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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?
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(10075 previous messages)
rshow55
- 03:47pm Mar 16, 2003 EST (#
10076 of 10082)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click
"rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for
on this thread.
In 10072 above, I've said that, based on some assumptions
about facts and relations - Bush, Blair, and Aznar may have
made decisions and made a presentation of disciplined
beauty . That is, that fit a set body of "facts"
and relations.
What of the validity of those facts and relations?
It is very easy to make the case that they are perpetrating
a travesty - on other assumptions.
What's right?
This is a fundamental question - and under current
Treaty of Westphalia rules - we have chaos - and sometimes
perverse results even worse than chaos. When a time comes to
get closure on facts - we have no workable rules especially
when it matters most. This thread has largely been about that.
9771 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.J3Sca7gK5us.2217022@.f28e622/11313
International law is being renegotiated - and when
agreements are in the process of being renegotiated - they are
also in temporary or partial abeyance
To do much better than we're doing - we have to find ways
to get facts straight - when it matters enough - against the
inclination of power holders. Unless this is done, there is
no solution to some of our most key problems. Good,
stable closures simply are not possible.
Here is Berle: ( Power - Chapter II )
In the hands or mind of an individual, the
impulse toward power is not inherently limited. Limits
are imposed by extraneous fact and usually
also by conscience and intellectual restraint. Capacity to
make others do what you wish knows only those
limitations.
That's plain and straight. Power holders want to
limit the ability of others to determine facts because
that extends their power. It is in the overwhelming
collective interest to see that facts that matter enough are
determined - both so that power can be reasonably limited -
and because human beings have to make decisions on what they
believe to be true.
If leaders of nation states had the wisdom, fortitude and
courage to face the fact that there have to be limits on the
right of people in power to decieve themselves and others,
we'd live in a much more hopeful world. Limits that put some
limits on personal political power and on sovereignty.
Maybe not severe limits. Maybe not limits applied with
great consistency. But some limits. Enforced sometimes. When
it matters enough.
If that were faced, the US would have to deal with some
embarrassments. But an index of how much is screwed up,
misunderstood, and deceptive is how well national groups treat
their own citizens - and get along in the worldr - how well
their cooperation works in human terms.
The US needs to do some thinking. The rest of the world
should do a lot of thinking, too.
Most things look to me like they are going well - ugly as
they are - wonderfully well, by historical standards - subject
to the terrible constraint that we don't have key facts
straight nearly often enough.
We're making mistakes of a few serious kinds with
monotonous, lethal regularity. All linked to deception, and
self deception - both conscious and unconsious - that is not
effectively checked.
9534 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.J3Sca7gK5us.2217022@.f28e622/11073
Odds are that a lot of people are going to die because it
hasn't been possible to get key facts and relationships that
are worth checking actually checked. Either we find a way to
do so (and the technical problems aren't hard - what is hard
is the recognition and the will) or people are going to go on
dying - and the whole world could be destroyed - because we
now live in a situation that is inherently unstable -
potentially explosively unstable unless we do a better job
than we've been doing about checking things that matter
enough.
lchic
- 03:55pm Mar 16, 2003 EST (#
10077 of 10082) ~~~~ It got understood and exposed
~~~~
M East -- links to documents -- see
http://www.mideastweb.org/history.htm
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