[ExI] How Corporate Media distorts Hawaiian Protests

[John Clark]

On Fri, Aug 30, 2019 at 9:57 AM BillK via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

<
> https://fair.org/home/protectors-of-mauna-kea-are-fighting-colonialism-not-science/
> >
>

I should have stopped reading after the ridiculous headline "*Protectors of
Mauna Kea Are Fighting Colonialism, Not Science*", but silly me I didn't.
The author, some dimwit named Julianne Tveten, says Mauna Kea is an
environmentally sensitive conservation district, but construction of the
Thirty Meter Telescope passed all environmental impact studies and I don't
imagine those studies were very difficult because the ecosystem on top of
that mountain is one of the youngest and simplest on the planet. She then
complained that the New York Times was bias because it "*called the
protectors’ movement “creationism,” ridiculing activists’ claims that the
telescope was a profit-seeking venture*", it's not bias if it's true and if
that activity doesn't deserve ridicule what does? Tveten attempted to prove
that the Thirty Meter Telescope really was a profit making venture by
pointing out that some of the money to build it came from "*Intel founder
Gordon Moore’s philanthropic organization*". And that is one reason, but
not the only reason, I called her a dimwit.

She also complained about a headline in the Washington Post that said  “*Native
Hawaiians’ Protests Stop Researchers From Studying the Skies*", well the
barbarians shut down the entire observatory for a month and permanently
killed a telescope that would allowed us to see things 10 times dimmer than
anything we can see now, so it's perfectly true, native Hawaiian's protests
*DID* stop researchers from studying the skies. And that's another reason I
called her a dimwit. There are more reasons but you get the idea.

I have come to an interesting conclusion regarding myself, I don't
understand my fellow human beings worth a damn. I can't think of a more
clear cut example of the battle between reason and anti-reason than this
telescope business, and I felt a great sense of outrage that the forces of
reason, despite having won a legal victory, were completely destroyed. I
thought members of this list, who I assumed could see the beauty in science
and the magnificence of the universe, would feel the same way. But in that
I couldn't have been more wrong.

 John K Clark
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