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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 - 10:39am Oct 19, 2002 EST (# 5045 of 5047)
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.

On mechanics - and new possibilities:

2246 rshow55 5/16/02 3:34pm includes this:

lchic 5/16/02 2:55pm -- the model surely needs to be connected to capabilities that permit communication and decision making that needs to be done. Interactions with staffed organizations are a part of that. To "cover the bases" on what is done is complicated - but if we do it clearly - and sort out problems -- we may be able to get closure on problems that have been intractable before.

lchic 5/16/02 3:16pm asks

How could world bodies assist in creating better situations in their homeland countries to lessen displacement.

The task is complicated - but we can deal with the complications involved better now than we used to.

in MD2229 rshow55 5/15/02 9:36am there's this:

Lchic and I did a 2 hour, 70 post session on negotiation in the middle east that I think summarizes a good deal about new opportunities in conflict resolution made possible by the internet . . . The session goes from http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.eea14e1/1253 to http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.eea14e1/1318 . It includes many links to this NYT Missile Defense thread. The suggestions are directed, by way of example, to Friedman and Fisk, but are flexible, general, and inexpensive. I believe that if the staffed organizations of Europe, the US, and other countries thought about these opportunities, and adapted them their needs and responsibilities, the good things being talked about and hoped for about the "end of the cold war" could become real, in realistic, nutsy-boltsy, comfortable human ways.

A friend of mine who is an IT professional looked at http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.eea14e1/1253 to http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.eea14e1/1318 and made comments that I thought were very helpful. He's John Mark Heumann of Houston Tx. I'm taking the liberty of posting an outline he wrote - both because it illustrates how complex things are -- what tools are available -- and how little chance there is for a "meeting of the minds" in a short meeting.

Heumann's Analysis of Web Thread is set out in

2247 rshow55 5/16/02 3:39pm to 2250 rshow55 5/16/02 3:56pm

Human interactions ARE very complicated (the ones we take for granted, living our lives, would be very difficult to describe) and logically it may be "easier" to "not listen" -- "not notice the hanging details" and "not get to closure." I'd have some comments about what Mark outlined above -- but he isn't making any false difficulties than I can see - nor false distinctions.

Does that mean that complex cooperation is hopeless when there are difficulties?

It means nothing of the sort. It means that sorting things out takes work - - including intellectual work -- and that the job of illustrating, discussing, focusing, agreeing - is a complicated job that only human beings can do.

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