New York Times on the Web Forums Science

Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 04:34pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#107 of 120)

lchic 3/2/02 4:23pm the internet offers new possibilities of resolving all sorts of frictions involved in the areas you so perceptively list.

Sometimes, the internet, with its multiple ways of presenting material, can span cultures.

Sometimes, when things are "right before the eyes" and direct comparison is easy and repeated, the "will to make sense" outweighs prejudices, or biases of National Will.

The internet relaxes old constraints of timing .

It can sometimes substitute to some degree for the richness of face-to-face discourse (though never completely).

The multiple and simultaneous approaches the internet permits give many approaches that may appeal to different mental attitudes.

The clarity if the internet, and minds working on the internet, can illustrate things, and provide understanding, logical and statistical.

But no matter how you try, it is always difficult to deal with personal agendas working against when the stakes are high.

A challenge is to find win-win approaches. Often they're possible -- and the bigger the mess, the more likely it may be that they are possible.

rshow55 - 04:38pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#108 of 120)

almarst-2001 3/2/02 4:32pm . . . they might be able to think of other uses for that 3 billion dollars. The US Space Telescope project -- a beautiful contribution to human knowledge - has cost less than 3 billion dollars so far, as I remember.

What a lot of negotiation, and clarification - you could get for 3 billion dollars!

lchic - 04:54pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#109 of 120)

Australia bought f18's from 'the west' (USA) .. they don't 'fire' ... won't until 2004 ... the contractor who was to do the upgrade on the second-hand 'copters has business troubles ...

Much of the USA 'discarded' equipment is high priced - non-functional rubbish.

A challenge for upgraders - the second-hand subs were a fiasco here.

rshow55 - 05:02pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#110 of 120)

lchic 3/2/02 4:29pm . . we need some new understanding , too --- and I'm speaking in analytical terms, not emotional terms, though emotion counts, too.

People have thought hard, and tried hard, to achieve nuclear disarmament -- thought they were making a lot of headway -- and gotten things wrong. For reasons that haven't seemed to make sense to anybody involved.

We're dealing with some profoundly irrational forces here - - and we don't understand them well enough to get them in line, as yet.

Nukes make no sense whatsoever in military terms -- and people have been paralyzed. We've made some progress, but some things are still missing.

I'm not sure all that much is missing any more - - things may be pretty hopeful.

It seems to me that we need some force -- devoted to getting some facts straight, and explained -- and that after a point sensible things might flow fairly quickly.

I think Ted Turner actually thought, when he backed Rehearsing Doomsday http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/democracy/nuclear/stories/nukes/index.html , that that one TV show would do it. The fact that the program "laid an egg" as completely as it did -- is interesting.

We've got barriers to perception here. The kind that only some force, and understanding, and journalism, can solve.

lchic - 05:15pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#111 of 120)

At the close of the BAFTA awards (UK film) the host impressed upon us that STORIES are important. Stories change the world. Film makers tell Stories. Everyone should believe and practice the art of Story Telling because STORIES can CHANGE the world - for the better.

lchic - 05:17pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#112 of 120)

Do the missiliers think that most Americans have forgotten that they remain in missile silos on alert?

"They have. I'm sure they have," another missilier responds. "They have forgotten. There's a lot of Americans that don't realize we're still pulling alerts 24/7. Every single day we're down there defending this country."

lchic - 05:24pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#113 of 120)

So, if it's important to keep on telling stories, then it's important to keep on telling this same doomsday story - until the message gets 'home'.

When the message really gets across .....

How to make the message 'really get across'

How to make people 'own' the message ...

Take on personal responsibility for 'the message' ..

To the point of them wanting to RESOLVE the problem

Perhaps people believe they put others in power to clean up messes ...

If so why don't they ask what's being done about missiles and why 'nothing'!

lchic - 05:26pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#114 of 120)

Is this where media commnicators assume an ethical role?

(6 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense