TMT: Deja vu all over again

[TomK]

Thought I'd start this thread just in case anyone had thoughts about the subject. There have been so many threads about this but they have been left in the PW repository of facts vs. lies, truth against myth, and normal people against sock puppets and people who delete all their posts on the subject. Personally, I think the TMT project is dead and the telescope will not be built in Hawaii, but who knows given the change in Mauna Kea Management.

In any case, for those interested, Big Island Now carried out a completely unscientific poll and came up with a majority supporting construction of the TMT. What I found interesting is that the numbers are very consistent with earlier polls about the TMT, i.e., the majority of people in Hawaii support the TMT.

Anyway, the story is here:

"Poll results: Should the Thirty Meter Telescope be built on Maunakea?" - https://bigislandnow.com/2023/08/06/poll...-maunakea/

"But the majority thought the embattled observatory project should still be built atop Hawai‘i’s tallest volcanic mountain, with 2001 (55%) voting yes. Another 144 voted yes, but with caveats. That’s a total of 2,145 votes in favor of the telescope’s construction on the Big Island, or 60%."

[HiloJulie]

Thanks for posting this Tom.

I am voter number 2001! An affirmative responding YES to TMT.

The economic and educational possibilities coupled with the long-term scientific benefits of TMT being here are just so mind boggling enormous but at this point I have to agree with you, TMT will probably never come to reality here at this point.

[Obie]

i really like this answer !

This mauna is not the only place for a TMT,” said P. Ka‘ala Kalele Roberson. “Lights from Earth being an issue for seeing deep into outer space. Astronomers answer is the highest mauna. Well, how about in the middle of a remote desert [with] no lights or Antarctica/South Pole highest mauna as options.”

[AaronM]

We don't deserve nice things.

[MyManao]

Another 144 voted yes, but with caveats. That’s a total of 2,145 votes in favor..

Yeah you gotta watch out for those caveats. What amazes me is how you can suggest they should be counted as for when throughout all the years we discussed them, you made those with caveats out to be the worst dregs of society, how you hounded and brow beat, and dissed them from one end to the other. Seriously Tom, if you're gonna twist reality you should at least try being consistent.

So which is it.. have a caveat and you're for, or against? I mean, in the black and white version of reality you cling to.. which is it?

Me, I think the TMT guys should go orbital. Or, at the very least, if they really want to be earth bound, talk with the Hawaiian community about it rather than the folks that stole their land.

[Olohana 1790]

common sense 101
the higher you are the clearer/cleaner the air is between the telescope and the stars... the light pollution is only a part of it...

fyi the lame spot they picked in the Canary Island is actually lower than saddle road is....
TMT on Maunakeah will be 600' feet below the summit on the backside when looking from Hilo, iow you won't be able to see it formany home on the island..

most protests protest with hands outstretched. they always have here.... always looking for FREE kine compensation.
ie if you give ea one of these Tahiti-2nd kine-pseudoHawaiians a $1K..... they would look the other way and do the daily ie go hunting/fishing or roaching solar panels/batteries and generators

fwiw why didn't these same clowns PROTEST haole mainlander Larry Ellison buying Lanai a few yrs back???
and asking/forcing Kamehameha Schools to use only 4% of their $13,000,000,000.00+ holdings to buy the island outright.

---

King Dave (Kalakaua) loved telescopes,
the yr he was elected, he had 5 of them set up in Honolulu in late 1874 for the Transit of Venus.... and after visiting SF Bay Area saw the Lick Observatory near San Jose... which is the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory............... nearly 150 yrs old now...
and he was going to build and even larger one on a mountain here in Hawaii, but died soon after...

***if you want to see the 5 Kalakaua telescopes..
here is a Jan 1875 engraving of the event, with an early' KAPU' sign, and a few early kine TMT protesters and cops too, hanging out at the gate of the fort
https://www.ebay.com/itm/295694153120

[HiloJulie]

“talk with the Hawaiian community about it rather than the folks that stole their land.”

The deja vu just can never end with this logic. 

[randomq]

Always the rich f-ing the rich for land and power. People crying over land and rights they never actually had. At least natural science benefits us all, and has a connection to our true origins.

We need the TMT now, but it's true: maybe in 20-30 years we'll have a TMT on the dark side of the moon that will blow everything else away. If an undetected asteroid doesn't wipe us out first...

[TomK]

Yeah you gotta watch out for those caveats. What amazes me is how you can suggest they should be counted as for when throughout all the years we discussed them, you made those with caveats out to be the worst dregs of society, how you hounded and brow beat, and dissed them from one end to the other. Seriously Tom, if you're gonna twist reality you should at least try being consistent.

(Bolding is mine)

Since we're talking of consistency, you've only been posting here since the end of June 2020 and I've not discussed the TMT that much in the last two or three years. So I have no idea what you are talking about and am not twisting reality.

PS. How does one hound, brow beat, and diss caveats? How does a caveat become the worst dregs of society? I assumed you knew the definition of caveat, but now I suspect you don't.

[TomK]

I guess it's not that surprising that those who make stuff up invoke the 5th when asked difficult questions.