New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 04:52pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9677 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

You'd need some intervention, with good sense, right at the top of Maslow's pyramid, but with full understanding of the rest, too.

If there was one message that I'd start with "hiding in plain sight" - - whether I was doing a "religious interpretation" happy ending, or a "bright idea in the nick of time" happy ending - - I'd start with this basic insight. Everybody knows it, sort of, but somehow, they don't quite know it.

People are ANIMALS.

lunarchick - 04:52pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9678 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

Pulling this back to current world system then ... one might figure out where there are deficiencies regarding need - working with Maslow.

lunarchick - 04:54pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9679 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

People are ANIMALS.

People are more than animals. Animals don't hit the higher wrungs of the Malsow ladder.

rshowalter - 04:54pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9680 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Mary Poppins always knew that people were animals. Fallible, limited, sometimes silly ones, too.

And she'd find ways to accomodate that, that worked better than before, without anybody losing any of their basic flaws and limitations.

lunarchick - 04:56pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9681 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

Life's a jolly holiday with Mary

Suggests that the child within wants a secure base from which to venture forth - into an interesting yet safe world.

rshowalter - 04:57pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9682 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

lunarchick 9/22/01 4:54pm . . it is true we're special animals - - and that very new ways of being come with being human - - but the animal parts are all there, too. And at the levels that make the world ugly, and could destroy it, those animal levels are basic. And our denial of our animal levels is basic.

Maybe in this way, especially. Human beings are very strange animals, when it comes to the way the deal with fear.

We're plenty afraid, but we don't admit it to ourselves and others, very well. And man may be the only animal there is who, if you scare him enough, is likely to run at you - - likely to fight you - - rather than run away.

rshowalter - 04:58pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9683 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

lunarchick 9/22/01 4:56pm we all want a secure base.

lunarchick - 05:00pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9684 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

Likely to lob a nuclear bomb at you ... suggesting that the phrase

too smart for his own good

is based on reality. rshowalter 9/22/01 4:57pm

lunarchick - 05:03pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9685 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

too smart for his own good

really means stupid. So during the last century and the new, the failure to look at the world via ecology accounting - has been the greatest failing.

rshowalter - 05:04pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9686 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

So "smart" as to be capable of astonishing stupidity by animal standards.

What other animal really lives in a conceptual and culturally constructed world?

And has to learn most of what she "knows" from hearsay?

(Doubt that? -- someone reading this is likely to know and use 100,000 words. How did you learn them?)

We are much more complicated conceptually, and more committed to our concepts. . . and it can get us into trouble.

(20 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense