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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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

almarst2003 - 07:49am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10948 of 10952)

"Iraq is one huge world heritage site"

For some. And OIL site for others.

rshow55 - 07:49am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10949 of 10952)
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.

Not everything is going badly. With some fairly small changes, so much could go much better. When the US evades the truth - it may get a short term tactical advantage. That kind of advantage often comes with lying, and motivates it.

But strategically, in many, many, many ways - lying is against out interest - except in truly tactical circumstances, where it is not dishonor, and people understand that.

. What's tactical? What's strategic?

Views differ. But my view, very strongly, is that if the US can be more truthful, more coherent, more consistent, more honest (and I know it is trying to be these things) results in Iraq and elsewhere can go well.

The United States puts a lot of effort into being truthful, coherent, consistent, and honest - and that's a very good thing. When we fall short - it is expensive.

People can act certain, and perhaps be certain in every way they're conscous of - and be very wrong - and have logical reasons, in retrospect, to know it.

Often, we're doing things right - but here's some cautionary language that may be useful now. Recall what we now know about the shuttle disaster, and decisions made by the subject of this article:

Shuttle's Chief Puts Pained, Steely Face on Shared Trauma By DAVID BARSTOW http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/04/national/04CHIE.html

Today, Ron D. Dittemore, manager of the NASA space shuttle program, presided over his third televised news conference since the Columbia broke apart over Texas on Saturday morning.

I looked at some of those conferences, and had a great deal of sympathy for Dittemore - a man who has plainly excelled in the NASA system - and a man who would almost certainly have excelled many other places in the government. An able man. An honest man. Most people I know would be proud to know Dittemore - or be related to him. Even so - what happened - and what did his organization, under him, and many people like him, actually do?

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.RjzVabZj6Fb.10769@.f39a52e/124 or http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.RjzVabZj6Fb.10769@.f28e622/10890

our "logic" - is mostly a choosing between many alteratives going on or being fashioned in our heads - and in the course of that choosing - people believe what "feels right."

But what "feels right," most often, is what, in our minds "cooperates with the interests of authority - with our group." Look at Pritchard's notes on Milgram's experiment - and on Jonestown - to get a sense of how wrong it feels, for most people, to go against authority. http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html

And how wrong it can feel to admit mistakes and make adjustments - when that is just exactly what the person involved should do

When people look rigidly certain - or when they are agressive - bullying in their certainty - that should be a dead giveaway that they know very well that they're taking a precarious, indefensible, or perhaps dishonorable position.

Surely other people have noticed this?

rshow55 - 07:51am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10950 of 10952)
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.

A tremendous advantage of the United States as a nation, a people, and a government, for all our faults, is that, relative to most other nations, peoples, and governments - we decieve ourselves and each other so relatively seldom. But still much more often than we should.

I thought

Second-Guessing the War http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/02/opinion/02WED1.html was very good.

Things could go very well, or very badly, or resolve into a monotonous, murderous muddle - and we ought to be careful. And as truthful as we can be.

The world is so full of lies and muddles that the relative truthfulness of the US is fully, sadly consistent with a great deal of Almarst's criticism.

Just now, God help me, I'm feeling optimistic. Not especially indignant. But then, I'm a "heartless mathematician" and I'm worried, as others should be, about a question that is partly technical.

What can converge?

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