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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 - 03:12pm Aug 22, 2002 EST (# 3904 of 3920)
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.

I feel that postings 1477-1479 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b2bd/1641 are pretty clear - and related to questions that are important, and have recently been discussed in the New York Times - especially in discussions keyed on Finding Answers In Secret Plots http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/10/weekinreview/10GOOD.html and The Odds of That http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/11/magazine/11COINCIDENCE.html

The questions

" how do people figure things out?

and

" how does the process fail or mislead?

have been central questions in philosophy for 2500 years - and we can make progress here. Not on the broadest part of the question of how human reasoning works - but on a related question.

"What are the odds that we can figure things out in more orderly, more useful ways?"

They are very good, and getting better. We can do MANY things a LOT better - when we learn more about how "connecting the dots" works - and how it goes wrong.

(Erica Goode's Finding Answers In Secret Plots http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/10/weekinreview/10GOOD.html seems to have ignited a real change in the meaning and frequency of the phrase "connect the dots" in our language.)

I'm trying to get things organized to explain some simple facts that elementary school kids and teachers should know -- and statesmen, too. I've blocked out the explanatin in terms of reading instruction - an area of wider interest and more lasting importance than the missile defense boondoggle.

Both to explain how technical solutions that get breakthrough results can be found and proven - - and how the processes of finding these solutions can be learned and taught.

And to explain how socio-technical aspects of these problems are hard. Hard, but not hopeless. The social and psychological difficulties with getting solutions implemented can be handled more easily than they are handled now --- because of thigs that lchic and I have worked out.

Missile defense discussion is relatively easy. If you can't show that the missile defense boondoggle is a mess - it is because, these days, you can't prove anything in the face of opposition.

We can do better than that.

It is in the interest of many citizens, and many politicians, to see that we do so.

bbbuck - 03:26pm Aug 22, 2002 EST (# 3905 of 3920)
'I will change my tagline when the strike starts'....8 days til strike, 4days to 25k, 5days to us.open. 30days to fall.

Well as they say in the army, 'it doesn't get any better than this'.
Carry on sir, the crazy truck must have missed you this week. Maybe next week.

lchic - 08:01pm Aug 22, 2002 EST (# 3906 of 3920)

It's interesting the way the 'Primaries' are running in the US

There's a move towards running with the candidates who are 'believable' those who can be believed and are seen as able.

The newly known, seen to be believable, seen to have their feet on the common ground are now chic!

Common ground, common understanding, common knowledge, common ideals, common concerns, common realities - COMMON!

Suggests there's a move for 'truth', a move for a clean-up of messes, a move to have people's reps who relate to people, who aren't in the pockets of ....

A 'Wynne' Gut Feeling movement for common decency!

UNcommon!

lchic - 08:19pm Aug 22, 2002 EST (# 3907 of 3920)

Competition isn't always the best way forward:

"" But the problem was that the companies were not charities, said John Hilary, the trade policy adviser of Save the Children UK. "They don't go into the countries with thoughts of doing the poor a good turn."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=326262
the summit was rushing to involve the private sector in development. "Where multinationals are involved, they must be carefully regulated to ensure social and environmental benefits are realised. There may well also be circumstances in which private-sector engagement is simply not the best option in the first place"

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense