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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 - 09:35am Mar 6, 2003 EST (# 9507 of 9510)
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.

Lchic and I have been asking for change then - for reframing - because it was necessary then, and it is necessary now.

There is no realistic possibility of good solutions without some change on basic relations between "truth" - "honor" and "legitimacy" - some effort to make these notion more consistent. That would be a major change - but we need to make it - because the consequences of not making it are so predictably chaotic and ugly. I think that may be clearer now than it was 2 1/2 years ago.

8833 <a href="/webin/WebX?14@28.94Meaand4Wg.281821@.f28e622/10359">rshow55 2/12/03 3:16pm</a> contains a request I've made again and again and again.

"If power holders - including especially power holders from other nation states - asked that some key issues be faced - it could happen easily. Unless power from an external source is applied - such things may never happen - regardless of what broader public interests may be.

"In discussion on Missile Defense so far, I don't think I've made any significant mistakes at all - except for one quickly corrected - but without force brought to bear - not a single point has carried coercively. For gisterme , nonsense suffices. Gisterme may, in his turn, have been misled by military officers and contractors who could concede nothing - for essential reasons of their power.

"For us to do better than that - on missile defense and other issues - including much larger issues - ways have to be found to bring some force to bear. The Bush administration, faced with legitimate force asking for right answers - might respond very well.

"It is surely not Bush's personal fault that the US military-industrial complex has been growing - with but little control - for fifty years.

We are now heading into what the TIMES calls a "worst case scenario" http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/06/opinion/06THU1.html - - I'm not sure things are going badly at all, considering. A lot looks good to me - some necessary fights are occuring that may clarify international relations some. But I"m sure of this. Unless people do a significantly better job of facing up to checkable realities about the world and themselves - there can be no really "good scenarios" that actually play out.

9462 <a href="/webin/WebX?14@28.94Meaand4Wg.281821@.f28e622/11001">rshow55 3/5/03 8:12am</a> said this: "In my opinion - the world is close to a transition to real stability - and a higher level of function in human terms.

" I believe we'd be there if leaders of nation states had the wisdom, fortitude and courage to face the fact that there have to be limits on the right of people in power to decieve themselves and others. Limits that put some limits on personal political power and on sovereignty.

"Maybe not severe limits. Maybe not limits applied with great consistency. But some limits. Enforced sometimes. When it matters enough.

rshow55 - 09:37am Mar 6, 2003 EST (# 9508 of 9510)
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.

Just now, the nations on the Security Council ought to do what they think is right - as they understand it - and as the representatives involved could proudly explain their understanding and interest to people now - and people who will be looking at decisions later.

A Fissure Deepening for Allies Over Use of Force Against Iraq By PATRICK E. TYLER http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/06/international/europe/06ASSE.html

The declaration issued by Germany, Russia and France against war in Iraq may go down as the loudest "No!" shouted across the Atlantic in a half century or more.

It may be that other nations are doing the best they can according to an ideal of UN supremacy that is forming - but not yet fully operational - and the US is doing the best it can - within its limits - according to a machiavellian model which still today fits a great deal about the world. That isn't necessarily a bad split - in a time of transition, when contradictions have to be expected.

But we are facing basic problems.

There is a huge tension - a dangerous tension, between the notions that now exist of "truth" - "honor" - and "legitimacy" - and for safety and decency - there is a need to make these contraditions clearer - and to make the tensions less.

An exception handling system that works well has to involve these very basic principles:

. Order

. Symmetry

. Harmony

Usually in that order, though there have to be exceptions. Sometimes you have to mix them up. But if something is to develop (or evolve) that works - these principles, in interaction together, are important again and again. The higher the level of control, the more complicated notions of order, symmetry, and harmony have to be.

And a system of exception handling - or exception handling system trimming - if it is complex enough, or exists in a complicated enough context, will itself involve conflicts, or problems, or situationally inappropriate responses that require a higher level of control.

And so on.

Things sort themselves out into levels - the image in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs by William G. Huitt Essay and Image : http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/maslow.html is a clear, important, and general example of a heirarchical system with controls and interfaces of mutual constraint.

Look at the picture.

There are times when reframings are necessary - because too much is ugly otherwise. We're in a time like that.

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