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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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 01:31pm Aug 3, 2003 EST (# 13226 of 13267)
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 don't feel, on balance, any reason to apologize to Cooper - and less so as he continues to post calling me crazy (I'd a lot rather be a liar, or mistaken, than crazy - most people would.) But I am sincerely sorry that Cooper has been "deeply insulted" that I'd doubt his word. And gisterme thinks doubting his infallibility or veracity is "abnormal" too.

If people take that position, rather than check - problems can't get focused and solved. If people check - problems can be.

Not so very long age, 13105-6- I responded to the news that it was "Hadley's fault" that the Bush andministration had made a mistake. http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133355@.f28e622/14784

As an exemplar of "setting out dots to be considered" (that is, judged, not necessarily believed) - I think 13105-13016 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133355@.f28e622/14784 looks very good. Friedman's piece today http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/opinion/03FRIE.html wasn't talking about any "mistake" - and though I'm sure Friedman is fallible - and sometimes even decieves (and knows it) I have a very high regard for his connections.

Gisterme , I think what I said about your identity in http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133355@.f28e622/14784 remains reasonable - though of course I could easily be wrong in any guess I'd make about your identity.

For you to ask me to simply "take your word for it" - on this forum - seems perverse and childish to me. That is, if this forum is ever to take things to enough focus that they can be checked. Nothing said on this forum is true just because it is said, or just because it is "internally consistent" - but connecting the dots provides patterns to be checked (as Fredmoore says, experimentally - and for consistency.)

Lchic has been off the board for a while - and she's told me she's having her computer fixed. Whether she ever posts another thing or not - I'm deeply grateful for her, and what she's posted - and think she may be the most valuable mind I've ever seen in action. Though she's lied to me. I don't like her any less for that - over time - I trust her very well. And we expect to check each other.

Fredmoore , it seems to me that we learn essentially everything we learn by "connecting the dots" - forming schema and images that could be wrong - but that are worth checking. When there's reasonable doubt about the process - and willingness to admit mistakes - a great deal can converge. That's "obvious" , I know. But I think it is important.

It is also obvious that both mistakes (in which one expresses confidence) and lies pollute and destroy the process by which "connecting the dots" gets right answers that we can reasonably trust.

gisterme - 01:34pm Aug 3, 2003 EST (# 13227 of 13267)

Thanks for the promotion, Rob. :-)

gisterme - 01:48pm Aug 3, 2003 EST (# 13228 of 13267)

"...Saddam was not just a potential problem, but an immediate, undeterrable threat to the British and American mainlands. This was so, they argued, because Saddam retained hidden stocks of W.M.D.'s, in violation of U.N. resolutions, which he could deploy at any minute..."

Until we find out just what happened to the 8,500 liters of anthrax that Saddam was known to have, that may still be true. Especially if that stuff has been passed on to some bunch of jihadists. Four suitcases is not much to hide or smuggle.

rshow55 - 02:29pm Aug 3, 2003 EST (# 13229 of 13267)
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.

This is very important:

Facing a Second Nuclear Age By WILLIAM J. BROAD http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/weekinreview/03BROA.html

If Iran and North Korea get nuclear arsenals, countries across the Middle and Far East may seek their own.

US credibility is very important - and though there are always short term tactical advantages to deception - the long term costs are great. We need to do damage control - by working to earn credibility. Because the US does need other nations.

I could be wrong about a great many things. I know I make mistakes, as others do.

But I think it is "obvious" that there are good reasons for honesty when complicated cooperation has to be asked for. Not even the United States is powerful enough to compel all, or nearly all, the cooperation it needs.

For real credibility - in a real world where deceptions and mistakes happen - there have to be effective ways to get things that matter checked much more often than is possible now. I believe that, in this matter, the Bush administration much too often goes in exactly the wrong direction - toward secrecy and deception - when it is openness and predictability ( and strength) that we need.

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