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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 - 04:34pm Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9573 of 9581)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

When people do so many things so well, and so comfortably, messes this ugly shouldn't happen, and shouldn't be permitted to persist.

But with the massive fraud of missile defense, American style, "hiding in plain sight" so blatantly, how can we be surprised?

If no one has a right to check anything that matters - - there is plenty of room for what would otherwise be a surprising amount of fraud and horror.

rshowalter - 05:25pm Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9574 of 9581)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

HOW MUCH questions are essential, if people are to face the world as grown ups. Including some essential "how much" questions of morality and aesthetics.

At an early level in dealing with "how much?" questions, , one checks by matching, and sorts by "more" and "less." When that process is corrupted, there are difficulties and dangers.

MD342 rshowalt 9/29/00 12:12pm ... MD683-684 rshowalter 2/13/01 4:43pm
MD756-758 rshowalter 2/22/01 6:49pm ...

Some of the pathological mistakes in missile defense logic trace from a corruption of logic that is basic, at the level of "more" and "less." People sometimes seem to have turned away from any obligation to judge quantitatively at all.

rshowalter - 05:28pm Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9575 of 9581)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

In a humanly real sense, the unthinkable has already happened, and we have to deal with psychological rigidities and denials that come with that. I feel that the logic of missile defense is very much connected to assumptions that stem from that rigidity.

MD797 rshowalter 2/27/01 6:27pm ... MD798 rshowalter 2/28/01 2:47pm
MD4471 rshowalter 6/3/01 6:21pm ... MD7224 rshowalter 7/19/01 11:40am ...

rshowalter - 05:38pm Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9576 of 9581)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Some simple notions about matrices, or other "patterns of interconnection."

MD1431-1433 rshowalter 6/18/01 1:05pm ... MD2829 adiamond1 4/30/01 2:19pm
MD5361 rshowalter 6/18/01 1:05pm ... MD7969 wrcooper 8/21/01 9:23pm
MD7970 rshowalter 8/21/01 9:38pm

Change coefficients, weights, for the same pattern of interconnection, and answers (and significances) can change.

This thread is itself a "pattern of interconnections," but with the interconnections not functional -- because they are considered not worth checking. And so it is not useful for focusing much of anything to closure.

But if the connections were checked, I believe that some worthwhile things would come into focus.

That is, of course, just ordinary human experience. Once connections get made, and checked, things focus for people.

rshowalter - 05:46pm Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9577 of 9581)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

With American so casual about the risks of nuclear destruction, and so casual threatening other people with nuclear destruction, it seems surprising to me that American get so upset about the loss of fewer than ten thousand people.

I wonder, if you'd given 1000 American experts a "thought experiment" question - - and asked them two weeks ago what might happen if three airplanes crashed where they crashed . . . what the answers about consequences might have been like. How many would have predicted the extent of the damage? Given the way we've been "theorizing" about war, including nuclear war, it seems a question worth considering.

Also a question worth considering when "experts" talk about the "probabilities" of damage (or interception of missiles) from "rogue states."

rshowalter - 05:57pm Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9578 of 9581)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I think the world could quite easily end, considering what is laying around, the stability of the human beings involved, and the wisdom of the experts we've been trusting.

Why should people let this happen?

The answer may be distasteful, but it isn't really difficult.

The answer is "because they're paralyzed, and can't check anything, if that requires facing up to power."

That makes it important, I believe, for us to understand the degree of incompetence and fraud involved with our nuclear patterns, money flows, and judgements. In general, and in the more specific, more documentable cases involved with missile defense.

It seems to me that some risks are worth taking.

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