
Hawaii telescope protest shuts down 13 observatories on Mauna Kea - headalgorithm
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02222-2
======
PopePompus
I worked at the observatories on Mauna Kea for 30+ years. I would very much
like to see the Thirty Meter Telescope built there. But I've made a lot of
bets with other people that it won't get built in Hawaii.

You can make an argument for building the TMT. You can make an argument for
not building it. But there's no argument I can think of to support what the
state is doing. The first time that the TMT tried to start construction, back
in 2015, a fairly small group of protestors was able to halt construction by
standing in the road and blocking vehicles. The police would come up the
mountain, stand around for about 5 hours waiting for instructions from sea
level, arrest perhaps 5 percent of the protestors, which did not allow the
contruction vehicles to pass, and then everyone would drive down the hill
again. The protestors built a small, unpermitted building (illegally) near the
point where they wanted to block the road, and the state made no effort to
prevent them from doing so. The protestors would pile stones in the access
road to the TMT site, and then claim the pile of stones was a sacred alter.
The state would remove the alters after a very long period of dithering. So
the protestors could build, in a few hours, a physical obstruction that the
state would take days or weeks to move. In general, the state made about 1% of
the effort that would have been required to allow the TMT construction
vehicles to reach the site.

This time, the group of protestors is far larger. They have camped out at a
place that is more convenient for them, logistically. Unlike the situation in
2015, they have shut down all of the observatories on Mauna Kea. If the state
made 1% of the required effort to open the road in 2015, this year they are
making 0.01% of the required effort. The police drive up, hug the various
protestors for a few hours, join the protestors in prayer. Then drive back
down the mountain after having no effect at all. Yesterday, they made some
token "arrests" which involved issuing misdemeanor citations. Some of the
persons who had been escorted away from the road blockage immediately returned
to block the road after the citation was issued.

This is a wonderful example of asymmetric warfare. At first glance it looks
like the state is the powerful entity, but the protestors have all sorts of
levers they really haven't started using yet. How long will the University of
California remain a member of the TMT collaboration once UC students start
having sit ins? The University of Hawaii's Hawaiian Studies Program (most of
the members of which oppose the TMT) is far stronger politically than its
Astronomy Department - how long will it be before student protestors force the
University of Hawaii to drop out of the project? How long until protestors on
other Hawaiian islands start blocking state facilities?

There were at least 1000 protestors involved with blocking the road yesterday;
some estimates put the number at 2000. There is no facility on the island of
Hawaii where that many people could be incarcerated. And there is no
indication that the state is willing to incarcerate _anyone_ who is blocking
the road. If the state actually makes a serious effort to open the road for
the construction vehicles, there will be many consecutive days where the
television coverage will show weeping, elderly ladies in mumus being hauled
away to sea level. Day after day after day. There is absolutely no reason to
believe that the state is willing to do that, and recent history shows that
they will not. Even if the state had the nerve to forcefully open the road,
for how many weeks could that go on before some member of the TMT
collaboration decided that TMT is not worth the black eye Astronomy is getting
in the court of public opinion?

In addition to blocking the road, the anti-TMT protestors are still filing
frivolous lawsuits to stop construction. I think they would be wiser to drop
their legal efforts and just let the current sutuation play out. If they get a
court order to stop construction (as they did in 2015), the state could still
pretend that it would have eventually cleared the road and allowed
construction to begin. The TMT management might be deluded enough to think
they could still build on Mauna Kea. But if the protestors drop the lawsuits,
and just allow it to become crystal clear that the state won't clear the road
and get the construction equipment to the site, then everyone will finally
know that the TMT won't get built on Mauna Kea.

As I said, I'm a TMT supporter. But sometimes you have to admit defeat and go
on to plan B.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Compare the current situation with how the Occupy Wall Street protestors were
treated.

What you are describing is the state siding with the supporters. They're doing
the nominal minimum to enforce the law and they know that's not enough. If the
state wanted to side with the TMT people then the protestors would be arrested
whether there's facilities for them or not. You're right it won't be built in
Hawaii. The state has sided with the opposition.

~~~
PopePompus
But I think it's worse than that. The state is still claiming (as of
yesterday) that they will ensure that the TMT equipment can get to the summit.
The Governor declared a state of emergency yesterday, to give the police more
power. He has activated the National Guard. Additional police have been
brought in from Oahu. But in reality, the state is not doing anything
effective. So you might be right that the state has effectively sided with the
protestors, but it makes no sense for the state to behave as it is. The state
is just looking impotent and ridiculous.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Take the issue off the table. I'm a huge TMT supporter, but I don't know where
it should go. Instead look at the drivers from the political level. Remember
that political systems exist for political reasons.

Group X wants something done. Group Y doesn't want it done. There is a
political street-level fight. Group X continues to support you as long as you
say the right thing. Group Y not only supports you, it draws in major national
and international news coverage. As the fight drags on, then, you get more and
more support.

So why should it be any other way than the way it is? From a political
marketing standpoint, this is a buzz generator. If you play your cards right,
you can actually appear to be on both sides of this issue at the same time.
The longer it drags on the more support you get, the more you energize the
base.

I don't see this resolving any time soon, and I completely agree that it's
unconscionable what's going on here. But whatever is going on, it's going on
for logical reasons for those allowing it to be this way. There may be
corruption in the way decisions are made, but there's no incompetence here
that I can see.

------
batmansmk
I visited some telescopes there 2 months ago. The researchers are doing a
fantastic job. The place has no life on it, it's barren due to the altitude
and the lack of oxygen. No animal, plant or human ever ever lived up there.
Those observatories are mostly remote-controlled and only 4 researchers were
up there to monitor the 13 observatories the day we went. Ironically, the
largest traffic going up there are actually people going there to take
instagram pictures about the sacred mountain.

So sad that a very unique scientific spot, with very high altitude in the
middle of an ocean is getting in trouble for religious motives.

~~~
omegaworks
There is an incredible land pressure on Hawaii. People that have lived there
for generations have been pushed to the margins. Homelessness is all-time
high, and it impacts native Hawaiians disproportionately[1]. This isn't just
about "religious motives" it is about land rights. What is reserved for the
indigenous people and what can be appropriated given the "right" motivations.

1\. [https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-
research-072...](https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-
research-072417.html)

~~~
morpheuskafka
Homelessness isn't really a relevant response given that OP states this land
is not suitable for habitation.

------
magduf
This is what happens with religion: it impedes progress, and makes people
behave completely irrationally.

These observatories aren't causing environmental problems (AFAIK); they're
great tools for humanity to understand our universe. There aren't many
locations on Earth that have the advantages this location has, yet these
people want to stop this for what? Irrational superstitions? If this were some
corporation trying to do mountaintop removal mining (like they do in West
Virginia), it would be perfectly rational to oppose that: that's an
environmental catastrophe. But this is not, this is one of the most benign
things humans can do.

~~~
baq
make widening our understanding of the universe into religion, problem solved.
(i thought about making the scientific method into a religion, but it doesn't
make any sense :))

~~~
merpnderp
Everyone takes things on faith. For instance most could quite trivially prove
PV=nRT, but most just take someone else’s word on faith.

In a universe where you can never really know something unless you’ve proven
it yourself, you take nearly everything on faith from someone else who claims
to have proven it.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
I don't think 'faith' covers both things. Yes, a lot of people accept lots of
things as being true on the authority of others, but there's lots of other
evidence that those authorities are trustworthy. The details, i.e. the
specific differences, of religious claims aren't correlated with any other
evidence, or even possible evidence, which is why it's so much easier for so
many different creeds to exist even given that they make different, and often
contradictory claims.

As an example, most people haven't directly carried out all of the relevant
experiments needed to discover the laws and theories of electromagnetism, but
the evidence of TV, radio, telegraphs are easy enough to perceive and thereof
trust. There doesn't seem to be nearly anything similar for religious beliefs,
that would make any _specific_ religion more likely than any other. Most of
the evidence that _does_ exist for religions seems to be common to any or all
of them, e.g. the benefits of group cohesion, common morality, etc..

------
shawndrost
"The past is never dead. It's not even past." This argument is about
sovereignty. Hawai'i was overthrown 125 years ago, and today's zeitgeist calls
that injustice. Of course, the overthrow was not something that happened once,
then ended. We choose daily whether to reaffirm the ethos of overthrow, or how
to reject it.

When Akaka convened the working group described in the article, that is one
way to grapple with the question of sovereignty. When people talk about
whether Native Hawaiians support the telescope, that is another way to do it.

In this thread, I see a lot of comments that don't seem aware of the
undercurrent. To describe the opposition as superstitious makes sense if
you're dismissing some weird part of your own polity. If you were talking
about opposition to a cow science facility in India, you probably wouldn't
describe the opposition as superstitious. (Not because they aren't, but
because sovereign people are entitled to their beliefs.) People are welcome to
dismiss the sovereignty of Hawaiians on a message board, but I thought I'd
write this comment for anyone that doesn't get what the conversation is about.

Similarly, to say that the opposition is "small but vocal" fails to comprehend
why the state does not simply remove them. It's because the public (while
conflicted) does not love the ethos of overthrow, and the state cannot cart
away the protestors without reaffirming that ethos in a very public way.

------
cglee
Some context for the protests: [https://medium.com/@akkagawa/maunakea-
redirecting-the-lens-o...](https://medium.com/@akkagawa/maunakea-redirecting-
the-lens-onto-the-culture-of-mainstream-science-5d3a5a12376a)

~~~
mirashii
From what I can tell, this doesn't actually provide any context on the
protests. There's precious little information on who is protesting (I gather
from context native Hawaiians), no information on why they're protesting, and
a lot of talk about how this set of protests is actually a battle for the
heart of mainstream science.

This article [1], linked from the original article, seems to actually have
some context for the protests.

[1] [https://www.nature.com/news/the-mountain-top-battle-over-
the...](https://www.nature.com/news/the-mountain-top-battle-over-the-thirty-
meter-telescope-1.18446)

------
nerdponx
Interesting how differently this is unfolding compared to the Keystone XL
pipeline.

~~~
azernik
Turns out local government matters.

~~~
nerdponx
Turns out money matters. There's less profit in telescopes than oil pipelines.

------
jimmaswell
When are telescopes going to be built on the moon or mars?

~~~
zamadatix
When it's cheap enough to feasibly do it better than elsewhere. L2 is a better
though and we have some there already.

------
rfwhyte
I sincerely hope the TMT gets built regardless and in spite of this
opposition. It would be an absolute shame to allow a special interest group to
use superstition to stop a project that would contribute such a tremendous
amount to the advancement of humanities understanding of the cosmos.

It also genuinely makes my blood boil that as a society we've come to a point
where we allow superstitions and fairy tales so much space in public
discourse, as it legitimizes fundamentally irrational viewpoints and places
them on equal footing with rationally based systems of knowledge, which is
frankly a death knell for progress.

