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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 - 10:09am Mar 9, 2003 EST (# 9698 of 9699)
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.

9413 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.hkiiaSJI5Ju.843177@.f28e622/10848

9354 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.hkiiaSJI5Ju.843177@.f28e622/10892

9361 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.hkiiaSJI5Ju.843177@.f28e622/10899

9364-5 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.hkiiaSJI5Ju.843177@.f28e622/10902

9419-20 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.hkiiaSJI5Ju.843177@.f28e622/10958

We are social animals, and whatever your theology may happen to be, "a little lower than the angels." Look at Pritchard's notes on Milgram's experiment - and on Jonestown - to get a sense of how wrong it feels, for most people, to go against authority. http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html

We ought to think about the behavior set out in http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html and realize that if we're "wired to be nice" - that is - to be cooperative - that same wiring, without learned exception handling, also makes us "wired to be self deceptive and stupid" whenever the immediate thought seems to go against our cooperative needs.

Once that fact is recognized - - we can sort out a great deal - if we realize that when things are going wrong enough we have to expect ourselves, and expect others - to actually face up to facts and circumstances that feels bad - - so that we can get past messes - and end up with much more agreeable solutions overall.

Some force has to be involved, or ought to be. Combined with a recognition that we are all capable of the kinds of self-deception and imperfect behavior on display now, in sad detail, in some of the doings of NASA, the FBI, and other groups of people.

The same problems of self deception, group deception, and intentional false report are much more troublesome at CIA than at the FBI or NASA - for fundamental reasons. At CIA things are supposed to be hidden. There was a fine magazine section on that in 2001

Introduction: What Secrets Tell http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001203mag-intro.html

And I've referred to the rotting unburied corpses described in one of the articles in that section, Dead Men Talking http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001203mag-osborne.html many times on this thread - these times quite early.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md762_766b.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md797_798.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md918.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/md1541_1545.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/md1767.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md2000s/md2069.htm

In that section there was an article, now deleted, about project naming at CIA that shows how hard the agency works to hide things. I know Casey and others worked hard to hide me.

I think gisterme's Jan 17, 2003 story about the "talking dog" may bear rereading, in a changed context. http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?14@93.i5GBae6A01p^782947@.f28e622/9293

Sometimes there has to be a fight. Things have to be settled. If we could more effectively force agreement about facts and relations - and there are ways to do that would be in the interest of all decent people - less of those fights would have to be bloody, there would be fewer fights - and people could be much more agreeable overall. By facing the necessity face up to the disagreeable from time to time - we could get past a lot of it, rather than stay stuck.

Negotiations at the Security Council might be extremely useful in this regard - not only with respect to Iraq - but historically. I think it would be both just and practical to force the United States government to face some facts, practical and sometimes moral - that we've been lying about. Where there may be some substantial willingness, within reason, to face them.

It would be easier to get (partly persuade, partly force) Iraq and N. Korea to reform if we we

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