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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 - 12:06pm Jan 14, 2003 EST (# 7631 of 7644)
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 had a superb talk with lunarchick yesterday - and I'd been terribly worried that, after I cut her off, we wouldn't be able to get along - for very good reasons. I didn't apologize enough, though I tried. She made a wonderful suggestion - that I do a "toolbox for negotiation" - and I've been working carefully at it. A lot of things look VERY good to me - and people have time, and have to take time. Some things that seem crystal clear can't possibly be, for statistical reasons.

When I said that lunarchick was the most valuable mind I'd every personally encountered - and dealt with closely enough to judge - I meant it - and it seems worth repeating now.

The Koreans have had significant difficulties interacting with both the Japanese and the Chinese for a long while - 1500 years, or thereabouts, it seems to me.

I thought the editorial page today was fine - and maybe I've got a lot wrong - but it seems clear to me that if we take our time - we can craft truly win-win resolutions on a great many problems - on a price that makes sense to everybody decent and reasonably honest who looks at the situation, anywhere in the world. Or the vast majority of such people.

The lead editorial concerned Steve Case. I have a related idea. It is a guess - that stands for a lot of analogous guesses. I've seen Rita Hayworth and Fred Astaire dance in the movies. They were great, in every way I could tell. I have not way to guess whether Astaire and Hayworth ever boffed. I can guess a few things. If they did, it was done in a way that did not put the needs of their movie at unnecessary risk, on balance, as they saw it. If the did, or if they didn't - they interacted knowing that the question was on the minds of almost everyone on the set with them - or anywhere close. They both thought about doing so - pretty clinically - but gracefully as well. And if they did, or if they didn't - - though some details might be unclear even to them - or really accidental at some levels - it was not accidental if they did - and not accidental if they didn't.

If you look at who did what, when, and who ended up in what place, when - and who had what resources - one can often clarify a good deal about what people intended. One also can get clear on what justice - tempered with mercy - and the needs for order, symmetry, and harmony - might be in a particular case.

I can't imagine that the NYT editorial has the essentials wrong about Case. No doubt others can make a very clear opposite case. Sometimes - when things are complicated enough - the truth is your only hope - and there aren't enough "dots" to make everything clear. But often, after enought things have gone around in enough ways - some key things are clear.

Lunarchick suggested that I work on a "toolkit for negotiation" and I'm doing the best I can to try to please her. I'll be a while before I post again - but I'm very hopeful.

rshow55 - 01:24pm Jan 14, 2003 EST (# 7632 of 7644)
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, for absolutely unchangeable reasons - there are no nonoscillatory, stable solutions to complicated human problems. People involved have to be permitted to have the stories that they need to live and work. And different sides have to agree to disagree - and be willing to "argue" about it, whenever it is important for swithching interactions that must occur.

If the Americans and the Koreans are to agree well enough for stability - the agreement must be oscillatory - with each side able to disagree with the other on key points of logic that permit negotiation and communication, between the parties as they are, to continue. The oscillations need to be small and stable. That takes some care and trimming - that can certainly be done successfully if people are careful enough, honest enough, and take their time.

The same can be said about workable resolutions that are possible between the Israelis and the Palestinians - coupled with inescapable interactions between the Palestinians and other Islamic nations on which they actually have to depend. The oscillations need to be small and stable. That takes some care and trimming - that can certainly be done successfully if people are careful enough, honest enough, and take their time.

Sexual occurrances between the sexes in the same species are somewhat similar - and that applies to the human case. For instance - whether Hayworth and Astaire ever boffed or not - or whether they ever joked about it or not - there would be some key disagreements between them that would be necessary for a stable oscillatory interaction between them. If they ceased to disagree - for long - or when it mattered - key flirting interactions between them would be killed - and something beautiful would become something much, much, much more ugly and less flexible. Something like rape. Something like rigid subordination. Something a lot less practical, and a lot less flexible, and a lot less fun, than a well-evolved, graceful, calibrated oscillation.

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