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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 - 11:40am Sep 16, 2003 EST (# 13693 of 13824)
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.

There's an unsolved problem in the world about end games - and it is a big problem.

When the Soviet Union fell we didn't have an end game - and the human and practical results since have been far, far worse than people hoped.

The Palestinians and the Israelis seemed to almost have a deal with Clinton - and then seemed to be approaching a deal recently - and the situation falls apart in ugly, wrenching fighting that most people involved (after their fashion) want to avoid.

The North Korean situation has been a tragic mess for fifty years - and an especially regrettable mess since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Circumstances in the relationship between Iraq, the US, and the UN have been less than ideal - any way you cut them.

We have some technical and emotional and logical problems with end games - - and I've been trying to help people with power fix them - looking at the technical and logical issues involved.

Lchic , who has a remarkably able and valuable mind, has worked hard, too.

I'm sure of this:

For stable end games - people and groups have to be workably clear on these key questions. Especially if win-win outcomes are to be possible. The questions are basic.

How do they disagree (agree) about logical structure ?

How do they disagree (agree) about facts ?

How do they disagree (agree) about questions of how much different things matter ?

How do they differ in their team identifications ?

Odds are good that if the patterns of agreement (or disagreement) are STABLE and KNOWN they can be decently accomodated.

Even a child should know the things above - and kids could be taught them. Adults need to know these things, too.

I don't have any doubt the President Bush tries hard in a number of ways - and the problem isn't only his, by a long shot. But Bush, and many, many, many other people believe that they have to agree on "all the important things" if they're to work together decently at all. If there's disagreement - they fight - or shun and threaten and dehumanize. This doesn't work at all well - for logical reasons -and the frequency of problems of this kind is large enough that they are worth looking at.

People have to learn to "agree to disagree" - much more often than they do - without fighting - and clearly enough so that they can actually cooperate.

Stable end games are not technically possible unless people learn this.

We do have to recognize that everybody "knowingly falsifies" - and "unknowingly" falsifies - to themselves and to others - and very often, too.

It may seem pleasant to deny that - and great for keeping teams together - and "don't mislead" is a superb standard rule. But without some careful exception handling - there are bloody, expensive stupid problems if we refuse to learn to "agree to disagree" about things that matter to us.

To repeat: (this seems to be new material)

Odds are good that if the patterns of agreement (or disagreement) are STABLE and KNOWN they can be decently accomodated.

With workable adjustments.

Agreement about everything that everybody cares about is usually impossible.

rshow55 - 11:49am Sep 16, 2003 EST (# 13694 of 13824)
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.

I like the ad format - and appreciate the chance to post here.

Jorian - if we had mutually compelling reasons to cooperate on specific things - we ought to be able to do so, without fighting - without ageeing on any more than we do now - if we're clear - and the rules were clear.

It might be worthwhile to sort some disagreements out - and maybe change them to agreements - in spots. But there are costs of doing so, and costs of not doing so.

We don't have to fight - unless one of us really wants to.

gisterme - 03:04pm Sep 16, 2003 EST (# 13695 of 13824)

Robert -

"...When I think of gisterme - I have some mixed feelings associating him with the words

cheat, con artist, con man, deceiver, deluder, dissimulator, equivocator, fabler, fabricator, fabulist, false witness, falsifier, fibber, jive turkey, maligner, misleader, perjurer, phony, prevaricator, promoter, storyteller, trickster..."

If you think that those words describe gisterme, then I think that if just look in the mirror and you'll know exactly who gisterme is to you. Sometimes I think you wish you were like me, Robert, and that all your own attributes, the ones that you listed above, are the reasons you're not.

Sometimes I think you've adapted me as the strawman to tear up instead of yourself...a substitutiary sacrifice to receive what you think you deserve but don't have the guts to face up to. How ironic and sad.

I'd bet that anybody who bothers to read the posts we've both made on this forum would be far more likely to think those things you listed above apply more to you than to me. I think that way down deep in your heart of hearts you know that too.

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