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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
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(7086 previous messages)
lunarchick
- 08:07pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (#
7087 of 7100)
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on
sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is
necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be
restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after
death. -- Albert Einstein
A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes
should survey the world. -- George Santayana
rshow55
- 08:11pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (#
7088 of 7100)
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.
North Korea to Expel Inspectors, Drawing White House
Criticism By DAVID STOUT http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/27/international/asia/27CND-PREX.html
The notion that the NKs are bad folks, not to be talked to,
makes sense in some ways. But we fire bombed and dam bombed
their country - killing more than 2 million civilians (in an
ancestor worshiping culture) - and from their point of view,
we backed Japan - which had done truly terrible things to
them. From their point of view, neither WWII or the Korean war
may have seemed "fair" - - and these event may not seem so
long ago to them.
Nor are the North Koreand likely to have overlooked facts
in THREATS TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS: The Sixteen Known
Nuclear Crises of the Cold War, 1946-1985 by David R.
Morgan http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca/WorkingGroupsPage/NucWeaponsPage/Documents/ThreatsNucWea.html
that most Americans never knew about. Things that most
Americans should know about.
Maybe, from their point of view, the evil
isn't all on one side.
I wouldn't blame them a lot more than almarst would
blame them.
Perspectives differ, after all.
We need to find ways to cut through "conventions" that cut
off hope - and make the world uglier, more dangerous, and
poorer.
The Bush administration has some approaches that
guarantee conflict - - and it may be in both the
national interest - and the world interest - both to criticise
these standards and find ways around them.
"Good faith" - sometimes - is in the eyes of the beholder.
And according to some standards, US patterns of "good faith" -
including some set out in detail in the Nunn-Wolfowitz report
- look as much like a shell game as "good faith."
The best missile defense may be some talking.
And some hard thinking.
If the United States military loses legitimacy in
the mind of most of the world's people - its military force
may be significantly less useful than many people think now.
Outside the United States, there are fewer and fewer
people, and nations, who assume that the Bush administration
is either honest, all knowing, or legitimate - and that is
true in the industrial nations - not only the third world.
Some of the criticism, it seems to me, is unfair. But not all
of it.
MD1999 rshow55
5/4/02 9:39am
lunarchick
- 08:24pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (#
7089 of 7100)
T a l k
'The connection between thought and word... is neither
preformed nor constant. It emerges in the course of
development, and itself evolves' ~~ Vygotsky
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/virtual/wittvyg.htm
~~~~~~
Talk is the exchange of words, thoughts, ideas ... talking
is flow and interchange ... talk is moving ground ... talk is
finding common ground ... talk between peoples at all levels
is important for two cultures to gain common understanding.
rshow55
- 08:43pm Dec 27, 2002 EST (#
7090 of 7100)
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.
There are some important things to talk about - to
find shared space about. (Click "rshow55" above - and
look, among other things, at favorite html's.)
MD727-728 rshow55
3/20/02 7:58pm includes this:
A key reason to want the technical answers is that those
answers would move toward larger answers to questions the
whole world needs, and is coming to know it needs:
What is the real national interest of the
United States? Not just the interest of the
military-industrial complex?
and
Can the United States be honest enough and
trustworthy enough about what it asks for, and agrees to, so
that its interests can be reasonably, efficiently, justly
accomodated by the rest of the world?
The technical issues of "missile defense" are a good place
to start -- because those technical answers are so clear --
and answering them forces these larger questions to be
adressed.
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