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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 - 02:29pm Aug 5, 2003 EST (# 13244 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.

Truth About Lies: Telling Them Can Reveal a Lot By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/29/health/psychology/29BEHA.html

is a very good article, and it is reprinted today as Truth About Lies: They Tell a Lot About a Lair . Dr. Friedman's piece includes this:

In fact, few human behaviors are viewed as paradoxically as lying. We teach our children that it is wrong, yet we lie every day in the name of civility. We deem those who lie too often or extensively as untrustworthy, while we may call those who lie too little guileless. And though we routinely expect marketers and politicians to lie, we spare them no end of moral outrage when they do.

The outrage tells a lot, too.

I was very glad to see posts from lchic , less glad to read Cooper's and gisterme's posts - when I read the board this morning. I hadn't seen it yesterday. I went to the Patent Office, instead - very much enjoyed the trip, and was pleased with what I'd learned. I feel like saying this again:

If you follow this board, it is easy to see that I couldn't do the things I propose in

13039 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133444@.f28e622/14716

13040 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133444@.f28e622/14717

13041 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133444@.f28e622/14718

- I'd be blocked - quite often on status grounds. If someone with . . stature and connections . . . . were involved - the work could actually get done.

Issues of status, protocol, "fairness" - "rightness" - and veracity are always involved, when people make practical decisions. They involve conflicts. For some purposes, to get technically right answers - you have to strip away the "human concerns" - for a while. Long enough to get workable technical answers. I've spent a lot of my time and energy doing that sort of thing.

But a technical answer, without more - is no more significant than a sperm cell - it is disembodied and incomplete "half potential." And usually wasted.

To go beyond that "half potential" - to real achievement - social function has to be involved.

Here's a cautionary tale about media power, and the power of society over the individual, including a suicide. People are fragile and malleable, sometimes in surprising ways.

Who's a Hero Now By JEFF GOODELL http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/magazine/27MINERS.html

A year ago, nine Pennsylvania coal miners narrowly escaped what might have been their watery grave, and one man was hailed as their savior.

What happened later was sad - and instructive.

Nobody can do everything - or conflicting things at the same time.

This thread has been an experiment - and I think, on balance, worth the effort of the people involved. But what fits it well for some purposes makes it useless for others.

Closure, on anything that counts, has to happen elsewhere, though prototyping of what closure would take can sometime be modelled in a format like this one.

I'm thinking about what to say to Cooper - I personally believe that I'm responsible for what I say and do - and that he is, too.

rshow55 - 02:35pm Aug 5, 2003 EST (# 13245 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 piece is interesting.

On Trail of Fake Rolexes, Lawyers Feel Harassed By MICHAEL BRICK http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/05/nyregion/05INFO.html

and so is this one:

Shuttle Inquiry Uncovers Flaws in Communication By MATTHEW L. WALD and JOHN SCHWARTZ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/04/science/04SHUT.html

. .

The NASA engineer explained, "The NASA culture does not accept being wrong." Instead of a culture in which "there's no such thing as a stupid question," within the agency "the humiliation factor always runs high," he said.

On Friday, NASA officials did not respond to requests for further comment from Ms. Ham.

Testimony and documents that the agency has released do not show that anyone reviewed the Boeing analysis skeptically. Transcripts of the meeting of the mission management team in which the Boeing report was briefly discussed show a presentation that dealt lightly with the degree of uncertainty and risk in the report. Ms. Ham cut off that presentation with assertions that the analysis showed no serious risk to the shuttle or its crew.

Edward R. Tufte, a professor emeritus at Yale University and an expert in the visual presentation of evidence, has expressed his dismay at the content of the transcripts from the Jan. 23 meeting.

If fear of exclusion from the group is high enough - people can be very "imperceptive."

The coherence and "reasonableness" of something read depends on one's view of who wrote it. These postings still seem reasonable to me - and I'm not sure I'm alone. And seem to me to make points worth making - about "why we're so nice" - and ways we're not so nice, after all.

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/414

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