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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 - 06:30pm Jan 4, 2003 EST (# 7329 of 7344)
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.

almarst2002 1/4/03 6:12pm - - we both agree strongly that we can do better than that - and have to.

People and nations, all over the world, should insist that we do better. To do better, some of the difficult, necessary things that the United States is doing have to be better done - and for that to happen, step by step - the US needs some help - and support - when it is right.

As well as some criticism when it is doing things that "leave something to be desired."

Almarst , if you can be as tolerant as you've sometimes been to Saddam - perhaps you could be more tolerant, in a few spots, and provisionally, to Americans - especially in the most hopeful spots - where you may think they are exactly backwards?

Workable human systems need both freedom and constraint. In workably alternating patterns that are orderly, symettric, and harmonious enough to function - and preferably function smoothly.

In Russian senses, and American senses as well.

Also in Chinese senses (different from either) and some other orders as well.

In ways that work - from where we are.

It is not intractably complicated, but there does need to be more care taken on getting closure on key facts.

And on getting coercive patterns that work when they are needed. As every policeman in every country knows, they sometimes are. Some are better - much better - than others. From your point of view, and mine.

Lunarchick and I have been doing our damndest to lay out some of the logical points - and if you want to look at effort levels - it is clear that gisterme has been trying hard, as well.

lunarchick - 06:37pm Jan 4, 2003 EST (# 7330 of 7344)

The world 'has to be policed'

The now word is 'self'

Self-policing

might mean setting attainable goals

setting standards

meeting them

then continually highing the bar

the world is in continual flux and change

the 'environment' of initial standards might exactly suit them

yet

once that standard has been attained - that sets up a new-environment demanding it's own standards

So rather than thinking in terms of human policemen ... or a super-rich country assuming the role of world policeman .... with 1984 connotations

Rather think in terms of 2084 (i've moved Orwell along by a century - he's dead and doesn't complain) which assumes higher standards - especially wrt the personal freedoms of the individual.

rshow55 - 06:44pm Jan 4, 2003 EST (# 7331 of 7344)
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.

Back when I was just a sprog, just starting out - at Cornell, some people took some special interest in me - and I had, if you'll forgive the awkward phrase "hot and cold running tutors."

And I worked my a*s off, did just the best I can -worked as hard as Johnny Depp worked - and with about the same level of attention.

A time came when one set of tutors were teaching me combat usages, while with another set I was slogging through Russell and Whitehead's Principia , and Godel's Proof. There was an exact, sharp analogy - a phrase I used, from the combat training - applied to the mathematical - logical -that fit then, and fit here.

" You cannot pull yourself out of your own a*shole. "

You can't even think about doing so. You have no tools that can do such a thing, and can't even define the task.

In combat, that's a phrase used when you argue that a patrol, pinned down, can't extricate itself and needs to be rescued.

That phrase clarifies a number of things in mathematical logic around Godel's Proof, too - and gives a sense of things that statistics, properly applied, can almost do that logic can't do at all. Hopeful things. Even magically beautiful things, if the statistics and logic are combined.

Chinese, Russians, North Koreans, Iraqis, and Americans, too are in somewhat similar situations - where they can't sort their problems out. And where even if they wanted to do better (as they often do) and knew in an abstract sense that doing better might be possible - they can't make the transition.

AEA was set up by me, with Casey kibbitzing, partly to address these problems. There are times when you need planning - in great detail - applied to the level of assemblies - and then - at least at the level of simulation - or prototyping - you have to actually try the solution out - and then - when you have it working - make a transfer - step by step - to modify an system without killing it.

It takes more nodes than the US can muster - with the best will in the world (something that may be lacking sometimes, but is present sometimes) without some help from some independent actors - and Russia and China are the ones that would work by far the best with respect to the North Koreans.

The money required wouldn't be hard to find, so far as I can tell. The good will and honesty look harder. If they were present - a lot looks sortable, without anybody being more honest or noble than they are now. There's enough time - though not so much to spare.

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