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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 - 02:38pm Dec 15, 2002 EST (# 6657 of 6661)
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.

So might we not find safe ways to resolve problems with a nation that needs to make better connections with the West, and knows it?

Rhetoric like yours doesn't help. The NKs know something about their limitations. They made an effort, as I recall, to "come in through the NYT" and were at least partially blocked. Maybe one of the things called for is some tact.

Maybe N. Korea can't make peace with the US. If it could effectively make real peace with its neighbors - it wouldn't have to.

rshow55 - 02:39pm Dec 15, 2002 EST (# 6658 of 6661)
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.

Almarst , as it happens, I spent most of a (rather depressing) yesterday thinking about issues you raise in almarst2002 12/14/02 3:51pm , set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations more than 50 years ago . . . :

" For instance, the document declares without equivocation that "everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment."

"Perhaps the Universal Declaration passage least likely to succeed with U.S. news media appears in Article 25: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and the necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

How are these "rights" to be converted from ideals to realities?

There are six billion people in the world - most of them very poor by US standards. 1$/day for each person is 2.19 trillion dollars ----- the US GDP is about 4.1 times larger than this - if it was all paid to help the poor - not that there would be any way of doing it, or any reasonable justification for doing it. That would be $4.10/person.

$4.10/person is much more than most people in the world get - but not enough to meet the "rights" of the Universal Declaration you quote.

The biggest problems in the world today are not technical - thought there are plenty of technical problems too. The biggest problem, again and again and again - is that people do not have enough adequate, workably clear - and reasonably voluntary social contracts - so that the complex cooperation that could easily meet human needs (if technology were the only barrier) doesn't occur.

I understand something of the frustration that poor people have - but they have no sufficient justification for anger at the rich - they have not been exploited to any significant extent. Here is a terrible fact. If, by some horrible magic, the 5 billion poorest people in the world died tomorrow - there would be some juicy stories in the New York Times - but functionally, the modern world would scarecely notice. These people are not being exploited.

We need to do much better. But psychopathological fictions that claim that the West has "exploited" the world's poor simply avoid problems that cannot be avoided.

People do not have enough adequate, workably clear - and reasonably voluntary social contracts - so that the complex cooperation that could easily meet human needs (if technology were the only barrier) doesn't occur.

People have barely begun to talk about what those social contracts would take. And what minimum standards of rights and responsibilities might be. (There are no sustainably workable "rights" without responsibilities.) As a practical matter - there has to be reciprocity. And people from rich countries - who work hard, and do honest bookeeping - can't be expected to subsidize lies and insanity. Hussein's Obsession: An Empire of Mosques By JOHN F. BURNS http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/international/middleeast/15MOSQ.html

But we can make progress - and I believe that there are good, practical reasons to believe that many of the key concerns you've raised on this thread, including world poverty, can be much better adressed. A big issue, much discussed on this thread since Erica Goode's Finding Answers In Secret Plots http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/10/weekinreview/10GOOD.html is connecting the dots.

Once people are clear about what problems are - we m

rshow55 - 02:40pm Dec 15, 2002 EST (# 6659 of 6661)
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.

Once people are clear about what problems are - we may be able to do a lot better than we're doing.

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