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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?

lunarchick - 11:50am Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9631 of 9644)
lunarchick@www.com

People in Pakistan are getting upset. It's not easy to watch footage of guys beating others with rods as civil strife erupts.

I posted Clinton's speech (to a paid audience, when fundraising for children here, prior to TragicTuesday). In it he noted the value of ONE computer to a community using aged books.

If the people of countries - such as Afghanistan had access to such, with printer, and funded - then they could access knowledge. Giving an opening for them to start to enter the heavenly knowledge kingdoms.

What a pity the money now being outlayed 'wasted' .. couldn't have been diverted to good.

lunarchick - 11:53am Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9632 of 9644)
lunarchick@www.com

rshowalter 9/22/01 11:44am all women are exceptional! All people are exceptional! It's a question of cultivating people to become and be extraordinary.

rshowalter - 11:56am Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9633 of 9644)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Maybe so, but Rice would certainly be on my short list of interesting women to meet. For a number of reasons, including one Jimmy Carter might sympathize with. She's a very good looking female animal.

lunarchick - 11:57am Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9634 of 9644)
lunarchick@www.com

'Seeing the value' may be a marketing term.
'Creating value' a business term.
'Realising the value' an accounting term.
'Developing knowledge' an educational term.
'Getting wisdom' a philosophical term.
'Loving they neighbour' a religious term.

Undervaluing others is problematic.

rshowalter - 12:01pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9635 of 9644)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Rice also knows Nate Rosenberg, the economist, who might have some very useful things to say about interacting with people in the third world, at a time when coalitions, and the possibility of "win-win" arrangements, are important.

For sorting out problems that might make missile defense easier to arrange diplomatically, and also less necessary.

lunarchick - 12:05pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9636 of 9644)
lunarchick@www.com

Showalter, there was an interesting situation set up (tv) which illustrated something i hadn't been fully aware of before. Men are animals when it comes to their subconcious wiring.

A woman sat at a busy outdoor cafe, had her coffee .. was there for twenty minutes. Went away.

The film crew sent her back - this time with a very inflated (though artificial) bust line.

Within a minute the guys at the next table (who never noticed her before) were suddenly over sitting in the chairs next to her - trying to organise dates - with the woman with the very inflated bust - who had previously sat next to them unnoticed.

External appearances can awaken the male in the man ... ventured the woman-actress, back at the studio, as she was removing the padding.

rshowalter - 12:06pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9637 of 9644)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

lunarchick 9/22/01 11:57am

Yes, and undervaluing, and being unable to imagine ways to make more valuable, can often be due to ignorance and a lack of imagination.

And a lack of human warmth, as well.

rshowalter - 12:13pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9638 of 9644)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

lunarchick 9/22/01 12:05pm . . . We're very special animals, but animals, still.

That can be said of women, as well as men.

We KNOW that there are predictable behaviors that animals show, that aren't always smart.

We ought to learn some of the particular behaviors of people, in that regard.

You and I worked out a suggestion, based on evolutionary psychology, and the history of humans as a team-hunting species, that was set out in Mankind's Inhumanity to Man and Woman http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/0

If the suggestion is in fact true, and I think it is, it is a useful thing to know.

I think the point is true, and that we'd all be safer if people knew it. We get too surprised by kinds of horror than happen with monotonous regularity.

Maybe we should be smarter than that.

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