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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 (11132 previous messages)

rshow55 - 06:56am Apr 5, 2003 EST (# 11133 of 11140) 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.

I'm partners with a poet - she's much the better half !

Learning to Stand http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee79f4e/662

9422 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.tzfAax3a6Sq.594593@.f28e622/10961

rshow55 - 07:00am Apr 5, 2003 EST (# 11134 of 11140) 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.

Fredmoore - are you concerned, perhaps, that some people might be significantly smarter than other people?

That's been true forever.

If people understood themselves better - most people would be a lot smarter - in every way that matters.

Big steps wouldn't be genetic. Two big ones would be cleaning up reading instruction - and cleaning up math instruction - both scandals worldwide, and particularly in America.

I've been slogging along on problems like that, and might be able to help.

fredmoore - 07:24am Apr 5, 2003 EST (# 11135 of 11140)

You have my attention!

rshow55 - 07:34am Apr 5, 2003 EST (# 11136 of 11140) 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.

Let me take just a little time to get organized.

Back within two hours.

Key point I'd like to make is that everybody has the same basic neurological equipment - and so much of it that we're all "smart enough" to do a lot better than we're doing.

But organization matters - and sometimes matters a lot.

I've been forced to sort out some stuff - and others should be able to use it with a lot less trouble.

Most of what I know "everybody already knows."

They'd do better if they knew some of these things a little better, a little more sharply, with the basic ideas sorted out in a little bit cleaner way.

rshow55 - 09:36am Apr 5, 2003 EST (# 11137 of 11140) 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.

I'm having some trouble getting things organized just as I want them.

Here's something basic. People are smart enough, fast enough, able enough, to do the wonderful things they actually do. The performance, if you look, seems "miraculous" - on a lot of things we all take for granted.

Much of what people do, when you look at the good things - seems miraculously bad - in lots of senses.

Mistakes and muddle have a lot to do with that.

Here's something everybody really knows - and denies - doesn't want to look at.

In practically every way that matters, people, young and old, are almosts always complicit to one degree or another in the logical problems - the problems of understanding and processing - that slow them down.

Want to know what people should be uneasy about?

Look at them. These are either the things people look uneasy about - if you just notice - or the things they seem very sure about.

It wouldn't be all that difficult to teach people that - and if that were done - we'd be able to sort out most of our biggest messes - ourselves - in our own way - at our own pace - step by step - without too much in the way of ugliness or high costs.

There's not one damn thing that anybody can ever know about human logic - as it works in our heads when we work well - that people don't already do - and do well - a lot of the time.

If we cut out some muddle - that could happen more often.

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