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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 - 07:11am Dec 31, 2002 EST (# 7147 of 7154)
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 need to know more about exception handling, and handle it better. The golden rule (a principle of symettry) helps. The notion of disciplined beauty (harmony) helps.

(search "golden rule" or see http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/DetailNGR.htm )
disciplined beauty: 5438-40 rshow55 11/1/02 12:00pm

Some other general principles (checking codes) also help. These principles can often be thought of as clarifications of what people or things naturally do - what "the logic of the situation" naturally produces or favors. What is stable and fit to circumstances.

By the time things are messed up enough that people kill each other, either individually or as groups - some patterns have come into existence that look very bad in terms of the golden rule, or disciplined beauty.

I don't have any idea whether of not God exists. Sometimes logic seems to work better if I'm "sure" that (S)HE exists. Sometimes better if I'm "sure" (S)HE does not. When I'm checking things - doubt works best.

I do feel sure of this. I think that there are some very basic principles and patterns in the world that are built into the logic of circumstances that not even God could change them - and that any God that exists would have sense enough to know it. But I've felt sure about a lot of things, and been wrong. Anyway, that's my feeling, and my guess. I also feel that some those basic patterns can be beautiful , and often are. 6994-995 lunarchick 12/24/02 2:26pm

Almarst , it seems to me that things are sorting out - and some of the ordering looks good, though we're some way from convergence, and things look ugly and contradictory in spots. And, of course, dangerous as well as hopeful. It seems to me that we should keep at it. I think your comments help, but also think that some responsible people in the US are doing their best, and not so badly, at that.

lunarchick - 07:24am Dec 31, 2002 EST (# 7148 of 7154)

NK
"" The North Korean ambassador blamed Washington for the crisis, saying the United States "openly tries to internationalise the nuclear question on the Korean peninsula by creating an atmosphere of pressure on the Democratic People's Republic (North Korea)".

Repeating Pyongyang's calls for direct negotiations with the United States, Mr Pak said the Korean nuclear question was not an international issue and could be solved only by Pyongyang and Washington.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2002/12/item20021231004730_1.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/

commondata - 07:27am Dec 31, 2002 EST (# 7149 of 7154)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,866942,00.html

Howard Teicher, an Iraq specialist in the Reagan White House, testified in a 1995 affidavit that the then CIA director, William Casey, used a Chilean firm, Cardoen, to send cluster bombs to use against Iran's "human wave" attacks.

That was quite some mentor you had there, rhsow. The questions "What would Bill Casey do or want?" seem a little quaint in the face of what he actually did - had he clambered above Maslow's "safety needs" rung?

rshow55 - 07:57am Dec 31, 2002 EST (# 7150 of 7154)
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.

Casey was doing just the best he could. And from where he was, the logic that "sometimes you have to kill people" seemed compelling to him.

And to me.

Still does.

I'm trying to do better. To figure out how to do better. And explain how to do better. As I promised to do. rshow55 12/24/02 5:24pm

Without lunarchick , I wouldn't have a chance. With her - I'm pretty hopeful, and think things have gone pretty well lately.

lunarchick - 07:59am Dec 31, 2002 EST (# 7151 of 7154)

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