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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 - 03:46pm Dec 26, 2002 EST (# 7049 of 7058)
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.

A. I think _ _ _ _ has some things almost exactly backwards, and even some small sets of decisions and arrangements that are exactly backwards.

I think he deserves credit for that. That's as good as a person can do with their own unaided efforts, because of the way human logic works, and the way the logic of the world works. It is a great achievement to get anything straight - especially something new. People do surprisingly well, when you consider how complicated the world is. Once everything is straight (mutually consistent internally) - it is all right, or all wrong. If the logic is exactly wrong - it can be exactly right with a sign change.

For example, I think Saddam may have a sign change error in the tradeoff he's made between saving the lives of Iraqi babies, and building Iraqi mosques. Though that depends, of course, on your assumptions.

Gisterme criticises me for saying things so general that they are meaningless - but by A above, I intend something general, meaninful, and correct. It applies to us all, in spots, as we are working things out - (at least in our heads) if we are thinking or acting at all.

"I think _ _ _ _ has some things almost exactly backwards . . .

is language that I'd apply to the leader of the United States, the leader of Iraq, and the leader of North Korea.

And, from time to time, to other people, as well.

We all have reasons to check.

I can't, for instance, prove the existence of God. Or disprove it, either. How, exactly, could I go about doing so?

I can check a lot of other statements. Both for internal consistency (in expanding and changing contexts for different checks) and for consistency with real, external things that the statement is supposed to match to.

Others can check me in ways I can't.

If I do enough checking, if I have help when I need it, and if I am careful, odds are good that I can be sure enough about a lot of things.

And of course, people are sure about a lot of things.

When consequences of their assumptions start producing ugly or dissonant results (and fights are ugly and dissonant results) they should check things. There might possibly be a mistake.

lunarchick - 03:55pm Dec 26, 2002 EST (# 7050 of 7058)

If 'god' is a virtual construction of the mind, then as the 'environments', within which we live, change ... so too the perception of god.

Originally many gods understood to be 'spirits' within the natural surrounds of the immediate environs ... later many gods ... later still with the mobility of man travelling on horseback the concept of 'one-god' thrown skyward emerged.

The payoff to man?

The many spirits, many gods, may have been used to bolster the rules of survival, as stories to help give explanation to a world with little science.

The 'one-god' has been used as a 'landlord' of land from which rent was collected - as nomadics 'settled' into agriculture; and 'SoulLord' giving followers the concept of a deferred to leader.

The use of, and manipulation of, the concepts of god have served and enriched some through time.

On balance has having the god-concept been of benefit overall to the stability of society?

.... but let's not go there on this thread!

lunarchick - 03:58pm Dec 26, 2002 EST (# 7051 of 7058)

Australia one of '3' countries that has diplomatic relations with NKorea - has put the opening of an Embassy (2003) on hold wrt nuclear developments unfolding.

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