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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 - 03:57pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17339 of 17358)
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.

17297 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.wmG4bwX4XKU.2803245@.f28e622/19012 bears repeating

Primordial motivations for war , cited in lunarchick 12/14/02 7:08am set out cynically but entertainingly by Phillip Adams -- For Men, War is Swell http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,5673211%5E12272,00.html

and primordial motivations for peace , set out beautifully, and with great erudition, too, by Natalie Angier -- Of Altruism, Heroism and Evolution's Gifts in the Face of Terror http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/health/psychology/18ALTR.html

Human reason serves both these motivations. But is both better and worse. Natalie Angier's piece today leads with a question:

Is War Our Biological Destiny? http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/science/11WAR.html

Until we learn some things - it is .

- - - -

I've thought that this thread might, in itself, embody a great lesson - and set out the basic things to be learned. I don't know if it has made a contribution to Natalie Angier's Is War Our Biological Destiny? http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/science/11WAR.html

I'd be proud if it had.

Once this thread is finished, there will be other things I can do. Including writing some thank you letters. But also including some condensation and summarization of lessons learned.

And maybe some clearer teaching.

bluestar23 - 04:02pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17340 of 17358)

rshow55:

"I don't know if it (this Forum) has made a contribution to Natalie Angier's Is War Our Biological Destiny?"

Would you mind explaining exactly what you mean here....?

cantabb - 04:13pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17341 of 17358)

rshow55 - 03:48pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17336 of 17340)

I would have been perfectly happy if the thread had closed at the end of Oct 23, 2003 - which is what I expected. If that had happened, and the thread had been archived till Friday - that would have conformed to my understanding of my conversation with Editor in Chief of NYT on the Web Apcar.

You were in no such position....

rshow55 - 03:57pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17339 of 17340)

I've thought that this thread might, in itself, embody a great lesson - and set out the basic things to be learned.

The only lesson: How a public forum (left unattendewd and unmonitored) can be extensively abused for personal reason and personal problems -- nothing to do with forum objectives.

Once this thread is finished, there will be other things I can do. Including writing some thank you letters. But also including some condensation and summarization of lessons learned.

And NO ONE is preventing you from doing this.

And maybe some clearer teaching

You FIRST learn what you think you can teach. I see nothing, though.

rshow55 - 04:16pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17342 of 17358)
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.

17340 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.wmG4bwX4XKU.2803245@.f28e622/19055

I'd be very glad to. Let me take a little time - Natalie Angier's Is War Our Biological Destiny? http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/science/11WAR.html says a lot of things I've been trying to get into focus - perhaps independently of this thread - more concisely and better than I could.

But there are a few comments I'd like to make about it. I'd like to make them carefully. The things I want to say are simple - but it seems to me that they are technically important. Don't want to screw those statements up.

cantabb - 04:21pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17343 of 17358)

rshow55 - 04:16pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17342 of 17342)

Natalie Angier's Is War Our Biological Destiny? says a lot of things I've been trying to get into focus - perhaps independently of this thread - more concisely and better than I could.

Really ? I can see why "focus" would pose such a big problem for you !

But there are a few comments I'd like to make about it. I'd like to make them carefully. The things I want to say are simple - but it seems to me that they are technically important. Don't want to screw those statements up.

And, after all that agonizing, you made NO comment !

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense