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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 - 11:08am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10961 of 10963)
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.

To do that, some basic things have to be dealt with well.

There are some terribly basic things about order - and what it is - and what we can agree about - and what not - that we need to get clear about. We need a clarity that everybody concerned can understand - and accept at least at a certain abstract level, even though their preferences differ.

The issue is "abstract" at some levels - but it couldn't possibly be more basic, more practical, and more emotionally charged at others.

The Islamic world and we have some basic disagreements about order - and different preferences about it.

10830 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.ZkSvaQIt6bk.44287@.f28e622/12380 includes this:

"If we're to keep our tempers, and sort things out - it makes sense to think about them in fairly neutral terms - the same intellectual problems are harder in the more important cases where our emotions are involved."

. . .

"Lots of things are disorderly, or statistical, or totally chaotic, or totally orderly, at different scales - without contradiction.

"A beach is an example. Perfectly orderly in some ways, at some scales - or nearly so - disordered at others. Diverse. Without contradition.

"Table salt contains some similar examples - perhaps a little more focused. Each of the many crystals is very nearly a perfect crystal - and if one were to somehow set up x-y-z coordinates oriented with that crystal - over a range there would be very nearly perfect order, atom by atom.

"Then an "unexpected" discontinuity.

"And then another crystal, with the same order - an order most conveniently displayed, atom-by-atom by another orientation of x-y-z coordinates.

"To try to set up one frame of reference to discribe the orderly placement of Na and Cl atoms in the salt would be an enormous and inherently messy description job. Complex. Awkward. But without contradiction.

"The salt crystals, at some scales, are almost perfectly orderly. At some other levels, almost perfectly random - statistical - disordered. And orderly at some yet larger scales - to a significant but not perfect degree.

"A beach is orderly and disorderly in some analogous ways - and some other ways - but is both more messy and more complex.

Our preferences may differ - may be diametrically opposed in some places. But we can agree on what is orderly, and what disorderly - in an abstract situation like this. If we get that far, we can discuss issues that are vital, but also emotionally charged. We won't find a reasonable outcome in Iraq, or the Arab world as a whole - without dealing with these problems better than we have. And the Islamic world won't achieve the modernity and justice that it longs for without being clear about these same things.

rshow55 - 11:27am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10962 of 10963)
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.

It is a fact that the Islamic culture, as it exists right now, longs for kinds of overarching unity that our culture cares for much less. Often, a kind of unity we actively reject.

And Islamic culture, as it now is, tolerates levels of muddle and mess, at fine scales, that we find intolerable most of the time.

This matters.

The 'Philosopher of Islamic Terror" , Sayyid Qutb , longs for kinds of monolithic order that we don't value, or want. And asks for things that are ugly and impossible in the service of his preference for an impossible ideal of order.

The Philosopher of Islamic Terror by PAUL BERMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/magazine/23GURU.html

We need to understand these differences in preferences - and make sure that everyone involved understands.

In detail - what can we and they do to satisfy our respective preferences (in reasonable human terms, taking into account what we have to care about) and what can't we?

People can, often have, worked out patterns in their minds that seem wonderful - but don't work for people when they actually try to use them and live with them. We have some similar disagreements with radical Islam - and we need to face them for what they are - and deal with them in ways that can work, for everybody concerned, step by step.

There may have to be some fights. But many fewer, and less severe fights - if we understand what we're dealing with.

And what we, and others, can and should wish to change.

And what we, and others, shouldn't change and shouldn't wish to change.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense