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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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gisterme - 03:19am Dec 22, 2002 EST (# 6906 of 6923)

gisterme 12/22/02 3:11am (continued)

What single question could we as that connects all those dots?

The one that comes to my mind is:

"Knowing what they must know, and seeing what they must see, why are most of those political leaders apparenty doing nothing?".

Possible answers?

a. They don't care about the economic well-being of their people.

b. They fear that God does not want their people to be prosperous and will punish them if their people become so. (That's almost what's being preached from pulpits).

c. They fear that the requisite widening of the distribution of authority necessary for economic change would threaten their own regimes, power or influence.

d. The religious leaders have much more real control than the political/tribal leaders and the political leaders can't do much.

Unless anybody else can think of some more, I'd have to go with option "c" as the best bet. That's because it best connects the dots in terms of what we know historically about human nature and the desire to retain power.

So if that is the case, could those same political leaders actually be encouraging religious leadership to preach #2 in order to protect themselves from facing up to #3? I suppose they could. They'd probably only have to buy a few influential Imams and Mullahs to accomplish that. If that were what is going on, would that mean that #1 is also true? It sure would.

How about possibility "d"? Does that connect any dots?

Of course if the political leaders are largely figureheads for world consumption, tolerated and held up by religious leaders who are really in control. After all, it is the religious leaders who are the most active. If the political leaders can't do much, what would that mean?

It would mean that option "c" also applies to religious leaders...and that option "d" is redundant.

So it looks like this dot-connecting converges on option "c" whatever is the case.

That is, political and/or religious leaders fear that the requisite widening of the distribution of authority necessary for economic success similar to that experienced in the West would threaten their own regimes, personal power or influence.

"...That message needs to be communicated in a way that works - as a fact - as a piece of checkable information..."

I think that message would fall on deaf ears, Robert, no matter how clear or checkable it may be. Can you imagine why?

kalter.rauch - 03:30am Dec 22, 2002 EST (# 6907 of 6923)
Earth vs <^> <^> <^>

bbbuck 12/21/02 11:17am

...looneychick calls everyone 'George Johnson'.

A "g. johnson" posted very recently in the Science In The News Forum......

You......you don't think...(heh) Lunaritch will...you know..."go postal" or something, do you?!?!?

There's something very wrong going on with the Forums lately with posts disappearing or reappearing later. For instance, when I got to Gisterme's post #6883, and hit the "More" button, all I kept getting was that post ONLY on every next page I asked for. When I went to the thread, however, I could see that some posts from yesterday were gone and ALL the ones from #6884 were marked NEW!!!

I expect the Forums will be going down very soon for "Urgent Maintenance"!!!

gisterme - 03:34am Dec 22, 2002 EST (# 6908 of 6923)

Oops...can't delete but need to make a couple of corrections to the above post gisterme 12/22/02 3:19am starting about half way down...sorry. Corrections bolded.

So if that is the case, could those same political leaders actually be encouraging religious leadership to preach #2 in order to protect themselves from facing up to possibility "c"? I suppose they could. They'd probably only have to buy a few influential Imams and Mullahs to accomplish that. If that were what is going on, would that mean that possibility "a" is also true? It sure would.

How about possibility "d"? Does that connect any dots?

Of course if the political leaders are largely figureheads for world consumption, tolerated and held up by religious leaders who are really in control. After all, it is the religious leaders who are the most active. If the political leaders can't do much, what would that mean?

It would mean that option "c" also applies to religious leaders...and that option "d" is redundant.

So it looks like this dot-connecting converges on option "c" whatever is the case.

That is, political and/or religious leaders fear that the requisite widening of the distribution of authority necessary for economic success similar to that experienced in the West would threaten their own regimes, personal power or influence.

"...That message needs to be communicated in a way that works - as a fact - as a piece of checkable information..."

I think that message would fall on deaf ears, Robert, no matter how clear or checkable it may be. Can you imagine why?

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