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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 - 08:46pm Mar 19, 2001 EST (#1195 of 1202)
lunarchick@www.com

I noted in a link (above)

"The stakes are such that right answers are morally forcing."

Yes the stakes are high, but, the 'moral' force has been 'trying' to happen and hasn't for over half a century.

50 years of not getting the message into heads has to be communication breakdown!

lunarchick - 08:51pm Mar 19, 2001 EST (#1196 of 1202)
lunarchick@www.com

An ad for a product can go world wide ... what is the ad budget for marketing a product of renown .. then cp this with the amount spent on MD info .. has the spending been done.

I don't recall an MD ad sitting between the tv consumer goods ads .... perhaps the 'marketing' aspect hasn't been done well or right.

A page with a list of names ... many wouldn't read ... a colourful ad dashed to nuclear winter ... seen and heard ... would have more impact.

Perhaps all the senses need to be wakened to develop REAL awareness in the majority of people.

Shouldn't the UN be running awareness campaignes .. what is the UN ... i noted the former President of Ireland opted out of the cumbersome Organisation saying she'd get MORE done outside it. Noting that HUMAN RIGHTS are a joke among many of the countries that are in the UN. The move to quality standards isn't there on a person to person level .... less so on an MD level ... !

lunarchick - 06:36am Mar 20, 2001 EST (#1197 of 1202)
lunarchick@www.com

One has to presume that Mary Robinson will be working for HUMANITY via a new organisation or via her own means.

An old ref - Putin said: http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/bcsia/library.nsf/pubs/PolicyMemoNo1

Never let a chance go by:

The failure to organise the power supply in California is a symptom on man's incapacity to manage and juggle the known - well.

If same 'mind-set' clowns are monitoring MD ... then Eternity is close to hand!

rshowalter - 07:03am Mar 20, 2001 EST (#1198 of 1202)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

My sense of the odds, after a lot of careful thought -- and a piece of "reality rub in" about the state of control technology that stimulated MY senses, was that the chance of the world blowing up (death for all humans and most higher vertebrates now alive) was about 10%/per year, and more likely to go up than down.

Now, one might think that the risks would be going down - maybe down very fast -- and I hope this is true. But there's another possibility - and it is that this administration - in its internal workings, has a "sign error" - and that, in very many cases, given a piece of feedback information - their response has the wrong sign - so that they respond to make the situation WORSE rather than better.

I think the reasons for concern about this are getting reinforced more and more by actions one can see on the surface from the Bush administration -- one has reason to fear that the average decision hidden from public view is even worse than that of the decisions that we see.

There is testimony, in the submarine inquest - that a sailor did not believe his instruments -- and given a situation where he had some reason to doubt them - did not check what could be checked -- did not do what could easily have been done. Nine people died, in that case. On the issue of nuclear weapons, and MD, the entire world could perish.

It is also worth noting that we are dealing with degenerates, shunned to large degree even within the military culture, who have been "talking to themselves" with little feedback, in great secrecy, for half a century --- and who have been left hanging, for a decade of very rapid technical and sociotechnical change after the missileers asked, as clearly as they could, to be relieved of their duties, and asked to have the machinery built for the destruction of the world taken down.

How degenerate is the system likely to be. Think about every other human organization you have ever known -- what would you predict?

There is much reason for concern.

But also much reason for hope, because this is a problem where large parts of the solution might come into being within weeks. I'm seeing circumstances coming into being which, in terms of everything I can know (a long way short of everything) and think through, seem to be consistent with a truly beautiful, redemptive solution to these problems.

Some people will have to talk to each other. That might take great courage, but human beings often do find courage within themselves, once they understand that an issue matters enough.

lunarchick - 07:08am Mar 20, 2001 EST (#1199 of 1202)
lunarchick@www.com

'once they understand that an issue matters enough'

Interesting to look back through time and pick out which issues did matter, and matter enough to get people talking about solutions.

At what point do people 'march' on an issue ... how do they get to be as scared as they need to be about serious matters such as MD.

Perhaps if, when people paid tax, they were given a breakdown of the cash repositioning, they might feel more involved in the happenings of governments.

lunarchick - 07:10am Mar 20, 2001 EST (#1200 of 1202)
lunarchick@www.com

What were the signs that gave you room for optimism Showalter?

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