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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?

possumdag - 11:22pm May 6, 2001 EST (#3406 of 3410)
Possumdag@excite.com

Put [ rogue state ] into browser box ... April 2001 was the big month!

rshowalter - 06:10am May 7, 2001 EST (#3407 of 3410)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Nuclear Power's New Day by RICHARD RHODES http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/07/opinion/07RHOD.html

Interesting piece, with a methodological point of particular interest to me.

" At a conference recently in Japan (another nuclear leader, with 36 percent nuclear electricity), French nuclear industry executive Anne Lanvergeon proposed improving the debate about nuclear power by creating an authoritative world database that would assess the advantages and disadvantages of each type of energy in terms of use of resources and economic, environmental and health impact. Measured against other energy sources, (Rhodes feels) nuclear power would emerge at the top of such a list."

Discourse techniques being illustrated in this thread would facilitate that.

rshowalter - 07:36am May 7, 2001 EST (#3408 of 3410)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

gisterme 5/6/01 11:03pm it seems to me that progress is being made, and that it ought to be possible, this year, to radically cut the risk of destruction of the world. Like a lot of people, I'd feel better about things if that were done.

It also seems to me that, within a few years, some messes could reasonably get cleaned up. So that there is more peace and prosperity in the world. With the risk of death by nuclear weapons reduced to a negligible scale.

I'll be slogging along, trying to be clear, but sometimes putting out too many words for most people to want to read. The typical listening day for most people in society is 20,000-40,000 words. Not so much less for babies around people who care about them. People need a lot of words to get to focus. But sometimes, after a lot of talking, and somewhat talk-like focusing in people's heads, and a lot of matching, things focus down to simple ideas, expressed in a few words, that work.

Dawn and I are wordy folk. But sometimes we can be compact. We try to be. I thought my statements between 3376 and 3385 were fairly compact, for instance. Especially
3383: rshowalter 5/6/01 8:36pm
3384: rshowalter 5/6/01 8:37pm
3385: rshowalter 5/6/01 8:41pm

I think it is a time for hope. But also a time where people should take their time, on issues where ideas connect to enough things that it is important that people come to feel right about them rshowalt 9/25/00 7:36am

rshowalter - 07:37am May 7, 2001 EST (#3409 of 3410)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

One thing I'd like to emphasize now, again, because it is simple but applies very widely, is this: life is complicated, and so are people -- and the complexity of real sociotechnical systems is so great that people are almost always near the limit of what they can handle or understand, when they try to work through anything really unexpected or new.

The world is much too complicated for us to predict. Under these circumstances, deception and lies are dangerous, because one can never know when a lie will have an unanticipated disastrous effect, when somebody trusts a falsehood as a truth.

For the world to go on, and get safer, and more comfortable, and more prosperous, we need to find ways, more of the time, to send in clear.

rshowalter - 07:38am May 7, 2001 EST (#3410 of 3410)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We can hope that good things can sometimes come to us in the future, as good things have sometimes happened thoughout earth's long past. And maybe, now, there are some new opportunities.

rshowalter "Science News Poetry" 2/13/01 6:28am
rshowalter "Science News Poetry" 2/13/01 6:39am

If we take care, and don't screw up.

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