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Science
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
- 03:56am Nov 13, 2003 EST (#
17481 of 17484) 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.
My 26 October letter to Sulzberger includes this.
A tremendous amount of my effort on the
Missile Defense board has been to solve TECHNICAL problems
of negotiating stable outcomes to "games" and negotiations,
including those that result in wars, that involve
complexity, competition, cooperation and high emotional
stakes. These problems have been major barriers to progress
in international relations and commerce.
I think . . . . we're quite close to a
situation where general and simple solutions to this class
of problems can be demonstrated and explained so that they
can be solved routinely and practically. With a model of the
kind of solution needed in general worked out - in the
presence of a record that I believe many people and
organizations can and will learn from.
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.
At the end of my phone call to Apcar, I felt all that was
very close. It has slipped away. Since that time, there have
been missteps, stasis, unnecessary losses, and a great deal of
posting on the Missile Defense thread that might be described
as a "little war."
I'd hoped to resolve the problems involved in a few hours
of face to face contact. That would have been, and I think
should have been possible.
I'd also hoped to be able to help the NYT make a great deal
of money in ways "the average reader of The New York
Times" would root for. And make some for myself, too.
There's an interesting scene, early in My Fair Lady
- where Eliza tries to hit Higgins up for the price of some
flowers - where the right is not necessarily on her side.
Higgins refuses to treat her as a human being - but does, as
if by accident, drop more money than was being discussed on
the wet street at her feet - as he shuns her. Much of the
behavior of The New York Times to me, to the rest of the
journalism profession, and to the rest of the world, is too
much like that. I believe that detracts quite significantly
from both the status and the bottom line of the newspaper that
puts:
" All the news that's fit to print"
on the upper left corner of its front page.
Anyway, my sleep cycle has been disrupted - and there's
only so much I can hope to do before the this thread closes.
I'm going to sleep for a little while - and then finish a
letter that may not interest NYT people - but may interest
some others.
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New York Times on the Web Forums
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Missile Defense
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