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 - 05:06pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (# 7079 of 7088)
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.

If you read history - and go a while back - it seems like everybody is delusional - but yet cocksure -- about everything. In politics - science - religion - every sphere of life.

If only the Bush administration (and the NK's, and other folks) remembered the human condition - and had some doubt about their positions - and willingness to check them - - we'd all be a lot safer.

When people don't trust each other - the reaction is not to communicate.

When the stakes are high - that's the opposite of the right answer. When people distrust each other, they need more contact - because they need more feedback, to avoid misunderstanding, to catch each other in mistakes, and for other checking.

And with the checking, and conversation - reasonable trust grows. Or at the least, the disagreements become well enough defined to be more clear.

We ought to talk to the North Koreans. We can agree, first of all, that we don't like each other. But then we should keep talking!

rshow55 - 05:10pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (# 7080 of 7088)
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.

If ever there was a country that ought to be reasonably deterrable (assuming even minimum sanity) - - it ought to be N. Korea.

The crazier they are, the more sense it makes to talk them into more sane positions. They've had a rough time - and they've shown a good deal of willingness to compromise, from time to time.

lunarchick - 07:34pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (# 7081 of 7088)

rough time

lunarchick - 07:38pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (# 7082 of 7088)

.

lunarchick - 07:40pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (# 7083 of 7088)

New Year's Resolution:

POW WOW

lunarchick - 07:56pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (# 7084 of 7088)

A diplomat is a man who says you have an open mind, instead of telling you that you have a hole in the head. -- Unknown

A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip. -- Caskie Stinnett

lunarchick - 08:02pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (# 7085 of 7088)

Petrol in Australia reache$ all-time-high price.

lunarchick - 08:04pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (# 7086 of 7088)

A leader is someone who steps back from the entire system and tries to build a more collaborative, more innovative system that will work over the long term. -- Robert Reich

A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action. -- Jawaharlal Nehru

(2 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense