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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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 04:20pm Sep 6, 2003 EST (# 13543 of 13553)
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.

Disagreement is a big problem - and in a lot of ways - everybody is entitled to their own feelings. For instance, I feel John Burdett's story is charming

" Su was plucked from her go-go bar one night and whisked off to Zurich by a wealthy Swiss. The relationship failed after a couple of years, mostly because Su was bored out of her mind (loathes skiing, hates snow, happy if she never sees a mountain, or Zurich, again), but her paramour gave her the seed money for her thriving business . . "

from When Will the Killer Bikes Come for Chuwit? http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/13/opinion/13BURD.html

Su is entitled to feel as she does. Here head is hers .

Su and her lover agreed about many things - including many things that mattered - but not other things that mattered to them. They made a limited peace - workable for them - with certain kinds of respect for each other, combined with some limitations on sympathy.

Some "agreements to disagree" are clearer and better than others. I tried to make a point that is logically and practically essential in 12426 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.nanMbJfHETr.7700758@.f28e622/14079

"Markov chains offer a nice example of an "obvious" but key thing - because they connect to logic that a human can relate to, and because they are routinely formalized with matrices, and similarly ordered logical structures. If you happen to look at a text on Markov chains (I have Kemeny and Snell) - you see structures that are plainly, explicitly involved with arithmetic according to a pattern.

"Magnitudes, weights determine answers - in logical structures that depend on, and assume patterns of arithmetic.

" The issues of "logical structure" and "weights" are coupled, but distinct.

Unless two people or groups agree on both logical structure and weights - they don't agree on "right answers."

Though they may still have a lot of common ground.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/DBeauty.html -clarifies some key ideas about what people can agree on - and how they can be clear about disagreements that they have.

Some "agreements to disagree" are better and clearer than others. The really clear ones are good enough so that people can work together pretty well.

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Some patterns of disagreement are worse than others.

For workable arrangements - that are stable - it helps a lot if people agree on facts (not how they feel about them) and about the logical structure of what matters (not how they feel about it.)

Agreement about "what happened, in detail" is often possible - in enough detail for cooperation and peace.

But people and cultures are different - people are on different teams - and that can't be changed.

I haven't been as clear as I've wanted to be - but I've been trying.

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Of course some fights have to happen.

Of course team identity and loyalty are vital - and people are on different teams (and complexes of teams).

We can do better than we're doing.

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jorian319 says "the Guardian is a rag" - and knows what he means. A lot of people disagree - and I'm one of them.

gisterme - 06:25pm Sep 6, 2003 EST (# 13544 of 13553)

jorian -

"...Wouldn't it be easier to simply cop to some kind of overarching importance than to keep arguing with someone clinging to an a priori conclusion?..."

Sure it would be easier; but it would be patently dishonest. There's always the danger that somebody would seriously think the wrong thing. I'm no saint, but I really do try to make honesty a guiding principal in my life. I've come to like and be accustomed to the sense of integrity that accompanies that (not to mention the respect from others that naturally follows).

I will certainly not impersonate the President or any other government official. As a point of honor I'll also not let Robert make it seem as if I'm doing that. To imperosonate another, particularly a government official would not only be dishonest, it would probably be illegal. The term "identity theft" comes to mind. :-)

I'd be delighted to "lighen up"...I've tried; but it would seem that Robert thinks he's on far too serious of a mission to allow that.

Sometimes I almost feel stuck here with this forum because if I don't stick around to deny rshow's whacky assertions about me, somebody who doesn't deserve it might be seriously mislead. As I've pointed out before (and it's there for all to see), whenever I don't post for a while, those assertions become more and more strident. There's no doubt in my mind that left unchecked the assertions would eventually morph into facts in Robert's mind and more importantly in his writings.

WRT the Guardian... :-) ...I couldn't agree with you more. In my opinion the Guardian as a news source ranks right up there with the National Enquirer and the Star magazine. Each is aimed at ligntening the pockets of a certain narrow demographic segment in exchange for providing it what it wants to hear.

For some reason, a reason who's logic entirely escapes me, many people still seem to believe the old saw that "if something is in print it must be true". That's never been true! :-)

gisterme - 06:27pm Sep 6, 2003 EST (# 13545 of 13553)

Valdimir -

Glad to see that you've finally come to the boardski at last! What's taken you so long? Did the word count finally reach the trigger point? ;-)

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