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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?

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rshow55 - 09:17am Mar 22, 2003 EST (# 10311 of 10319)
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.

Whether you believe in God or not - this is a time where religious issues are pressing on us.

O Ye of Much Faith! A Triple Dose of Trouble by LAURIE GOODSTEIN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/02/weekinreview/02GOOD.html

This is a rare moment in history, like a planetary alignment: three world religions simultaneously racked by crisis.

If we're "wired to be cooperative" - we're also "wired to be deceptive and stupid" whenever the immediate thought seems to go against our cooperative needs. 9354 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.BIXVaUdO5TZ.766463@.f28e622/10890

We're social animals - and with a little more knowledge - we can be wiser and better social animals. The insights and disciplines involved wouldn't be so hard 9363 - 9366-67 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.BIXVaUdO5TZ.766463@.f28e622/10902

9354 , 9366-67 and many other references on this thread refer to a fine web site Lecture Notes: Introductory Psychology by Prof. Evan Pritchard http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html that Lchic found in September 2001. http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html includes clear summaries of

Milgram's Obedience Study

and

what James Jones and his followers did at Jonestown

that I believe many, many people ought to read.

We ought to do things that we can do, and expect things that we can expect.

People organize workable systems - in the presence of tensions, complexities and conflicts of interest - all the time. We need to begin to get our standards of international arrangement up to the levels people meet, routinely, in many, many other aspects of their socio-technical organizations.

The kinds of disorder one can see in a lot of demonstrations, these days, is stunningly ineffective. People need to do better, and there is no solution unless there come to be more effective limitations on the right to lie.

rshow55 - 09:22am Mar 22, 2003 EST (# 10312 of 10319)
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.

The Great Divide By PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/29/opinion/29KRUG.html is an interesting read today, as well.

"It was a shocking event. With incredible speed, our perception of the world and of ourselves changed. It seemed that before we had lived in a kind of blind innocence, with no sense of the real dangers that lurked. Now we had experienced a rude awakening, which changed everything.

"No, I'm not talking about Sept. 11; I'm talking about the Enron scandal.

How many "great divides" are people going to have to cross? How many are they going to get to cross with relative safety, before some obvious sorting gets done?

Krugman's Jan 29 2001 piece goes on, speaking of a common theme to the many problems he lists - (he could have included many more - including those that have us roiled just now). Common theme:

"They're all about ending an era of laxity, in which nobody asked hard questions as long as everything looked O.K. That era is now over.

"The political speculation right now focuses on who will take the blame for what happened. I admit it: that's a very interesting question. But I suspect that for those who are not directly implicated — and most politicians won't be — what will matter is not what they did but what they do. Do they act as if they get it — that they understand that the old laxity is no longer acceptable?

------------

There's a quote from Benjamin Franklin:

" Experience keeps a dear school. A fool will learn in no other.

I opened 2003 on this board with 7177 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.BIXVaUdO5TZ.766463@.f28e622/8700

"I think this is a year where some lessons are going to have to be learned about stability and function of international systems, in terms of basic requirements of order , symmetry , and harmony - at the levels that make sense - and learned clearly and explicitly enough to produce systems that have these properties by design, not by chance."

Maybe I was wrong, and this is the year that it is shown that we're beyond redemption - even on simple things.

But perhaps it will be a better, more interesting story. Had a thought for a happier ending, based on the pattern in How a Story is Shaped http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/ducksoup/555/storyshape.html

Here's the thought: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/283

- - -

If people get upset enough - they may think straighter - and they wouldn't have to think much straighter for a lot of things to sort out.

Just now, I'm feeling optimistic.

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