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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 - 08:43pm Sep 14, 2003 EST (# 13667 of 13677)
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.

13626 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z49sbAN4FUY.0@.f28e622/15319 includes this:

"I worked on these posts - (in significant part, at gisterme's specific request) - mostly from January and February - and could present them in ways that would save many lives - and assist in the defense of the United States - if I could find a way to do so that was effective and yet was not cheating from the point of view of people with power to stop me.

With a phone call, anybody with rank in the Bush administration could have gotten the work staffed so it was ready to use - or ready to reject. It wouldn't necessarily have had to cost the government anything. The cost to staff the work would have been a few hundred thousand dollars.

Instead, gisterme simply dismissed the work - after he'd asked for it. And, of course, dismissed me as a human being.

I'm sure of this:

For stable end games - people and groups have to be workably clear on these key questions. Especially if win-win outcomes are to be possible. The questions are basic.

How do they disagree (agree) about logical structure ?

How do they disagree (agree) about facts ?

How do they disagree (agree) about questions of how much different things matter ?

How do they differ in their team identifications ?

Odds are good that if the patterns of agreement (or disagreement) are STABLE and KNOWN they can be decently accomodated.

Even a child should know the things above - and kids could be taught them. Adults need to know these things, too.

Children should also know the simple things listed below - and children do, at some level - from about the time they learn to talk.

People say and do things

What people say and do have consequences, for themselves and for other people.

People need to deal with and understand these consequences, for all sorts of practical, down to earth reasons.

. So everybody has a stake in right answers to questions of fact that they use as assumptions when they think about what they say and what they do.

There is a large communal interest in getting key facts and relationships straight. Because people have to make decisions - and have to know enough to cooperate in some ways, and keep out of each others' way in others.

With those questions asked more often - a lot more could be sorted out between people than is now. "Wilfull misleading of other people" would be technically harder - and converging on good solutions would be technically easier. http://www.mrshowalter.net/DBeauty.html

The most useful ideas aren't fancy. If they're right and basic, you can teach them to kids - kids at every level above the sensorimotor on Piaget's scale http://www.mrshowalter.net/PiagetCognitiveLimits.htm - in ways that are useful.

And we can often find the useful ideas that are there to be found. It isn't hopeless. It takes work that we can do.

We do have to recognize that everybody "knowingly falsifies" - and "unknowingly" falsifies - to themselves and to others - very often, too. Including Gisterme .

Gisterme , I've been unfair to you in some spots (not others) and I do owe you a limited apology - though I haven't gotten to it today . Spent a lot of time, just thinking about what I have done.

But it seems to me that there's a chance that some basic things could be worked out.

Gister

rshow55 - 08:47pm Sep 14, 2003 EST (# 13668 of 13677)
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.

Gisterme , maybe you're just nobody - but if somebody with power wanted to get these problems solved - they are ready to solve - in ways that people need now.

I'm doing the best I can - within my limitations. We all have limitations, after all. There are limits to what you can hope to do when you're only thought to be a "talking dog" http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z49sbAN4FUY.0@.f28e622/9293 .

rshow55 - 09:08pm Sep 14, 2003 EST (# 13669 of 13677)
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.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md11000s/md11920.htm has a two sentence summary that still seems right.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense