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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 - 05:21pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16528 of 16536)
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 question is how you produce a "win win" solution under circumstances where negative sum outcomes are also possible, and instabilities are a problem. Currently, such circumstances result in stasis, unnecessary losses, and wars.

By "win-win" I mean a situation where both sides gain - according to their scorekeeping.

It is important to distinguish between a deal that looks good - and a deal that looks good, for enough solid reasons that it is actually stable.

Life is full of "win-win" games that actually work between individuals and small groups of people who have a lot of bonds between them - and a lot of common ground.

But currently, when people are significantly different - especially if groups are as isolated and insular as nation states are - the tendency is to say that if there is any risk involved in the interaction - there should be no contact, no talk.

That classifies "win-win" games out of existence very, very often.

Some of the reasons involve biological characteristics of humans as a species - some are logical. But the costs and risks of the pattern are becoming prohibitive.

"I'm hoping that the Missile Defense thread - will clearly demonstrate how to solve the TECHNICAL problems of negotiating stable outcomes to complex games involving both competition and cooperation. In a case big enough to study, but not too big. With real stakes, but not stakes too high to permit intelligent function of intelligent people."

We're close enough, it seems to me - that if this hope fails, the failure may be interesting and useful. But success would be much better.

cantabb - 05:25pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16529 of 16536)

rshow55 - 05:08pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16526 of 16527)

The most common patterns are the base on which all other skill patterns are buit - ......I have extreme skepticism of a complex system (and the missile defense system is extremely complex) that will work in real-time as it was supposed to, and on the first try.

"[E]xtreme skepticism" re MD ? A lot of people have that for long.

rshow55 - 05:09pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16527 of 16527)

These difficulties are more-or-less accepted for new technical systems. But for the social arrangements of sociotechnical systems - the point is usually a great deal less clear..... Wish I was more eloquent - but it does seem to me that this little thread, with the small problems here -..... It seems to me that analogies to diplomacy are pretty direct.

From "word frequency" to Jules Verne to "sociotechnical systems" to diplomacy .... "pretty direct" analogies. Black "dots" being connected in a black box, by a blind-folded person in the dark : has a better chance !

"Wish [you were] more eloquent" ? Wish you were clear and focused -- essential to 'eloquence'.

jorian319 - 05:40pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16530 of 16536)

That's a great point, cantabb - written eloquence begins and ends with the writer's precise idea of the effect he's trying to have upon the reader.

Rshow's lack thereof stems from the fact that he's basically fishing.

He throws a ton of half-baked ideas at the forum and waits to see if someone will take some part of it seriously, instead of making up his mind what it is he wishes to accomplish.

cantabb - 06:00pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16531 of 16536)

rshow55 - 05:21pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16528 of 16529)

The 2 passages you quote here, are they your own ? And you're having a debate with yourself ?

Anyway.

By "win-win" I mean a situation where both sides gain - according to their scorekeeping.

NOT from each other, which's what a negotiation involves.

It's NOT like 2 guys going to a farm and picking strawberries in one hour ! And keeping score of how many each got.

Life is full of "win-win" games that actually work between individuals and small groups of people who have a lot of bonds between them - and a lot of common ground.

NOT, as I said, when it involves 2 parties only (NOT involving a pot of gold of someone else).

And if, as you say, the life is so "full of" 'win-win' solutions ("games"), what's NEW in there that you're talking about and trying to "teach" ??

But currently, when people are significantly different - ...

They always were.

As to your comments on "biological characteristics of humans as a species," well, how familar are you with this area -- so far removed from yours ?

We're close enough ["to solve the TECHNICAL problems of negotiating stable outcomes to complex games": re MD], it seems to me - that if this hope fails, the failure may be interesting and useful. But success would be much better.

"We" [rshow & lchich] are "close enough" to something else, unfortunately ! Not to your fond hopes, toward which I don't think you did much of anything at all.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense