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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

rshowalter - 04:35am Oct 4, 2001 EST (#10061 of 10071)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Very often, if checking is refused, all solutions are classified out of existence.

How on earth could you find them?

That is why I've been asking for checking on missile defense and tightly coupled issues necessary to understand "missile defense" in practical terms. There isn't any way to sort some key things out without doing some checking.

MD9600 rshowalter 9/22/01 7:33am ... MD9601 rshowalter 9/22/01 7:35am
MD9602 rshowalter 9/22/01 7:53am ... MD9603 rshowalter 9/22/01 8:07am ... MD9604 rshowalter 9/22/01 8:09am

I'd like to repeat the points in MD1060 rshowalter 10/3/01 3:19pm ... above.

gisterme?

kangdawai ?

I'd like to add another point - - I'm sure it is a point that everybody really knows and agrees with. To check things, to have enough information to make good decisions, you need memory. An "official policy of forgetting" or "unwritten rules forbidding reference to "old news"" may have emotional reasons for being, but the danger of forgetting, when human stakes are involved, needs to be taken into account, too.

rshowalter - 10:44am Oct 4, 2001 EST (#10062 of 10071)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Checking is necessary but not sufficient for good solutions.

Once a system reaches a certain level of complexity, simple rule based decision making, and decision making based on simple yes-no answers becomes unacceptably clumsy and expensive.

A time comes when solutions require balancing, require decisions where matters of "how much?" become essential.

We're well past that time, and there are too many cases where we're applying "invariable rules" to circumstances where they produce crude, cruel, or otherwise stupid answers.

A time comes when judgement is indispensible. There's a good story about that, and some perspectives about bombing, in this sermon, delivered last year to a very heavily moneyed, Republican, but "liberal" Baptist church. Setting aside the religious argument (much in the first 3 minutes) James Slatton makes a key argument for judgement that I think ought to be considered more heavily, for the compelling practical and moral argument that it is. I like the last 30 seconds of the sermon especially. http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html

rshowalter - 12:15pm Oct 4, 2001 EST (#10063 of 10071)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The motivations behind missile defense, in our dangerous and ugly world, include some plainly serious ones.

Russian Passenger Plane Crashes After Explosion By REUTERS http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-russia-crash.html

As others mourned our losses, I hope people all over the world will sympathize with Russia about this tragedy - - which may have occurred, in part, because Russia stands with us, and others in the world, against terrorism.

possumdag - 04:42pm Oct 4, 2001 EST (#10064 of 10071)
Possumdag@excite.com

Would an emphasis on the Afghan 'Poppy-product' component of this terrorism, shift the paradigm from religious-fundamental-fanaticism (take it out of the equation) to DrugLord/Barrons with Evil-Greed motivational strategies.

rshowalter - 06:57pm Oct 4, 2001 EST (#10065 of 10071)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Anything that is TRUE and BALANCED that can show the world, and people in Afghananstan, and even the Talaban themselves, how ugly the standards and decisions of the Talaban and Bin Laden are -- would help. Because power is based on a systems of ideas that work for people. It seems to me that the idea system of the Talaban, when you look at what it does to people, ought to be discredited from many points of view.

How could God like what they've become, and what they do?

But the arguments used against the Talaban and Bin Laden have to be TRUE, and decently balanced.

That shouldn't be much of a limitation. The Talaban have made the world a colder, uglier, crueler place - and their arrogant, cruel ideas should be discredited.

That would be easiest to show if WE were as honorable, consistent, and competent as we could be.

Almarst's questions about the definition of terrorism are on point here. If we wanted to stand against all forms of terror - - we might have an easier job getting rid of the particular forms of terror given haven in Afghanastan.

The kind of defense needed to defend against the Bin Ladens of this world, if really effective, would defend us against the terror of weapons of mass destruction, too.

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