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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 - 09:19pm Aug 8, 2002 EST (#3572 of 3606)

The old Science in the News that was archived has been eliminated. I'll miss it. Here are some old postings from this thread that cited it.

rshowalter - 05:45pm May 25, 2001 EST (#4209 Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

It seems to me that internet usages (perhaps with some crowd control, but in the open, and adequately staffed ) offer sensationally effective means of getting facts straight. And getting differences clear.

rshowalter - 06:04pm May 25, 2001 EST (#4210 of 4213) Robert Showalter mrshowalte@thedawn.com

SN1342: markk46b "Science in the News" 8/23/00 2:44am ... SN1343: rshowalt "Science in the News" 8/23/00 7:31am " ....there's a phrase that I read once. Three words.

" Hitler went unchecked. "

The context was political and military. But facts and ideas went unchecked too. Hitler subverted an entire society based on nonsense and lies, many ornately detailed, and destroyed much of the world in doing so. He hoped, in the senses that matter to most of us, to destroy the whole world. In the ways that mattered, he wasn't effectively checked at the level of ideas.

In the preface to Brecht's Galileo , there's something like this.

" It takes courage to face the fact that sometimes the truth is defeated because the truth is, somehow, too weak."

I find the idea that truth can be "somehow, too weak" haunting.

We need techniques and conventions that make it stronger.

Some techniques that would and could make it stronger have been developed on this thread. MD1999 rshow55 5/4/02 10:39am

rshow55 - 09:22pm Aug 8, 2002 EST (#3573 of 3606)

To make these techniques effective, there would have to be some funding. Not very much. Too much for the NYT, or any newspaper, to fund without help. But a tiny amount of money, compared to the stakes.

There may be ways, with small readjustments, sensible by the standards of reasonable people, to get the resources needed.

The US defense budget is now $1,200 + for every man woman an child in the United States.

Certainly some of it is needed. How much of it? All of it? Who actually believes that?

MUCH clearer information on the point could be organized, in many ways, with essentially absolute certainty on key issues of fact and proportion for less than a penny per American.

That would be enough to permit all interested parties to to collect information and say "here, look for yourself" . . . at the level of fact, and the level of ideas, as well.

With umpires as needed.

Using patterns for "collecting the dots" in space and time worked out on this thread, and elsewhere.

Some people with status, if they wished, could get the resources needed with one or two phone calls.

lchic - 10:16pm Aug 8, 2002 EST (#3574 of 3606)

^{The Cold War apparatus:}

Read these through
and it appears
there was a gap .......

between the ears !

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59355-2002Jul24.html
Showalter - Excellent citations
rshow55 8/8/02 9:07pm
(and following posts)

lchic - 10:30pm Aug 8, 2002 EST (#3575 of 3606)

MILITARY WIVES subjected to DOMESTIC VIOLENCE at levels 200-500% higher than in the civil population!

Fort Bragg http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Jul2002/a20020730braggmrdrs.html

Just imagine what this is like for the children!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Raises the question - is there a domeistic-price to be paid when citizens are put into the pay of a government to go out and eliminate others - elsewhere - figures in holistic accounting !

lchic - 10:32pm Aug 8, 2002 EST (#3576 of 3606)

Letter:

Competition not cooperation is seen as an American Ideal

Alister Cooke 'Letter from America' looked for some good in his adopted homeland

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/letter_from_america/2158750.stm

lchic - 11:26pm Aug 8, 2002 EST (#3577 of 3606)

Violence - USA study - _{http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-media-violence.html}

``They become desensitized and watch more,'' Walsh said. ``Concerns about a growing culture of 'incivility' in society may be starting with our children.''

lchic - 11:35pm Aug 8, 2002 EST (#3578 of 3606)

Machivellian Strategy - 'calling your bluff'
_{http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,771599,00.html}

lchic - 08:31am Aug 9, 2002 EST (#3579 of 3606)

Inhumanity to woman

Settler's from the Middle East don't go down too well in this suburban zone - the reason - there's a gut wave feeling locally that the rape of local women is culturally sanctioned by the families of ME guys.
_{http://abc.net.au/news/2002/08/item20020809171152_1.htm}

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