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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 02:50pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4549 of 4585)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I dealt with Steve Kline's complexity theory in the following NYT Missile Defense posts.

In all sorts of ways, we need to recognize how overwhelmingly complex brute reality is -- so that we can understand how necessary careful approaches to change are, and how limited even the best ideas may be, unless they are checked against specific circumstances, to make sure that they match.

1127 rshowalter 3/17/01 5:06pm includes this:

"I wish I could talk to Steve now, and ask

" What could we tell Putin, that might help him do his job - a job that he has to do well, in the interest of the world? "

1128 rshowalter 3/17/01 5:31pm 1131 rshowalter 3/17/01 6:02pm 1132 rshowalter 3/17/01 6:10pm 1133 rshowalter 3/17/01 6:13pm 1134 rshowalter 3/17/01 6:17pm

Human social systems, even simple ones, have C (complexity) values in the billions. ..... And so human social systems are far more complex than anything anyone can analyze completely. Systems with C > 5 cannot be explicitly modeled today. In real human systems involving people in essential ways, we must create, operate, and improve via feedback: that is, repeated cycles of human observations plus trials of envisioned improvements in the real systems."

And so the truth is crucial for function.

We need, for practical reasons, to increase the probability of right answers in our information systems -- we need to replace lies with truths.

On issues involving military balances, we need to very much increase it.

As a practical matter, one checks facts and ideas by a matching process --- matching the logic step by step against trusted standards, and --- usually much more important, matching to see if what is said matches what is there when you check.

The "culture of lying" keeps this from happening -- at great cost in money, danger, and injustice. It is now technically possible to do better.

Technically easy and inexpensive.

The main problem now is that people need to notice, much more often than they do, how often answers people are confident of go wrong --- and how often other answers consistently advantage some people, and disadvantage others, in ways that do not fit the advantages claimed for the answers.

For that to happen, people have to feel, more often, that they have a right, and an obligation, to check facts on which decisions depend, when there is reason to doubt those facts, of when stakes are high.

rshowalter - 02:52pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4550 of 4585)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The advantages of truth seem especially high on issues involving nuclear weapons, because the stakes are so high. And yet, this is an area where, historically, almost nothing has been checkable - even by elected representatives.

james22h - 04:46pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4551 of 4585)

Bob

Hey dude., Those Russians ever come back yet? Hows it going? With the Missiles?

lunarchick - 05:21pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4552 of 4585)
lunarchick@www.com

Hey dude ... has to be almost a song title ... so, how would John Lennon be thinking right now in relation to bringing down the missiles ... how is Yoko thinking ... why did celebrities, back then, and now, invest personal energy into working for world peace ... why did/do they assume a mantle of leadership?

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