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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 - 05:20pm Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2679 of 2683)

I'm trying to put things out that can be checked - - in many ways. Something I've often tried to do in the past, as well.

rshow55 - 05:41pm Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2680 of 2683)

I'm sure nobody would mistake me for a guy as bright as Greg Smith is going to grow up to be . . . but still, I think this is a fact. People are often afraid of me. A lot of people. I was very disappointed when I discovered that folks at the C.I.A. were afraid of me. They seemed very afraid, distressingly, boringly afraid. It seemed strange, somehow, for C.I.A. to react that way, yet it was oh, so familiar. . .

Here's an interesting article.

Bringing Up Genius .... When Greg Smith passed his mother and father intellectually at 5, they took it in stride. But then the world beat down his door, offering opportunity and danger in equal measure. What's a parent to do By Tamara Jones Sunday, January 13, 2002; Page W07 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A16604-2002Jan8 starts as follows:

"The first death threat, veiled in a poem, came when he was 8 years old. . . . . "

Suppose you're a kid, not as smart as Greg Smith, but not slow, and people want to fight you - just for who you are. From the time you're five, maybe. Unless I'm wrong, a lot of very smart people have such experiences - and most find ways to conciliate.

Suppose instead, you happen to fight and win. And keep at it. And fight a lot. And take fighting for granted.

Suppose your negotiation with your parents is that, if you have to fight, you have to hide it, and you have to be the very best kid you can be, in every other respect. What's so wrong with that?

This can be checked, I think. In 1966, the first year 6 Year Ph.D. program had more than 30 males -- and almost all of them gathered, without me, to discuss whether or not they could, if they attacked me together, take me down. It was a serious discussion. I eavesdropped on it - - and told them the obvious truth -- of course they could. It was easy for me to point out how - I thought about such things. . . . I think some may remember the conversation.

Unless they'd practiced, I didn't happen to think, then, that they could have taken me down. Though I didn't say so. The fact was, when I burst into their little meeting, I was in tears. I was trying hard to fit in. I didn't want to fight with anybody.

There was nothing particularly surprising or unphysical about me at the time, or later.

Some U.S. military people, a little later, found me an interesting student to talk to.

rshow55 - 05:42pm Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2681 of 2683)

I've often felt a lot like Cassandra, whose situation is described so beautifully in Playing Know And Tell By JOHN SCHWARTZ http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/09/weekinreview/09BOXA.html

I was also very interested in the "increased sensitivity to anger" discussed in Physically Abused Children Recognize the Face of Anger By ERICA GOODE http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/18/health/children/18ABUS.html which includes this:

" a new study offers a clue to how an experience early in childhood may exert such a powerful and long-lasting influence. Repeatedly exposed to the rage of unpredictable adults, abused children appear to develop an exquisite sensitivity to the emotional signals of anger, the study finds.

My parents have always been extraordinarily good to me, and I wasn't abused at all -- but I did develop a good deal of sensitivity to facial expressions. Had I not done so, I would not have survived. I was on the recieving end of some of the same kinds of hostility that Greg Smith has faced, and reacted to it differently. (Though I notice that we both care a lot about peace.)

rshow55 - 05:54pm Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2682 of 2683)

So how does this make me a bad guy?

If you were in my position, and had gone through the things I've gone through, you'd try to do the same things I'm trying to do, as best you could. Just like I am.

I've been doing the best I could - and I haven't always been wrong, either.

rshow55 - 06:09pm Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2683 of 2683)

I want to take a break, and go for a walk. But I feel justified in repeating MD2641 rshow55 6/20/02 1:00pm . . .

Does anybody blame me for this? Or for this: I'll do whatever I can to keep the world from blowing up, which it easily could now. And do what I can to keep people from butchering each other, when that happens to seem possible.

I'm not asking anybody to defer to me, or trust me. I'm doing my very best to let people check - it only they had the courage to do so.

I could be wrong, but it is my personal judgement that if people would actually talk to me, and learn a few things, we could have a good shot at real, stable peace in the Middle East. Some other good things might be possible, too. I think I've been useful already, with the stunning, graceful help of lchc , who is plainly smarter than I am in many decisive ways. MD2000 rshow55 5/4/02 10:39am

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