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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 - 01:24pm Jan 28, 2003 EST (#8274 of 8289)
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.

<a href="http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?14@167.abnJaYcKQY8^4030017@.f28e622/4175"> points out that

"All any human being can ever do is construct patterns from available information - and check them. The pattern formation can be right or wrong - and there is no way to tell, in the end, except to check the checkable. That's not a point that distinguishes sanity and insanity. It is the human condition. "

Being wrong doesn't mean being crazy. Were the patterns there to see? If the answer is yes, the pattern recognition is reasonable, based on what was known when the pattern was seen. J.M. Keynes was very clear about that in an interesting book A Treatise on Probability (I think it was Keynes' Ph.D. thesis.)

Cooper, I want to respond to you politely, and constructively - but I'll be taking a reasonable amount of time doing it.

You've said that I can come see you in Chicago, and "bring whomever." I'm thinking of how to constructively do that, and appreciate the offer.

I've done a lot on this thread that I'm proud of, and much of it is linked for easy reference if you click "rshow55"

Early in that link, I explain that I've been working on this thread since September 25, 2000 where I had an all-day meeting on the web with an authoritative figure.

You can look at that all day meeting, in the original postings 266-304, here:

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md266.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md273.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md280.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md290.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md300.htm

At that time I "jumped" to the conclusion that the authoritative person might well be President Clinton - by that time I had been met, though the meeting did not go well, in the National Gallery on a Saturday morning by Gina Kolata and another reporter - and had later, after some correspondence, gone to the NYT DC office - talked a little - been asked to come back in an hour - and been met by Rubin, and assistant Secretary of State now married to a prominent CNN reporter. That meeting didn't go well, for reasons I still don't understand - somehow Rubin got upset. All I remember is that he looked at me with a very strange threat stare - that looked clumsy to me - different from any I'd ever seen, with a funny blink rate - plainly not a physical threat - and I didn't react - because I wasn't sure what I was looking at. Or in some other way I didn't react as he wanted. I was ordered by Rubin to leave the NYT office without talking to anyone (though the receptionist downstairs was at pains to be polite.) When, after some more correspondence, I was told to meet an important poster on the MD thread the morning of Sept 25 - I jumped to the conclusion that it might be Clinton, or someone with rank close to Clinton. I expected then that I'd have a chance to talk to somebody - but was left with the distinct impression that I was to "debrief" on this thread. When I made the request on #304 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md300.htm it seemed to me an entirely reasonable one. Contact with a light colonel might have served my needs - but I'd been ordered not to just walk into Langley - where nobody would know me - and I was involved with subject matter - some linked to issues of missile guidance now disclosed - at gisterme's suggestion-insistence. I felt, and still feel, that I had an obligation to disclose that information.

rshow55 - 01:24pm Jan 28, 2003 EST (#8275 of 8289)
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'm working on this thread, doing what I think I'm obligated to do - and if I'm "connecting the dots" wrongly on some things - well, people do that - and that's a reason why checking against facts is essential. One fact that I notice about this thread is that it has gone on a long time - and involved many careful postings by gisterme , almarst , and other interesting folks. And lunarchick - who I think does wonderful work - and connects us to the whole world.

I make no apologies about my guesses about who gisterme is - and how those guesses have evolved over time. Given enough different crosschecks - consistency testing can be very, very good.

The "game" of plausible denial has uses - but the issues involved are heavy - and values are only worth as much as they are. There should be an exception made about gisterme - - given the stakes now.

If we're careful, we can take the incidence of death and agony from war way down from where it is. I'm trying to help that process along. If I change the odds 1% - that works out to a lot more than 1000 lives/hour worked. If we sorted out just a few things, from where we are now, we could take the incidence of agony and death down to less than a tenth what it was in the 20th century. If we botch it, this century could easily be worse.

Here's a key point. When facts matter enough - it should be morally forcing to get them checked - and checked to closure. Sometimes that takes some work - and false checking can be worse than nothing.

Iraq needs to be checked. For good reasons. And forced to do things it has agreed to do. But not only Iraq.

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