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 [F] 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.


Earliest Messages Previous Messages Recent Messages Outline (10274 previous messages)

rshow55 - 06:17pm Mar 20, 2003 EST (# 10275 of 10291) Delete Message
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.

Things sort themselves out into levels - the image in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs by William G. Huitt Essay and Image : http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/maslow.html is a clear, important, and general example of a heirarchical system with controls and interfaces of mutual constraint. The generally pyramidal organization is general to essentially all such structures that work.

Look at the picture.

In ordinary business, politics and war there are times when groups that function as assemblies have to be dealt with as they are grouped - as assemblies. People have to act from where they are. If you're near the top of the pyramid in a logical sense, that's what you have to do.

You're Bush - or Putin - or any other leader - or a responsible subordinate - like Casey. You have to make decisions - and there are times when there is no option at all but to "play God" - either by actions with consequences - or by inaction under circumstances where inaction also has consequences.

People can only do as well as they possibly can - with mistakes expected, insensitivities expected, biases expected, even for the best of people because they are people.

Everything considered, it seems to me that things are going well. People are being pretty careful, considering circumstances as they are. The unpopularity of this war doesn't mean it is wrong - but it surely means that the way it is conducted will be carefully watched - and reasons things are done will be carefully studied.

Workable systems - at the level of neurons - small groups - large groups - and groups of groups - tend to work themselves out - with interfaces and multiple levels of control - according to a pattern much like the picture in the Maslow reference.

We're in the process of such a resorting (you might almost call it a recrystallization) now. The old rules will still apply - with some exceptions - and I think a lot of things will work better than before. Better, I suspect, for people and nations of reasonable competence and honesty, within the human limits - all over the world.

rshow55 - 06:23pm Mar 20, 2003 EST (# 10276 of 10291) Delete Message
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.

There have to be limits on the Treaty of Westphalia rules - connections, and constraints -between actors at "the top of their pyramids" and of course that means limitations on the US as well.

We're moving toward that - and this is a time where historically new things are happening. All in all, though there may be so much tragedy in the next few days that one could actually detect it in world mortality statistics, I'm optimistic.

Is Bush "playing God?" You bet. And, my guess is, doing the best he can. Muddled, screwed up, and multiply motivated as he may be. (You can check, we've had our differences.)

Other leaders have to "play God" as well. How could even God himself change that? ( You don't have to believe in God to ask that question - it is a logical-structural question.)

I hope Putin, and the leaders of other nation states, face up to the fact that sometime they can't escape "playing God" - and do so, when they have to, sensibly and responsibly.

With their emotions under decent control.

Soon, we need to have some patterns of responsibility that go beyond Treaty of Westphalia constraints. For basic reasons.

Look at the picture. Look at the pattern of the picture. http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/maslow.html

Right now, under Treaty of Westphalia rules, leaders have an essentially unlimited "right" to play God - to kill or mistreat subordinates - and to lie. Some leaders, in limited ways - have to "play God" to change that.

In limited ways. Bush, for example, has to listen to a lot of other people. And often, he does. And then, as a personal holder of power - acts.

As leaders have to do.

We have basic control problems here - and workable systems have to be sorted out. What we have now, too often, is a mess.

Right now, considering, there are a lot of opportunities opening up, along with the dangers, and things seem to be going pretty well.

jorian319 - 06:39pm Mar 20, 2003 EST (# 10277 of 10291)

Nice posts, Robert. I, too get irritated by those who simultaneously abdicate responsibilities and criticize those who take them on.

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