For a 15% increased efficiency in exposure times

March 22, 2024 3:16 PM

Dr. Fatima presents a video essay on decolonizing astronomy. (slyt, 2h 51m) She focuses on the proposal to build the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, but is able to wind her way through several heavy topics with grace. She dives into the scientific efficacy of the site, the history of colonization on Hawaii, and an aside on Palestinian liberation and solidarity, before finishing with both pathos and praxis.

For those uninterested in a nearly 3 hour video essay (or those more interested in the subject), she has collected a set of resources on Palestinian Solidarity and is forming a book club reading "A Third University Is Possible" on her patreon.

I'm a former academic who saw otherwise 'harmless' out-of-touch technical colleagues go work for defense contractors, so the section on how institutions recruit for and reinforce certain sets of cultural norms hit home. Her call for action at the end was persuasive and I'm looking through the list of local demonstrations now.

Previously on the Thirty Meter Telescope.
The most recent of many previouslies on warfare in Gaza.

posted by crossswords (7 comments total)

I've been loving her channel and this has been on my watchlist for a week now! so glad she's pointing to local organizing groups. while the cultural (and arguably literal) genocide of Palestinians will be one of the biggest stains in the West's long and unending list of unprosecuted war crimes, the grassroots organizing that has been happening along with all the people who are now suddenly so much more involved and linked into my city's wider network of organizing is giving me some hope

as always, the antidote to feeling helpless when horrifying news comes across your way isn't blissful ignorance - that suffering is still happening regardless of how intentionally unaware you are. the antidote is getting involved, activating, and working in tandem with your community on this millenia-old project of creating a better, more just world for all of us
posted by paimapi at 4:51 PM on March 22 [4 favorites]

Thanks for the links - this is an excellent video. Will be checking out the rest of Dr Fatimas stuff.
posted by phigmov at 5:02 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]

I remember the online discourse when they first proposed the Mauna Kea 30 m telescope. A whole lot of seemingly enlightened, tolerant people were suddenly talking about "native superstition" standing in the way of progress.

There is a certain type of person for whom "pure" science has the emotional weight that religion has for fundamentalists. It is the human pursuit to which all other human behavior and interest must bow. No matter who lives on the land, or what it means to them, it is irrelevant in the face of the potential for better data.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 5:11 PM on March 22 [10 favorites]

Damn, her Emotional Coda hits home. Also, the TMT might be a joint venture between 5 countries, but Japan signed on for the construction, and guess which location is halfway between Japan and the California universities involved in the project? Yeah. The TMT has always been political.
posted by lock robster at 6:14 PM on March 22

Hawaii has a history that seems unique in discussions of colonialism. Native Americans are still fighting for recognition of rights enshrined in treaties and the Constitution that recognizes their sovereignty, but Hawaii was unlucky and was simply annexed, its kingdom ignored and eliminated as a state entity. Every negotiation that native Hawaiians* (as opposed to Hawaiian residents) have with state and federal government start and end with how that adversely impacts interests of the US military, tourism industries, and billionaires who buy up chunk after chunk of land. It's definitely a situation that deserves consideration in its own right, even with the genocide going on in Gaza.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:17 PM on March 22 [7 favorites]

I haven't had a chance to watch the video yet, but I wanted to mention that Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein talks a bit about this in her excellent book The Disordered Cosmos.
posted by jomato at 9:27 PM on March 22 [3 favorites]

I just want to say that I have no idea where it originated, but I am absolutely here for more PhilosophyTube-like channels where someone does a piece to camera about their former area of study, with costume changes and subtitles that comment wryly on the bangin' interstitial music.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 5:39 AM on March 23