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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
- 05:31pm Jun 7, 2003 EST (#
12378 of 12383) 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.
I was asked to find solutions to technical problems.
AEA demonstrated, as well as a small (20 million $) project
could - that those solutions (at least, very good, arguably
optimal solutions) can be found, in a technical sense, on a
routine and predictable basis.
Eisenhower was stumped by a lot - but he was very clear
about this - and maybe a little clearer after he read a paper
I wrote in the summer of 1967.
When you have a problem involving
both physical-technical constraints and social usage
constraints - it makes sense to define clearly what
can be done considering only the physical-technical
constraints.
Solve with only the physical constraints FIRST - then
fit social arrangements to the human needs.
Not because only the technical constraints matter. But if
you sort them out first - you may be able to arrange
good, fair social systems around the best technical solutions
possible.
On a routine basis.
People who review what I did to build AEA might want to
turn their head away - about how ruthless I was. I thought I
was offering investors a better deal than I explained
to them. And the stakes from the perspective of the national
and world welfare were very high.
rshow55
- 05:38pm Jun 7, 2003 EST (#
12379 of 12383) 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.
If I'd been able to deliver that answer to Eisenhower in
1953, I think that world per-capita income in real terms today
might be 2-4 times larger than it is.
We live in a world where simulation is very easy -
where the engineering knowledge we need to know to get key
human needs solved is well in hand - but the solutions for
some key things - global warming - energy - nutrition - are
essentially certain to be monolithic and large scale
solutions that require the involvement of a nation state ready
to " pick winners" - even if all or almost all the capital has
to be raised from private investors.
And such projects - once they work - need to be
regulated - and the fruits of them need to be
controlled enough so that results are tolerable in terms of
human needs.
rshow55
- 05:50pm Jun 7, 2003 EST (#
12380 of 12383) 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.
Communist government, the government of the Nazis, and the
government Eisenhower hoped for for the United States were
very different in many, many ways - but there were essential
similarities for technical and human reasons
that are basic.
The communists talked of a "dictatorship of the
proletariat" - which involved many things - including a core
idea (a promise often unmet, but clearly stated) of "an
elite, with authority, administering things for the common
good.
The Nazis were wrenching in many ways - but they talked of
"National Socialism" and they definitely did have welfare
state ideals in mind (for Germans.) There was a core idea (a
promise often unmet, but clearly stated) of "an elite, with
authority, administering things for the common good."
Eisenhower also believed that government and
industry, together, had to include, de facto, "an elite,
with authority, administering things for the common good."
Those systems, those elites, were, in Eisenhower's view,
and in the view of most people alive in his time - to be
evaluated in terms of human results - - definitely
including economic results - not just notions of "freedom."
- - -
Eisenhower wanted as close to Jeffersonian democracy as he
could get - under the circumstances. He had no way of
accomplishing this in reality - or setting up a coherent
system - but did the best he could - guided by both heart and
mind (and self interest as well) using ideas that included
fictions, and sometimes deceptions.
It only works as well as it works. We talked about that -
and Eisenhower felt we could do (much) better with better
technical solutions.
I'd add, we need better exception handling, as well.
rshow55
- 05:52pm Jun 7, 2003 EST (#
12381 of 12383) 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.
When Almarst argues - with much evidence - that US
actions do not work toward the common good (nationally
or internationally ) he is making an important point.
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