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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 - 09:53am Jun 15, 2003 EST (# 12550 of 12556)
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.

Maureen Dowd is a master at language - and the phrase she quotes from Ross about "what women want" in her piece today is a gem. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/15/opinion/15DOWD.html Women want " a rugged poet or musician with a private jet." Can't come close to that ( though if I got my security problem licked, I might have a chance, at that. )

But often there's "no solution to a problem as posed". Often there do have to be compromises. Some of the best of them are temporal or role compromises where people or organizations take turns or switch in sensible, workable ways, for clear reasons. We can get more of them.

http://query.nytimes.com/search/abstract?res=F60611F93C5D0C7B8CDDAF0894DB404482&n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fMaureen%20Dowd

Sometimes I've written poems to try to make simple points - and lchic collected some at 2599 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.uS3gbTytfsF.695078@.f28e622/3237

10292 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.uS3gbTytfsF.695078@.f28e622/11838

Chain Breakers http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/618

In Clear rshowalter "Science News Poetry" 2/14/01 7:18am http://www.mrshowalter.net/281_sendInClear.htm

Almarst http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.uS3gbTytfsF.695078@.f28e622/14202 - - I can't "explain away" agony - but if I were "out of jail" - enough so that I could function fully - I might be able to do better. Sometimes it occurs to me that you could help with that.

rshow55 - 10:04am Jun 15, 2003 EST (# 12551 of 12556)
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.

Practical people, for centuries - have found good compromises.

Secular Redemption http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/1345 is about that - and doesn't deal with anything more etherial than good, sensible sociotechnical arrangement.

One thing is K.I.S.S. level simple. We need to find better solutions to basic human needs: MD667 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.uS3gbTytfsF.695078@.f28e622/826 - and a lot of them are material - technical.

Getting the world energy supply problem solved is one. For good answers to "what happens to the children?" - we need to solve the problem. It is not a technically hard problem.

Getting the global warming problem solved is one. For good answers to "what happens to the children" - we need to solve the problem. It is not a technically hard problem.

We're living in a world where ideas can be tested, checked, compared, as never before - because matching, and crosschecking, are far easier than before, and illustration that permits people to look for themselves is also much more advanced than ever before.

Some math problems that bothered a lot of people have recently been cracked, too. There really are new technical possibilities for optimal technical solutions - that are, with some work - consistent with good human solutions.

The stakes on information validity are very high - in capital markets, and everywhere else where decisions have to be made based on information. Trust matters -- and, over the long run, for safety, trust has to be justified - which means that people have to be checked, and judged.

Everything we hold dear depends on reasonable decisions - decisions that make human sense.

Even religions have to be asked to meet human needs - and are being asked to do so . . . . .

IDEAS & TRENDS O Ye of Much Faith! A Triple Dose of Trouble http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/02/weekinreview/02GOOD.html By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

This is a rare moment in history, like a planetary alignment: three world religions simultaneously racked by crisis.

In history - including socio-technical history - it often happens that problems - once they are really faced - get pretty well solved.

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