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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?

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rshow55 - 04:12am May 29, 2003 EST (# 12149 of 12151)
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.

Lchic's http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.AVTPbL2Mbws.2488826@.f28e622/13782 asks key questions. For decency and the safety of the world, they need to be answered. The answers that Western society, as most people value it, can reasonably accomodate require a reasonable ability of the Islamic cultures to deal with facts when they matter enough in practical terms.

At present, a key problem is that we don't face facts and make accomodations ourselves - in our own affairs.

Lies are dangerous.

"Again -- 'The Poster' came out in all his KomodoChameleonMonikers to mask this post http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.AVTPbL2Mbws.2488826@.f28e622/13768 ... the masking seemed important to someone - Showalter must have it right."

Whatever right is, as a matter of fact - about who gisterme is - getting it straight would permit a number of other things to be sorted out - in the national and world interest.

Often, there really are good solutions to problems. Often, on problems simple enough to define clearly - really optimal solutions - often beautiful ones.

To get them - or maintain them - people have to have their facts and relations straight.

Too often, we don't. This board has largely been about that.

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.AVTPbL2Mbws.2488826@.f28e622/8640 of Dec 29, 2002 includes this:

In November of last year I sent a postcard to head of a large organization. The consequences of doing so nearly destroyed my life in very practical ways - ways different from any I'd anticipated - ways I'm still digging out of. Some people with quite a lot of power used coercive forces at their disposal - that I could not defend against very well. That force has been effective. All the same, the message (and the pattern) of that postcard still seem sensible to me. I wish people who have read that postcard might consider the request again. That postcard contained this:

" Some explosive instabilities need to be avoided by the people who must make and maintain . . . relevant agreements. The system crafted needs to be workable for what it has to do, have feedback, damping , and dither in the right spots with the right magnitudes. The things that need to be checkable should be.

" Without feedback, damping, and dither in the right spots with the right magnitudes -- a lot of things are unstable - even when those things "look good," "make sense" and there is "good will on all sides."

All those things are true - but an "obvious" point was left out. In very many of the most unstable situations, things do not look good, things do not make sense, and there is nothing like good will on all sides. When that's true - it is important to avoid sign errors - where people get messages exactly backwards, either intentionally or unintentionally.

When people want to cut off communication, they do this intentionally. The individual who lunarchick refers to as "the poster" is a specialist in exactly this. Again and again and again - the effort is to cut off communication - to prevent convergence - to distract. Another very effective way to cut off communication is to tell lies. Everyone uses fictions - or distractions that actively mislead from the purpose of continuation of discussion - as a way of cutting off communication.

Far and away the best way to deal with the possibility of sign errors and bad faith (in situations where right answer matter enough so that the notion of good faith has moral force) is face to face contact in the presence of witnesses who can serve the role of judges, with some ability to persuade or exert force on the discussants or negotiators. That isn't always possible. In some ways, the internet, carefully used, offers something like face to face contact (at least, the ability to see faces) and the possibility of arranging witnesses with some persuasive power.

Is it far-fetched to suggest that some leaders, and nation states

rshow55 - 04:14am May 29, 2003 EST (# 12150 of 12151)
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.

Is it far-fetched to suggest that some leaders, and nation states - have some things backwards - have their signs exactly wrong in some long logical sequences - believe that they are right - - and that we need to sort some of these things out ?

If that's true, and we are to get stable solutions, there are some very practical reasons why we'd like to sort them out.

The logical problems involved with that kind of sorting are the same, again and again and again and again in situations where people are stumped, and arrangements are ugly.

People have to be committed to their own ideas, and the ideas and committments of their groups. But unless there is some exception handling - unless there is a willingness to doubt - to check - to modify - when it matters enough, some explosive fights are inevitable.

- - -

We're in a situation where some very good solutions are reasonably close at hand if people are honest - and check when it matters enough.

And in a situation where "the same old nightmares" will recur - with more agony than anyone can look at straight - if we don't.

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