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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 - 02:00pm Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9362 of 9367)
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.

It seems to me that a lot of things might work out well - though things seem precarious.

They'd work out better, it seems to me, if some responsible people searched "almarst", "almarst2002" and "almarst2003" on this thread - and looked at a lot of good stuff he's posted.

There's a lot of good stuff by gisterme , too.

Ugly as things are - compared to patterns of past centuries - or anytime in the 20th century - things seem to me to be going well. With just a little luck - maybe very well. Maybe I'm really screwed up - I'm feeling hopeful. There's some ugliness - but maybe it doesn't have to be too bad.

Sometimes - there have to be fights. Things have to be decided. To the extent that we can get ideas straight - get understandings to correct closures about facts - we can avoid a lot of agony and carnage.

There is such a thing as moral wrong.

And there are such things as right decisions.

Some of our most basic operational and moral problems are, in some key ways logical problems - and problems of courage - and a willingness to face facts.

rshow55 - 02:01pm Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9363 of 9367)
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.

One of the first, slow jobs I had when I was relegated to "special education" was to slog through the entirety of Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica , with instructions from Flugge to look for mistakes, big blatant errors - and other reasons the enterprise of mathematical-philosophical analysis had gone so badly. So my first feelings about Russell were not feelings of love.

Still, I've been charmed, recently, to read a much clearer book by Russell . . a book with pictures - and a lot of effort to deal with the problems of exposition the Science Times section handles so well.

THE WISDOM OF THE WEST: a historical survey of Western Philosophy in its social and political setting by Bertrand Russell , edited by P.Foulkes, with paintings by E. Wright. 1959

Here are passages from the prologue:

"There are indeed two attitudes that might be adopted to the unknown. One is to accept the pronouncements of people who say they know, on the basis of books, mysteries or other sources of inspiration. The other way is to go out and look for oneself, and this is the way of science and philosophy"

. . .

"Out of the common activities in which groups participate, there develops the means of communication that we call language. The fundamental object is to enable men to apply themselves to a common purpose. Thus the basic notion here is agreement. Likewise, this might well be taken as the starting point of logic. It arises from the fact that in communicating, people eventually come to agree, even if they do no more than agree to differ. When such an impasse was reached our ancestors no doubt settled the matter by trial of strength. Once you dispatch your interlocator he no longer contradicts you. The alternative sometimes adopted is to pursue the matter by discussion, if it is pursued at all. This is the way of science and philosophy. The reader may judge for himself how far we have progressed in this since prehistoric times. "

Maybe we can make some more progress, still. We need some better answers about "what it means to be a human being" - and those answers don't look so very far away, or so very difficult. If we had them, we could have more fun, be more prosperous, and fight less.

almarst2003 - 02:49pm Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9364 of 9367)

The British taxpayer has unknowingly picked up huge bills for helping to arm Iraq before the last Gulf war, the Guardian can disclose. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,10674,904684,00.html

almarst2003 - 02:58pm Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9365 of 9367)

It is often said that after winning a war you have to win the peace. But there cannot have been many enterprises so subject to justification and legitimisation after the fact as the one that America is undertaking in Iraq. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,904739,00.html

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