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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 - 08:39pm Sep 12, 2003 EST (# 13627 of 13636)
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.

9931 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.mDHEbbSRF7G.8890107@.f28e622/11475

In mid-January, I got a certain way along talking about "oscillatory" solutions, and backed off, mainly because key people didn't seem ready to hear a key fact - that there is a lot of unconscious processing, a lot of repression, some deception - and that everyone can be wrong - and get things backwards.

114 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.mDHEbbSRF7G.8890107@.f39a52e/114 to 126 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.mDHEbbSRF7G.8890107@.f39a52e/126

We need a realistic international law - not the muddle we have falling apart around us today.

For that, we need to know better how smart we are, and aren't - and what possible solutions can be like.

I promised to try to do that. I think that is right that I do that. And right to ask for the resources it takes to do that.

almarst2003 - 09:40pm Sep 12, 2003 EST (# 13628 of 13636)

realistic international law

The word "realistic" requires some explanation.

If you would agree, the LAW has the following purposes:

Defines the UNIVERSAL (BLIND) LIMITS of behavier

Protects the EQUAL RIGHTS within the LIMITS defined above

how smart we are

Assume as "smart" as anyone else on this Planet.

possible solutions

You mean what the Power-haves could agree to grant?

almarst2003 - 09:42pm Sep 12, 2003 EST (# 13629 of 13636)

March 18 revisited: How Blair presented case for war http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=442894

rshow55 - 09:55pm Sep 12, 2003 EST (# 13630 of 13636)
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.

12916 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.mDHEbbSRF7G.8890107@.f28e622/14592

12953 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.mDHEbbSRF7G.8890107@.f28e622/14629 - I was wrong to trust Bush and Blair.

13363 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.mDHEbbSRF7G.8890107@.f28e622/15054

13510 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.mDHEbbSRF7G.8890107@.f28e622/15202

"To do much better than we're doing - we have to find ways to get facts straight - when it matters enough - against the inclination of power holders. Unless this is done, there is no solution to some of our most key problems. Good, stable closures simply are not possible.

Here is Berle: ( Power - Chapter II )

In the hands or mind of an individual, the impulse toward power is not inherently limited. Limits are imposed by extraneous fact and usually also by conscience and intellectual restraint. Capacity to make others do what you wish knows only those limitations.

"That's plain and straight. Power holders want to limit the ability of others to determine facts because that extends their power. It is in the overwhelming collective interest to see that facts that matter enough are determined - both so that power can be reasonably limited - and because human beings have to make decisions on what they believe to be true.

"If leaders of nation states had the wisdom, fortitude and courage to face the fact that there have to be limits on the right of people in power to decieve themselves and others, we'd live in a much more hopeful world. Limits that put some limits on personal political power and on sovereignty.

"Maybe not severe limits. Maybe not limits applied with great consistency. But some limits. Enforced sometimes. When it matters enough.

Without effective restrictions on the right to lie - there really can be no effective international law.

It would be a step in that direction to find out who gisterme is.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense