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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?

rshowalter - 06:46am Apr 24, 2001 EST (#2547 of 2554)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

At the same time, people enmeshed in lies, of their own making, and of their social group's making should not be permitted to keep "raising the stakes" in a more-and-more corrupt, more-and-more insane, more-and-more damaging evasions of the truth.

Our military-industrial complex seems to have done this, about many things, for a long time.

The problems should be fixed, and some just accomodations, involving Americans, and the whole world, need to be found.

That will take time, and care, because the situation is so complex, even though some parts are simple.

For instance, missile defense, as it has been sold, and as it is being sold, has no technical merit at all.

Even so, many of the people, and many pieces of the work, do have merit. They should be saved.

But not permitted to corrupt the world. Not permitted to risk the destruction of the world.

possumdag - 09:03am Apr 24, 2001 EST (#2548 of 2554)
Possumdag@excite.com

It all sounds very obvious!

possumdag - 09:37am Apr 24, 2001 EST (#2549 of 2554)
Possumdag@excite.com

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee820a9/0

rshowalter - 12:22pm Apr 24, 2001 EST (#2550 of 2554)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

possumdag 4/24/01 9:03am I believe that the historical figure I once hoped most to emulate, Thomas Edison, used "obvious" in the way you're using it. His ideal, when the time came to focus a new invention into being, step by step, was to find the "obvious" thing.

The fact that the Patent Office of his time could reject an application as unpatentable because it was "obvious" always frustrated and outraged him.

Edison told people working for him (who he encouraged to invent, too) that the key question an inventor had to ask, again and again, step by step was

" What is the most obvious damn thing I can possibly do -- right here?"

The "damn" - intended to make his expression as low-down as possible, was intentional, and well considered in the above phrase.

I think when Edison said "obvious" what he meant was "beautiful" in the sense Dawn Riley and I have been using it -- the sense in which Heisenberg talked about beauty.

That is -- fit and proportion to the circumstances, in all details.

rshowalter - 12:23pm Apr 24, 2001 EST (#2551 of 2554)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I'm hoping to make an "obvious" point, that I've been trying to phrase well for days, helped along by the details and patterns set out in William J. Broad's beautiful piece in Science Times this morning.

The story offers some interesting detail on an interesting question:

"Who thought up this missile defense idea, anyway? What could they have been thinking about?

The answer is, Dr. Strangelove himself -- Edward Teller.

rshowalter - 12:42pm Apr 24, 2001 EST (#2552 of 2554)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Before I start, let me set out a schema, in a form tinged with the sort of "political incorrectness" that often makes things memorable in a low-down sort of way. It is one of my favorite limericks, and perhaps the cleanest.

A (censored) one night in Rangoon
Took a (censored) up to his room.
They turned out the light,
But argued all night,
Who'd do what .. and with which .... and to whom.

As stated, a nice schema-exemplar for unconsummated negotiation among free actors -- and if one is not offended by the language or innuendo -- easy to imagine, and neither logically nor morally complicated.

Here are the last two lines, with with a tense change, so that "do" becomes "done" . Now, the result, though still easy to imagine as an exemplar of human function, is both logically and morally complicated.

(They) argued all night,
Who'd done what .. and with which .... and to whom.

The not yet done is undetermined, or at the discretion of actors.

The present is. For those beyond quantum limits, reality is ... that is, in a sense that is operationally important, reality is fixed, and independent of opinions.

The past, which is the sequence of present moments that are now past, must logically be fixed in the same way.

And yet, for real people, what we can know of the past is a construction. What do we owe to the notion of "truth" in the past -- and why does it matter -- and how do we determine what to believe?

rshowalter - 12:43pm Apr 24, 2001 EST (#2553 of 2554)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

These are essential issues if notions of "right" and "wrong" that depend on facts are ever to be determinate.

Can we, as Richard Garwin would wish "wave a wand --- and make the nuclear age go away?" Clearly not.

But can we find answers that make the risks of the nuclear age far, far less than they have been, and far far less than they are now.

That depends on finding good answers, of disciplined beauty, in terms of facts that are real --- and in an essential sense, that means being able to "nail down" key issues about the facts of the past.

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