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The construction of the 18-story, $1.4 billion Thirty-Meter Telescope atop the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii has been temporarily halted due to protests.
The campaign has garnered celebrity support and participants across the world:
Supporters of the project point out that there are already 13 telescopes built within that conservation zone. But none are as large as the latest planned structure, dubbed the Thirty-Meter Telescope, which would require the destruction of five acres of land.
The Honolulu-born Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa posted pictures on Instagram and Twitter using the hashtag #WeAreMaunaKea, That and the hashtag #ProtectMaunaKea have seen big jumps in use this week. San Francisco Giants' pitcher Madison Bumgarner, Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger and Momoa's on-screen spouse, Emilia Clarke, and real-life partner, Lisa Bonet, also got involved.
Momoa's Instagram account is currently dedicated to the issue with a link to an online petition pasted as his status. The Instagram account @ProtectMaunakea also hosts pictures of hundreds of people who have posted signs in support of the conservation efforts. Organisers protested off social media as well by holding a worldwide sign waving with participants from Hawaii, Alaska, New York City, Las Vegas, Kentucky, Arizona, Tahiti and Tonga.
The Thirty-Meter Telecope's web site also has coverage.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday April 12 2015, @05:57PM
which would require the destruction of five acres of land.
Alteration, surely. Levelling and clearing, presumably. But that's not destruction of land.
That's the good thing about land. Under it, there's quite a bit more land.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Sunday April 12 2015, @06:18PM
Yes, this more like a paper cut than a real flesh wound, like open pit mining.
(Score: 3, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday April 12 2015, @09:17PM
a real flesh wound
Tis but a scratch! [youtube.com]
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 12 2015, @06:18PM
The land is pretty barren anyway, not much to destroy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Meter_Telescope#/media/File:Mauna_Kea_observatory.jpg [wikipedia.org]
The observatory sounds like it would be pretty awesome:
All this fuss because the mountain is the home of some god. I long for the day when religion learns its proper place in the universe.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @03:45AM
All this fuss because the mountain is the home of some god. I long for the day when religion learns its proper place in the universe.
No, you have fundamentally misunderstood the situation. Religion is an aspect of culture. What's going on here is yet another brick in the road paving over native hawaiian culture. If some consortium wanted to build on top of mt rushmore, or level the statute of liberty the outrage in the US with be deafening. While the terms are religious the nature of the act is the same in all of those cases.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @08:52AM
They just failed to first bribe the local religious leaders to tell their followers that their god wants to have yet another telescope on his mountain.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Sunday April 12 2015, @06:30PM
All of five acres? That's a tiny patch of land anyway, no matter what happens to it. But, as you said, it's not like the territory will not be prettied up after construction. Tree-hugging has its place and time, but this is pure NIMBY that transitions into BANANA [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @08:09PM
Most people have no idea how big an acre is, and think it is much larger than reality. 5 acres would be 0.0202 km^2, 0.0078 mi^2, or 217,800 ft^2. Or from the department of stupid modern measurements, approximately 4.5 (US) football fields if you ignore the endzones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:01AM
Especially most people outside the U.S.
Since 5 has only one significant digit, 5 acres would be 0.02 km^2. Or shorter: 2 ha.
And for the European (who of course play metric football, err … soccer), it's slightly below 3 soccer fields. (Our fields are larger than yours! ;-))
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday April 13 2015, @06:10PM
Since 5 has only one significant digit, 5 acres would be 0.02 km^2. Or shorter: 2 ha.
5 acres will never be 0.02km^2.
Approximately 5 acres (absent any information as to how accurate that measurement is) would conventionally have a conversion to km^2 written in such way, yes, but if the exact measurement was 5 acres, there's no reason not to add a few more significant digits to the converted value.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @06:40PM
Think of a mountain towering off within driving distance within your own metro area that you and your fellow inhabitants regard as a natural landmark, and fantastic resource for sightseeing, hiking, camping, etc.
Now imagine someone wants to build a gigantic wind farm on the very top of the mountain, and has secured the necessary state approvals. It'll be visible from 100 miles away. You might not be so happy about it either.
It's easy to charge NIMBY when the project is happening somewhere else.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Sunday April 12 2015, @07:32PM
I would celebrate.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by Anne Nonymous on Sunday April 12 2015, @08:08PM
Threaten to build the telescope at the bottom of a sacred cave, and then "settle" for building it on top the mountain. Everyone wins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:55AM
I wish someone would build a wind farm near me, the turbines look fucking awesome. I'd have one in my garden if I could!
I love it when I crest a hill and those graceful behemoths rise into sight. It's like humanity put on its big-boy pants and decided to make something beautiful and work with nature, rather than just setting shit (coal, gas etc.) on fire like a caveman.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @08:55PM
Alteration, surely. Levelling and clearing, presumably. But that's not destruction of land.
That's the good thing about land. Under it, there's quite a bit more land.
Please. Only a total asshole would think that level of literalism even begins to address the issue here.
I was born on that island. I had a summer-job at one of the first telescopes built on that mountain. That's where I first got on the internet years before the web even existed.
Here's what is going on:
The background is that Hawaii was stolen from its inhabitants. Skipping the unintentional decimation of the native population by european disease... American businessmen staged a coup [wikipedia.org] that ultimately ended with the US illegally annexing the islands.
That mountaintop is visible from much of the island. The telescopes on top of the mountain are also visible from much of the island. They are quite picturesque, I certainly enjoyed seeing them every day the weather was clear (which is practically every day in Hawaii). But regardless of their intended purpose they are also a visible reminder of the history of foreign domination. Nearly every telescope that has been built up there has been protested, but without social media 'no one' really cared.
I can't speak for the natives, but I expect that any mutual resolution will require that the companies building the telescope meaningfully include native concerns in the project. Native hawaiians are not opposed to science, especially astronomy because their ancestors were dependent on the stars in many ways. But building these telescopes in such a visible and unique part of the island simply because the current power structure says its OK is not enough given the long history of people taking from the natives simply because they can.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday April 12 2015, @09:13PM
Please. Only a total asshole would think that level of literalism even begins to address the issue here.
That's okay, because I don't think it begins to address the issue. I was just being a bit pedantic over a single evocative word. It's kind of my schtick.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @09:19PM
> That's okay, because I don't think it begins to address the issue.
No, you don't get to write it without a hint of irony and then disclaim it with "just joking."
If you don't believe it DON'T FUCKING WRITE IT.
> schtick
A profoundly annoying and counter-productive schtick. Meaningless pedantry pollutes the discussion.
You are doing the equivalent of public masturbation. Cut it the fuck out.
(Score: 3, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Monday April 13 2015, @08:06AM
No, you don't get to write it without a hint of irony
Really? The bit where I said "That's the good thing about land. Under it, there's quite a bit more land." didn't strike you as being the least bit non-serious?
and then disclaim it with "just joking."
I didn't say I was joking, per se. I said it doesn't address the issue.
Meaningless pedantry pollutes the discussion.
I'd agree with you if this was a formal meeting of the Imperial Senate, but it's not. It's just a website. Calm down.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:39PM
> The bit where I said "That's the good thing about land. Under it, there's quite a bit more land." didn't strike you as being the least bit non-serious?
No it did not. It struck me as entirely serious snark coming from ignorance. The fact that it got +2 insightful and +1 informative suggests that I am not alone, just that 3 moderators didn't get the ignorance part.
> I didn't say I was joking, per se
The pedant's defense, "I didn't literally say what I meant so you can't blame me for what I meant"
I should have guessed that would be the goto response for a pedant-savant.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday April 13 2015, @06:01PM
No it did not. It struck me as entirely serious snark coming from ignorance.
I can't help how it strikes you, unless you want me to start signposting my every use of irony, sarcasm, or just plain silliness.
The pedant's defense, "I didn't literally say what I meant so you can't blame me for what I meant"
I didn't mean anything by anything. There was quite deliberately nothing of meaning or merit in my post.
The summary could have been begun thus:
Unspecified project requires the destruction of five acres of land.
and I could have stopped reading right there and still made the same remarks - without ever having discovered what or where the project was or what impact it was having on those in proximity, for the simple fact that my remarks do not have anything to do with anything in the summary except for six words in isolation (not even that, really - just two, perhaps joined by a proposition. I only quoted more than the final six just to stop it looking so much like a sentence fragment).
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:13PM
> my remarks do not have anything to do with anything
That's the best possible interpretation and while you apparently think that's just dandy, it really is nothing more than public masturbation. It makes you feel good and that's all that matters.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday April 13 2015, @10:02PM
That's the best possible interpretation and while you apparently think that's just dandy
It also happens to be the truth. See, I know that because it was my brain that was thinking the thoughts that I was thinking at the time.
it really is nothing more than public masturbation. It makes you feel good and that's all that matters.
I think that applies far more to your posts than mine.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @09:36PM
Then use the land under it to build the telescope:)