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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.

cantabb - 07:19pm Oct 7, 2003 EST (# 14588 of 14616)

rshow55 - 06:31pm Oct 7, 2003 EST (# 14582 of 14583)

cantabb: "DOT" = A verifiable Fact [Not fiction or opinion, or a custom-blend ]

rshow55: Really?

Is that how your mind works? How anybody's mind works? How many verifiable facts do you have to work with - and what fraction of the word count you swim in represents them?

What nonsense !

You think we should use a custom blend of fact-fiction-opinion just because we don't have ENOUGH (or ALL) the needed verifiable "facts" ["dots"] ?

Most in science use factual evidence to try to construct something rationally coherent, and speculate upon it, if needed (as often is in research) -- BUT when some one forgets where the "facts" ended and speculations began or mixed supportable facts with personal opinion/pure speculation/ or fiction, the results are NOT that difficult to imagine.

Looks like you have a lot of problem separating "facts" from fiction/opinion, etc. And you think repeating the same misinformation and misrepresentation over and over again [your variety of "loop test"] somehow turns them ALL into "facts," proven by your "Loop Test" or repeating the same long enough.

Doesn't looks like you have any significant basis/training in science, and as a self-proclaimed "math-maven," your "logic" leaves a lot to be desired.

Odds are you hear or read 20,000 + words a day. How many involve plainly verifiable, crosschecked facts? How many can.

Just because you can't find enough "facts" that you can verify (or are properly verified in the literature), and you can not properly "check" or "crosscheck" them [I said "properly," NOT your way of doing these things], are you saying that we should "accept" as true ALL of them, including accepting the hearsay ?

IF you don't have facts that are or have been verified, try to 'get' them properly, scientifically -- NOT try to make them up instead, as you go along, or after repeating non-facts for X number of times.

Cantabb , you connect the notions that you happen to take in - that happen to feel right - like everybody else.

You LEAVE your personal bias and feelings aside in an objective exercise -- and the fact-gathering in science and most other disciplineis is such an exercise. You don't connect "notions" that "you happoen to take in": Who told you THAT ? It's NOT a question how you "feel" ("right" or wrong), or a process that's so casual ["happen to take in" on a walk by the sea on a clear day]. You get "facts," ascertain them properly and build some thing with or upon them, brick by tested ["checked"] brick. You develop a picture ["notion"] that can stand the test [or "check"] -- NOT just a personal opinion.

Your naivete is showing, once again ! In yet another area !

That's how members of the human species process information.

Then you check them - for internal consistency - and against external standards. Unless you do something stupid - like make a quick-shot status decision - and reject everything from someone you don't like out of hand. Both consciously and unconsciously.

Not so. See above.

Don't get lost in your own vocabulary: "internal consistency" is NOT Orwellian [ a la '1984'], BUT logically deduced ideas that seem to fit together rationally & well, progressively toward a bigger picture [like pieces of jigsaw puzzle].

That's the human condition.

May be according to you, and Garp ! NOT shared or substantiated.

These are "inputs" at various levels of discourse involving missile defense and closely related topics involving missile defense.

WHY NOT contribute to this discourse on MD, rather than chase your own tail on poster identity [Neither "valid" or "basic" as you say], totally irrelevant posts, and obsessive links and references to your personal problems.

cantabb - 07:29pm Oct 7, 2003 EST (# 14589 of 14616)

rshow55 - 06:50pm Oct 7, 2003 EST (# 14586 of 14588)

In clear:

Lying is more dangerous than people think, and soaks up more attention than people know. We can do less of it. We can send in clear - the message, almost always, will be peaceful. ......designed to frustrate predictability, and make rational trust ridiculous.

Overly simplistic and inane, to put in charitably.

Eisenhower was right to be concerned - and all in all, it seems to me that I was given reasonable jobs to do. A lot has gotten done - much on this thread - as some editing could show.

We don't know what Eisenhower or Casey said to you or what "jobs" they asked you to do, what promises you kept or couldn't: TOTALLY irrelevant here.

If you think they ARE or should be relevant, then I suggest YOU provide some evidence for our evaluation. IF you can NOT, for one reason or the other, I can't see how it does advance your already strained credibility one bit.

klsanford0 - 07:53pm Oct 7, 2003 EST (# 14590 of 14616)

"It serves no purpose to fight Showalter."

Yes, it does...it might keep people like Showalter from continuing to perpetrate his scandalous behaviour....Showalter is committing daily crimes of every sort against the Forum.....your position is like that of one who will not catch the burglar who is robbing your house..

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense