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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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lchic - 06:03am Sep 10, 2002 EST (# 4249 of 4255)

Military - Plastic money http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0233/gray.php

lchic - 06:03am Sep 10, 2002 EST (# 4250 of 4255)

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rshow55 - 06:55am Sep 10, 2002 EST (# 4251 of 4255)
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.

'Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century' by ROBERT S. McNAMARA and JAMES G. BLIGHT http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/29/books/chapters/29-1stmcnam.html

MD1029-1034 rshow55 4/3/02 4:06pm

The same kinds of things are going wrong - again and again. After a point - there really do have to be fights. But about what? If we could get to closure on facts and relations that matter -- there might be many fewer bigger, bloodier fights -- and fewer situations where whole groups (including nations and groups of nations) get stumped, and stay stumped, for long periods of time.

People see things differently. But not that differently. Very, very often, when people share facts, and "connect the dots" in situations where facts, relationships, and proportions can be examined, and are, they draw similar conclusions.

Condemnation Without Absolutes by Stanley Fish http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/opinion/15FISH.html

There are absolutes - logical patterns, interactions, patterns of belief, action, and consequence - that happen again and again. Absolutes - patterns, that emerge from a certain chaos of repeating circumstances just as the exact patterns of a salt crystal form from the chaotic circumstances of a saturated solution.

We need to know them. And know why, so often, people cannot find them, cannot see them, and cannot use them.

Very, very often, when people share facts, and "connect the dots" in situations where facts, relationships, and proportions can be examined, and are, they draw similar conclusions. Conclusions leading to agreement about facts - and about morality where it ties to specific actions and consequences. But not always.

War "didn't make any sense" at the turn of the last century, and it "doesn't make any sense" now.

There have to be some fights about facts and relations - under circumstances where people don't want to look, and have difficulty seeing - - and unless these fights go to logically decent conclusions - - we can't avoid some bloodier fights.

Americans need to know these things better. So do people of other nations. Iraq, and its supporters certainly included.

rshow55 - 07:16am Sep 10, 2002 EST (# 4252 of 4255)
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.

These are key things to check, patterns that generalize relationships that "condense out of the chaos of human relations" again and again. They are stability conditions. They should be checked, every which way, when stability matters enough to think hard about, for real systems involving real human beings, and real stakes:

. Berle's Laws of Power

. Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs

. The Golden Rule

MD2906 rshow55 7/8/02 6:56am

Think about these constraints, and sometimes "impossibly complex' problems become "simple." And practical.

Technical constraints that are entirely inanimate matter, too.

3740-3741 rshow55 8/16/02 8:59am

2738 rshow55 6/27/02 7:20am

We need to play it straight. 666 rshow55 3/18/02 12:13pm

Maslow image 2749 rshow55 6/27/02 5:18pm

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These things are important, but people don't automatically know them, or think about them. They need to be checked, understood, learned, and taught.

Lchic's simple lines need to be understood, too. They are basic, and people who don't know them should.

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

So do children. So do we all. But when things go wrong -- we need to look and think - even though it does not come naturally. The middle east is full of horrors that look unresolvable unless our simple humanity and fallibility is recognized - and, when it matters enough - decently dealt with.

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