New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 03:46pm Oct 30, 2003 EST (# 15966 of 15983)
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.

Re: attrition.org/priceless

Wars of attrition happen when people have "positions" that, one way or another, they can't or won't ( or dare not ) concede.

15243 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.bc20bm2LTbH.128745@.f28e622/16956 includes this, and some good references to responses to Jorian.

Lchic did a fine post 14115

Stench in the Trench - easy to fall into, hard to get out of

the futility of war

http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/trenchlife.htm

How often do people have to fight? How many people really want to ? How many people, these days, know how to avoid fighting when they don't agree about everything they talk about?

We're fighting, now, because though we're close on a number of things - some "powers that be" seem to be saying " never meet him face to face."

At this stage - the costs to me are small enough, and the gains large enough - and the costs to people like Jorian seem so large - that I don't think things are going so badly, from my side.

Here's an interesting lesson I'm hoping to teach - that could raise my own status and make me some money in the bargain.

If The New York Times can be this petty and stupid - there are some things about negotiation and morality left to be learned.

rshow55 - 03:50pm Oct 30, 2003 EST (# 15967 of 15983)
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.

It would be an honor indeed to be The Prince of Platitudes - if those platitudes were well organized, widely known, and useful.

After all, for a long time

f = ma

has been "old hat". Useful all the same.

Basic requirements for stable sociotechnical systems might be " platidudinous" - but still well worth setting out, and insisting on.

jorian319 - 03:50pm Oct 30, 2003 EST (# 15968 of 15983)

...costs to people like Jorian seem so large

There may be real costs to "people like" me, but rest assured - I put little-to-no thought into 99% of what I post here. I do invest a bit more in reading some posters' writings... but (with rare exception) not yours.

IOW - no large costs. Not even small costs!

rshow55 - 03:52pm Oct 30, 2003 EST (# 15969 of 15983)
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.

Those things done reflexively can be most important - and most revealing. I'm responsible for what I say and do - and so are you.

jorian319 - 04:05pm Oct 30, 2003 EST (# 15970 of 15983)

Yeah, Robert - that's one of your best comments to date. I take full resposibility for my words and actions, and yet proceed without caution because I'm comfortable with who I am.

Don't have any goblins chasing me, or keeping me down, other than those of my own creation. Neither do you.

rshow55 - 04:14pm Oct 30, 2003 EST (# 15971 of 15983)
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 , now just suppose I was able to converse with someone at the NYT - and discuss exactly the issue of "what's keeping me down" - in specific detail - working for a solution to my problem that cost the NYT as little as possible. Maybe I'd find out I didn't have a problem. But for some very straightforward reasons - I think I do. Problems that would be easy for the NYT to solve for me.

The NYT has some problems with me that would be easy to solve by doing so.

Jorian , I'm glad you feel comfortable with who you are. I feel pretty comfortable about my identity, too. Just have a few technical problems to sort out - to keep some promises, and sort out some messes.

(12 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense