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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 - 02:31pm Nov 25, 2002 EST (# 6289 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.

Terrible human behavior is natural, too.

Mankind's Inhumanity to Man and Woman - As natural as human goodness? Started by rshowalter at 06:08pm Nov 12, 2000 BST and ongoing since, begins with this: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/0

" I'm trying to float and idea here - and that's something these forums are good for.

"Looking at the world, there are so many cases of "unthinkable" and "unexplainable" evil and negligence, that the mind and heart recoils. People recall such behavior among the Nazis, and recoil, as well they might. How could "civilized, aesthetically sensitive, cultured people" ALSO act so monstrously, and with such clear and sophisticated murderous intent.

"But is this behavior so strange? Or is it the NATURAL state of people, dealing with outsiders, outsiders who they naturally dehumanize, and deal with as heartless, exploitive predators? Is it civilization and mercy that are the "unnatural" things - the things that have to be taught, and negotiated into being, and strived for?

"I'm coming to think that it is just as natural for people to act "inhumanly" - that is cruelly, and in a dehumanizing way, towards OUTSIDERS, as it is natural for people to act warmly, and with accommodation and mutual support, for people WITHIN their group.

"I'm coming to the view that, just as there is an instinct for language, and an instinct for becoming a part of a group, inborn in humans, there is an instinct to exclude outsiders, to dehumanize them, to withhold cooperation from them, and to treat them as animals, subject to manipulation an predation. I'm coming to believe that this treatment of outsiders is an instinctive species characteristic, evolved over the millions of years when people lived as gatherers and team hunters.

"If this is true, we all have the basic instincts to be kind, sensitive, and good, within our groups, but at the same time are naturally "monsters" in our behavior toward outsiders.

" If this is right, the role of civilization is to find ways of peace and effective cooperation where isolation, conflict, duplicity, and merciless manipulation, including murder, might otherwise occur.

rshow55 - 02:33pm Nov 25, 2002 EST (# 6290 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 been working hard, trying to help find ways toward safer and more comfortable circumstances that can be practical and useful.

The most important things we've been able to identify connect very closely with many, many things that people already do - often, and well.

Since so many problems have been solved in the past - there's some hope that problems can be solved now, and in the future. But enough things have gone wrong that there is plenty of reason to be wary, and concerned about mechanics.

Luckily, even though there's plenty of muddle, a lot of things converge.

When good solutions don't converge - what stops them from doing so?

Some of the reasons involve mechanics - and problems with complexity that will always be difficult - but that are more tractable now than they've been before.

rshow55 - 02:35pm Nov 25, 2002 EST (# 6291 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.

This thread repeats itself - but according to the "fiction" that it is built for staffed organizations - that's not an intolerable fault.

A number of main points are collected and linked in 6000 rshow55 11/20/02 7:56pm

The "Putin Briefing" set out on this thread, March 17-23, 2001 and reposted on Mankind's Inhumanity to Man from #340-356 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/383 covers a lot of other recurring themes.

There's been a lot of progress since the publication of Muddle in Moscow http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=533129 , and though I don't know if Putin himself has ever so much as looked at this board, some of the things that have happened in Russia seem as if Putin and his people have been considering the complexities http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/385 that they face, and often doing so with understanding. And seem as if the "effective rate of return" http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/393 of actions has been thought about often enough, and sensibly enough, for some good results..

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