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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 - 11:13am Aug 26, 2003 EST (# 13410 of 13417)
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.

Mankind's Inhumanity to Man and Woman - As natural as human goodness? has this, right at the beginning, on Nov 12, 2000 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/0

I'm coming to think that it is just as natural for people to act "inhumanly" - that is cruelly, and in a dehumanizing way, towards OUTSIDERS, as it is natural for people to act warmly, and with accommodation and mutual support, for people WITHIN their group.

I'm coming to the view that, just as there is an instinct for language, and an instinct for becoming a part of a group, inborn in humans, there is an instinct to exclude outsiders, to dehumanize them, to withhold cooperation from them, and to treat them as animals, subject to manipulation an predation. I'm coming to believe that this treatment of outsiders is an instinctive species characteristic, evolved over the millions of years when people lived as gatherers and team hunters.

If this is true, we all have the basic instincts to be kind, sensitive, and good, within our groups, but at the same time are naturally "monsters" in our behavior toward outsiders.

If this is right, the role of civilization is to find ways of peace and effective cooperation where isolation, conflict, duplicity, and merciless manipulation, including murder, might otherwise occur.

Recently - I've tried to summarize things Lchic and I have been working on since June of 2000.:

I've been arguing for the need for a paradigm shift that is both intellectual and moral - and simple enough to explain and use. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b2bd/1792

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b2bd/1793

The approaches, in the specific situations involved for specific cases, are characterized by disciplined beauty - and are explainable and teachable. http://www.mrshowalter.net/DBeauty.html The approaches switch back and forth from statistical, logically incremental approaches, to "pattern recognizing" patterns - in checkable, convergent, safe sequences.

Negotiations with North Korea are beginning again. They are complicated - but not more complicated than this.

11737 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.yL4hbg7OBSq.5598045@.f28e622/13347

"I would like to be able to set up something very much like AEA again - and do it honestly - and work with Lchic in that format.

"I'd like to be able to do that with people involved in AEA fully informed, and satisfied to the extent that was reasonably possible.

"In ways that were reasonably satisfactory to my wife, her husband, the New York Times, other members of families involved, the federal government, and other people more-or-less connected. In ways that most people at the UN, if they happened to notice, might think fair.

Accomodations of that level of complexity are possible -and they often work very well. In my personal case - if the POTUS called Fred (who he's met) and asked - we could sort out a lot that the POTUS could use and ought to know he could use, in short order.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/DetailNGR.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/TruthHope.html

Judgement matters - http://www.mrshowalter.net/sermon.html . People can find good answers - and often do. It is terribly dangerous when they don't stay awake, and don't take the care that good judgement takes.

wrcooper - 11:36am Aug 26, 2003 EST (# 13411 of 13417)

Showalter

Let's suppose that gisterme really is Dubya ( a fact that gisterme's obvious intelligence and articulateness precludes, but I'll leave that aside).

Why do you think he, the Prez, would take so much time--or assign valuable staffers the task of taking the time for him--to participate in the NYT's Missile Defense Forum to debate, of all people, you?

No, seriously. I'm asking you a serious question, and I hope you'll provide me--and others who may be interested--with a serious, reasoned answer.

What is it about you, or this forum, that would attract the Bush administration's interest? What would they find to be at stake in locking horns with an unemployed, former math graduate student living quietly in Madison, WI, who may or may not at one time done research work for the government? I mean, thousands and thousands of people get hired by the government to do technological research. Many of them are just as smart--or maybe even smarter--than you. What's so special about you that years after you stopped doing any work for the government the current administration would be following your every move, noting every word you say, getting the top boss involved in battling wits with you?

Seriously!

What's so important about you that they'd give a hoot what you think about anything, anything at all?

What power or influence do you have? Do you think that anything you say on this forum affects national policy? Why do you think that? What evidence do you have that anything you've ever said here has resulted in other people taking actions that have real effects?

Just curious.

I hope you'll really take time to answer these questions fully, honestly, and take the time to back up what you say with evidence.

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