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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 - 01:15pm Aug 21, 2003 EST (# 13341 of 13345)
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.

Paul Newman reads high-toned magazines ( like The Nation ) and knows a lot about the parts he plays. He knows a lot about signal switching, nuances, quick moves, and stings.

Paul Newman might see through me in a minute - but after all - I've said I was just telling a story. http://www.mrshowalter.net/CaseyRel.html

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Almarst - sometimes there's no choice but to try. For instance - you've made very important contributions on this thread. I should have listened to you more.

But the message " be careful" can be hard to deliver - and for stability - some details matter.

rshow55 - 01:17pm Aug 21, 2003 EST (# 13342 of 13345)
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.

Stories start "once upon a time" - and involve context. How a Story Is shaped http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/ducksoup/555/storyshape.html

My story is a long story, in some ways - and it starts when a guy with some of the gentleness, sweetness, casualness, and trustfulness of Brig. Gen. Leslie R. Groves (but with more rank) scooped me up from an undergraduate program and made me into an "experimental animal" - or a soldier - or even an intellectual ( you can take your pick - the story works in a lot of ways ).

Eisenhower, like Groves, was "playing God." But this was six years after Eisenhower's FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961 http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm and Eisenhower had sense enough to be scared, and concerned, as he was "playing God." 13316-7 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.1iB0bCntAkQ.4627053@.f28e622/15004 includes this:

"Eisenhower and others thought that it was either likely, or certain, that the world would end unless some problems got solved. The Rand corporation was stumped.

"Sylvia Nasar of The New York Times quotes a very senior expert in A Beautiful Mind ( Chapter 14).

"Whenever we speak of deterrance, atomic blackmail, the balance of terror . . . we are evidently deep in game theory." Thomas Schelling wrote in 1960, "yet formal game theory has contributed little to the clarification of those ideas."

"Eisenhower and people around them knew they were stumped. They were desperate. They thought their only hope was to "find a smart kid" - work him hard, give him the best information and training they could put together, and hope. Perhaps it was very bad judgement that I got fingered. But I did.

In some ways I was a walking, talking, lying, trying " hail Mary pass ."

. . . . .

This thread is a "game" in the game theory sense. I'm doing the best I can to reduce the risks of the world blowing up. Some games are more serious than others.

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In 1962 an encyclopedia came into existence because influential people wanted "unified science" to come into existence. As a matter of national security. Eisenhower was one of these people

THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS was first published as Vol. 2, no. 2 of The International Encyclopedia of Unified Science - The Univesity of Chicago, 1962.

Lchic and I have taken problems further than Kuhn did, and worked hard to do so. I think it makes sense to set out some passages from Kuhn's book, which was, in its own way, about as influential as C.P. Snow's The Two Cultures . Kuhn talks about formal sciences - which are narrower than some other kinds of human endeavor. But there were things he talked about that interested (both) Eisenhowers very much. They dealt with human limits - including limits that made for dangerous instabilities, muddles, and tragedies.

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