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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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lchic - 09:20pm Sep 27, 2003 EST (# 14071 of 14072)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

It's interesting that morse signals were devised to improve communication - that's 'slow' communication, which was 'fast' at that time, and expensive - between human animals.

Were the major international MD communications of the current year re-produced as a series of telegrams .... how would the top-10 read?

rshow55 - 09:25pm Sep 27, 2003 EST (# 14072 of 14072)
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.

The Jayson Blair scandal happened, in large part - because the NYT has a culture that is based on ascribed status - and not checking.

Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/11PAPE.html

A staff reporter for The New York Times committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud while covering significant news events in recent months, an investigation by Times journalists has found.

Maybe I'm wrong - and cantabb is not a salaried NYT employee. But if he is - the NYT organization should be ashamed of him - and wonder what the human standards are that produce his responses.

When the stakes are high - the question -

. what does it cost to check?

is a very good question. These days, the standard seems to be as set out in http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md511.htm

With currently accepted cultural moral standards, checking is never morally forcing in the face of high status opposers with a direct stake - checking is one good among a number, but not forcing. In the rare but important cases where paradigm conflicts occur, some accomodations have to be made, so that, for these cases, checking is forcing.

Without that, no amount of hard work, and no amount of effort (including, and I know this, much good faith) will get closure. And on these paradigm conflict issues, closure on simple, clear, but wrenching questions is what is necessary.

In dealing with me, The New York Times showed some very high ethical and technical function, according to a moral standard, that is now accepted throughout society, that blocked the simple, but stark, checking that was needed under conditions of real conflict and perceptual unease of stakeholders.

According to that standard, the TIMES could have hardly done better. But according to that standard, the problem, recognized to be important by almost everybody concerned (at least much of the time) was insoluble.

It is the moral priority decision itself that is wrong, and needs changing, for paradigm conflict circumstances.

That should be clearer now than it was before.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md510.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md511.htm

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