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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.

rshow55 - 08:37am Jun 15, 2002 EST (#2541 of 2549)

MD2462 rshow55 6/4/02 6:54am . . . MD2463 rshow55 6/4/02 6:55am
MD2465 lchic 6/4/02 11:15pm

Especially MD2465 lchic 6/4/02 11:15pm

Lies can paralyze, and can lead to disastrous decisions. An excess of lies can stunt whole cultures, and that has happend. (For one possible source, search incest, this thread.) To deal with problems in the Middle East, and with islamic terrorism, we have to deal with lies - attack lies - as Friedman has often said. Including some on the surface and some deeper. That means we have to deal with, and root out, some lies of our own.

Is the discourse between CIA and the rest of our culture very much more reliable than the discourse in the Egyptian newspaper piece that caught lchic's eye? Enough safer? I've come to wonder - and with my concerns about nuclear controls, my thoughts make me uneasy, and afraid - - though they keep me working.

Eisenhower's FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961 http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm

The things Eisenhower warned of have happened, and there are problems that American need to understand, and fix, with the world watching, and checking.

lchic - 10:46am Jun 15, 2002 EST (#2542 of 2549)

Heard, hence no citation, that there are queries regarding a shortage of Oxygen in the Ocean at varied depths, (the same Sci-media-blast had concerns re arctic melt http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2040000/2040532.stm )

Showalter : lets hope former constraints untangle to enable your intellectual capital and contributions to be applied in projects for humanGood.
lchic 5/29/02 3:34pm

lchic - 11:29am Jun 15, 2002 EST (#2543 of 2549)

Enron (judge's ruling) .. what seemed like 'common sense' is becoming complex
^{http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/15/business/15AUDI.html}

manjumicha2001 - 12:14pm Jun 15, 2002 EST (#2544 of 2549)

Hello, rshow.

Your story about Cornell reunion brings back soem of my fond memories there. The smartest guy I ever met was a Cornell Phd candidate in Solid Physics. We were roommates in 1987 and we made a serious attmept (when we weren't drunk with beer or weren't horsing around the cayuga lake) to develop and commercialize an automatic DNA/RNA sequensor (about 15 years too early for commercial success, i guess). He had also developed a portable digital compass on his own...forgot what came out of it. I would love to get back in touch with him like you did with your friends but I guess things will have to happen in due time.

In the mean time, I would love to see you "unshackled" and do so soon.

rshow55 - 01:00pm Jun 15, 2002 EST (#2545 of 2549)

Get back in touch! Human warmth matters so much.

And there are plenty of ways that groups of people can not only warm each other - but help each other, and check and check on each other - - so you need your friends.

A big problem in this country, and in some ways a much worse one because of the Cold War - is the ways we cut off contact between people - in ways that are terribly dangerous - in interesting ways not socially understood today.

My conversation with the CIA person was satisfactory in many ways - but the most interesting part of it, by far, is how important it was to them to cut me off from contact - - how afraid of the consequences of contact they seemed to be.

At the level of logic, there are some interesting things about that - which I'll talk about in a while, and which have BIG consequences in our judgements of "certainty" and "safety." It is much too easy for us to be "quite sure" of things that are totally wrong - and set other people up to be misled, as well.

That was, and is, easily done at Cornell, a school I love. And at every other American institution that I know, one way or another.

I've given the Provost and the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Cornell permission to share information about me widely - certainly to people in the press. Some folks might be interested to look at my undergraduate transcript.

People who think our nuclear arrangements are stable and safe - - or our diplomatic relations are stable -- are much more trusting than they ought to be - in areas where they ought to know better.

People who "trust" press releases, with incomplete press specifications, about "missile defense" matters are not only being foolish -- they're making some effort, by now, to look away -- to sustain fictions.

Manjumicha ,I may be making some real progress about getting "completely unshackled" -- I'll know more after making a few phone calls and inquiries this coming week, and watching how things happen.

manjumicha2001 - 02:37pm Jun 15, 2002 EST (#2546 of 2549)

Good !

In the mean time, if I were you, I wouldn't beat myself up too bad about a failed commercial venture or two. I mean the people who invested in your previous venture seem like smart and serious bunch....they knew what they were doing and the risk they were taking. Soem they win, some they lose....course for the par.

Regarding your big picture ideas, I think the next step might be to cut them into manageable, bite-size commercial "events" which can be translated into % return (with risk premium) on invested dollars.....the mixed language of greed and grandiose can cook up some strong brew of change...and take us step closer to the meanigful big picture changes that you advocated.

Translating my mumblings above into plain english...you should be able to come up with a product or service that "dumb money" can invest in and receive dumb returns....without necessarily hearing a word about your backgrounds, visions, NYT forums, etc. That is my humble opinion for today.

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