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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 - 07:28am Aug 13, 2003 EST (# 13289 of 13294)
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.

Bertotdt Brecht's essay, WRITING THE TRUTH, FIVE DIFFICULTIES , is in my version of his play, GALILEO , set into English by Charles Laughton.

It includes this:

" It takes courage to say that the good were defeated not because they were good, but because they were weak."

When the truth is too weak, we have to ask why? Was it indeed the truth? Or were there systematic barriers to the propagation of the truth -- chain breakers? Chain Breakers: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/618

References to Galileo's story - a story which can be told from different points of view - have recurred on this thread.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/md1030_1038.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4207.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4209.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4210.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4527.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md5000s/md5975.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md6000s/md6669.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md7000s/md7029.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md7000s/md7042.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8065.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md11000s/md11289.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md11000s/md11756.htm

for current references, search "Galileo" , including 3571 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.pm6Abw6oyXW.3119120@.f28e622/4501

Lchic and I have been working hard at mechanics which make it more possible to get workable, usable (often comfortable) truths to converge .

rshow55 - 07:35am Aug 13, 2003 EST (# 13290 of 13294)
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.

Much of life, and discourse too, can be, in Shakespeare's phrase

"a tale told by an idiot . . . full of sound and fury . . . signifying nothing."

But things are clarified - progress does occur - and sometimes great advances converge, or condense from the "chaos."

Linear programming - worked out by Blackett and others during WWII - is a stark example of a kind of progress that made a difference - that impressed Eisenhower very much - and I was asked to look for more breakthroughs like that.

Headway's been made. In limited, "mechanical" ways.

Which are significant, or utterly insignificant, depending on specific contexts. For example - linear programming - applied to some kinds of problems - vastly increases effective human "wisdom." On a specific class of problems. It can't be used at all on others.

Is it powerful, or powerless? Both. There is no contradiction. If you switch between two guesses - arguing that it will be useful - then that it will be useless - and you know the tool and the circumstances - you'll have a good chance to use linear programming - or any other analytical tool - better than you could otherwise. You need both points of view - not simultaneously - but applied in switching fashion - to judge such matters well.

Everybody knows that, right?

Intellectual tools take knowledge and discipline to apply - but can be useful when they are well used.

9363 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.pm6Abw6oyXW.3119120@.f28e622/10902

Maybe the talking is doing some good.

Repeating from Russel's passage in 9363:

" The fundamental object (of language) is to enable men to apply themselves to a common purpose. Thus the basic notion here is agreement. "

Agreement isn't logic. It isn't necessarily rightness, compared to facts - or fit to purpose, reasonably understood - even from the narrow perspective of the group - fully considered.

. . .

What happens if, to be agreeable in one way - or at one immediate step - gets us into binds? Logical binds, practical binds, moral binds?

We screw up.

It isn't an accident - we do the "immediately agreeable" thing - within our real limitations and real situation - and the act of choosing the "agreeable" - which usually works so effortlessly and so well, without our thinking about it - goes wrong.

2807-8 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.pm6Abw6oyXW.3119120@.f28e622/3501

I think, with some help, that I can make a contribution . . . . Not anything that anybody should trust blindly. But things people can check and judge for themselves.

In switching fashion. From several points of view. Judged in terms of "what fits" for the particular case at hand. Right answers often can, and do, converge.

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