New York Times on the Web Forums Science

Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 07:36am Mar 26, 2001 EST (#1520 of 1523)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

How comfortable are Russian librarians talking to American librarians? I don't know the answer, but communication and understanding between our two countries must depend, in decisive ways, on our information handling skills, and our ability to crosscheck about meaning.

And we need redundancy -- and large word counts, at some staffing levels. For an essential human reason --- as animals, LSA correllation processes are important to us, not just logic --- and also, when things are said again and again, in different ways, in contexts with common characteristics, but various differences, too, clarity emerges.

rshowalter - 07:39am Mar 26, 2001 EST (#1521 of 1523)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

If the word counts exchanged between nation states are too low, real complex cooperation is prohibitively dangerous, or even impossible.

People talk a lot. Very high word counts !

AND that is the most essential "model" for human communication.

Talking, with visual information, reference to objective common ground, and all the other details.

That is what people do, when their socio-technical cooperations work well. What people do, when they work effectively, is complicated.

But so are human beings, and so are circumstances.

rshowalter - 07:42am Mar 26, 2001 EST (#1522 of 1523)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

But after a lot of talking, the conclusions that work are often both beautiful and simple.

Maybe this is over-simple, but I bring it to attention again, because it seems practical to me - or to be similar to other things, that might be practical. And the world is in danger. rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am

rshowalter - 07:51am Mar 26, 2001 EST (#1523 of 1523)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

If the talking doesn't work, it is usually because there are deceptions involved - intentional or unintentional, on one side or both.

When the facts about the subject being discussed are right, and the assumptions and objectives of both sides are also clear, people usually work things out well.

When there are impasses (and there are many of them in the world) then it is crucial to check facts and assumptions.

Especially if someone involved resists the checking.

When the subject matter itself is important, checking should be morally forcing.

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense