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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?

possumdag - 06:59pm Oct 5, 2001 EST (#10108 of 10135)
Possumdag@excite.com

Science and theology still battle see:

possumdag - 07:06pm Oct 5, 2001 EST (#10109 of 10135)
Possumdag@excite.com

Judgement ? A rich word - didn't the rich opt out?

rshowalter - 08:00pm Oct 5, 2001 EST (#10110 of 10135)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

It is my judgement that I'm too cheerful. Things look too good to me. I feel too comfortable. I've made a damn fool of myself too many times not to know the signs. I think some things are going very well.

That's a good time to be afraid.

Just now, I'm too relieved, I'm not sure that I've been too scared, but maybe I have, - - - and I'm tempted to take some risks I don't have to take -- and do it without enough checking.

And old guy, now deceased, who sometimes spoke persuasively assured me that if I ever told some things, I'd be killed. I'm very tempted to tell some of those things, even though I don't have to.

Also, I haven't read the Qu'ran, and don't know why plenty of smart people think it is better than the Bible.

Will Rogers said

"Everybody's ignorant, only on different subjects."

It is my judgement that I should sleep on some things, and do at least some studying, before making a mistake.

It seems to me that, for people who like sermons, this is a very good one. It is about judgement.

http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html

Out for tonight.

possumdag - 08:05pm Oct 5, 2001 EST (#10111 of 10135)
Possumdag@excite.com

Qu'ran - It was supposedly to be a quality improvement - with more for women, and room for development ... yet, as seen above ... the journey along the path is too often hindered by the 'nature of man'.

ledzeppelin - 12:12am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10112 of 10135)

"possumdag - 06:59pm Oct 5, 2001 EST (#10108)

Science and theology still battle see: Raises the point, do religious bodies take a particular stance on Nukes"

The stance is dependant on what will put the greatest sum in the offertry plates? They are a biz and will go with what ever maximises their income.

However such is life?

possumdag - 05:57am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10113 of 10135)
Possumdag@excite.com

Ledzeppelin thou art a little cynical t'wards one landlord of souls .. ledzeppelin 10/6/01 12:12am#post ... i note in (Thompson's Europe since Napoleon) that the Jesuits enjoyed, thanks to the vatican, a post Napolionic_war revival in 1814, re-instating the Inquistion in Rome and Spain. What would the Inquisition's attitude towards Nukes have been?

rshowalter - 06:34am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10114 of 10135)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The inquisition, even at its absolute worst, would have been MUCH too responsible to tolerate nukes. We've sunk a lot lower since then, and a whole class of people have been nurtured, paid, accomodated, not only to

"think about the unthinkable"

but to

"justify the unspeakable"

too.

It is wrenchingly ugly, and these people now have high positions in the United States, including some in the White House.

I don't think these animals can change -- but people in other countries, I believe, have a right to insist that they be controlled.

rshowalter - 06:46am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10115 of 10135)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There's an extensive literature among the "defenders of the faith" on how to be proportionate, and do minimum damage, everything considered. Ugly assumptions (beautiful logic, though, granting the ugly assumptions -- something to remember.)

But the sophistication of the moral logic of the inquisition, even in Spain, is MUCH higher and more credible than the level among our "experts" in "nuclear policy."

rshowalter - 06:51am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10116 of 10135)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Missile defense is one approach to achieving security. It is to be thought of as a part of a system of security measures, to meet the system of security needs that we have.

That means we have to avoid approaches that cannot possibly work, and find patterns that are consistent with the constraints, including constraints on fact, that solutions have to be fit to.

Moral constraints, too.

MD9978 rshowalter 9/30/01 6:31am ... MD9979 rshowalter 9/30/01 6:48am
MD9980 rshowalter 9/30/01 7:01am

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