When the Thirty Meter Telescope issue began I would have described myself as quite sympathetic to the cause of Native Hawaiians due to my normal political leanings and my own personal heritage. Over the years I have often become quite bitter about the continued use of lies, smears, and insults used against the telescopes by opponents.
Can we have an honest dialog here?
Apparently not. The issues has become something akin to a religious crusade among people who have devoted their lives to the cause. When this happens little things like truth seem to lose.
I am going to be blunt here, we know much of the anti-TMT argument is either false or gross exaggeration. Project supporters have patiently corrected these arguments time and time again, documented the issues during the hearings, and yet we continue to hear these false arguments repeated. They are repeated online in social media, in newspaper editorials, even under oath in official proceedings.
Certainly some people repeat this misinformation in an honest belief that it is true, maybe they hear it from a source they trust, perhaps from a leader in the protest movement. We are now well over a decade into the controversy and we have been over and over the issues so many times, those more involved with the controversy should know the difference.
Continue reading “A Compendium of Anti-TMT Myths”