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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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bluestar23 - 10:38am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17259 of 17271)

HomeLand Security Alert raised to "Purple" as fear of Showalter's "outrage" spreads thoughout America....

rshow55 - 10:41am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17260 of 17271)
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.

Of course, I've never done anything like that in the past, so it might backfire.

You never know.

To produce stable "fights" - you don't want to give the other guy a chance.

So I'm thinking about giving an "exact" warning on what I'd like to do. So defenses can be cleanly set up. Defenses that are well set up are usually very unstable.

Negotiating lawyers think through patterns like this all the time . . . .

When they're dealing with people of the same culture - who know each other well enough to judge what makes sense.

Between nation states - these patterns have been very unstable.

We need to fix that. Prototyping could be useful. With real stakes, but small ones.

How could I line up the NYT so that they were so pressed, so desperate, that they could actually make some money on this thread - and do some things they half want to do?

That would make a win-win solution possible.

It would take a calibrated, credible threat, with the right timing and the right geometry - and an alternative that worked much better available as well. Sometimes, in such circumstances - there is no alternative to getting just to the edge of a fight - and stepping back. Maybe after a skirmish or two.

Problem is - this is unstable. So lawyers often discuss what their principles can and will do to each other - and, from time to time, settlements happen. Including some very good deals.

rshow55 - 10:46am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17261 of 17271)
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.

Cantabb missed something, and asks

A copy of what ? Your corpus CD ? -

A one hour CNN videotape

The Art of Telling Science (Virginia Festival of the Book - Charlotsville, Va, 1999) chaired by Edwin Barber , with Douglas Starr, Natalie Angier, and Jennifer Ackerman.

I suggested that NYT on the Web webcast it - but with a begginning section that sets out Edwin Barber's statements about how influential the SCIENCE TIMES section has been in the discourse of science - and in science writing - set out as a leader. Barber says that the Science Times section has dominated science writing for 25 years - and almost uniformly with good effect.

. . .

bluestar23 - 10:46am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17262 of 17271)

"It would take a calibrated, credible threat, with the right timing and the right geometry"

Tell them you're going to burn down Punch Sulzberger's multi-million dollar Condo in Manhattan, that'll get their attention....

rshow55 - 10:51am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17263 of 17271)
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 17262 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.YghSbwg1XeM.2698382@.f28e622/18977

There might be ways to get their attention that generated allies for me - and that wouldn't be one of them.

But some other outrages might. Wild eyed types like the people who attended and spoke before the National Converence on Media Reform might approve of the outrage I have in mind.

People who cheered for Rocky in the movie of the same name ( the first one ) might approve, too.

Not everybody loves The New York Times with an entirely undiluted love. There's some fear, too. And some resentment.

Maybe if I could just tickle you folks . . .

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense