New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 02:42pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5933 of 5949)
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.

Casey taught me a lesson I never forgot - that's been both a blessing and a curse to me.

I wonder if Bin Laden and Hussein got the same instruction?

Maybe its time to discuss the matter now.

The lesson teaches some interesting things - hopeful in some ways, but not altogether comfortable, about "what it means to be a human being."

I'm hesitating, trying to be graceful, wondering how to say, out loud - what most everybody "really knows" at some levels - and denies at others.

People don't lie to each other very well - - and yet they do.

People don't lie to themselves very well - - and yet they do.

lunarchick - 02:46pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5934 of 5949)

If 'truth' sits within changing environments ... then the lie may be thought 'true' if the internal environs are muddied and polluted .... that's why truth is subject to change ... new truths for new environments with new 'facts'.

rshow55 - 03:37pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5935 of 5949)
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.

5441 rshow55 11/1/02 12:23pm

In negotiations going on, in rearrangements and adjustments that are going on, we want reasonable endings - good endings, endings as happy as we can make them.

. How a Story is Shaped. http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/ducksoup/555/storyshape.html

For that to be possible, we need to find shared space - shared understandings.

. A Communication Model http://www.worldtrans.org/TP/TP1/TP1-17.HTML

The relations in A Communication Model http://www.worldtrans.org/TP/TP1/TP1-17.HTML are simple, and fundamental if any kind of feedback between human beings is to occur.

. . .

Patterns of feedback that humans can use - once they are established, can adapt to a wide range of purposes. That's one reason why people, who can be so stupid sometimes - can often do many things so well.

Saddam, if the words in Iraq States Its Case by Mohammed Aldouri http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/17/opinion/17ALDO.html were true, could organize a great deal of contact - shared space - and insurance for his regime in a few hours of work. Something people in his regime must know. 5793 rshow55 11/15/02 10:27am Shared space is necessary for feedback - and for any hope of interactions that can really work.

The logic of extermination works without much feedback. Other things take more.

Pardon me if I'm moving slowly. Stable solutions ought to be possible here - if everybody involved is willing, at least if pressed enough, to admit their fallibility to themselves and to others.

rshow55 - 03:41pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5936 of 5949)
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.

The "best possible" endings may, nonetheless, be very bloody.

I don't see any sustainable solution - for anybody involved - in the situation we're now in - unless Iraq really disarms.

If Saddam actually disarms, there are real solutions - a lot of good possibilities open up.

If Saddam chooses not to disarm - the best solution - from my point of view, involves complete military defeat for Iraq - regardless of the cost - though I'd prefer the cost to be minimal if that is possible. That's probably too much to hope for in the event of war. Even so, war may be the best solution possible - - if Saddam refuses to do what he's agreed to do.

(13 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense