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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 - 08:13am Jun 11, 2003 EST (# 12467 of 12474)
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'm debriefing here, as carefully as I can - and in ways that I think are in the interest of the US, and the whole world. Trying to exercise some self censorship - for valid security reasons - and yet convey messages that are true and usable.

Very many of the problems that concerned Eisenhower, and C.P. Snow were written about carefully - and have attracted some notice (and some hostility) in my old parner's book

Kline, S.J. Conceptual Foundations for Multidisciplinary Thinking Stanford U. Press, 1995

#6983 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.6E36baoiedE.396979@.f28e622/11428

Hypothesis, Guidelines, Dicta, and Queries Appendix C of Conceptual Foundations for Multidisciplinary Thinking by Stephen Jay Kline Stanford University Press, 1995 HYPOTHESES

Hypothesis I: The possibility of multidisciplinary discourse. Meaningful multidisciplinary discourse is possible.

Hypothesis II: Honor all credible data...

#9883 - http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.6E36baoiedE.396979@.f28e622/11428

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/385 In Chapter 4, p 63, of Conceptual Foundations for Multidisciplinary Thinking , my old partner Steve Kline writes this:

" In very complex systems, such as sociotechnical systems, we have no theory of entire systems, and must therefore create, operate, and improve such systems via feedback: that is, repeated cycles of human observations plus trials of envisioned improvements in the real systems. In such very complex systems, data from a wide variety of cases therefore becomes the primary basis for understanding and judgements . ...

. . .

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/393 puts the need for information into a simple, boiled-down investment decision form.

"We need much better procedures for checking facts that matter than we've got - and this board has largely been about that.

- - - -

That was STEVE's book, not mine, but we talked for more than a thousand hours about it. It contains, in the open literature - a great deal of "obvious" insight. It would be far more effective if it could be reworked, made graceful - made clearer - by someone with Lchic's gifts - but it is as clear as it is.

That book did not deal with some key issues - necessarily requiring explicit government involvement - that I (and later he) was involved in - and does not deal with issues of contradiction, repression, and exception handling that are essential.

But it is an extensive, very good body of work - and more people should read it.

I'm trying to be as careful as D.D. Eisenhower would have wanted - setting out information in ways that can be used - and not compromising information that could do harm without ample cause. Eisenhower handed me a copy of C.P. Snow's Science and Government at our first meeting - and talked about how important it would be to solve problems that could be defined physically and logically first - and then fitting the solutions into human institutions - effectively yet gracefully.

rshow55 - 08:18am Jun 11, 2003 EST (# 12468 of 12474)
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.

#3940 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.6E36baoiedE.396979@.f28e622/4964

"When I say that I think lchic and I are doing important work on "connecting the dots" - I mean "important, in my opinion, judging from what I know based on these references, some others like them, some thought and some experience."

What I mean is this - we are working - and have worked effectively - on the most important problems of human action and understanding that I've known to exist, and been able to express clearly enough that they could be worked on - after she has widened and clarified my knowledge, understanding, and connections.

I think Eisenhower would have been honored to see our results - C.P. Snow would have been too - and it has been an honor as well as a joy to work with her as a partner.

honor: http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary?define=honor&Submit1=Search

lchic - 08:49am Jun 11, 2003 EST (# 12469 of 12474)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Two months after "liberating" Iraq, the Anglo-American authorities and their boss Paul Bremer - whose habit of wearing combat boots with a black suit continues to amaze his colleagues - have decided to control the new and free Iraqi press. - Robert Fisk 11June03 Independent

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