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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.

jorian319 - 09:03am Sep 20, 2003 EST (# 13801 of 13824)

I miss Rshow.

Shoot me now.

rshow55 - 09:15am Sep 20, 2003 EST (# 13802 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.

Jorian I wouldn't shoot you. I'd like to meet you. We could have a drink.

I've been spending the last week and dealing with the death of an aunt - 95 years old - much beloved - and with my parents, relatives, and people I care about.

A sense of "propagation" hits you at such gatherings. My aunt was my mother's last living sibling. My mom and dad are reviewing things.

Things done before the Wright Brothers flew - done before WWI - done just after the American Civil War - that have had BIG consequences in people's lives.

A lot of people care about Annie Mildred Herring - at the funeral - there was a lot of crying - including a bit of a breakdown, unrehearsed, from the preacher.

I was touched. I couldn't think - right then - and while I was paying attention to immediate relations - that in the time while I've been dealing with this one death - something like two million other people have died - most much loved - more than I could count after wretched deaths - and lives with more pain and horror than I'd want to look at - or be able to face. It is good to deal with the immediate - but there should also be a place to think about larger human scales. Especially since the things that matter in lives happen again and again - and if some are beyond help - many circumstances could be better. Much better.

Are those wider thoughts improper ? - The question "what fits" has to be answered in detail - and what's right for one circumstance, by one set of standards - will be wrong for another. Keeping score matters. When we keep score differently - keeping score of the differences matters.

rshow55 - 09:16am Sep 20, 2003 EST (# 13803 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.

12349 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.gKfQbUHeHtB.971992@.f28e622/13999

12444 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.gKfQbUHeHtB.971992@.f28e622/14097

I was asked to look for stability conditions in what Kline later called "sociotechnical systems" - and asked to find end games that resulted in stable, efficient, humane function by Eisenhower. That doesn't make me "pure" - I worked on some terrible things, too. But perhaps things I've worked out could be more widely and clearly understood and more useful than they are. The points I've been making are, after all, pretty simple, basic, and "obvious."

Stability is a key requirement - but there are others that are also important in human terms. Including needs that socialists and free market supporters claim to share - that all decent human beings -and many human beings who are deeply flawed - all share.

Unless there are good answers in human terms - jobs can't and don't get done. People have to be taken care of in ways that make human and practical sense.

I was asked to find solutions to technical problems. For instance, on the work here:

12377 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.gKfQbUHeHtB.971992@.f28e622/14027

12378 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.gKfQbUHeHtB.971992@.f28e622/14028

Under modern conditions, there is often no alternative to "an elite, with authority, administering things" but that administration must be judged in terms of how is serves the common good, not only its own. 12379 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.gKfQbUHeHtB.971992@.f28e622/14029

I made a request in a postcard in November 2001 that I think is worth reconsidering. http://www.mrshowalter.net/LtToSenateStffrWSulzbergerNoteXd.html

Not only in the sense that I think that doing what I asked would be useful. It is also worth considering why or how it is appropriate - and how it is inappropritate. What fits? For what purpose?

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.4a90f6e9/85

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/468

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/474

442-444 Psychwar . . . http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/478

Honesty is hard to get - from either politicians or journalists. Predictable bad consequences come from this - again and again - at many different scales - in a sequence that goes on without end. Unless we recognize the sequence - when it happens and is at a point where convergence can occur - and act.

I appreciate this thread - and think that some of the outrage in postings over the last week is interesting. A lot of reasons why I think this thread is a good thing for the NYT to permit are set out if you click "rshow55" at the upper left hand corner of my postings.

I'm with my parents now. But I'll be back soon - and hope this thread remains.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense