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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 (10825 previous messages)

rshow55 - 07:43am Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10826 of 10832) 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.

We have things to fix. With the stakes as they are - and with people scared, and paying attention - it doesn't look so hard to get things sorted out better than they are. Well enough for much better results, and much better stability.

Some things are very orderly, for fundamental reasons - and we need to understand that, and build on that. People investigating fractals have come up with many beautiful examples. Pictorially, many of the downloads here are beautiful.

Fractal art, note cards, prints The Fractal Farm -Iterations http://thefractalfarm.homestead.com/Iterations.html

Cynthia Lanius' unit on Fractal Properties is intellectually beautiful. http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/fractals/self.html

"Cats, canaries, or kangaroos are similar if they are alike in some way. In geometry though, similar means something very specific. Geometric figures are similar if they have the same shape. I don't mean two rectangles or two triangles, but really the same shape."

She offers beautiful examples.

Order, disorder, similarity and difference coexist for basic and inescapable reasons.

Human being shape the patterns of order they live with and live in.

How do we sort out what matters enough so that we can avoid fighting?

Intellectually that isn't hard, from where we are. It would take a little discipline - and acknowledgement that we have to get beyond some old, stupidly invariable rules - and deal with some exception handling when we clearly have to.

Bush and Blair have some very valid concerns. There's no contradiction to say that many Arab concerns are valid, too.

What are we fighting about? If we were clear - clearer than we are - we could get better resolutions than we're getting.

There are fights that have to be fought. We better be clear about exactly what they are - and where they are - in enough detail so that workable, just resolutions are possible.

This thread has some similarities to a fractal. And some similarities to a beach. They aren't accidental.

People wouldn't have to be a lot more disciplined and honest than they are to do a lot better than we're doing.

lchic - 08:10am Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10827 of 10832)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Val-de-ri--Val-de-ra-

Val-de-ri--Val-de ha ha ha ha ha ha

Val-de-ri--Val-de-ra.

My knapsack on my back.

Oh, may I go a-wandering

Until the day I die!

http://www.djmorton.demon.co.uk/scouting/songs/wanderer.htm

lchic - 08:13am Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10828 of 10832)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

It seems the Aussies and the Brits know

how to go a-wandering Along the desert track

Carrying with them rations, along with mini stove, to give self-sufficiency

So sayest one from the ANU defense academy

--- work out the omission herein ----

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