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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 06:55pm Feb 2, 2002 EST (#11196 of 11209)

Looked on point to me, Mazza.

" Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?" - Joseph Welch, special counsel in the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings.

In the end, a lot of issues boil down to questions of decency. I've sometimes questioned Mazza's sense of decency, and he's sometimes questioned mine. But we may agree sometimes. I know that gisterme and I agree sometimes. For example, gisterme and I both agree that

" Institutions matter. Infrastructure matters. And right answers matter.

Right answers matter because consequences matter. Especially, when miltary action takes place. An eloquent statement of how they matter -- and why people have an obligation to get right answers, where weapons are concerned, is Kipling's Mesopotamia, 1917 -- rshowalter 9/29/01 9:28am

Mazza says:

" I believe Boeing, TRW and the program managers. I don't believe you. That's my right ..

but, for ordinary, decent people, that right is limited by an obligation to consider evidence.

If I make a statement that goes against evidence and arithmetic, that statement is wrong, and that's true of anyone else. That's true of you, or program managers at Boeing, TRW, or anywhere else.

For example, just yesterday, you got me numbers, or rough numbers, about the power of the ABL COIL laser, which is a fine technical achievement. I guessed, from what I knew, at a power output of 2 megawatts -- and from there calculated power absorbed for 0% reflectivity, 98% reflectivity, and 99.8% reflectivity - - right at the source. The values were very low. Tiny. Assuming reasonable values of dispersion with distance, much lower still. If my guess of 2 megawatts output is off by a factor, these values are off by the same factor. That could be checked.

Do you do the arithmetic and get different answers, with assumptions you can explain? Would Boeing or TRW program managers?

Some things are no respecters of persons.

In our war with terror, the truth becomes more important rather than less. We have strictly military jobs to do to radically reduce if not eliminate islamic terror. But we must also adress systems of ideas, based on lies, and get people, large number of people, to come to see some key facts, some basic truths.

If you say "I can believe what I want to believe -- and evidence doesn't matter" -- how can you criticise supporters of Ben Laden, who take a similar position?

Isn't there an obligation to get right answers?

Nobody has to "take my word for" anything at all. Things can be checked. MD11158 rshow55 1/31/02 8:04pm

Closure, on this thread, without umpiring, is obviously impossible. Someone can always do another posting. But it may be possible in other ways to get to closure - - perhaps including some suggested and discussed here.

And as dialog continues, points do get clarified. And dialog is on the record.

gisterme - 11:07pm Feb 2, 2002 EST (#11197 of 11209)

rshow55 2/2/02 6:55pm

"...but, for ordinary, decent people, that right is limited by an obligation to consider evidence..."

That's the very thing you refuse to do, Robert! You won't check because you know that your arguements would evaporate quicker than gold leaf in a high-energy laser beam.

"...If I make a statement that goes against evidence and arithmetic, that statement is wrong, and that's true of anyone else..."

Your statement is true, Robert but what a hypocritical thing for you to say. That must mean that you're not an ordinary decent person, eh? "Do as I say not as I do" seems to be the creed that guides your positions on this forum.

You say a perfectly provable statement is a lie rahter than looking into the truthfulness of it. Corrupt is only one word that fits those who take license with the truth in the way that you do, Robert. You're the last person that should be preaching about truth. The truth is not in you.

But you know that already, don't you? You just don't care.

gisterme - 11:27pm Feb 2, 2002 EST (#11198 of 11209)

rshow55 2/2/02 6:55pm

"...For example, gisterme and I both agree that

Institutions matter. Infrastructure matters. And right answers matter..."

You say we agree on these things, Robert but that's simply, once again, not the truth.

You're the one who ignores "right answers", Robert. I don't. For you, there's apparently no such thing as a right answer that disagrees with your infallible opinion. You don't really assign much importance at all to "right answers" as you have repeatedly proven here on this forum. You just want everybody else to. So we don't agree all those things.

If you want to fib, Robert, I know you will, but don't fabricate opinions and attribute them to me to try to reinforce those fibs. I really don't appreciate that.

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