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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 - 08:17pm Oct 24, 2002 EST (# 5203 of 5204)
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.

gisterme 10/24/02 7:43pm . . the search facility is back, and if you search commondata - - you'll find a very distinguished sequence of fine postings - that make points that can be checked.

We ought to be at a point where checking is justified - indeed, morally forcing - - - 5117-51119 rshow55 10/22/02 4:22pm

A symbol and synonym for justice involves balance - - - we have to worry about balance in the case of Iraq, and in other cases, too.

Is the United States really blameless for the agony and death in Iraq? How many people, in how many countries, agree with that? (It wouldn't be hard to check . )

International law, and patterns of international order, are being renegotiated . Either that, or they are being undermined.

The whole world has worry which is happening.

If some leaders could ask for checking - - in a way that would validate work by major journalistic organizations - a great deal could be accomplished.

Foundations, in the US and elsewhere, could and would subsidize the work, if that validation occurred.

Tens of thousands, millions and tens of millions of lives might be saved. And the life prospects of billions of people might be improved - - if a few leaders showed the necessary courage. For example, leaders who are, and will be, meeting in Mexico.

rshow55 - 08:40pm Oct 24, 2002 EST (# 5204 of 5204)
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.

4250 rshow55 9/10/02 7:16am

4251-53 rshow55 9/10/02 8:26am

When large news organizations such as The New York Times cannot solve problems by covering the facts about them -- why don't the solutions happen, when they often seem very clear?

. . .

If the NYT wanted foundation support for web digests, and other extensions of the medium, especially in cooperation with other news operations here and abroad - it would only have to ask people in the foundation community - carefully - and with issues of status and protocol handled gracefully.

Would there be problems, operational and ethical, to deal with? Sure. But they could be worked out.

Some of the problems that newspapers fail to solve can be solved - and solutions could be found fairly soon. There would be work required at the level of technique (and the engineers court format discussed on this thread could be a test bed for resolving most of these). But in addition, for particular purposes -- journalistic powers will have to ask for help to supplement their work for valid pubic purposes. They could get that support -- and should.

Not even the TIMES is rich enough to do without such support - or widely trusted enough to do without broader contacts and patterns of cooperation than it now uses.

Missile defense would be a very good prototype for discussion, in part because the "missile defense" boondoggle involves so many of the same patterns as enronation.

There are many other subjects that could also serve that prototyping purpose well.

In the middle east -- both with respect to the Israel-Palestine mess, and the Iraqi mess -- a number of things need to be clearer than the are. With the internet, and resources around, the nation and the world could do much better.

Everybody's opinions could be questioned. But some facts and relations - considered enough, would crystallize to clarity. And everybody within speaking distance of mainstream discourse could, and could be asked to look for themselves.

That's what persuasion takes in jury trials. When it matters enough - "here -- look for yourself" is the standard. People know how to meet that standard quite often - and they could meet that standard more often than they do.

The technical barriers to meeting that standard are less daunting than they used to be, and some of the social barriers are lower, too.

- - - -

Right now "leadership" might occur if reporters from the TIMES, or other major news powers, asked some "leading" and "shaming" questions of some world leaders - and got them to do their duty.

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense