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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.

jorian319 - 09:00am Sep 15, 2003 EST (# 13678 of 13680)

I do not believe gisterme when he says: "I will certainly not impersonate the President or any other government official."

Wow. A list of things and people rshowalter doesn't believe will certainly go a long way toward solving the problems of the world.

Maybe I can help. I don't believe Showalter ever worked with Eisenhower, I don't believe Showalter takes his own professed advice about "checking" (you might want to look into "savings", Robert), I don't believe anyone in any kind of position of power EVER reads this forum , and I don't believe Showalter's motives for prolix postings are anything more complex than a quest self-aggrandizement.

Gee, this is fun - impugning the motives of people I don't know, even as I solve the world's problems! </sarcasm>

rshow55 - 09:46am Sep 15, 2003 EST (# 13679 of 13680)
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.

Fair enough comment, Jorian.

We disagree about some things. I don't claim to be a saint. I know I make mistakes. And, as I've said - in some ways this thread is "just a game" - in Nash's sense and some others.

I feel like posting this:

manjumicha , and fredmoore - your posts are great. And yes, manj , the N. Korean situation could do with some sunshine. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/26/opinion/26WORK.html

Systems - inside people's head - and involving sociotechnical systems and teams - do change. Here's Piaget - on changing "paradigms" in the course of a single life. http://www.mrshowalter.net/PiagetCognitiveLimits.htm

Kids - "stupid" as they may seem in some ways - are very smart in others - for instance about learning words.

3694 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.p5d8b8q3F5a.9222188@.f28e622/4655

Could people get smarter?

I did a lot of work - set out in 13626-7 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.p5d8b8q3F5a.9222188@.f28e622/15319 at gisterme's request, and I'll be posting it at a little more length on Mankind's Inhumanity to Man and Woman - As natural as human goodness? - which has a first posting that I think is worthwhile here. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/0

I would have carried it further - but I thought - at that particular time - I was dealing with "invincible ignorance" - people have to be ready. That's a fact about teaching kids to tie their shoes. Gisterme , who'd asked to see some output - cut me off with this:

7937 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.p5d8b8q3F5a.9222188@.f28e622/9462

gisterme - 02:43am Jan 23, 2003 EST (# 7937

rshow55 - 09:50pm Jan 21, 2003 EST (# 7887...)

"...I think some things in 7632-7635 were fairly clear about oscillatory solutions..."

Only that you apparently don't know what you're talking about. Give and take in discourse is not your invention, Robert. I has nothing to do with oscillation or periodicity.

Discourse does involve oscillation and periodicity. Give and take happens on patterns - and plenty of people know that. And the question of humanly workable stable solutions is an important one.

Piaget wrote an interesting book centered on the question what's cheating - from the point of view of children of different ages. It would have been a better book if he'd been able to read this piece by Natalie Angier The Urge to Punish Cheats - Not Just Human but Selfless http://www.mrshowalter.net/UrgeToPunishCheatsNotJustHumanButSelfless.htm

Piaget was very clear - as many researchers had been for years before him - that everybody lies - including children of all ages - and that children worry about it. As they grow up - they worry about it with more sophistication. But as people - our sophistication on this issue is still very problematic and limited - witness the associations in http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=liar

13666 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.p5d8b8q3F5a.9222188@.f28e622/15359 makes points that I think need to be repeated by a lot of people - till they learn them better.

If people are scandalized, and panic - and run around blinded with passion - every time somebody calls somebody else a ahem "knowing falsifier" - then we're in a hell of a mess.

The incidence of more or less conscious deception - and obviously repressed fiction is something like 10-20 times what people are admitting.

And people are stumped - in all sorts of obvious and stupid ways - some of them bloody - because they're missing that.

If people would admit that simple fact we

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