The Debating Society
Hobbies & Interests
A place where ModDB members can debate civilly, and learn from each other's views.
Several nations and the University of Hawaii are funding the construction of the Thirty-Meter Telescope on top of Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain in Hawaii and one of the best places for an observatory in the world. The telescope would be one of the most advanced ever built.
However, there's been protests and a social media campaign ("We are Mauna Kea") against it, for many Hawaiians consider the mountain a cultural heritage and believe that the telescope is infringing upon sacred/historical ground.
I find it interesting because two groups of people that don't seem to be inherently at odds with one another- cultural heritage supporters and scientists- seem to be at each other's throats all of a sudden.
Skyandtelescope.com (This source might look pretty biased, but it's honestly the most objective thing I could find, everything else was either supported by the social media protesters or the telescope's website)
It really looks like a lot of the activists are rather ill informed and by this point [internet] mob mentality has taken over the protests. Since the problems with sacred land was mostly cleared before construction even begin.
AS to the point of conflict between cultural heritage supporters and scientists, well given that scientists deal with the material (i.e. observable & measurable) world while culture on the other hand is non-material (that does not mean it's non-real, just that it's hard to even begin to quantify and measure). Thus they're gonna clash sooner or later.
That aside, I don't think most of the current protesters in this are cultural heritage supporters, but more of the type of modern social justice slacktivist.
Really, the should build the telescope IMO. The scientists gets their new toy and the slacktivist gets to fight the good fight and win a "moral victory" (i.e. raise awareness & the feeling of doing something good).
Simply put I don't believe and/or care in this thing called "special dirt"
Science should always get priority over special dirt.
I would never approve of an oil refinery or strip mall being built on top of a cultural heritage site/national park, but I do think that the telescope should be built. It's for research and scientific purposes, which I feel like is a noble enough cause to intrude upon 'sacred ground'. But then again, I'm a physics/astronomy student, so I'm extremely biased xD
I think that by far the worst part of the whole thing is the social media campaign. The moment the social media latched on to it, the legitimacy of the protests seems to have collapsed entirely and now the movement just seems ridiculous. I can understand the claim that it's a culturally significant issue, but now people on the internet are pointing fingers at banks, "big money", and the evils of capitalism being behind the telescope despite the fact that observatories are pretty much entirely unprofitable and government-funded.