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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 - 07:29am Dec 25, 2002 EST (# 7019 of 7024)
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.

Sometimes ideas can converge easy enough to teach in kindergarten - like this poem , that Lunarchick and I came up with after thinking about the problems involved again and again and again and again and again . . . . . . . . (Dawn did the beautiful first lines - I did the more clumsy last part.)

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

. But when things go wrong
. and knock about
. Folks get together
. And work it out.

I think there's good reason to apply the three bodies of relations below again and again and again as we try to figure out better ways of arranging ourselves, and relations between ourselves.

Berle's Laws of Power
Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs and
The Golden Rule

Considering them in detail, and applied to the details being considered. Again and again and again and again - till something clear and judgeable converges.

I think there's good reason to check our ideas, and change our ideas, so they match what we know. Check them and, when necessary, change them so that the ideas and patterns we choose to apply things that matter do things that we want them to do. That means checking, and thinking, again and again and again and again. In detail.

Most patterns can't survive that checking, that matching, that sifting and winnowing. But the ones that are most basic, that work well, can and do.

On the things that people do that work well - the things that are beautiful - people already do the work to find those patterns, and shape them to fit circumstances. We can do more of that. We have some new tools, so that we can handle complexity better than before -and find new simplicities that are right and good - when it is simple things that are now going wrong, now preventing good convergences - in case after case. We're better at collecting and connecting the dots that we used to be, and have better tools for the purpose - some of them being worked out here.

My faith in God is not at all strong. I'm a doubter. I don't myself see how a human being can do the things a reasonable God ought to expect of him or her - and not be a doubter. How else can judgement occur?

I can't personally imagine a clergyman I'd respect who didn't, often enough, have doubts about the existence of God. I'm sure my grandfather had such doubts, and equally sure that he often felt divinely inspired while he was writing and acting. I don't see anything unnatural or contradictory about either the feelings or the doubts. How could a clergyman serve God well, and not have such doubts? How could a clergyman do his job, and not sometimes have a feeling, aesthetic and strong - that he knew what was right in a specific case of the here and now? I don't think my maternal grandfather, who was a competent clergyman, would have been surprised or uncomfortable with my opinions about these things - and think he might have shared them.

In the ways that matter to me - the ways that I can know about, I feel that Peace on Earth http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/25/opinion/25WED1.html is beautiful - and divinely inspired. It makes a point that is religious and emotional - but nutsy-boltsy, too.

"Have humans ever been able to bring this entire globe to peace at once? The answer is almost certainly not. But that answer is no deterrent to trying to do so.

People have sorted things out before. You don't have to trust me about that. You can take a look at The New York Times

MD805 rshow55 3/24/02 8:49am includes I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/i/h/iheardtb.htm with words by Henry W. Longfellow .

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

lunarchick - 10:55am Dec 25, 2002 EST (# 7020 of 7024)

Diffusion

Ink on blotting paper
or
ink in a glass of water ... diffuses

So do ideas

That so much of the cultures of the world are common within time periods is acknowledgment to this.

Sometimes 'war' is diffused

Othertimes 'peace'

So the question for 2003 is how to diffuse peace across the globe.

What are the common factors that enable peace?

These will relate to good leadership, a common expectation, the availability of the means to existence, a blueprint of National Law, and the continual education - and revision of - to grow people's understanding.

Everyone needs their niche with opportunities for an improved future ... and folks in general are optimistic.

lunarchick - 10:58am Dec 25, 2002 EST (# 7021 of 7024)

http://skepdic.com/refuge/bunk19.html

lunarchick - 11:19am Dec 25, 2002 EST (# 7022 of 7024)

Don't speak for others

Let them speak for themselves

allows a 'voice' for those wanting to take their place in the world

So if we 'listen' to the 'voice' of the general population in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea .... what are they saying - what do we hear?

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