New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 07:24am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10126 of 10135)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

For a lot of purposes, you can take people from the middle ages to modernity in a week's work. If I needed to get some pretty complicated socio-technical cooperation with a mechanic -- on technical stuff - - and he and I'd spent a day or two at the Patent Office searching (and getting a SOLID and dense are of common ground) and we were doing a technical job clear enough to describe according to Patent conventions - - we might have almost no knowledge of, or liking for, each other's minds in lots of ways.

But for limited but specific purposes, we could cooperate well.

rshowalter - 07:25am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10127 of 10135)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

That means that people shouldn't have to starve, and be discards in a world with plenty of plenty, so often as they now do.

possumdag - 07:41am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10128 of 10135)
Possumdag@excite.com

May be that people don't see people as people.

I recall seeing, as a youngster, footage of the liberation of concentration camps. Looking at the stick fleshed skeletons, I couldn't think of them as people. Nor was I used to seeing people_heaped, stacked, and dead.

rshowalter - 07:41am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10129 of 10135)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We need a reframing. On a lot of things. It doesn't look particularly hard to do, step by step, from where we are - - and I don't see any choice.

Sometimes, it even looks to me like it is happening.

We need better judgement, including better judgement about how people work as the animals they are.

We need better judgement on a lot of things. We need to value judgement more - watch for it more.

Being for judgement ought to be as American as being for

"motherhood, the flag, and apple pie."

Now, if judgement is the tiniest bit complicated, a person is likely to be called unpatriotic just for suggesting a little bit of it.

possumdag - 07:44am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10130 of 10135)
Possumdag@excite.com

additional to

motherhood, flag and apple pie

rshowalter - 07:45am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10131 of 10135)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

possumdag 10/6/01 7:41am ... Dawn, you're absolutely right.

And some kinds of judgement have to be taught.

People need to be taught that it is stupid and ugly to imagine that beings that look and act in many ways like human animals are not people.

It takes an exercise of the imagination, and the heart, to say "these are people."

People need to learn what it takes to have and consistently use that imagination.

And it should be expected.

Because dehumanizing is consistently bad judgement.

It is a wrong assumption, and leads to ugly mistakes of all kinds, including terrible moral mistakes.

rshowalter - 07:48am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10132 of 10135)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

possumdag 10/6/01 7:44am . . . .

I've actually had some training and experience with violence, and I find a lot of "entertainment" wrenchingly ugly.

Americans need to face up to the fact that they're dangerous - - and look at the consequences, not least of which is that they need to know that others are, too.

I've been amazed at the immaturity, the excessive fear, on view due to the WTC and Pentagon tragedy crimes, which are only as big as they are.

Maybe adults need guns sometimes. But emotional infants shouldn't have them. A lot of Americans have a lot of growing up to do.

possumdag - 08:23am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10133 of 10135)
Possumdag@excite.com

I suppose the conversation's moved to

Taking Responsibility

Wasn't there a nuclear accident of mammoth proportions with the nuclear power station in the Ukraine? Begs the question, why are they wasting resources playing with missiles - irresponsibly, when resources should be deployed towards the CHERNOVIL clean-up and welfare of victims.

rshowalter - 08:26am Oct 6, 2001 EST (#10134 of 10135)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The controls on missile technology today are, by animal standards , stupid at a number of levels.

. The control logic of the missiles themselves is stupid - - it is amazing how often they miss, and also how easily they can lock onto the wrong thing. (The control logic involves not only circuits, sensors, and computations, but also people.

. . . And many of the decisions about the use of missiles are irreponsible and unwise, too.

(1 following message)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense