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Science
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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(7898 previous messages)
rshow55
- 08:33am Jan 22, 2003 EST (#
7899 of 7901)
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 was assigned the task of finding out how animals so often
found good solutions to control system problems, as
individuals and groups, and also asked to understood why these
solutions sometimes went so bad that they produced horrors and
wars.
People who wonder how much people cared - and how hard they
and I tried - might look at the movie Thirteen Days -
and consider how close the world had come to nuclear war. The
higher the rank of the people I dealt with - the more
concerned they were.
I have solutions that leave something to be desired, but
that are servicable.
In essence, you can do any damn thing you want to do
with a properly crafted and maintained sociotechnical system
(inluding people and machines) - so long as what you want to
do is simple enough to actually understand within limits that
are themselves understood well enough. If you're prepared
to take time doing it, you can build a system of people and
machines to do anything within reason that you care
enough to do - enough to do every damn thing anyone needs to
avoid wars, and control human horrors. There have to be
conventions. Human interactions can't be more complicated, or
less conventional - than the step by step interactions one
sees in the birds because people are animals, too.
Animal interactions always involve some conflict, and they
repeat the primordial patterns used for eating, reproduction,
fight and flight again and again and again and again and again
in alternating and switchable patterns.
Contradictions - at the most basic level (a change in sign)
are necessary so that things that have to be controlled - that
can be both too much or too little in a particular
circumstance - can be controlled. If a set of controls is
locally unstable, a swich of signs makes it locally stable -
for a while - until it becomes unstable again, and needs to be
switched again.
Switching is necessary - and in control logic, once
the logic becomes complicated enough - this means that
alternating "contradictions" are necessary. There are
no monolithic, static solutions - and the world couldn't be as
beautiful or diverse as it is if there were.
People are as smart as animals are ever going to be now -
so far as basic equipment is concerned. With better ordering,
symmetry and harmony, they can do very much better than
they're doing now, about a lot of things. Everything that
animals can possibly do with logic, people do, and have
been doing for a long time. Usually very well, and very fast.
That's why people do the "magical" things they so often do -
so many wonderful things that even the New York Times can't
cover all the beautiful examples. When we screw up on
something specific - we need a specific solution to that
specific screw up. Some kinds of screwups sort themselves into
broad classes. We can do better with some of the grosser
problems. We can find solutions good enough to take the
incidence of horror from war and poverty way below where they
are now.
I'll keep my promise in 7787 - and respond in more detail
about oscillatory solutions.
lchic
- 08:37am Jan 22, 2003 EST (#
7900 of 7901) ~~~~ It got understood and exposed
~~~~
Americans see their own people in their internal market as
breaking down into the following segmentations
Innovators
Thinkers | Achievers | Experiencers | Believers |
Strivers | Makers Survivors
{Thinkers being HighHigh ~~ Makers being LOWLOW } ... see
graphic ...
http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/types.shtml
&
Primary Motivation
Consumers buy products and services and seek experiences
that fulfill their characteristic preferences and give shape,
substance, and satisfaction to their lives.
An individual's primary motivation determines what in
particular about the self or the world is the meaningful core
that governs his or her activities.
Consumers are inspired by one of three primary
motivations: ideals, achievement, and self-expression.
Consumers who are primarily motivated by ideals are
guided by knowledge and principles.
Consumers who are primarily motivated by achievement
look for products and services that demonstrate success to
their peers.
Consumers who are primarily motivated by self-expression
desire social or physical activity, variety, and risk.
Resources
A person's tendency to consume goods and services extends
beyond age, income, and education.
Energy, self-confidence, intellectualism, novelty seeking,
innovativeness, impulsiveness, leadership, and vanity play a
critical role.
These personality traits in conjunction with key
demographics determine an individual's resources.
Different levels of resources enhance or constrain a
person's expression of his or her primary motivation.
begging the question as to how the USA
actually 'SEE' consumer demand in 'Other/Elsewhere'
countries say where kids scramble in the dirt for spilt
corn.
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