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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 (10898 previous messages)

rshow55 - 01:28pm Apr 1, 2003 EST (# 10899 of 10900) 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's a lot, from various points of view, that is hypocritical - and subject to serious criticism. On matters of life and death - right answers matter.

Warning of Doom, Edgy Iraqi Leaders Put on Brave Front By JOHN F. BURNS http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/01/international/worldspecial/01BAGH.html includes this:

"The Americans are telling a lot of lies; lying is the golden rule of the American administration," said Naji Sabri, the foreign minister. He added, "We shall turn the desert into a big graveyard for American and British troops."

The British, he said, already had graveyards here from Iraqi uprisings against their colonial rule. "Now they will have other graveyards, where they will be joined by their friends, the Americans," he said. "Those Americans who will not surrender to us will face nothing but death in the desert, or else they will have to flee back to their puppet regime in Kuwait."

Perhaps that means that someone who read the thread got to talking - to somebody - and that eventually people in Iraq heard about two notions much talked about on this thread. The notion that lying is dangerous - and the symmetry idea called "the golden rule."

Foreign Miniser Naji Sabri used the notion of the golden rule correctly in a very basic sense -the golden rule is a standard of symmettry , present in most cultures

I've discussed the golden rule a good deal - it is one of the basic stability conditions for human arrangements - both simple and complicated ones. Two other sets of conditions that are also important are Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs , and Berle's laws of power.

I have been professionally concerned, for a long time, with human interactions. And the stability of human relations. I feel sure that these are key things to check, every which way, when stability matters enough to think hard about:

Berle and Maslow: MD666-7 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.CBY4ajzT6NK.2712486@.f28e622/826

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/DetailNGR.htm contains this: .

03:31pm Jul 7, 2002 BST (#10 of 41)

The "Golden Rule" is a minimal standard, but very good for the basic interactions that peace and economic cooperation takes. Practically every religious and cultural group pays some lip service to the "golden rule." The form I remember reads

" Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. "

Few but the a tiny group of the most conscientious people today think of this in the literal, explicit sense world peace and prosperity needs. The Golden Rule is less than a workable, comprehensive guide to living.

But now, it is worse used than it ought to be, since "others" in the rule is usually read to be "others within my group" and not "others in outside groups, as well." The point needs to be taught, with intellectually clear context, today.

03:54pm Jul 7, 2002 BST (#30 of 41)

Harry J. Gensler has great references, to a great deal of careful thought, in http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/goldrule.htm

I liked this -- but how much detail is needed to meet what is said!

" To apply the golden rule adequately, we need knowledge and imagination. We need to know what effect our actions have on the lives of others. And we need to be able to imagine ourselves, vividly and accurately, in the other person's place on the receiving end of the action. With knowledge, imagination, and the golden rule, we can progress far in our moral thinking. .

" The golden rule is best seen as a consistency principle. It doesn't replace regular moral norms. It isn't an infallible guide on which actions are right or wrong; it doesn't give all the answers. It only prescribes consistency - that we not have our actions (toward another) be out of harmony with our desires (toward a reversed situation

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