New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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?

jqb00 - 06:38am Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2120 of 2126)

rshowalter 4/9/01 8:46pm

Thanks for your helpful comments.

You might also try talking to Gregory Chaitin, whose work you show some interest in and someone else whose interest in the unthinkable has produced yet another recharacterization of mathematics in the spirit of Godel. His web page is http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/ and his email address can be found there. If you sent him a succinct (not your strong suit) synopsis of your work, I'm willing to bet that he would give you his honest appraisal.

rshowalter - 07:00am Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2121 of 2126)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Chaitin's been helpful to me before. And he's looked at the math -- and I should contact him again pretty soon.

We've been in converstation and correspondence pretty recently.

Thanks -- Greg Chaitin is a man I very much admire -- and recently he's gotten some well deserved good press in the NEW SCIENTIST.

And my work is being checked, and will have, in huge measure thanks to the NYT, a chance to be presented for peer review, and propagated through the culture through ordinary usages, after getting past a major paradigm conflict impasse, with much appreciated help from the NYT, and especially these forums.

rshowalter - 07:04am Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2122 of 2126)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

jqb00 4/9/01 5:43pm makes interesting comments on issues important to the credibility of my arguments, and the reasonableness of my posting in these forums.

On the issue of "did either Clinton or Putin post in this thread" -- I can't be sure, but the letter I wrote to the CNN associate, copied here without giving the man's name rshowalter 4/8/01 8:30am was adressed to a person associated with Ted Turner -- who could, if he wished, find out whether I was right or wrong. So I wasn't making an uncheckable claim, but rather a checkable claim.

And by posting that letter here, I thought I might be (on my assumptions) letting Russians know of a chance for "common ground" in a discussion.

Making claims, believed to be true, to people able to check them, seems to me to be fair play.

On the question of whether postings of Sept 25, 2000 from rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am to rshowalt 9/25/00 5:28pm involved Bill Clinton as "becq" -- Lunarchick thinks so, for reasons I know, and some I don't. I think so. And we could go into the question, in detail, if you wish. We can discuss similar questions with respect to some Guardian Talk postings, where the issue is less ambiguous. But these are checkable things. The NYT people who monitor this thread know whether "becq" was Clinton or not, and have had plenty of chance to correct me in my suppostion, repeated pretty often on this thread.

There's a fiction that nobody reads these threads -- but sometimes I suspect that people do. If Bill Clinton, or someone under his control, wrote to me, or posted here in a traceable way, that Clinton was not "becq" I'd stand corrected. Vladimir Putin (who I find myself very much admiring) could do the same, or have one his people do so. Then I'd stand corrected.

jqb00 - 07:23am Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2123 of 2126)

The NYT people who monitor this thread know whether "becq" was Clinton or not, and have had plenty of chance to correct me in my suppostion, repeated pretty often on this thread.

First of all, it's "beckq", not "becq". And "the NYT people" have no reason to comment on your suppositions one way or the other -- and indeed haven't. As for "standing corrected", when almarst_2001 states that he is a Russian ex-patriot living in Boston, you disbelieve him. Either he is Putin, in which case Putin is not a trustworthy source of either "correction" or affirmation, or he isn't Putin ...

But really, the claim is simply ludicrous, and the suggestion that both Putin and Clinton have interacted with you here borders on megalomania.

rshowalter - 08:54am Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2124 of 2126)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

It can be checked. And it is clear that it can.

Assertions of "ludicrous" aren't especially helpful.

I could be wrong. The matter can be checked.

People tell social lies all the time, in all sorts of discourse, and that is especially common, and understood, on these threads.

I could be wrong. The matter could be checked -- and very easily checked by Ted Turner, for example. Or checked by NYT people.

It is very often, and very generally, considered to be "adequate" to make status laden statements -- on matters that can be checked.

It isn't "morally forcing" to check on whether Putin and Clinton have posted here.

But I believe I have made some points here, where checking should be morally forcing.

(2 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense