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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 - 05:33pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#115 of 132)

One place where the ethical role of media communicators is crucial.

And where the creative challenges are very large, too. There have been times in the past where the truth has been somehow, too weak.

Here is one of the most wrenching ones -- failure to communicate the Holocaust (part of a larger failure to stop Hitler.)

TURNING AWAY FROM THE HOLOCAUST by Max Frankel Nov 14, 2001 ..

On nukes, a similar failure could end the world. We need to better. I think we can.

rshow55 - 05:34pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#116 of 132)

Here are some references, to the Riley-Showalter paradigm thread, Paradigm Shift .... whose getting there? . . . that I think describe, in a new and clearer way, how paradigm conflict works.

306-310: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/360

313-317: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/367

166-167: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/209

" In our interactions, both Russians, and Americans, and others, can have perceptual difficulties that resemble paradigm conflict impasses -- and they can occur, for different reasons, on all sides of a controversy -- so that everybody misunderstands a great deal (and misunderstandings don't match.)

I think that is the case on crucial issues involving our military balances, and especially regarding our nuclear balances. I think it is an issue involved very often when things go badly between us. Made worse, whenever deception also occurs.

Here are more links to the "paradigm" thread" -- of lower priority, but perhaps useful:

26: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/33

93-95: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/118

215-217: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/259

221-222: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/265

261-262: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/310

273-274: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/324

and something for academic folk: 295-297: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/349

One point about such problems is basic.

When a lot of change is necessary it takes a lot of feedback -- and the information being fed back into the situation had better be understood, and better be true.

lchic - 05:36pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#117 of 132)

[ Adelaide dad caught fighting for the Taliban and now a prisoner in the US base in Cuba http://news.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/ ]

rshow55 - 05:36pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#118 of 132)

Story telling , to touch both the mind and the heart, is crucial . . and central to human hopes.

rshow55 - 05:39pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#119 of 132)

So is force enough to get facts straight - - and looked at.

lchic - 05:51pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#120 of 132)

The initial 'stories' read to children most often have a moral

It's a wonder that the 'moral' of the cold war and need to get nukes down has not been put into STORY form for the very young --- why not!?!

How would the STORYBOARD run ......

rshow55 - 05:57pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#121 of 132)

The techniques of Gerald Zaltman might be able to help find some clues - "Mr. Zaltman argues that consumers can't tell you what they think because they just don't know. Their deepest thoughts, the ones that account for their behavior in the marketplace, are unconscious. Not only that, he insists, those thoughts are primarily visual as well."

Penetrating the Mind by Metaphor by EMILY EAKIN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/23/arts/23ZALT.html?pagewanted=all

We would need stories that fit the fears, feelings, and needs that people actually have !

lchic - 06:03pm Mar 2, 2002 EST (#122 of 132)

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/ducksoup/555/storyshape.html

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