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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 - 12:05pm Jan 1, 2003 EST (# 7182 of 7185)
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.

Exemplary posting, kalter kalter.rauch 1/1/03 11:08am . By certain aesthetic standards, a beautiful posting. By other standards - ugly.

The story of my interaction with George Johnson, over a long time, might be exemplary, too, in somewhat similar ways.

My sense about you, kalter - is that you try, in every way you can, to "throw a monkey wrench" into sequences that I'm trying to get to convergence, that seem to me to be converging. Some "dither" - when it is small, is useful. But by and large - I do try to ignore you when all I'm getting is nihilism. Or points, that may be important in themselves - that seem nonetheless to be chosen to divert - to keep closure from happening.

Almarst and lunarchick are no sycophants - - thought your word choice, dismissing them as human beings to be listened to, was interesting, and ugly.

Do I think that Gisterme is a combination of George W. Bush and C. Rice? Often yes. That's a guess. I also guess you're employed, in a way gisterme has influenced, to degrade the discourse. From most perspectives, that seems to me to be something that gisterme and supporters ought to be ashamed of. But often, the very best conclusions happen after a certain amount of controversy - and dither can be important.

If my guess is right, gisterme is so much above my level that things I say that seem right to me, in every way I could check for, may be wrong, on balance, at his level. But all I can do is the best I can, keeping promises I've made, and trying to be constructive. If I make a suggestion (on this thread, no one could give orders) and the suggestion is accepted at gisterme's level, that is something I'd be proud of.

Looking back at this thread, my guess remains that, from an actuarial perspective - lunarchick and I are saving lives - probably of the order of 1000 lives per hour we work. Enough to keep working.

I think you're usually ugly, kalter, but maybe ugly in the way that can have its uses.

rshow55 - 12:06pm Jan 1, 2003 EST (# 7183 of 7185)
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.

Lunarchick and I have worked hard to focus some patterns, and believe we've worked out some. Here are two at the level needed to think about exception handling . The golden rule (a principle of symettry) helps sort out a lot of things, I believe. The notion of disciplined beauty (harmony) helps sort out a lot of things, I believe.

(search "golden rule" or see http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/DetailNGR.htm )

disciplined beauty: 5438-40 rshow55 11/1/02 12:00pm

Some other general principles (checking codes) also help. These principles can often be thought of as clarifications of what people or things naturally do - what "the logic of the situation" naturally produces or favors. What is stable and fit to circumstances.

I think these principles can be broadly useful - and hope that some other people will find that they fit in their own heads, too - and use them. I think that may have happened to the notion of "connecting the dots" - an idea invoked much more often than it used to be - and an idea discussed a good deal on this thread.

By the time things are messed up enough that people kill each other, either individually or as groups - some patterns have come into existence that look very bad in terms of the golden rule, or disciplined beauty.

rshow55 - 12:15pm Jan 1, 2003 EST (# 7184 of 7185)
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.

I'm doing some outrageous things (from some perspectives) for reasons that I think justified in the case I'm working on. I'm also doing just exactly what Casey asked me to do - and if there is ever a time where I seem to be acting against the interest of the United States - I've made a mistake - or am making a marginal point as part of a sequence that I feel more than justifies itself in terms of American interests.

Here's a fact - - sometimes there has to be a fight.

Sometimes, to sort things out - a sequence of fights - in the right sequence. Fights about ideas, taken to closure - can save many, many lives, and many other costs. Sometimes there has to be fighting about ideas - with or without fighting that rends flesh. I'd a lot rather be merciless with ideas (including my own) than with people.

Have I picked some fights with the Bush administration? You betcha.

Justified, I believe, in every case. And also - I'm guessing - in the course of sending messages that are being heard, and making the Bush administration a better one - from all sorts of points of view.

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