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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 - 07:20am Sep 18, 2003 EST (# 13709 of 13824)
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.

1192 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/1298, which I posted last week, includes this and some other things I think are worth reading:

Posts by Gisterme are set out and posted at http://www.mrshowalter.net/PostsBy_Gisterme.htm - which is a 32 page list of links.

I'm doing things I think are right - for the country, and, of course, for me as well. http://www.mrshowalter.net/SP_51_n_Swim.htm - - 388 - "Suppose you can swim well and folks know it . . . "

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I posted this yesterday - and I'm spending most of my attention - these next few days, on my parents - but I think it deals with issues that are important - however unimportant I may be.

1193 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/1299

Medical History's Oddballs Go Prime Time By RANDI HUTTER EPSTEIN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/health/16HIST.html

The medical oddballs today who feel shunned by mainstream practitioners can take comfort, for better or worse, in a new mini-series on medical history that makes heroes of fanatical scientists of yesteryear. To say the least, they lacked tact.

Imagine the reaction to Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, a surly Hungarian, who called his colleagues murderers because they refused to wash their hands between autopsies and delivering babies. He was onto something (hygiene) but lacked people skills. Dr. Semmelweis died in a mental hospital, but hand-washing eventually caught on.

If you look at the full history of the Semmelweis story - one has to ask - considering that he was a human being, dealing with other human beings in a social system, with the cognitive limits he had and others had - with aversion to change and challenges as it was, and always is - and with his limitations of time and power - what else was there to do but get into a fight? How, exactly, might a "tactful" approach have worked?

Semmelweis did the best he could - and millions of innocent people died in wrenching circumstances because he was not listened to.

People didn't understand their logical limitations - didn't have patterns of exception handling that were workable - and results were far, far uglier than they had to be.

Paradigm Shift .... whose getting there? deals with the Semmelweis story, and related stories - here and elsewhere.

3: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/2 rshowalter Sat 29/07/2000 00:31

5: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/4 rshowalter Sat 29/07/2000 13:38

29: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee726f/33 rshowalter Wed 09/08/2000 21:36

46: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/51 rshowalter Sat 12/08/2000 16:44

( Almost the whole Paradigm thread is here - and more than a meg - http://www.mrshowalter.net/Paradigm1_Recent.htm )

In paradigm conflict, the urge to punish cheats misfires http://www.mrshowalter.net/UrgeToPunishCheatsNotJustHumanButSelfless.htm

People involved have big difficulties with cognitive limits - and emotions run high http://www.mrshowalter.net/PiagetCognitiveLimits.htm

And the stakes are high. An institutional solution to the problem - that would work well enough to reduce losses from paradigm conflict down significantly - (dealing with scientific and technical issues) was suggested here:

. http://www.mrshowalter.net/ScienceInTheNewsJan4_2000.htm

If the rule " never fight" is strong enough - it is easy to make someone who asks for big changes the bad guy - for instance - Galelio can be described as "the bad guy" - http://www.mrshowalter.net/Contrarian'sContrarian.htm .

But if good decisions are to be made by society - sometimes (relatively seldom, but sometimes) there do have to be fights.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/ScienceInTheNewsJan4_20

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense