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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.

lchic - 02:54pm Nov 6, 2003 EST (# 16642 of 16664)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Sounds like a cold war psycho bully technique

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Y8RtbMwOVVm.1828997@.f28e622/18355

and not just towards Showalter - moi aussi!

lchic - 03:10pm Nov 6, 2003 EST (# 16643 of 16664)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

http://media.guardian.co.uk/pressprivacy/story/0,7525,1079332,00.html

rshow55 - 03:11pm Nov 6, 2003 EST (# 16644 of 16664)
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.

"End game" is an interesting search here - and a major problem is that people think end games are easy - and that agreeable, simple handoffs happen easily, automatically, without back-and-forth - and are stable.

That doesn't happen to be true. It's been a little more than 24 hours since I had a good conversation with a line guy at NYT that went well - and I've been thinking hard about what would work for me - and it seemed to me - for him. I read some text over the phone to his answering machine not long ago - and asked that we talk - for just a little while - about some simple things that really mattered to me - that were entirely consistent with a letter he'd already sent me - and entirely consistent with yesterday's conversation.

In just a few minutes of back-and-forth - we might have gotten much closer to closure - maybe to closure on everything that mattered.

It may be coincidence - but there followed an unusually hostile post from bluestar. Now, my intention wasn't to pick a fight at all - but just to get a smooth hand-off. Perhaps it was just coincidence. It looked to me like it might have been an example of how "explosive instabilities" happen - but only, of course, if there's close, very fast communication between this line guy and bluestar.

If there is - getting something in writing is especially important - is it not?

If people bristle because in fact they have some distrust of each other - even some fear of each other - lots of things that ought to convege nicely can't.

rshow55 - 03:15pm Nov 6, 2003 EST (# 16645 of 16664)
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.

Now personally, I hate to even thing that this line guy could be in close contact with bluestar - but given the way the board goes sometimes - a person does have to consider possibilities.

Real people live in worlds where they interact along a continuum of trust and distrust. Usually they do so ( and often very well ) by oscillating between patterns that assume trust - and other patterns that assume distrust. It often works very well - it is often reflexive -and almost every good cooperative relationship I've ever seen has patterns like that.

They take a little care to set up - with the best will in the world on both sides. And that can't always be expected.

jorian319 - 03:33pm Nov 6, 2003 EST (# 16646 of 16664)

Almost every thing is turned into a tortured exercise.

"Almost" ??

Please, a list of exceptions!

the fiction that you people aren't closely associated with the NYT is paper thin by now.

Shouldn't I be getting a paycheck???

<grouse> ...all this hard, hard work and no appreciation, long hours, inhumane working conditions... </grouse>

lchic - 03:39pm Nov 6, 2003 EST (# 16647 of 16664)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

As missile is to target --- distant !

So above

J is to reader --- insistent?

(17 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense