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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 - 06:05pm Jan 22, 2003 EST (# 7918 of 7921)
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.

rotting unburied corpses http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001203mag-osborne.html

Don't be entirely sure that anyone involved is clear about what their motivations are. I'm trying to avoid picking a fight with gisterme , under conditions where some of the things that the Bush administration is doing seem pretty good to me - as part of a convergent process that needs to be careful.

Powell Sees Progress on North Korea Talks By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 4:15 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-North-Korea.html

I feel that many of the thigns I've said on the board about Repubicans, including some that have offended gisterme - are consistent with a great deal. I'd say the same for much that almarst has posted - and I appreciate almarst's work very much.

All the same, I'm not sure that people are nearly as conscious of some of their motivations as their critics believe - and it is hard thing for me to deal with - because repression - as a psychological notion - is connected to so much claptrap.

rshow55 - 06:16pm Jan 22, 2003 EST (# 7919 of 7921)
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.

For example, suppose I say something that I think has to be true - even self evident:

" Statement A: Everyone anywhere close to the White House - and any clergyman at all anywhere in the world who has looked at White House organization - has thought about the sexual relations between President Bush and Condoleezza Rice."

People close to the White House are likely to deny it - or to consider it an unfair comment. But at the level of thought that is absolutely necessary for animal function - but repressed by convention and for psychological reasons - I believe that Statement A is necessary true.

That is in no way inconsistent with something else I believe. That is that their relation is probably exempary in the ways that ought to matter. (I'd say the same about the relationship between Rita Hayworth and Fred Astaire - which I know nothing about - except that it must have been careful.)

Similar concerns enter every time ordinarily healthy and attractive men and women have to work together.

Every society and every business take steps - some of them draconian - to control these matters - or difficulties stemming from them. It is an open secret that a very able male reporter was fired by the NYT for a violation involved with this.

The situations involved are always highly charged, for biologically unchangeable reasons. Our accomodations to these relations, and those of the Islamic nations, are very different - and it seems to me that until everyone involved, on all sides, is clearer about the fundamental needs of their side and the other side - much that would otherwise be hopeful between the US and Islam will be ruled out.

If we could talk clearly and decently about this - very much more that is hopeful and stable could occur in the Middle East.

One thing, it seems to me, is clear. Anyone, on either side, who takes a draconian position that he or she has the only possible "right" in these matters - is setting up a fight that cannot be settled in any static way.

(There are a lot of conflicts of interest and role involving sex that can't be settled with reasonable balance in any static way, it seems to me - that applies to birds, other animals, and to human beings as well.)

I often wish both the Russians and the Americans would think more logically about repression, as well - and acknowledge that both sides use logic, for necessary reasons - that "belongs" to the other side.

You can't run a decent, balanced society for very long without having situations where competition is dominant - and also situations where "to each according to their needs - from each according to their abilities" has to be a working standard. Americans, too often, repress the logic that they use to keep their society humane - and Communists, including North Koreans and others often repress what they do, and have to do - when competition is necessary.

In touchy negotiations, for people to get things they can live with in humanly good ways - they have to know what they can and cannot accept. Odds of getting things you don't ask for are very small.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense