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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 - 07:52am Jul 5, 2003 EST (# 12854 of 12863)
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.

There are some reasonable things the UN could do with some substantial tax revenue. And for such an industrial organization to occur - regulation would be essential for the existence of the organization. A lot could be fit together.

The UN could use some money.

11447-8 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.7s1nbu9KnQt.0@.f28e622/13027 refers to a fine NYT editorial.

The Cost of Saars http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/01/opinion/01THU3.html includes this: .

"So far, SARS is costly because it discourages commerce. The Asian Development Bank says SARS could end up costing $16 billion in Asia. Other diseases take a more varied toll. Malaria can do lasting cognitive damage. Many sufferers cannot work productively, and often die with their fruitful years ahead of them. AIDS, which strikes many of the most skilled in society in their prime, is now contributing to shortages of doctors, nurses and teachers in Africa. Businesses shy away from investing in nations, like South Africa, where more than a quarter of the work force is HIV-positive. By reducing the productivity of farmers, AIDS contributes to hunger. AIDS orphans are unlikely to stay in school and will be unprepared for the work force.

" Improving health is one of the few things we know how to do well and cheaply. Tuberculosis can be cured with drugs costing $15. The vaccines protecting children against measles or polio cost pennies. Yet vaccine coverage is dropping in Africa. In some nations, only a quarter of children are immunized.

" The World Health Organization's Commission on Macroeconomics and Health says every country should spend at least $34 per person each year for basic health care. This is paltry compared with the $2,000 annual average spent per person in wealthy nations, but the average in poor countries is $13. These nations could finance some of the increase, but about $27 billion a year would have to come from rich donors. Such investment would directly increase world income by at least $186 billion per year, not counting hundreds of billions of dollars in accumulated economic growth. Purely on the numbers, you cannot beat that rate of return — and oh yes, it would also save lives.

The passage ends "Purely on the numbers, you cannot beat that rate of return."

But that "rate of return" is a logical construct that can only be made real by expenditure of resources - human caring embodied in human decisions, and human institutions.

With work, and leadership - organization is possible that makes that logical construct real.

To make that organization real - some of the leadership - indeed most - has to be external to the United States government - particularly the present one.

But it looks possible to organize the leadership group needed for the job. People with the capacities and connections needed for the job are around.

rshow55 - 08:01am Jul 5, 2003 EST (# 12855 of 12863)
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.

That leadership group should be composed of convinced and practicing capitalists - within limits "conservatives" like Eisenhower would have approved of. I'd like to be one of them - and make money at the job. Alone, that would be impossible. But there is a fairly large number of people who, working with me, could make the hopes much more realistic. Just as an example - suppose Howell Raines ( and people he could find ) were involved - working for glory and money?

Not that any particular person would want to be involved. But once technical solutions are clear - rather sophisticated socio-technical solutions can often be organized.

Many quite sophisticated socio-technical arrangements are covered, day after day, in the newspapers.

Such arrangements aren't always technically, financially, and organizationally transparent. But they can be.

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