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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 - 11:28am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5353 of 5358)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

After the initial wrench of facing some truths, everybody, or at least almost everybody, would be much more comfortable than before. They'd find that there was enough to tend to, about the future, that punishment and blaming, most times, weren't a particularly high priority, so long as things for the future were going well. The very last scene in Casablanca , when Rick and Captain Renault team up, is a nice example of how these things often work. Renault did some really terrible stuff, and the movie makes that clear. But when he started doing things right -- that was what mattered.

If the horrors of the Cold War were adressed, and fixable problems fixed, everybody (including the military-industrial complex) would have plenty to do.

Getting an energy supply for the world, and getting global warming under control are two examples.

Plenty to do.

A very good start has been made, it seems to me.

But nobody ought to be naive -- people should check - when it makes sense. Lots of times, people are too busy, and have to take things on trust.

But when there's reason to check (and anxiety is reason enough) checking should be permitted, not blocked.

As Friedman has pointed out, again and again, the internet is changing some things about the world.

Here is one. Blocking checking is getting harder all the time.

rshowalter - 11:39am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5354 of 5358)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

What won't change are the limitations of the human mind - and limitations on how human beings can deal with each other.

We all make mistakes.

We all have plenty we'd like to hide.

We're all vulnerable in a lot of ways, and most of us, one way or another, are plenty dangerous.

For us to pretend to be harmless seems ugly and irresponsible. Also less interesting and hopeful than the truth.

rshowalter - 11:40am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5355 of 5358)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I've been wondering for a while. What things are there, now, that matter with respect to war, peace, or politics, that really need to be checked, that can't be checked ?

Assuming people are willing to check them.

Not many.

Things are connected together in ways that permits our minds (and latent semantic analysis) to work to get good patterns very, very, very often. We form the right patterns from ensembles of information, considered and organized together. There is plenty of information around, for checking everything that needs to be checked. --

The technology for doing it is here, once nation states are prepared to devote staffs to making sure that they can find out, in ways that can be crosschecked, the things that matter.

midmoon - 12:22pm Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5356 of 5358)

Guy Sorman once raised a question as such "Does the human mind instinctively want the freedom?" in one of his books.

My answer to this question is "yes".

Then I must answer the concept of the freedom in my own mind.

It's very simple. The freedom what I contrieve is the freedom a free democratic and free market economic society gives.

The free democratic and free market economic society is an open society in nature.

In such a society,the free discussions of the people are possible and these in turn can influence the politics and all the systems exist to realize the freedom.

The counter-concept of this is the closed society. This is based on the collectivism.

According to Popperian definition,the type of societies that Plato,Hegel,Marx,Natzism and Fascism pointed to ahcieve are the closed society.

Looking back to the recent history,the USSR and the China were closed societies and the notorious nick names of the iron wall and the bamboo wall given to them tells it very well.

Now the Russia is opening her doors to the rest of the world after the Perestrica and Glasnost,however,its not enough and the economy has been degenerated to the 3rd class one. Everything in Russia is unstable and chaotic.

The China is now also opening doors to the ROWs but just only for the economy.The socio-political settings are still closed and based on the totalitarianism and communism.

Do you think these countries can assume the right role of a janitor in the world class room of nations?

I don't think so.

Why do you disagree the US to be the only world police man?

Don't you feel the necessity of the police man in the dog-eat-dog world society of nations?

If not the US,doesn't you thin that any nation take the role of the police man?

If there must be a police man,I'd like choose the US rather than the Russia or the China.

Somebody said that the China has been a scape goat of the invasions of western countries or the Japan.

That's right in recent history.

But that man forgot the older history that the China relentlessly invaded or tried to invade the Korea,the Japan,the Vietnam and even the Europe.

The China is like a sleeping lion.

If weak,she can be a prey of little hyena,but if strong,she will dare to attack even a mammoth.

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