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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 - 09:38pm Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2141 of 2153)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Apologies are in the news lately, and I've made postings that have partly been apologies.

rshowalter "How the Brain Works" 1/21/01 5:10pm

rshowalter "How the Brain Works" 1/21/01 5:11pm

That posting includes this:

"Here are good things that I expect to be shown, or clearly disproved.

" A mistake or oversight, more than three centuries old, will be shown so that it can be corrected in applied math, engineering, and scientific applications, starting from about 1690. I believe that the strengthened modeling procdures that will result, and the corrected math to be expected. will produce new opportunities widely in sciences and applications.

" Some basic ideas about memory and information processing in the brain, reviewed in these forums, especially since December 20th 2000, will be given a serious hearing. If they prove to be facts, a major step in “breaking the code of the brain” will have been taken. Advances in neural medicine and cardiac medicine are expected.

" A very completely documented example of a paradigm conflict impasse will be shown, and enough new understanding of these impasses will be provided so that such impasses can be much more efficiently resolved in the future. In my view, this may be the most important contribution of all. Major conceptual impasses are rare, but when they occur, new departures are possible. I believe that if arrangements are made so that these conflicts can be well resolved the net rate of scientific progress will greatly increase, at litle cost. Perhaps as much as double. If this were done, the sciences would also be more comfortable places for people to work.

"If I’m wrong about these things, I may be reduced to a grease spot – and I’ll deserve to be. I don’t expect that to happen.

So far it hasn't.

That posting ends:

" I’m hoping to bring things to fruition, so that I can thank people, and apologize, more convincingly, and in more detail. "

There are now good reasons to think that hope may be coming to fruition. Perhaps gracefully. Perhaps in a way fair to all concerned. Everything considered, not too slowly or indirectly.

I hope this thread has been helpful to the nation, and the world. I've worked hard at it, and hope to continue to do so. I'm deeply, deeply concerned about nuclear weapons, and have been my entire adult life.

But I'm sure of this. This thread has been helpful to me.

lunarchick - 10:01pm Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2142 of 2153)
lunarchick@www.com

deja vu .... the Boston Tea party... can everybody come?

jqb00 - 10:04pm Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2143 of 2153)

It would be big change. But the world is in a mess, in many places because "no one owes an obligation to the truth, when it is inconvenient to someone of status."

Precisely so. But to even hope to bring about such a might sea change you would need to study and understand human beings and how they work.

" Freeman Dyson has said that, while physicists know that SDI was a fraud, it was a great way to get funding. So much for "morally forcing".

So much for morality, if you condone that. I don't.

No, of course I don't condone it! What I am pointing out is that "morally forcing" is a fiction. Just wanting your words to "force" others to behave a certain way doesn't do so. You have no power to force such things. People operate in a way different from how you want or expect them to behave. Am I happy with this? Do I condone it? No, certainly not -- it causes me great anguish. But I acknowledge it, which is the first step to understanding, and only with understanding does one have any hope whatsoever of effecting change.

jqb00 - 10:11pm Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2144 of 2153)

I don't know if the Russian government notices this thread at all, and as jbq00 has pointed out, odds seem against it. Though Putin seems to be doing so well, lately, that it doesn't matter. But if the Russian goverment could really trace some of the "complex cooperations" going on between me and others at the University of Wisconsin, and the history of what has gone on, they might learn some interesting things, about how good solutions can be crafted between old "enemies" under complicated circumstances.

Indeed they might, and well we might wish they would.

But I'm sure of this. This thread has been helpful to me.

A beautiful statement.

lunarchick - 10:22pm Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2145 of 2153)
lunarchick@www.com

On 'this' board it is suggested that any missile launched can be detected and a laser zapper deployed to stop it landing on the USA.
This is under debate.

What isn't under debate has to be the fact that every digit of data can be picked up and squeezed for information by any or all of the 'great powers' ... or anyone with the budget to collect it. We know that a 'bot' can seek out words of interest passing along digital highways to deliver to anyone wishing to look.

The interest of the board has to be an investigation of the techniques deployed by Russia to avoid confrontation with Bush over Missiles.

Putin "Europe is our MAJOR PARTNER" speaking at the GermanRussian Conference in St Petersburg.

Under discussion have been economic matters, matters of security in Europe that involve areas close to the former USSR, comment on NATO, and a push for EU expansion. Russia wanting eventually to integrate into that trading block. To do so it will have to incrementally improve standards so that they are eventually matched.

Russia wants to 'Use good dialogue connected with germans to bring germany to his side and bring Russia closer to Europe over next decades. German move to strengthen with Russia implies dissastifaction with Bush in USA ... ' alexander Rhar(?) commentator.

Putin "Europe is our MAJOR PARTNER" speaking at the GermanRussian Conference in St Petersburg.

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