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 - 08:29am Jan 10, 2003 EST (# 7558 of 7569)
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.

I slept well, and things seem to be moving well - spending a lot of time thinking about canonical transforms. Cononicity is important. The Bush administration lacks it, and sometimes the lacks are blatant, and wrenchingly ugly. The rest of the world ought to look and look hard, at proportions and priorities in some of the positions that the Bush administration is taking. They can do a lot better. Some things work better digital - some analog - but only a few kinds of transforms work at all - only some of these work at all well - and it matters a lot how you switch from one to the other - and if you have to do a lot of switching back and forth - some patterns are much better than others. More orderly, more symmetrical, more harmonious, and especially more stable. Some things that ought to be teachable to sixth graders the Bush administration doesn't know at all, and it is both ugly and dangerous. Though they sometimes seem to be trying. I'm hopeful. But sometimes, disgusted. Got a lot of deep sleep. Back in a while.

rshow55 - 10:41am Jan 10, 2003 EST (# 7559 of 7569)
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.

Does anybody know how a digital volt meter works - or how other digital instruments work?

In a sense, at every switching in the network, there is an element of chance - of statistics - of guessing - but the size of the guesses gets smaller and smaller in a stable and convergent manner, until a point comes where the limit of resolution of the instrument is reached, and it switches the last digit back and forth "at random".

It is "guessing" - but all the same, it can make very fine and stable distinctions, and the "guesses" that it does make are stable.

To go further than you can, with a particular setup, using digital logic, a point come where in some sense you have to use statistics, or analog techniques, or a mix.

Some of these transitions are much better than others.

- - -

Mistakes are unavoidable. Treachery is unavoidable, in some senses. Fights are unavoidable in some senses. Conciliation is unavoidable, in some senses. We need, now, to be more careful than we sometimes are to make small - small - small - small -small - small - small and stable transitions - with stable and convergent sequences of treachery-honesty, and fighting-conciliation. That way, step by step, it is possible to come to accomodations that can work well for everybody concerned (or almost) and be stable.

People have to guess. The guesses have to be small, and stable.

I'm trying, within my circumstances - to tell people things that THEY can use - especially leaders who are switching back and forth, unsure of what to do, and uneasy.

We can do a lot better than we have - and I'm doing my best to show some things that have to be shown carefully.

Mothers know some of these things (not others) when they are breaking up fights between kids - especially ugly ones - sometimes fights between kids with very different interests who are different sizes. Stability is a big consideration, of course, though not the only one. Mothers know that sometimes there do have to be fights - but the care about consequences, try to have foresight, and are careful. We need that kind of carefulness, too. If people think I'm going slowly, and using "parables" - I am. I have already perpetrated my outrage for today - though there may be smaller ones.

Things are going very hopefully if we are careful but we are at a point where things could blow up - and generate a lot of mess and tragedy. I apologize for going slowly. I'm being just as careful as I can figure out to be.

We can do much better than we've been doing. And a lot of people are working hard, and being careful, and uneasy. This is a time to be careful - - and especially careful about steps that have unforseeable consequences. The areas of the unforseeable should be small and convergent if that is at all possible. I think it is. Though not without some small fights, or temptations, and some guessing. Parables fit well sometimes - and badly other times. We can be clearer than we've been about which times are which.

(10 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense