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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 - 12:56pm Mar 20, 2002 EST (#721 of 724)

We need both practical facts and moral standards that we can communicate -- and a sense of context.

We need a sense of our adversaries, and our allies, and ourselves, as human beings. (Here's another substitution that clarifies logical structure - when Bush says "evil" he simply means "inhuman -- and to be killed without qualm.")

The idea that intellectuals are weak is widespread - sometimes, to get points to clarity - there has to be a fight. A sense of operationally workable confidence and morality based on proportion -- and an ability to communicate.

I find myself interested in Condemnation Without Absolutes by Stanley Fish http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/opinion/15FISH.html , but with reservations. Some things become very close to absolutes -- enough for good action. Webs of logic -- decision trees, connections - can make MANY probabilities "essentially 0" or "essentially 1" - and human survival depends on it -- we DO know a lot of things, well enough to make decisions. MD669 lchic 3/18/02 11:51am ...MD672 rshow55 3/18/02 1:22pm

Stanley Fish speaks to the ideas that "intellectuals can't make up their minds" from his own tradition:

"The problem, according to the critics, is that since postmodernists deny the possibility of describing matters of fact objectively, they leave us with no firm basis for either condemning the terrorist attacks or fighting back.

"Not so. Postmodernism maintains only that there can be no independent standard for determining which of many rival interpretations of an event is the true one. The only thing postmodern thought argues against is the hope of justifying our response to the attacks in universal terms that would be persuasive to everyone, including our enemies. Invoking the abstract notions of justice and truth to support our cause wouldn't be effective anyway because our adversaries lay claim to the same language. (No one declares himself to be an apostle of injustice.)

"Instead, we can and should invoke the particular lived values that unite us and inform the institutions we cherish and wish to defend.

"At times like these, the nation rightly falls back on the record of aspiration and accomplishment that makes up our collective understanding of what we live for. That understanding is sufficient, and far from undermining its sufficiency, postmodern thought tells us that we have grounds enough for action and justified condemnation in the democratic ideals we embrace, without grasping for the empty rhetoric of universal absolutes to which all subscribe but which all define differently."

But not that differently. Very, very often, when people share facts, and "connect the dots" in situations where facts, relationships, and proportions can be examined, and are, they draw similar conclusions.

And most of the time, most people looking at the same facts and circumstances DO have some broad areas of agreement about what is true, and what is just. Sometimes they have to be forced or pressured to see - but that happens, in various ways, all through society. Often enough, looking at facts is a social obligation.

People connecting the same dots reach similar conclusions - and with decent care - the right dots can be set out for examination by people who need to check. Quite often, conclusions are similar enough for very good action.

The Enron case is an example of what a body of facts, taken together, can do to shape action.

The case of the "missile defense" boondoggle-fraud, and related issues, ought to be another.

For that to happen, world leaders are going to have to care enough so that media, in communication, cooperation, and competition, act to get some facts straight.

gisterme - 01:22pm Mar 20, 2002 EST (#722 of 724)

rshow55 3/20/02 12:56pm

Liked the quotes of Mr. Stanley Fish:

"...Postmodernism maintains only that there can be no independent standard for determining which of many rival interpretations of an event is the true one." (among others)

...but it's a shame that you posted it and then immediatedly poo-pooed it. I particularly like the acknowledgement that there is objective truth, even if nobody knows what it is.

In your attempt to link the Enron debacle and missile defense (two totally unlrelated issues) you said...

"...The case of the "missile defense" boondoggle-fraud, and related issues, ought to be another.

You say missile defense is a boondoggle-fraud; but four out of six successes in the test program make your assertion sound pretty hollow.

For that to happen, world leaders are going to have to care enough so that media, in communication, cooperation, and competition, act to get some facts straight."

What facts are those, Robert? Four out of six is a fact WRT the missile defense test program. Don't you like that one?

If you are aware of facts that the rest of us aren't regarding the BMD, why haven't you posted them in all this time? And if you're not aware of such facts then why do you demand them? There are plenty of facts available about the BMD test program, technical and otherwise.

manjumicha2001 - 02:31pm Mar 20, 2002 EST (#723 of 724)

Press Release from NMD center ? That is a nice way to argue the technical merits of the system.....:-) But a bit tacky, I would say. Don't worry gisterme, Bush will spend that $300 billion for it whether some feeble voices on NYT forum or at MIT calls his & your pet project boondoggle or whatever else theyu can think of.......Just pray that it will actually work when the moment of truth comes, which might be sooner than anyone expected even last year.

rshow55 - 02:55pm Mar 20, 2002 EST (#724 of 724)

"Technical discussion has been pretty dense so far:" ... MD84 rshow55 3/2/02 10:52am

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