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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 - 10:32am Dec 26, 2002 EST (# 7046 of 7049)
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.

The first reference below is a chapter on Artificial Intelligence written by George Johnson, that I posted on http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/finarts - - with his permission (which I can produce if asked) five years ago.

Chapter 11: The Finer Arts from MACHINERY of THE MIND: Inside the New Science of Artificial Intelligence

http://www.mrshowalter.net/finearts
http://www.mrshowalter.net/klineul
http://www.mrshowalter/nterface
http://www.mrshowalter.net/sermon.html

I'm hopeful. There are some key things about the golden rule, http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/DetailNGR.htm especially as it applies to fighting, that have a lot to do with the notion of the virtual.

Whether God exists or not, we are animals, and only as bright as we are. Only connected with ourselves, and with our world, as we are connected. What rights do we have to kill each other, or to force each other to change in accordance with our ideas - - and especially our ideas of "God's will"?

Some fighting is necessary. Some killing, sometimes, may be necessary. But we ought to be careful about it - and wary of moral indignation, and self righteousness, in either ourselves, our organizations, or others, and the organizations of others. The word "evil" is a good, strong word - and sometimes indispensible. But it seems to me that we ought to be careful about how we use it, without a lot of context.

Read an interesting essay on Dag Hammarskjold by C.P. Snow yesterday. The Bush administration is absolutely right that there are some messes and muddles at the United Nations that go deep, and need to be fixed. It seems to me that a lot could be fixed.

Now, at the level of risk to the United States, I think some solutions could start folling into place if GW Bush made a simple, short phone call to the leader of North Korea, was videotaped while he did so, had the videotape put up on the internet (which might take 1 hour from the phone call) and sent an email that North Korea would get - so that they could look at the web video.

I'm very glad that gisterme wrote gisterme 12/26/02 4:42am , and hope he read 7016-7019 rshow55 12/25/02 7:25am

Adults need secrets, lies, and fictions
To live within their contradictions

They need to live within some contradictions because, doing their best, their understanding, as an animal reality, is virtual - - though often correct. People, and groups of people, do generate contradictions - some of which persist for long times. Maybe we can go about the business of resolving some of ours.

rshow55 - 12:22pm Dec 26, 2002 EST (# 7047 of 7049)
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.

Whether God exists or not, we are animals, and only as bright as we are. Only connected with ourselves, and with our world, as we are connected.

What rights do we have to kill each other, or to force each other to change in accordance with our ideas . . ?

As a practical matter, there have to be some such rights - at some levels, in some specific contexts. They have to be clear, and clearly limited. For example - there have to be limits on the right to lie - or at least limits of the ability people have to bar checking.

To sort some things out - there has to be - a duty to check - and that duty has to be operational - and performed.

Some very basic issues at the United Nations have been discussed and renegotiated this year - and it seems to me that there is more discussion, renegotiation, and deployment of limited, defined force left to do.

I'm often wrong - often get things exactly backwards (try to check for that) - but it seems to me that this is a very hopeful time. Pardon me for moving slowly - I'm a slow checker. But it does seem to me that we're in some zones of convergence that are interesting, and associated with high stakes.

Though, as I said before, I'm often exactly wrong (and can only check by matching to something external to the logic being checked) and I've been warned that "I'm not playing with a full deck." But it seems to me that some of the last cards may be falling into place. Since Steve Kline died in 1997, two ideas that had me worried a lot, that I thought were absolutely vital - have come into focus - as a result of work that lunarchick and I have done together. Or I think they have, anyway. Though I could be wrong . . .

lunarchick - 03:41pm Dec 26, 2002 EST (# 7048 of 7049)

Checkers can be virtual, Chubby or slow :)

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