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 - 07:05am Nov 12, 2003 EST (# 17371 of 17395)
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.

In Shakespeare in Love , Queen Elizabeth, portrayed by Judith Dench, is a revered, feared, and effective power holder. She has a powerful line.

"It's time to settle accounts. "

So it is.

I'm grateful for this thread, though I have some reservations. I'm very glad it is ending - and in many ways ending well. Not all.

Nobody's exactly average. I know I'm not. Nobody has a "typical" life story - when details count. I don't. And so everybody's different, and different people have different slants on things. Although I've ignored some of what they've said, I've been fascinated by how different the slant of cantabb and bluestar have been from mine. They see things differently, sometimes things I find interesting - sometimes things I'm glad to see. Sometimes not.

Carl Sagan wrote that the overwhelming fact about presenting for television is that it required relentless condensation.

I'm not so good at that - though I try. Lchic is superb at it. Cantabb , bluestar , and Jorian often are, too.

" It's time to settle accounts. "

These days, the whole world has problems settling accounts - and some of them are elementary - basic - "trivial" - or fundamental. Simple.

. For good general purpose function, people need to settle accounts with each other in terms of both status and money in ways that are simple and clear enough so that they can do the things that they have to do.

For general purpose function, the settlements need to fit cases well enough , fit power relations well enough , be symettrical enough , and be stable enough.

Everybody has trouble with that. More trouble than necessary. Even The New York Times.

Any human relationship involves relations of both status and money. Both.

Very many human relationships, these days, do not fit cases well enough, do not fit power relations well enough, are not symettrical enough, and not stable enough, for the reasonable comfort of the people involved in the inter-relations that are actually there. Is that a "trivial" observation? "elementary" - "basic" - "trivial" - or "fundamental" are words with very similar positive meanings - but different status associations.

rshow55 - 07:06am Nov 12, 2003 EST (# 17372 of 17395)
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.

rshow55 - 06:49pm Oct 23, 2003 EST (# 15523 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.frz0bsSmXM5.2893622@.f28e622/17236 includes this:

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.frz0bsSmXM5.2893622@.f28e622/17081

Human organizations have to act and it is important, for action, to be positive what you want to do and able to explain it.

If people are to use this board - and if I'm to be able to function - what happened on this board has to be explained concisely in the ways that matter for action.

In essentials.

That doesn't necessarily conflict with any valid interest of the newspaper.

We don't have to be in a "zero sum" or "negative sum" game here. We could arrange a postitive sum game.

If I could model it in public - with credibility - it might be the first of many win-win games.

As a " game " player ( search "Wizard's Chess" or " Franklin " ) it doesn't matter whether I'm Ismael or not. I've been playing a game that is not a game. I was told, at an impressionable age - that unless somebody found out how to play that "game" the world would end.

I got fingered.

jorian319 - 06:51pm Oct 23, 2003 EST (# 15524 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.frz0bsSmXM5.2893622@.f28e622/17237

The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment. <emphasis added>

"Seems it hasn't occured to 'someone' that these fora, comprising a very small, non revenue generating facet of NYT, fall into the latter category.

- - - - - - -

It occurred to me. I'd hoped to use facilities made available in ways that were revenue generating ( and status generating) for the TIMES .

I'm sorry I was unable to do that.

(23 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense