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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 - 05:35pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9480 of 9494)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD8740 rshowalter 9/10/01 12:56pm

I believe that Dawn and I are delivering "good news." Which productive professionals, after hard work, are expected to do. The good news (and warnings) includes these things:

Some issues involving the interface between physical modeling and math.

New techniques and insights that make it possible to "talk to the Russians" at a level that wasn't possible before, and to adress, define, and focus problems more than before. So that people have a chance of solving problems that were insoluble before, that can now be solved by hard work.

Explanations of how to address paradigm conflict , a very serous problem

The importance of understanding details if "the golden rule" is to be practical and operational, especially under difficult circumstances.

and

A basic insight about how people function in groups, set out in the first pages of Mankind's Inhumanity to Man and Woman - As natural as human goodness? http://talk.guardianunlimited.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/0 that I believe is essential if people are to more effectively adress problems of complex cooperation, and the avoidance of explosive fights.

ledzeppelin - 05:35pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9481 of 9494)

lunarchick - #9473 "rather he packages and gets paid for self-comment" We can not blame him for doing it for loot?

lunarchick - 05:35pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9482 of 9494)
lunarchick@www.com

Wrong time and place for self-depreciation :) rshowalter 9/19/01 5:30pm

lunarchick - 05:40pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9483 of 9494)
lunarchick@www.com

Alan Jones (Oz) is a professional journalist commentator - seems most often a right winger - here backed by big buisness.

The best Oz station is public : http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/

rshowalter - 05:42pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9484 of 9494)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I know a lot of this seems repetitive. It is, necessarily. An absolutely fundamental fact is that to get ideas focused well enough for action takes a lot of crossreferencing, and crosschecking - - and somehow people "form" connected idea systems out of context.

You can't expect enemies, or people from very different worlds, to sort out their differences, well enough to keep out of each others' way, and even cooperate, with radically less talking than people who work together need to sort out their relationships.

You may not need an unreasonable amount of talk. But it takes a lot of talking.

When people interact successfully, there is a lot of talk, while they're getting ready, if you count words (people have, and word counts are huge). People need this talk.

Want to ASSURE misunderstandings between groups - - enough so that they cannot really cooperate, except in very minimal ways?

Restrict conversation.

The world is full of such restrictions, and we need less of them.

Enough less so that we have fewer and weaker "reasons" to kill each other.

That's not such a high ideal. Arranging it, with current technical capacities, ought not to be beyond the wit of man.

rshowalter - 05:44pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9485 of 9494)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Dawn had a very good idea - - a "thumbnail" summary of the Cold War. Let me find something that's a start . . .

lunarchick - 05:45pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9486 of 9494)
lunarchick@www.com

Then, Showalter, it logically follows that most Americans haven't a clue wrt the foreign policy of the USA in the second half of C20.

From what i see of the American Media they live most often within their nests .. rarely looking outwards. A population of 250m makes losts of home-news ... why question foreign policy.

lunarchick - 05:48pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9487 of 9494)
lunarchick@www.com

Start with an ice block - throw in some barbed wire :)

rshowalter - 05:52pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9488 of 9494)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Americans are "crazy" and "criminal" in some important ways - - in their "ignorance" of foreign policy.

They easily accept leaders "who make Machiavelli seem like one of the angels of mercy."

And the consequences are wrenchingly bad, but fixable.

It is important that the become less ignorant. People in other nation states have a big stake in this.

To get some key points across, it is going to take some staffing. Not so much, maybe, but some.

Let me find a story that I wish a lot of people would read - - even if they would want to reject what was in it.

lunarchick - 05:52pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9489 of 9494)
lunarchick@www.com

CONDI - giving a news conference http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/

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