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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.

almarst-2001 - 05:56pm Mar 15, 2002 EST (#587 of 592)

"Did the Soviet Union achieve the "new Soviet Man"? Was the NAZI search for the true "Aryan" successful?"

It is absolutly wrong, in my view, to put Soviets and NAZI in the same basket. I expected anyone to know the difference.

I can tell nothing about NAZIs.

The Soviets had a very limited success at a very high price. Same can be claimed about any extream Religious movement. As, for example, the Inquisition.

"The US system is based on Hobbes' philosophy of man's imperfections"

In reality, it rather EXPLOITS it. A big difference!

And I found a degree of ideological brain washing in US at least on-pair with what I experienced in the Soviet Union. Much worst then in today's Russia or Israel for example. But here it is done in a more sophisticated, albeit much costlier, way.

The ideological endocrination does not lead to better man. Nor do the "pushed from above" Values.

But there are plenty the society can do. It would be helpfull to teach at schools more Philosophy, Ethics, Estetics, History and Geography, Foreign Languages and Cultures, Poetry and Music, Child Education and Development. The things, even the best Computer Graphics can't improve. Not to mention the football;)

rshow55 - 05:56pm Mar 15, 2002 EST (#588 of 592)

In the last presidential election, the victorious minority backed Bush, in significant part, because he was not taking an anti-faith position. In matters of public policy and public polity, we need not, and should not, be hostile toward religion, especially in an area involving last and final things. Nuclear weapons policy is an area where religious people HAVE to be interested, if they are to be morally consistent at all. almarst-2001 3/15/02 4:56pm

Anyone who has the courage to look at facts ought to be interested, if she has any human concern at all.

I hope that "priests" in Hobbes' sense do study this matter.

If there are moral imperatives dictating the getting or honest and right answers anywhere in society, there are imperatives here.

Many religious people agree about the seriousness of the situation, and are willing to speak about it. I've posted one sermon

on the subject, , but MANY other references could be given.

And many secular people do, as well.

Essentially everybody knows how great the danger is, but nobody wants to think about it, because it seems that we are in an unchangeable impasse.

But with the change of a few false assumptions to true ones, and some care in dealing with the real human beings involved, we can find a much better, safer, more beautiful solution to this ugly mess, which could quite easily destroy the world, and which stains us all.

rshowalter "How the Brain Works" 2/25/01 3:27pm (now in a hidden archive) contains this passage:

Groups of people go forward, on the basis of assumptions that are, based on knowledge available, entirely reasonable. But a time comes when the assumptions can be shown, beyond reasonable doubt, to be wrong in some decisive way. If people see no way to stop the work and the patterns they've been engaged in, they ignore the fact that they are no longer acting reasonably, and ignore the problem. I believe that, in the history of the nuclear terror, and in the history of the neurosciences, misakes such as this, which are only human, have been, nonetheless, very expensive.

And can be expensive again. .

We need to find ways where it is easier for people to figure out "right things" to do, and easier for the people involved to actually do them.

rshow55 - 06:03pm Mar 15, 2002 EST (#589 of 592)

almarst-2001 3/15/02 5:56pm I agree with what you say could be helpful.

But a major problem is that, on key points - the answers are not yet available - - - though they may not be so far away

MD218 rshow55 3/5/02 11:25am quotes Roosevelt, from the draft of a speech he didn't live long enough to give:

" Today, we are faced with the pre-eminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships --- the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together in the same world, at peace."

In key areas, even now, the "science of human relationships" fails. It is not only a moral failing - it is an intellectual failing - and existing ideas, as they stand, don't suffice.

rshow55 - 06:18pm Mar 15, 2002 EST (#590 of 592)

I was talking to the editor of a scientific journal on that subject just yesterday - - - we were thinking that people have to LEARN more - to reduce and prevent war - in some ways there are analogies to the fact that we need to LEARN more to further reduce and prevent cancer.

But we already know a lot -- and we know that if the US Military Industrial Complex is committed to an endless "war of all against all" -- that's crazy and dangerous and stupid.

If we knew more, we could do better than the best we can do now. But we can surely do better than that.

In the case of Kissinger, and his many colleagues at CSIS, Friedman's quote saying that Kissinger can "make Machiavelli seem like one of the angels of mercy" is worth remembering.

MD63 rshow55 3/2/02 6:21am ... MD64 lchic 3/2/02 6:28am
MD65 rshow55 3/2/02 6:41am ... MD66 rshow55 3/2/02 6:41am

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