a bit like declaring that the whacko NAZIs used phrenology, which used to be considered a science, and therefore all science is bad. Never advertise your ignorance, it's the one thing others will buy without much prompting.
You do realize the mental gymnastics some people do to remain"faithful"?
There's a reason an uncomfortably large amount of people who think the world is flat, etc etc.
Creating life in a lab would just be: "only God should do that, you're the devil!"
Grow the fuck up. This is real life. Not fairy tales.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Then Pele can do something about it. Why does a good need helpers?
Uhh when did I say that? Didn't but keep making up your own narratives. They did however all KILL people for the simple fact they didn't believe what they wanted them to believe.
But you keep being a coward
Should have all converted to Islam and placed a mosque on the volcano. In that case nobody would have dared touching it for fear of the allahuakbarkabooming.
It's not just that, you also see these protests happening without anybody actually checking to make sure what the actual religious beliefs of the locals say about sacred ground--the automatic assumption is pretty much "Build nothing on it anywhere, ever" which is, when you think about it, weird in a racist way given that very few cultures actually have that as their approach to sacred ground...and most of the ones I can think of with that approach are ones which didn't have the ability to do even a temporary devotional structure. (Pooling with a fellow anthro geek gets it to "Some Native American tribes?" but we cannot even be sure there because it may be more that the knowledge of the correct thing to build has been lost...)
It gets really ironic here--Poli'ahu might be actually perfectly fine with a telescope on her mountain, but there ought to be no question if the proposal had been a meteorological, geological, or ecological research station.
But, really, the question of the truth of a religion should be completely irrelevant to the whole issue of being polite about things. The history of science is littered with dead theories that linger on well past when they ought to have been abandoned, even to this day...while many primitive peoples' observations are quite accurate even if couched in their religious terminology. Taboos against building things on a site can easily be because they know it's a bad site--but because of how they understood the universe, they attributed something like 'likely to result in mudslide down the side of the mountain' to 'wrath of deity' instead of 'the soil here just is gonna do that if you build here.' Even with modern tech, some of this is things we only can know in hindsight.
Then the followers will throw the telescope's designer in!