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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 - 05:35pm Sep 1, 2003 EST (# 13464 of 13465)
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 think it makes sense to highlight some pieces by Natalie Angier - that are both beautiful and informative, discussed in 12908-12911 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.gWfVbKtHC8A.6659497@.f28e622/14584 rshow55 7/9/03 and elsewhere on this thread.

In the Crowd's Frenzy, Echoes of the Wild Kingdom By NATALIE ANGIER http://www.mrshowalter.net/IntheCrowd'sFrenzy.htm was published three years ago, on July 9, 2000 - and includes a a picture worth clicking for: "Nowhere to run: scared cattle circling in Germany."

in Frenzy , Angier writes:

"Biologists believe that the complexities of social life are what gave rise to big brains and luxurious intelligence in the first place. Highly social species are, as a rule, the smartest and most sophisticated species the planet has produced.

" So why is it that there can be nothing stupider, nothing more primitive and dangerous, than a crowd of people? If human sociality has its roots in our primate past -- and it surely does -- and if the advantages of living in a group predate the evolution of Homo sapiens, it's worth asking whether the menacing side of a human crowd likewise resembles group behavior among nonhuman species.

Since human sociality has its roots in our primate past there's a lot we need to understand. Both about how we're like other animals, and how we're different.

We're altruistic, very often

. Why We're So Nice: We're Wired to Cooperate By NATALIE ANGIER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/health/psychology/23COOP.html

but we hate , too.

Of Altruism, Heroism and Evolution's Gifts in the Face of Terror By NATALIE ANGIER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/health/psychology/18ALTR.html was written just after 9/11, 2001.

I posted the whole article, as part of discussions then ongoing with gisterme and others right after the tragedy-crime of Sept 11, in

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9299.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9300.htm

( see http://www.mrshowalter.net/calendar1.htm . . for further discussion then. ) . .

How, as a matter of mechanics , can it be " possible to widen the moral circle" . . to shift "the boundary between us and them" in workable ways that permit more "win-win" situations, and less horror?

We're dealing here with nonrandom, basic patterns of human behavior that get us into messes. We need to understand them, and face them. If we did - we could do better.

We ought to think hard about the behavior set out in http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html and realize that if we're "wired to be nice" - that is - to be cooperative - we're also "wired to be self deceptive and stupid" whenever the immediate thought seems to go against our cooperative needs.

Jonestown is worth thinking about, in terms of http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html - and the Milgram experiment - conducted with Stanford students, is too.

Altruism isn't the whole story.

But it is a major source of hope - and Natalie Angier's

Of Altruism, Heroism and Evolution's Gifts in the Face of Terror By NATALIE ANGIER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/health/psychology/18ALTR.html

and

Why We're So Nice: We're Wired to Cooperate By NATALIE ANGIER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/health/psychology/23COOP.html

are well worth reading.

rshow55 - 05:36pm Sep 1, 2003 EST (# 13465 of 13465)
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.

But we can be stupid , too.

In the Crowd's Frenzy, Echoes of the Wild Kingdom By NATALIE ANGIER http://www.mrshowalter.net/IntheCrowd'sFrenzy.htm (note the picture). - - - - - -

Since human sociality has its roots in our primate past, we're like other animals in a lot of ways that matter. But we're also different from other animals.

This thread is a new sociotechnical system, nested as part of many other sociotechnical systems, intended to sort out problems that have become pressing for human sociotechnical animals. Problems that Eisenhower and other people knew about decades ago, and pointed out to me.

It seems to me that people often work together well according to the following pattern:

" Get scared .... take a good look ..... get organized ..... fix it .... recount so all concerned are "reading from the same page ...... go on to other things."

Maybe some of those steps are being advanced here.

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