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 - 07:29pm Nov 23, 2002 EST (# 6232 of 6241)
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.

Maybe even useful. Understanding - if you can get it - often has uses.

Almarst's question of last year ... "What are the reasons today for hostility between nations?" is an absolutely fundamental one - and we don't know enough, now, to answer it in the detail we need for decent action. But since the time he asked the question, there's been progress. Perhaps we're learning, and maybe even learning fairly fast. 213 rshow55 3/5/02 10:11am

I thought Almarst's statement of concerns in almarst2002 11/22/02 10:55pm was excellent - and that every one of his questions was worth attention - whether you happen to agree with him or not.

I appreciated 6620 gisterme 11/23/02 2:02pm . . . agree with gisterme on much he said, and appreciate his reference to rshow55 11/23/02 9:38am

I've felt like taking some time off, to think, and also to feel. Had the pleasure of making some banana bread. I like banana bread for a lot of reasons. It tastes good. Something I like especially about it is that you can take something rotten - rotten bananas - and, make those bananas part of something good. Otherwise you have to throw those bananas out.

Last year, lunarchick and I attempted a "briefing" - - http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/383 - - and the things we suggested there, and the concerns we had - make sense now.

How do we deal with complexity? How are we to find the things that to do that make sense - that let us do the best we can, rather than the worst ? I'm sure I don't know all the answers. But it seems to me that some of them are fairly obvious - if people keep their aesthetic senses intact - think about the human consequences of what they do - and work carefully.

Are these hopes unreasonable? http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b2bd/1662 ? Maybe so. But my understanding is so limited that - for all the fear - I'm not wise enough to see exactly why not.

out.

I'll try to keep some promises tomorrow.

fredmoore - 08:38pm Nov 23, 2002 EST (# 6233 of 6241)

San Francisco appears to be serious about treating the disease (entropic deficiency syndrome) ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/national/24SOLA.html

"It is clear to us that the leadership for promoting renewable energy is not going to come from the White House or Congress," said David Hochschild, a former aide to Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr. and a leader in passage of the renewable energy ballot measure. "The action really is at the local level."

To that end, Mayor Brown on Thursday invited the singer Bonnie Raitt, a longtime proponent of renewable energy, to a City Hall reception to help draw attention to the city's solar ambitions. Outside, a large truck with solar panels on its roof offered free cups of solar-brewed coffee.

"Promoting renewable energy is the most patriotic act we can commit," Ms. Raitt told a cheering crowd of about 200. "It makes our country less dependent on foreign oil and less likely to go to war."

San Francisco could achieve its goal in a fraction of the time and for a fraction of the cost if they had a THERMOELECTRIC fabric instead of photoelectric devices.

lunarchick - 10:11pm Nov 23, 2002 EST (# 6234 of 6241)

No such thing as a rotten banana .... there are five degrees of ripeness -- use this scale ...

lunarchick - 10:45pm Nov 23, 2002 EST (# 6235 of 6241)

Civil Liberties

""The problem for civil libertarians is that authoritarians always have the best rhetoric.

They claim the songs, the flags, the pictures of the dead and the dying.

They claim the role of protector and patriot.

They promise a comforting paternalism to which we can surrender and they persuade us that the sacrifice of liberty is worth the warm blanket of security. ....

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=355201

http://forums.indigital.co.uk/id-argument/messages/?msg=16874

(6 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense