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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 - 01:20pm Aug 27, 2002 EST (# 3998 of 4001)
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.

If you're a kid, you won't be interested in a lot of philosophy. You'll want to learn to read. How hard is that? Maybe not nearly as hard as people think.. Maybe the phonics advocates can get everything they've wanted, and more. And maybe the "whole language" people can, too.

I believe that essentially everything that the phonics advocates want can be achieved - much more efficiently - if kids learned drills like this.

3930 rshow55 8/23/02 4:52pm ... 3931 rshow55 8/23/02 4:55pm
3932 rshow55 8/23/02 5:00pm

And achieved in a way that gives the "whole language" people the things they want - the things everybody involved wants - reading as a comfortable and efficient gateway to pleasure, information and life.

Key questions involved are discussed in 3970-3971 rshow55 8/24/02 6:44pm and

rshow55 - 01:21pm Aug 27, 2002 EST (# 3999 of 4001)
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.

C.P Snow speaks of

“ . . . the prime importance, in any crisis of action, of being positive, and being able to explain it. It is not so relevant whether you are right or wrong. That is a second-order effect. . . " Science and Government, Ch 11.

We can learn some things about induction that make the issue of right and wrong less of a second order effect. Both practically and morally. The moral and practical senses are linked. We need judgement - and we need procedures for making judgements - and judging how much we can trust them.

I listen to this sermon from time to time, and recommend it (especially the last nine minutes - most especially the last minute" - to people who want to think about how close and compelling the link between the practical and moral sense of "right and wrong" can be. http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html

In matters of life and death. And in matters that waste lives and, one way or another, blight the lives of us all.

. Mayor Bloomberg's Test: Teaching the Teachers How to Teach Reading by BRENT STAPLES http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/23/opinion/23FRI4.html

Pardon me for moving slowly.

rshow55 - 03:51pm Aug 27, 2002 EST (# 4000 of 4001)
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.

When stakes are high, solutions need to be beautiful - and part of that is being practical - practical enough to be graceful.

Things that really DO make sense (technically, aesthetically, and emotionally, too) make good stories.

How a Story is Shaped

Basic Narrative Structure
Is the Pattern Consistent?
Is This Always How It Works?
What Else Follows this Pattern?
. . http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/ducksoup/555/storyshape.html

When we work to sort things out, and come to a "solution," what are the odds that it is a good one? What are the odds that there may be a better one - perhaps a solution that would produce a much better outcome?

What are the odds that there may be much better outcomes even in fields that have been "worked to death" -- where a lot of people have tried hard, for a long time, for high stakes? (Reading instruction is an example.)

People need to be able to think about these questions. Not only intellectually, but aesthetically and emotionally, too.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense