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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 - 11:08am Nov 25, 2002 EST (# 6283 of 6294)
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.

I think the world is a good deal safer now than it was then - precarious as things are. In September 2000, I thought risks were much too high that the world could go off "like a string of firecrackers". That isn't likely now, though a billion people might die. But that's getting less likely. Reduction of nuclear weapons, and elimination of nuclear weapons - make sense in the context of a balance of needs and risks. Some things take time.

It takes time and clarifying events for people to get scared - and by and large, people are more scared than they used to be. That's uncomfortable, but still progress. Compared to the total risks in the world, costs have been comparatively small so far - and with work and luck, may remain so.

It takes time for people to take a good look - - and without some requirement that people face facts - it might take forever. But facts are harder to escape than they used to be - and logic is somewhat harder to avoid, too - because of a lot of work by a lot of people, and because the internet makes more communication possible. Checking remains a big problem - but the possibility of "collecting the dots" and "connecting the dots" is much better than it was a short time ago.

Only after people know what to do can they get organized - - but I've found a lot of what's happened involving the Iraq situation, and the metamorphesis of NATO - hopeful.

It seems to me that the suggestions I made on Sept 25, 2000, naive as they were then, remain worth remembering. What would it take for nuclear disarmament - and safer military balances from all reasonable points of view, to become practical? A lot, but even so, it seems to me that some of the things that would be required are happening.

Ugly and terrifying as things and people are, maybe it is possible to fix some things. It seems to me that the incidence of agony and death from war in the 21st century can be far, far lower than it was in the 20th - if people are careful, and keep working. The efforts made over the last few months - if continued - might accomplish a lot, stably - in not so very much time. If we're lucky.

We might accomplish a lot if our talking skills got better - so that they could sometimes offer better alternatives to brute force, and logics of extermination. 6246 rshow55 11/24/02 6:42pm

rshow55 - 02:23pm Nov 25, 2002 EST (# 6284 of 6294)
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.

Lunarchick and I have worked on this thread, and related Guardian threads - in the basis of an assumption - perhaps a "fiction." The assumption that people are looking at the work - including staffed organizations.

We've had some reason to hope that that might be right - and some other people and organizations that have provided thought and resources to this thread - surely people close to the New York Times, the U.S. government - and some other governments - seem to have been committing resources on the basis of a similar hope.

Right now, it seems to me that the world would be a lot safer - and could become more prosperous and more beautiful - if responsible people in staffed organizations could understand - and feel - some of the things set out on this board. "Obvious" things, most of them. Though this tread, low-down as anyone may judge it to be, does link to some good, beautiful things. Including some things the world could use more of.

Last year, at a time when the whole of the United States was in shock and mourning, and the New York Times was doing a lot of good work, there was a piece of work that I think bears rereading today - that gives reasons for hope that it seems to me we need to remember, as we also remember reasons to fear, and as we struggle to perfect some mechanics that we need for decency and survival.

It seems right to do this reposting now, and then refer to a few simple things which, it seems to me, might permit us to converge to safer, more comfortable, more prosperous conditions - without asking each other to change things that cannot be changed - but changing a few things that we must find the wisdom and the will to change.

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