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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 - 09:46am Jan 29, 2003 EST (#8298 of 8300)
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.

Lunarchick and I have worked hard to focus some... by rshow55 - Jan 24, 03 (#7999 <a href="http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?14@93.bTpfaOGh1Il.90187@.f28e622/9525

Lunarchick and I have worked hard to focus some patterns, and believe we've worked out some. Here are two at the level needed to think about exception handling . The golden rule (a principle of symettry) helps sort out a lot of things, I believe. The notion of disciplined beauty (harmony) helps sort out a lot of things, I believe.

(search "golden rule" or see http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/DetailNGR.htm )

(search "disciplined beauty" or see http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/157 - - also set out in 5438-40 of this thread.

Some other general principles (checking codes) also help. These principles can often be thought of as clarifications of what people or things naturally do - what "the logic of the situation" naturally produces or favors.

We are in a muddle here in large part because people are not discussing some of the most crucial problems - one among them being that the notions of "honor" in the Islamic world and in the West are significantly different in some ways that need to be discussed.

The UN security counsel, under Germany's leadership, might be a near-ideal place for these discussion within the next few weeks.

Can Iraq, or any other Islamic nation, do exactly what the Bush administration hopes - in exactly the way that is being asked? Are we asking them to do things that go against some of their most basic religious committments? If we are - all concerned had better understand the problems more than they have so far. Saddam may have made promises he intended to keep - and found he couldn't. We may be asking for things that we shouldn't ask for without a lot more understanding than we've had.

There are some very basic barriers to checking in Islamic cultures that haven't been clearly enough discussed -and they are linked to Islamic religious-sexual committments that are very different from ours. These get in the way of arms inspections - and almost everything involved in the accomodation of modernity.

wanderero85us - 01:41pm Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 8000 of 8009) Bush - the poster boy for the Peter Principle

Would the U.S. allow inspections of its secret military installations?

I think not.

rshow55 - 01:43pm Jan 24, 2003 EST

We need understandings that are clearer and more beautiful than the ones we have in this sense.

In "Beauty" http://www.everreader.com/beauty.htm Mark Anderson quotes Heisenberg's definition of beauty in the exact sciences:

" Beauty is the proper conformity of the parts to one another and to the whole." http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/157

If we could define an agreement that really was "win-win" from everybody's point of view - in detail - with our facts straight - we'd be able to actually implement it stably, well enough. The solution would be like other human arrangements that work -there would be feedback - some redundancy and crosschecking - some "inconsistent" patterns and little fights - but arrangements could be stable enough at all times, and stable in the large. . If we can't get the facts straight - and the defining done - nothing so simple as a war will resolve some key problems - no matter how high the costs.

If we did have the facts straight - straight all the way - so that everything that mattered for something so simple as the Iraqi disarmament could be understood in detail - at the level of words, pictures, and proportions when they mattered - I don't beleive that we'd need a war - and the things that everybody involved claims they want (and may sincerely want, with some reservations) could be achieved without much cost or difficulty, compared t

rshow55 - 09:47am Jan 29, 2003 EST (#8299 of 8300)
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.

If we did have the facts straight - straight all the way - so that everything that mattered for something so simple as the Iraqi disarmament could be understood in detail - at the level of words, pictures, and proportions when they mattered - I don't believe that we'd need a war - and the things that everybody involved claims they want (and may sincerely want, with some reservations) could be achieved without much cost or difficulty, compared to the things everybody would gain. If discussions at the UN continue - maybe the necessary things could be resolved.

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