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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 - 09:46am Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10831 of 10835)
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.

But both they, and we, could do considerably better than we're doing. And both they, and we, ought to do some changing - reducing ugliness, and getting things to work.

We're dealing here with nonrandom, basic patterns of human behavior that get us into messes. We need to face them. If we did - we could do better.

We ought to think about the behavior set out in http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html and realize that if we're "wired to be nice" - that is - to be cooperative - we're also "wired to be self deceptive and stupid" whenever the immediate thought seems to go against our cooperative needs.

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/413

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/414

And people who keep thinking and keep talking to each other

10617 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.gupGavDa6Rc.0@.f28e622/12167

Delusions of Power By PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/28/opinion/28KRUG.html is a wonderful piece - and very important. Krugman cites a wonderful phrase

. "incestuous amplification" defined by Jane's Defense Weekly as "a condition in warfare where one only listens to those who are already in lock-step agreement, reinforcing set beliefs and creating a situation ripe for miscalculation."

"Incestuous amplification" can lead to ornate , internally consistent and convincing systems of ideas - virtual maps. Now more than ever.

Living Under the Virtual Volcano of Video Games This Holiday Season By VERLYN KLINKENBORG http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/16/opinion/16MON4.html contains a haunting, and very important, idea. .

" every human activity, serious or playful, eventually ramifies into a world of its own, a self-contained cosmos of enormous complexity."

But is that self-contained cosmos right? When one matches that complexity against checkable things - some things that are real may be mapped almost exactly - or even exactly. But even when the match is exact, the map remains virtual . I think that virtual mappings that are correct in every way that matter are precious - and think people are getting clearer on how they happen - by "connecting the dots" and keeping at it.

But virtual mappings that are correct are also hard-won - and almost always the result of tremendous effort, and many, many, many modifications and corrections.

How many ways are there to screw up a computer program (or a map)?

Anybody with real world experience ought to know that there are many more ways than there are to make ones that work, and are fit to purpose, when that purpose is complicated enough to be of real human concern.

If we keep at it - and we're a long way along - we can get patterns to converge to new order that, though imperfect, will be a lot better than what we've got.

And orderly enough to build on.

almarst2003 - 10:14am Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10832 of 10835)

Powell got a standing ovation when he declared there must be ``an end of violence as a political tool'' - http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2521827,00.html

FUNNY...

almarst2003 - 10:33am Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10833 of 10835)

MMA to ensure Pak nukes defend Muslim world - http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_29-3-2003_pg7_43

ARE WE READY TO NUKE PAKISTAN?

almarst2003 - 10:39am Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10834 of 10835)

SCANDALOUS!!!

(Reuters) - American television network NBC said on Monday it had severed its relations with veteran reporter Peter Arnett after he told Iraqi television that the U.S. war plan against Saddam Hussein had failed. "Peter Arnett will no longer be reporting for NBC News and MSNBC," NBC said in a joint statement with National Geographic, for whom the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter was also working. - http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030331/tv_nm/media_iraq_arnett_dc_3

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