New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 05:05pm Aug 13, 2003 EST (# 13294 of 13294)
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.

rshowalter - 10:00pm Aug 11, 2003 BST (#1623 -1624 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b2bd/1792 is a long passage that starts:

" I've been arguing for the need for a paradigm shift that is both intellectual and moral - and simple enough to explain and use."

That shift involves switching back and forth between different viewpoints. And getting new focuses - and achieving new stabilities.

Without contradiction, (though the "good guys" and "bad guys" may shift from one view to another ) - finding and getting clear about things that are "right every which way you look at them" - if an effort is made to look without lies and distortion.

There are many things that are "right every which way you look at them" - if an effort is made to look without lies and distortion" and that is why people agree on as much as they do - and can figure out as much as they can. If we were clearer about the process by which we all work when we communicate and understand things - we can do much better - from many, many points of view.

On power: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b2bd/1771

I set out to do jobs where my own power would be limited - in some ways, nonexistent. But the assumption was that I would be able to communicate effectively with power.

And I was encouraged to do things. I was assigned projects. Every single thing I was assigned to do required some essential support from a nation state in two ways.

First of all, they all involved such complex cooperation that they were fragile - they could be stopped with "a few well placed phone calls."

Secondly, they all involved such complex cooperation that occasionally, the idea that the government wanted the work done had to be conveyed.

I have been working very hard to present technical proposals to the US government - so that I can hope to get the essential support described above. I've been rebuffed. It is reasonable - submitting to censorship on issues that are reasonably classified - for me to ask for assistance from firms with connections with other nation states - including Germany and France. I need to be able to work. The nation owes me that, at least.

I'm not "clowning around" or "joking" when I say that. Though "clowning" and "joking" are powerful. But they can be dangerous, and need to be controlled.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=clown http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=clown

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=joke http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=joke

I'm in a bind because it is so easy, and has long been so easy, to hide things - or classify them out of existence, on the basis of national security. ( For instance - since CIA activities at Mena airport were forbidden - because they occurred within the US itself - they "didn't exist." ) http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MENA/let_to_lawrence_walsh.html

Fredmoore , could you tell me more about what you mean by "trust" - and "garner trust" - - - - ?

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense