Hundreds form chain at University of Hawaii to protest Thirty Meter Telescope
http://khon2.com/2015/04/10/hundreds-form-chain-at-uh-manoa-to-protest-thirty-meter-telescope-3/
There is no timetable to restart construction!
38,000 and counting - Read the Letter, Sign the Petition:
https://www.change.org/p/governor-david-y-ige-stop-tmt-construction-and-arrests-of-mauna-kea-protectors
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Last edited Sat Apr 11, 2015, 11:40 PM - Edit history (1)
Who is to say that the volcano gods hate astronomy? And how do they know that?
Organized ignorance, now on a grander scale.
This during Global Astronomy Month. Celebrate it by going outside and exhibiting your ignorance. Don't bother looking up, whatever you do.
On edit: yup! Post title is sarcastic ridicule, the only appropriate response.
Not hostility here. Just deserved ridicule. Hostility would be by those who demonstrate against astronomy, education, and science in defense of a volcano god.
Amazingly, the photos and videos posted by these demonstrators were recorded by Charge Coupled Devices, a detector which has made film cameras obsolete in many of our lifetimes but was first invented and used for astronomy. It won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Science without ethics with little regard to humanity has justified the creation of many ill-considered and horrid outcomes. Such science when combined with the power of monied institutions has justified things such as the rampant testing of nuclear weapons.
What happens when this telescope doesn't get the answers that they want? Build another one on top of Mauna Kea?
that ultimately impacted humanity in a negative way.
If you want to stick with astronomy, what about all the debris in orbit right now?
(this is just a pic of the stuff big enough for NASA to track)
Yes, the benefit has been enormous - notably in terms of weather system tracking, communications, global positioning systems and mapping, and even peering into space (e.g., via Hubble, which offers a remarkable view of space beyond the distortions that occur due to the Earth's atmosphere). But the other side of that coin is the debris that is left in orbit - analogous to all the plastic crap (more "science"
that litters the oceans. Cleaning that up is daunting, yet the debris continues to increase because it's not something that the average person can see or is aware of outside of those who look for the info.
I will give another analogy of "science" gone awry- the Wind Turbines... These were promoted with the insistence that they were "harmless" and a great way to harness "natural" energy. Yet now we know that the placement of many of these turbines in the "best locations" for capture of certain prevailing wind currents, have also often resulted in negative impacts to migrating birds. Additionally, they can or do produce subsonic radio waves (due to the massive movement of air), where the few folks who happened to be downwind from the units, were allegedly impacted by the persistent (barely or inaudible) "hum", resulting in chronic headaches and other ailments.
Europeans and their descendents have a historic propensity to bowl through the lands and people of non-European populations in their own quest for "exploration" and later for what they define as "science". But that "science" often lead to disasters like the Tuskegee Experiment, which is why many non-Europeans (and minority populations here in the U.S.) have reached the end of their ropes and have had enough, after centuries of this type of mentality. And justifying this telescope by saying "Well there are already 13 telescopes there" just dismisses the fact that the native Hawaiians had been reduced to a minority with a tiny population over the centuries, who did not then, and do not now, have the clout to say "no".
IMHO, the "telescope" debate has been raging about something that essentially uses the same sort of technology that was used in the 17th century, but on a increasingly larger scale. Why not get some of the best minds to come up with a different way and a different technology?
and refineries, which is YOUR line in the sand for what you assert would be "the" universal belief (by the "enlightened" (in quotes), per your argument) for what should be considered disruptive to society, is ludicrous. Additionally, invoking "Christians" as a comparison to these natives, who themselves were oppressed by European Christians in their quest to create "Noble Savages", is equally ludicrous... "Christians" (thanks to Saul/Paul), barreled through Europe and the rest of the world with the sword to oppress and dominate, after distorting simple practices that evolved over the millennia by some of the earliest human societies, before that religion was declared to be in existence.
And you continue to use denigrating terms such as "primitivist", which ranks right there alongside terms such as "ignorant savages" and similar dismissive descriptions of others to arrogantly assert superiority. One of the most effective ways to dominate another's culture is (as Joe Madison oft-says on his radio show) -
Undervalue
Underestimate
Marginalize
When is enough, enough? When humanity puts some "object" on every open space on the planet until no more space exists ?
And this response reveals the pure arrogance of the argument. What you describe as a "largely-uninhabited" and "on a very large mountain" is your perception, and entirely dismisses the perception of the people who live in the area, and whose ancestors lived there for generations. What you see as bare rock and scrub, others feel a connection to - perhaps a shape that invokes imagery described in stories passed on from generation to generation about the area that guided folks towards respect for the land and to gently warn of hazards. There were most likely stories (folklore) that you or I may never have heard about, as we are not native.
As an example, Lake Nyos in Cameron, where local folklore had warned against going near the place,
yet not heeding it in later times, resulted in the deaths of over 1700 because of what was found as a natural phenomena that periodically released CO2 in the atmosphere, and in the lake (literally causing the lake to acidify as well).
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lake-nyos-the-deadliest-lake-in-the-world
In essence, continuing to add more and more to that landscape essentially alters it and erodes a culture's imagery and (usually "oral"
history that evolved about it. When you wipe out a culture's folklore and history, you essentially wipe THEM out. You don't need to physically genocide a people to culturally or psychologically do the same to them. As an African American, so much of my own ancestral history was similarly purged that we, as a lost people here in the U.S., were essentially "wiped out", and continue to struggle to this day regarding who we are by not knowing where we came from.
Rather than fight and attack some of the "myths", really listening to them might help advance the cause of science as it essentially serves, like the memorized stories and genealogies spoken by the African Griot, to "see back in time" and perhaps identify some things that (the European version of) "science" might miss.
How is what they are protesting impacting you personally and your survival in any way, regardless of how you label it?
It seems any perceived "set back" in life if no telescope was built there, or if feedback be permitted by the people native to there, would somehow result in something devastating to your existence. And as such, this somehow justifies the use denigrating terms to express the disagreement.
This applies to pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nuclear power, genetic engineering, and really any advancement more recent than the wheel.
And this statement is the perfect example of hyperbolic invocation of supremacy that again, completely misses the point and goes off on a tangent.
Not because "hyuck hyuck let's build shit guys."
And the decision to put it there conveniently left out forming a partnership with the people who live there. Imagine that. If you want "clear weather", I have personally (maybe not here on DU) promoted putting a telescope on the far side of the moon or in a geostationary orbit of the sun beyond the moon, and you eliminate the atmospheric distortions.
there's more than one way to get the answer to the questions.
It's either a short drive up a mountain or a multimillion dollar mission to the moon or orbit around the sun to repair and maintain the telescope.
So it's more a "convenience" thing.
Or to put it in reverse, "local superstition" alerted the "evil Western(ers)" about something being very wrong there because by golly, those "ignorant primitive superstitious savages" refusing to go near such a beautiful lake high up in the mountains, are so "backwards". What can they possibly know that "we" haven't taught them??
Fuck it, I'm done. This shit is why this country can't have nice things.
Anger aside, Joni Mitchell's song seems appropriate here -
If you give a shit about Hawaiians, you realize that there's only so much space up there to tear up with bulldozers. Removing the telescopes will never ever ever ever ever ever return it to the state it was before this demonstration of scientific prowess.
It's been a long struggle to not just start them, run them, and keep them in accordance with the law. Couple months now! 
HONOLULU —Hawaiian immersion students are boldly going where no other native language students have gone before. They get to take their assessment tests in Hawaiian. The unprecedented decision came from the Department of Education.
3rd and 4th grade Hawaiian immersion students were granted a one-year waiver by the Department of Education that will allow them to take a field assessment tests in their native Hawaiian language.
"Nowhere in the united states do you have an indigenous language equivalent assessment to the English language tests that are administered throughout the country," says D.O.E. Spokesperson Donalyn Dela Cruz.
Ke Kula Kaiapuni 'O ?nuenue is one school where speaking Hawaiian is the standard. Kihapai Krug has three kids but her 4th grade daughter Lele will be the first to take the field assessment test in the Hawaiian language.
http://www.kitv.com/news/hawaii-immersion-students-have-opportunity-to-take-assessments-tests-in-the-hawaiian-language/31394066
Just spit it out and call them "ignorant brown savages" why don't you?
Oh the unquestioned superiority of Western Civilization, that brought us Global Climate Change, the extinction of untold numbers of species, and other wonders too numerous to mention.
Ah yes, proud and mighty Western Civilization, bearing the White Man's Burden to the four corners of the Earth and in the process making many other human cultures extinct. Just a coinkydink they're most non white civilizations.
And here at DU, proud home of compassionate Progressives, where we are so certain that we have all the answers, posters are only to happy to jump in and condemn that which they have no understanding of. Because, Science can never lead us astray.
