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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 - 07:48am Jul 31, 2001 EST (#7635 of 7772)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

On February 21 I wrote this, and I'm modifying it a little and setting it down here, because I think it connects sharply with problems before us. Some of the passages cited summarize very hard work that Dawn Riley and I have done together beginning in July of last year. MD741 rshowalter 2/21/01 3:44pm

The problems of "paradigm conflict" - systematically different views of the same facts, from different human groups, seems evident in nuclear defense. We and the Russians do not see eye to eye -- and the differences can be garish and dangerous. We need to acknowledge that these differences are real, try to resolve some of them, and endeavor to live with the others. (There's been some progress making these differences more clear, on this thread.)

Dawn Riley and I have done a great deal of work getting a better understanding of paradigm conflict than we believe existed before. I feel it is directly relevant to the problems of nuclear policy (and issues of military balances) - which are in a state of dangerous paradigm conflict impasse.

Paradigm Shift .... whose getting there? .... Summary http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/360

Paradigm Shift#300 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7726f/354

......... and especially a distinguished article about bureaucratic frustration, and chain breakers A Lost Cause ..... by John Kay http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/highlights/essay_kay_lostcause/index.html

CHECKING is an essential, difficult issue in paradigm conflicts:

Especially where power relations are involved, checking must be MORALLY FORCING http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7726f/369

Specialized institutional responses to the impasse problem may be needed. An approach is suggested in http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7726f/365 that connects to an argument I made in Science In the News 381-383) rshowalt "Science in the News" 1/4/00 7:43am

If some basic facts could be checked, especially about the existence and dynamics of mistrust between our nation states, the problems of nuclear terror, and related issues of missile defense and military balances, may find solutions of disciplined beauty.

The requirements of that checking are small compared to the stakes, but they may, given the barriers, involve some institutional responses. There have to be ways to get things to closure.

lunarchick - 08:22am Jul 31, 2001 EST (#7636 of 7772)
lunarchick@www.com

The Hubble Wars

complexity - http://www.exhibit-services.com/

A Beginner's Primer on the Investigation of Forensic Evidence ~ http://www.scientific.org/tutorials/articles/kruglick/kruglick.html

Tainting Evidence - http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kelly-evidence.html

Mission Statement http://www.enterprisemission.com/mission.html

lunarchick - 08:30am Jul 31, 2001 EST (#7637 of 7772)
lunarchick@www.com

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~lawf0013/MTlectures9-10.htm
Right accent - Irish
Therefore conviction - long prison sentence
Satisfied popular need - at that time
Court of Appeal overturned the conviction of the Birmingham Six

lunarchick - 08:37am Jul 31, 2001 EST (#7638 of 7772)
lunarchick@www.com

http://www.dromo.com/fusionanomaly/flow.gif http://www.dromo.com/fusionanomaly/alberteinstein.html

"A human being is part of the Whole...He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest...a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security." - Albert Einstein

lunarchick - 08:52am Jul 31, 2001 EST (#7639 of 7772)
lunarchick@www.com

Oz: Scientific Evidence - wasn't: Dingo-baby-case http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00002E22E.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif http://us.imdb.com/Title?0094924

rshowalter - 08:54am Jul 31, 2001 EST (#7640 of 7772)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Sometimes, the broad need for human good and safety can be achieved by focusing tightly on narrow, key facts.

There are issues of engineering --- about controls, about equations, about the way computer programs get slower and slower with increasing complexity -- that may be uninteresting in isolation -- but that bear on wider points.

The entire missile defense program, considered as a whole, with few relatively unimportant exceptions, is fraudulent at the levels military conduct takes - and the responsible people involved have to know it. And the fraudulent nature of missile defense is part of a military-industrial complex that is now, and has long been, corrupt, incompetent in crucial ways, and murderous.

For the safety of the world, and the honor of the United States, certain facts, some "too detailed" from many other points of view, matter a great deal.

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