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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 - 10:14am Jul 28, 2002 EST (#3317 of 3339)

MD3320 wrcooper 7/27/02 12:28am raises some interesting questions, and some things to check, that I will check. I'll be driving past Chicago this week, and perhaps I can check some things physically - - and perhaps apologize physically. wrcooper 7/27/02 12:28am asks whether this thread is an unfair burden on the NYT, a very good question, and asks this particularly good question:

First of all, if you really wanted to have some impact on the debate, why pursue it in an online forum?

For some purposes, I feel that this forum has worked extremely well for having an impact on debate. In part, because it does experiments in exposition.

In very large part, it is valuable because it involves lchic - - probably the most valuable mind I've ever had the honor of being in contact with.

Does lchic make contact and point out vast amounts of material? You can search this thread (or the Guardian Talk threads) and see that she does. She does much more than that. She summarizes, clarifies, sharpens. I believe that the culture advances because of the work she does. Foundations don't support that work, but they reasonably could, and I think should. Other people are sometimes clear, too. Is the forum useful as an unsorted mass -- or reviewable? No. It is too extensive - without sorting, and culling for the parts worth remembering. MD3155-8 rshowalt 7/19/02 9:16am That's how language is. People in the business of tracing human talk have been astonished at how huge wordcounts are. But focusing happens with the talking. And sometimes, with collection, connection, and correction of "the dots" -- again and again, with consideration from many viewpoints, useful ideas converge. Both in news and in life, there's an important distinction between "oughts" and "izzes" -- knowlege about what is , when it can be gotten, and when it condenses a great deal, is a precious thing. Here is a fact, gracefully and memorably stated by lchic:

Adults need secrets, lies and fictions
To live within their contradictions

Children, from kindergarten on, ought to know that. If they did, it seems to me, we'd all be safer and better off.

rshow55 - 10:16am Jul 28, 2002 EST (#3318 of 3339)

Has this thread condensed some ideas - does it include statements that usefully sharp and clarifying? It seems to me that some people have sometimes thought so. As I recall, some have said so - manj, for example. If you check postings on this thread, you can judge whether or not they are clear are coherent. I set out some examples I thought were clear in 3089 rshow55 7/16/02 8:13am

Do people who, by what they say, seem connected to power notice what is written here. Gisterme seems a likely example. Almarst , as well.

3091 rshow55 7/16/02 8:19am includes this.

" There's a problem with long and complex. And another problem with short. . . . . The long and the short of it, I think, is that you need both long and short."

From the long, quite often, the short condenses.

rshow55 7/16/02 8:19am contains this, relevant to this board, and fairly condensed"

"In the end - I'd like to help get across some simple messages:

1. Missile defense is not only a bad strategic idea -- it is also a huge technical fraud, with no technical viability whatsoever, and that can be shown in public.

2. The US military industrial complex is now, in decisive ways, fundamentally fraudulent and corrupt.

3. For a while, the rest of the world has to take responsibility for action without dependence on the cooperation of the United States, or deference to its good judgement, until some basic issues in the United States get righted.

"The problem with these messages is not that they are complicated, but that people are not yet ready to hear them, in ways that can let them "detonate" through the culture, as true ideas, at the right time, can do. But people are more ready than before. The flow of the news, and editorial opinion, in this paper and many others, worldwide, illustrates that.

I think the paper is beautiful today - and hope a lot of people think hard about what Friedman says today: In Oversight We Trust http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/28/opinion/28FRIE.html

Some things need to be checked. Society is getting into more of a mood to check them. . . . I haven't responded to all the issues Cooper raises, and I'll be back.

lchic - 03:13pm Jul 28, 2002 EST (#3319 of 3339)

Look for the mug-shot of Cooper hanging in the main foyer http://www.rcn.com/about_rcn/locations/main_locations.html

:)

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense