New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 07:09am Mar 28, 2003 EST (# 10618 of 10627)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Chrisian Anderson http://www.deoxy.org/emperors.htm

We should check questions of fact - and decent balance - fit to circumstances. If leaders of nation states wanted facts checked - it would happen. By conventions that say "statements of leaders can't be questioned" - it won't.

When things are complicated, truth is our only hope: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/296

That means we have to find ways to keep people from "filter(ing) out information that might undermine their views."

But we can't ask them to change some of the basics about the way they think - the way everybody thinks. We have to work with our humanity, as it is.

Before Christmas, Living Under the Virtual Volcano of Video Games This Holiday Season By VERLYN KLINKENBORG http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/16/opinion/16MON4.html said some basic things about our humanity, linked to a wonderful example.

In a way, nothing can teach you more about the modern obsession with entertainment than a sojourn in the world of video games. The best of them take hours of practice to get good at, and they contain hundreds of hours of play once you do get good. The real question is always, "What are you getting good at?," and "virtual volleyball" just doesn't seem like answer enough. But there are at least two good answers to that question, neither of them very satisfying to critics. The first is that every human activity, serious or playful, eventually ramifies into a world of its own, a self-contained cosmos of enormous complexity. The other answer is $10 billion.

I thought Klinkenborg's first answer was especially basic, imporant as money is:

" every human activity, serious or playful, eventually ramifies into a world of its own, a self-contained cosmos of enormous complexity."

When one matches that complexity against checkable things - some things that are real may be mapped almost exactly - or even exactly. Even when the match is exact, the map remains virtual . I think that virtual mappings that are correct in every way that matter are precious - and think people are getting clearer on how they happen - by "connecting the dots" and keeping at it.

The point about keeping at it was something I expressed in a eulogy I gave of my old friend and partner, Steve Kline http://www.mrshowalter.net/klineul

9238 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.Ufs0a3vM64O.1995456@.f28e622/10764 has many links related to "connecting the dots" on this thread, and includes this:

I believe that Erica Goode has made a contribution to the culture, and that this thread may have done so. I'm only basing my jugement on statistics, and what I myself have noticed, and may be wrong. But the matter could be checked, pretty readily, by searching the net. It concerns the phrase "connect the dots." -- and whether that phrase has gained in meaning, and frequency, since Erica Goode's Finding Answers In Secret Plots http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/10/weekinreview/10GOOD.html . . which speaks of:

" a basic human urge to connect the dots and form a coherent picture."

The idea that people have contradictions - and deal with them by "secrets, lies and fictions" - some conscious, some not - is one that I feel is essential if we are to get closure in areas where closure has eluded us. (Many links at 9238 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.Ufs0a3vM64O.1995456@.f28e622/10764 )

It ought to be possible to sort out a lot from where we are.

almarst2003 - 07:43am Mar 28, 2003 EST (# 10619 of 10627)

"There is a difference between a war of liberation and a war of conquest. Liberation means Iraqis are at the forefront. Conquest means the invaders are in charge" - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34762-2003Mar26.html

almarst2003 - 09:11am Mar 28, 2003 EST (# 10620 of 10627)

BBC news chiefs have met to discuss the growing problem of misinformation coming out of Iraq, with one senior source admitting 'we're getting more truth out of Baghdad than the Pentagon at the moment'. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,924172,00.html

If the word's superpower can't afford the painful truth, who will?

(7 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense