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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 - 03:27pm Dec 29, 2002 EST (# 7124 of 7127)
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.

We carry a "virtual world" around with us in our heads - and whether or not there is an afterlife, I can say:

"I wish Steve Kline could look at all that's happened, and all that lunarchick and I have done since Steve died in 1997. I'd love to talk to him about it - and show him."

I think Steve would be pleased, and proud. The biggest problems that we knew about involving our work have been nicely solved - - and there's been a lot of progress in other ways. For some sense of where Steve was on some key problems - see 6983-6987 rshow55 12/24/02 8:11am . Lunarchick and I have gone further.

I'd wish the same about Bill Casey.

I didn't know him nearly so well, but I'd wish the same about my maternal grandfather, the Baptist preacher, who died before I was eight. When I was about four, granddaddy tried to take me to church Bible school - but I told him "I wasn't that kind of a boy" - - and he smiled and took me to the drug store for an ice cream cone instead. He liked to talk to a friend who owned that drug store - E.C. Daniel's father - and a very able man, who was very proud to be the father of a son who'd made so good at The New York Times .

I'll be trying to summarize this thread - and the progress I believe we've made on it - between now and New Year's day.

rshow55 - 03:31pm Dec 29, 2002 EST (# 7125 of 7127)
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 world is in the middle of a philosophical-religious-political crisis that involves very basic questions about what it means to be a human being - and what tolerance ought and ought not to mean. Stunts - even technically very impressive stunts like some involved in missile defense - won't keep us safe unless we resolve this crisis decently.

I believe that we can. I believe we've made a lot of progress - and can make more soon.

Serge Schmemann's piece on tolance was wonderful - but for stability and safety - we need more solid foundations for when tolerance is justified and unjustified than he describes. I think we can get them. It seems to me that these principles, from Kline, are worth remembering.

. Hypothesis III: The absence of universal approaches. There is no one view, no one methodology, no one set of principles, no one set of equations that provides understanding of all matters vital to human concern.

. Hypothesis IV: The necessity of system definition. Each particular truth assertion about nature implies only to some systems (and not to all.)

I think we can be exactly right being tolerant of some things - and intolerant of others. We need that clarity so that we can craft an international law that can actually do the things we need it to do. There are some things - particularly with respect to weapons of mass destruction - that ought not to be tolerated.

rshow55 - 05:43pm Dec 29, 2002 EST (# 7126 of 7127)
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 United States isn't always right, and I have a good deal of sympathy with many of the points almarst has made here in the last two years. I think the United States would be a better country if more people understood them.

All the same, it is hard for me to read Powell Says U.S. Is Willing to Talk With Pyongyang filed at 3:47 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-North-Korea.html without being proud to be an American, and hopeful.

There is a lot to say against the US that makes sense. I believe that. So do a lot of other people. All the same - I think a fair index of how much we have straight, compared to how much other nations have straight - comes from looking at how well our societies are doing for the people in them. The US would get mixed reviews. The US doesn't look dominant, from a social point of view, compared to some other nations.

But North Korea is doing far, far, far worse. I think that has to mean that the North Korean system is messed up in more ways, and more serious ways, than the American system is. Powell points out that North Korea is "in desperate condition'' . . . . ``What are they going to do with another two or three more nuclear weapons when they're starving, when they have no energy, when they have no economy that's functioning?''

That sure seems like a good question.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense