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 [F] 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.


Earliest Messages Previous Messages Recent Messages Outline (7752 previous messages)

rshow55 - 03:36pm Jan 17, 2003 EST (# 7753 of 7760) Delete Message
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.

OK, maybe not so smart as that. But not real slow.

Smart enough that I had to fight. I found that, if I worked desperately hard enough - I could usually avoid fighting. But when I had to - I did fight. And found, somewhat to my surprise, that I could win them.

People have told me "don't fight" from time to time. But in my situation - I've never figured out how to survive without being willing to stand, when it matters enough.

I worry a lot about peacemaking. Steve Kline and a list of other people thought I was a fair mathematician, as well.

lchic - 03:45pm Jan 17, 2003 EST (# 7754 of 7760)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

I wonder if HTML will ever be restored to NYT-Opinion ?

'wonder if 'beauty' via order-symmetry-harmony of page will return

Many NYT postings now have an 'ugly' veneer - pity!

rshow55 - 03:58pm Jan 17, 2003 EST (# 7755 of 7760) Delete Message
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 got seriously interested in some math problems - because I had to be as a kid. I was trying to be the very best boy I could - and I felt sure that my mother and father would kill me for fighting. They were against it. And I did the best I could to avoid fights, but got into some, and was terrified of losing the kinds of fights I was getting into.

I was finding I had to go against groups - and after a while, some people came at me with knives. Sometimes in rehearsed groups. Sometimes without consciously giving warning. I got very interested in series solutions of various kinds. I became interested in strength of materials, dynamics, combinatorics, differential equations, logic switching, signalling - the sort of things that seemed logical to be interested in, when you're a kid, trying to avoid fights, but trying not to lose them, too. I never dared admit to my parents that I had such interests. When I got into the Cornell 6-year Ph.D. program, a big problem was finding a way to admit to anyone that I was interested in math, and had been doing some at levels that worked. For obvious reasons, I had to do almost all of this work in my head, and found that I could - and that it worked in the ways I needed it to. Never did quite get to admit how much I cared about math, and how I cared, to Marti - in all the ways I wanted to - though we got close. I was desperately in love with her - she with me - and we knew each other at least well enough to know that - as far a math went - we were very well suited to each other. Though there were the usual sexual distinctions to be expected.

I feel like going slowly here.

rshow55 - 05:49pm Jan 17, 2003 EST (# 7756 of 7760) Delete Message
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.

This board has been going on a while - and I've done my very best to tell the truth. Never claimed to be infallible - or completely without ulterior motives, either. But if people actually started checking - a lot would hang together. I've been doing just exactly what I told Casey I'd do - and what I believe a lot of people all over the world want done. I stand by everything you'll see linked if you click " rshow55 " in the upper left hand corner of this post, for example.

These hopes seem reasonable still . . . in fact, practical, from where we are - step by step, and pretty quickly, if some tragic mistakes can be avoided. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b2bd/1662

I think that they can be.

People ought to know that sometimes they have to tolerate "contradiction" - and that when there is a contradiction, a logical structure that alternates approaches may be exactly what is needed.

They also need to know something more clearly - something people already know a lot of times. If a solution seems the right one - it takes care to implement it step by step. And exactly the same endpoint that is unstable if approached in too-large-steps can be stable - and good for all concerned - when it is implemented in a more gradual fashion, so that people, as individuals and institutions - can do the fact- checking, thinking, and adjusting that they actually have to do.

We already know the basics of what a solution in North Korea will take - but have to approach it gradually.

In Iraq - we know a lot. Here's a fact that we ought to know. World opinion exists for reasons that are not accidental - and world opinion is practically important.

Word opinion does not support some of the fast, draconian moves that the US is advocating, and may undertake. That's important.

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