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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 - 12:42pm Sep 24, 2001 EST (#9838 of 9844)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Once things get complicated enough, aesthetics becomes indispensible, and the connection of aesthetics to assumptions about values become important.

Issues of quantity - - of "how much?" . . . of balance . . . naturally and unavoidably arise.

And these matters, of existence, classification, and quantity, require checking to things outside the internal logic, if mistakes, including very ugly ones, are to be avoided.

How on earth can these things be reliably determined without checking them against what they are supposed to stand for?

Many times, to deny checking is to deny all hope of a decent solution, or a safe one, to any problem that involves new decisions and change.

rshowalter - 12:45pm Sep 24, 2001 EST (#9839 of 9844)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I haven't counted or searched all the different ways that checking about missile defense issues has been denied in the discourse of this thread. But they are many.

And because checking is ruled out, a totally nonsensical fraud and waste of resources persists, making good things that might otherwise be possible impossible.

And shielding a pattern of problems that is endangering and degrading the United States, and the whole world.

lunarchick - 02:51pm Sep 24, 2001 EST (#9840 of 9844)
lunarchick@www.com

And Congress, a body that should be checking, cow-tows to demands for cash by the President ... giving open slather.

armel7 - 03:14pm Sep 24, 2001 EST (#9841 of 9844)
Science/Health Forums Host

rshowalter -- Again, please try to allow responses to your posts before moving on and posting more. This should be a forum, not your personal diary of ideas. Oi, 260 new posts...

Your host,
Michael Scott Armel

rshowalter - 04:57pm Sep 24, 2001 EST (#9842 of 9844)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I wrote MD9827 rshowalter 9/24/01 9:38am . . intending it for almarst.

" You'd have to explain some key things to the American people . . .

"And explain things to other people, and get some facts checked to closure, and explained to the high standard that persuasion actually takes.

The question of getting things checked to closure, and getting solutions to problems of military stability, has been a key subject of this thread since the beginning.

The problem of terrorism complicates the situation a little, but I believe that the means that would be needed to deal with the complexity involved, and find workable solutions, could be handled, to a large extent, by journalistic organizations working together with interested nation states.

The subject has been a recurring theme on this thread, and I think that it would make sense, it any staffed organizations are looking at this thread, to look at citations in reverse chronological order, placed as they were in the context of this forum. Here are those links, to postings I've read and think worth considering, as we face up to the opportunities and perils that we are facing now.

MD8331 applez101 9/2/01 2:59pm ... MD8332 rshowalter 9/2/01 2:59pm
MD8333 rshowalter 9/2/01 3:09pm ... MD8347 rshowalter 9/2/01 5:09pm

MD8294 rshowalter 9/1/01 12:39pm ... MD8296 rshowalter 9/1/01 1:39pm
MD8297 rshowalter 9/1/01 2:11pm ...

MD2916 rshowalter 5/1/01 5:59pm ... MD2917 rshowalter 5/1/01 6:05pm

MD2064 rshowalter 4/6/01 1:42pm ... MD2065 rshowalter 4/6/01 1:43pm
MD2066 rshowalter 4/6/01 1:43pm ... MD2067 rshowalter 4/6/01 1:44pm
MD2068 rshowalter 4/6/01 2:01pm ...

MD2008 rshowalter 4/5/01 2:15pm ... MD2009 rshowalter 4/5/01 2:17pm
MD2010 rshowalter 4/5/01 2:21pm ...

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