How the Thirty Meter Telescope Ruling Will Impact Future Astronomy Projects (forbes.com) 251
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.
--long awaited?-- (Score:3, Funny)
The best place for (optical) telescopes (Score:2, Insightful)
is not inside the atmosphere
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The best place for an optical telescope of that size is, unfortunately, still on the earth.
Re:The best place for (optical) telescopes (Score:4, Informative)
Adaptive optics [wikipedia.org] have advanced enough that ground-based telescopes have surpassed Hubble in resolution [gizmag.com]. 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.
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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.
what if there's an earthquake and all the mirrors atop mona kea break? and then earth loses situational awareness regarding ongoing activity in the universe? and aliens sneak up on us? what's the cost of that?
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Hey, half of that island is due to break off and plummet to the bottom of the Pacific any time now.... why worry about a little quake?
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nope... the big island is only getting bigger and bigger. geology, bro!
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Here's one classy website for ya:
http://www.drgeorgepc.com/Volc... [drgeorgepc.com]
OP must be a native Hawaiian (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:OP must be a native Hawaiian (Score:5, Insightful)
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Value is in the mind of the beholder, and most people value the things they own more than other people do, which is a big part of why they still own them.
If this is a shakedown for cash, I presume the cash will be making some people happy - whether or not you agree that their use of the cash is noble, just, or even sensible is just one perspective on the situation. Another perspective is that those politicians worked long and hard to get to their position of legal power, and if they represent their constit
Re:OP must be a native Hawaiian (Score:4, Interesting)
It isn't entirely about money. There's also the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement making noise here. Basically, there are people who think the Hawai'i should secede from the US and Hawaiian Kingdom should be re-established. This is an easy target to rally around to gather support. The beauty of it is they are wrong. If they win, they get to say 'Hey everyone look what we did!' If they (rightfully) lose, they get to claim oppression because they don't have racial control over land and use that to drum up further support.
Personally, I think holding back science which benefits all of humanity for a financial payoff is a bit less unsavory that doing it for your own petty power struggles, but that's just my opinion.
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Personally, I think holding back science which benefits all of humanity for a financial payoff is a bit less unsavory that doing it for your own petty power struggles, but that's just my opinion.
which science is this? the type that happens in telescope buildings, or the kind that happens in medical laboratories? because that's the REAL benefit to humanity payoff right there.
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Medicine, astronomy, Black-Scholes options pricing, which is the greatest advantage to humanity is all a matter of perspective.
Astronomy is at a geographic disadvantage, needing to use one of a very limited number of attractive building sites - as such, they should recognize the supply-demand situation for what it is and be prepared to pay up in some way that the controllers of the land value.
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Before they go down that road, they should ask the Confederacy how well secession turned out.
The book was shut on states having the right to secede 150 years ago. They can't. Period.
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The Hawaiian people did not voluntarily join, they were invaded and conquered and then disenfranchised by a corporate take over, only guilt, forces you to lie. For what ever reason they choose, for what ever purpose they choose, it is their fucking right. So get off their fucking mountain, until they say you can be up, for what ever reason they choose as acceptable. Shit the US accepts extorting people with medicines that cost thousands of dollars, pay or die. Americans accept their country extorting other
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Hawaii and Alaska are great tax burdens on the Continental United States and if they'd really like to be free, I am sure you can find lots of people in the Continental United States who would be willing to support that. Please get ready to do without the subsidies.
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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.
Or it could be the common human impulse people who've been screwed have to stick it to anyone they can. Money comes into it because it's the only thing anyone might be willing to offer them. Nobody can go back in time and stop the planter takeover of the Kingdom of Hawaii; nor is anyone in any position to offer the Hawaiians sovereignty. Activists are against the telescope because it's something they can stop.
And the backlash here shows the equally understandable impulse to impute nefarious motive to peopl
I'm going to call Donald Trump . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
. . . 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.
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Yep, it isn't like people are lining up to pay for that land. It's cold, barren, with low oxygen. Worth is determined by what people will pay for it; if no one wanted gold, it would be worthless. It is true that the leases on the previous telescopes generated very little money (although I have no doubt they benefited the economy of the Big Island in other ways), and so if someone wanted to complain about that, they might have a case, but in the TMT's case they were going to pay quite a large sum for the
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F-O with this PC crap (Score:5, Interesting)
> 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.
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FFS. Give me a break. Sorry, I have no white guilt.
And strangely enough, this is not about you.
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This is sort of the ultimate example of a "thinly traded commodity" market.
whew! that was close! (Score:2)
Let's go burn down the observatory, so this'll never happen again!
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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The snark in that made me smile, but more importantly any bastion of science in Missouri needs to be supported.
One Good Alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
Give me one good alternative that same land could be used for and I'll believe this isn't a money grab.
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Some things have "existence" value. For example it bothers me that climbers have turned Everest into a garbage dump, but at my age I have no intention of taking mountaineering. Or take the reaction people here had to the (incorrect) reports that a prototype NASA moon rover had been scrapped for metal. Did people have a "use" for that rover?
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A place of silent meditation, that doesn't draw trucks and tour buses up and down the mountainside every day.
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"Trucks and tour buses up a mountain every day". I take it you have little to no idea what actually goes on at these observatories based on that statement. They don't do tours of the observatories, people are working there, and small crews that stay there for weeks on end at that. The most famous of them, Mauna Kea allows people to come up to the grounds if they like, but again, no tours. And based on their warnings on their site I don't expect they get that many sightseers coming up:
"At 14,000 feet, the
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Hilo has already gotten a warning shot or two - the peak is probably not going off for a long long time, but the road to it may need to move.
What is it worth? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Science for all mankind vs. stone age beliefs (Score:4, Insightful)
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Because a belief is traceable to a stone age culture, does that make it less, or more deserving of respect?
Unexcusable Attitude, Indefensible POV (Score:2)
The only thing keeping the natives from having the correct attitude about this project; i.e. immense pride in having such an important instrument built on their land, is a small-minded primitive tribalism mixed with the entitlement and egotism of an idle dependent life. You don't correct that attitude with the courts, you use the national guard.
Compromise (Score:2)
From the article [forbes.com];
That doesn’t sound like opposition to me; that sounds like someone with legitimate concerns who wants to be heard.
Others seem more opposed [kilakilahaleakala.org]:
The National Science Foundation should not build this telescope on Haleakala summit.
It's their land. The end. (Score:2)
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The government that provides the infrastructure (roads, police, health care) that supports the endeavor.
The controversy prompted me to look into history (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I presume the present council derives its power from popular election, and that the people are supporting them - more or less, as in any democracy.
That they make reference back to their traditions only shows that the people go in for that sort of thing, even today.
It's a shakedown (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Hmmm ... (Score:2)
From the article:
The telescope is not dead; the legal proceedings happening today are, quite honestly, a failure of negotiations on both sides. The vast majority of people involved in this project want both for the telescope to be built and to have the native population of Hawaiians on board with how this land is used, how the inhabitants are treated, and how future projects are handled moving forward. As Kealoha Pisciotta, the president of the group purportedly opposing the telescope, Protect Mauna Kea (Mauna Kea Anaina Hou) says,
"This is the principle of the mountain and the sanctity of Mauna Kea calls on us to raise the standard. We cannot be vengeful. We need to find pono [righteous] solutions. We need to find good things for astronomers. Cooperation is, I think, really the true part of our human nature, not competition. I think we have to go back to cooperation to survive the future."
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like seriously why should we need someone's permission to build on land?
Do you own any land? If so, please give us the location so we can build some luxury rental houses on it.
Re:who really cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:who really cares? (Score:5, Informative)
...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.
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Could you cite your sources for native islanders only being there from 1761? Everything I see supports them being there for a very long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Parent had bad grammar and you interpreted it wrong. By asking "is seventeen covered by a few" they meant "...they only got there seventeen hundred years before Cook..."
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oops, thanks.
Re:who really cares? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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The real villains of this situation are not the Hawaiians, but a radical mainland organization called Deep Green Resistance. If you read Hawaiian news reports, you will see that a haole named Will Falk was all over the mountain, whipping up the protests. This is the organization's manifesto on the TMT, written by Falk himself:
http://dgrnewsservice.org/2015... [dgrnewsservice.org]
As you see, Deep Green has a much larger agenda than just chasing the TMT out of Hawaii.
During the Nineties, the Greens tried an identical campaign her
Re:who really cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't click on that link. It is the very real embodiment of the Billy Madison quote: [youtube.com]
"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:
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i assume he (awkwardly) meant "seventeen hundred years" in place of "a few hundred years".
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1700 is less than a few thousand... and more detail than I cared to get into, but, sure, Wikipedia is probably as close to the truth as any tribal memory.
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So, longer than the United States or its white colonies have existed. And longer than Europe has had any sensible form of civilization.
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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.
Re:who really cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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 expl
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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) suffrag
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Were Native American Indians in the USA treated any better?
Actually I see this as a cry for attention from the Native Hawaiians. Unfortunately, they have picked the wrong target. If they had protested against a new hotel / resort development, a lot of folks would be sympathetic. But trying to shake down astronomers only interested in the advance of science . . . ? This makes them look like either crooks or ignorant bumpkins.
Or both.
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People call them crooks and ignorant bumpkins all the time, what they really are (were) is too technologically disadvantaged to fight back against cannon, and smallpox. 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.
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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.
Re:who really cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
No-one expects Guns, Germs, and Steel! (Score:3)
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, a
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Oh I'm sorry, did you mean to take 100k Anglo-looking devils and replace their minds and culture with that
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The outcome didn't turn out pretty well for the Native Americans, actually quite the opposite for those during those times and even today.
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The history of native rights in the US is highly speckled, but it has worked out well in the end. My nearest tribe, the Navajo, are aggressive Athabascans who invaded the region, conquering the agrarian Hopi, shortly before the era of white settlement, and have mined uranium on their lands ever since. What they did with it before the coming of Europeans was use the brilliantly colored oxides as pottery glazes. Today, they make a fortune selling uranium to the French. Oh, and the tribe's dispute with the Hop
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The history of native rights in the US is highly speckled, but it has worked out well in the end. My nearest tribe, the Navajo, are aggressive Athabascans who invaded the region, conquering the agrarian Hopi, shortly before the era of white settlement, and have mined uranium on their lands ever since. What they did with it before the coming of Europeans was use the brilliantly colored oxides as pottery glazes. Today, they make a fortune selling uranium to the French. Oh, and the tribe's dispute with the Hopi was finally settled peacefully in the US courts, in 1974. That beats the warpath approach any time.
That's a bit like saying that the Holocaust worked out pretty well for the Jews. After all, they got Israel out of it.
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Hawaiian natives, pushed off of almost every island except a corner of the big one with the active volcano
Hogwash. Every island has Hawaiian natives, and many of them are homeowners. In addition to the same rights as any other American citizens to own property, they also have cultural lands set aside. Any native Hawaiian is still free plant taro with a wooden stick, and make their own poi. The government will even subsidize them. Yet ~0% choose to do that. If you have ever tasted poi, you will understand why.
Native Hawaiians are not held back by land rights, or other discrimination. They are held back by
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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 a
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As someone else pointed out, what I put out there is basically racist - which, I'm afraid, is my perception of life on the big Island. Haole is offensive, except that most people it applies to are so smug that they don't even care.
Small pox was probably the single biggest problem that the west brought to the islands. Accelerated cultural revolution was another, I doubt many alive today would care to live in a 1600s Hawaiian civilization, but part of why that civilization was so successful there for so lon
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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.
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Even worse, consider the situation of the Hawaiian natives.
Oh so they are the original inhabitants of th island?
If this was like the evil astronokmers taking valuable seaside land, and building condos on it, there might be a smidgem of a case.
Or if they kicked these natives off their land perhaps reparations would be in order.
But can you point out exactly where they did this? Here's a piccy to help. Where were the "natives" evicted from here?
http://www.richardwainscoat.co... [richardwainscoat.com]
The Mauna Kea observatory is a world heritage site AFAIAC.
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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?
Re: who really cares? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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1960, one year after statehood - pretty heady times in Hawaii. Maybe more traditional values have taken root in the last 50 years?
Another telescope will mean more traffic on the road, and generally more degradation of the natural values of the site and its surroundings. I'm not saying it should or shouldn't be built, just that there are two sides to this and it's not win-win all around.
So, the telescope gets built in China (or is that Tibet?) Will that mean the end of US based astronomy? All significant
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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.
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China is a lot like the US used to be - Flagler built his railroad to Key West because he wanted to, not because it made any particular economic sense (beyond: if you build it, they will come). We built many of the hydro-dams just because we could, not because they were a particularly good idea in all cases.
The US is probably entering a time of "overthinking" some development issues, but we still "underthink" plenty of them to make up for it, Deepwater Horizon comes to mind...
Cool thing about the internet
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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 [wikipedia.org] 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 astronomer
Re: who really cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
My religion says that teh so called native hawaiian's do not own that land - I do, Respect my religion.
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It's a racist problem, in a racist state. Try "walking while white at night" in Pahoa and see how well you do, especially if you cop an attitude with the people you meet.
I see this as a case of some natives actually getting power in the "establishment's" political system, and using it. It's incredibly racist and corrupt by modern mainland standards - but roll back 50 years and look at how things went down in the US South and tell me this is any worse?
So, my perspective is that anyone interested in progres
Re:who really cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
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This is ONE instance, that I might actually support the use of it....
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The govt uses eminent domain all the time....
This is ONE instance, that I might actually support the use of it....
You notice how eminent domain is never used against the one-percenters? Eminent domain, today, is only used against those who don't have the resources to fight against it.
I understand that the US has several good locations in the southwest, except for light pollution. Maybe eminent domain can be used for the government to take over those light polluting properties to use the existing telescopes?
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You notice how eminent domain is never used against the one-percenters? Eminent domain, today, is only used against those who don't have the resources to fight against it.
Perhaps because the one-percenters aren't tied so tightly to one piece of property that they would refuse any and all offers to buy it before eminent domain was invoked? Those who "have the resources" have the resources to adapt. Eminent domain is (supposed to be) a last resort.
I understand that the US has several good locations in the southwest, except for light pollution.
In other words, the US has no good locations in the southwest.
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Eminent domain is always used by the one percenters to get land that they wish to have but do not wish to pay for. All they have to do is promise a few jobs in return to work on that stolen land.
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"The govt uses eminent domain all the time....
This is ONE instance, that I might actually support the use of it...."
No eminent domain is needed here. The TMT was supposed to be built in the one area where a legal agreement signed in 1960 permits them, snd has ben sited in accordance with all the numerous environmental and cultural stipulations that are part of the agreement. The protesters want to declare the agreement invalid.
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Why not a waste deposite?
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Less than it's worth!? Except to astronomers, that patch of land is worthless. Cold. Hard to breath the thin air. Can't grow anything. Zero natural resources. Even the natives didn't go there except on a dare; they just looked at it and told tall tales from scores of miles away on the beach.
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Developing the mountaintop has impacts all the way back down into Hilo - increased traffic / noise / dust on the road - people who work up there living down in town, etc. Traditional economic productivity isn't the only measure of land's value, and development of a place like that has huge impacts beyond the building site.
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Permission? Can I build a telescope in your back yard, I won't need any permission because it's just land. If you complain I can just get the government to steal it, it's all legal if the government does it. We're bring civilization to your backyard so you should be grateful.
Re:Federal Funding (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
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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.