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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 - 07:37am Feb 5, 2003 EST (# 8578 of 8584)
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.

We ought to be afraid, and careful. In my view, this is a time for more talking - more careful talking - and for recognizing that if we are to avoid disaster - we need maps that are good enough to work - good enough to keep us from going in disastrous directions. We can't hope for "absolute truth" in general - but when it matters enough, and when we work at it - we should be able to achieve that.

The shuttle tragedy has filled the papers, and out minds - and after the fact, it many of the best patterns of careful checking are being carried out - in public. If the patterns of checking NASA is showing now were applied to the problems with Iraq and N. Korea - we could do much, much better than we're likely to do.

Shuttle's Chief Puts Pained, Steely Face on Shared Trauma By DAVID BARSTOW http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/04/national/04CHIE.html

Even so, it seems that assumptions used in calculations were very imperfect - and that solid analysis that predicted the circumstances of the accident was not attended to - forgotten - because, somehow, it wasn't what people wanted to perserve and wanted to remember.

NASA Was Told in 1990 About Vulnerable Tiles By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/05/national/05FOAM.html

One need not doubt that this was a "sincere" mistake at some levels. One can reasonably suspect that at some other levels - perhaps unconsious - unspoken levels - the ignoring of the warning in the NASA funded report by Stanford and Carnegie-Mellon researchers.

People do so many things well - cultures do so many things well - that it seems surreal how limited and fragile human reason is - and it is easy to dispair - and just surrender to forces of unrestrained feeling, unrestrained power, and unrestrained will.

I'm haunted by Michael Shermer's lines:

" Rarely do any of us sit down before a table of facts, weigh them pro and con, and choose the most logical and rational explanation, regardless of what we previously believed. Most of us, most of the time, come to our beliefs for a variety of reasons having little to do with empirical evidence and logical reasoning. . . . . . . . . We ...sort through the body of data and select those that most confirm what we already believe, and ignore or rationalize away those that do not. " . . . . Smart People Believe Weird Things http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0002F4E6-8CF7-1D49-90FB809EC5880000&catID=2

On matter on which human welfare depends, we need to find the will and the means to do better. I've argued that we can make practical progress on this - from where we are - - without disproportionate pain, trouble, or expense. Often this seems hopeless - when you look at how muddled people are - and look at the conflicts and horrors of the past. I've been trying to set out practical - nutsy boltsy reasons why it is not hopeless. There's been a hole in my argument that I've been afraid to fill - especially without meeting face to face - under circumstances where enough could be faced - and enough trust could be established. The problem is repression. Not only in the political and social senses, but in the psychological sense, as well. People don't "collect the dots" the same way. The consider different dots, consider them differently, and weigh them differently. They make different assumptions. They speak from interests - and often these are interests that they themselves are not clear about - or if they are clear about them - will not admit. These problems might be considered to make agreement hopeless, when anybody objects to getting issues settled by anything but force. The problems are not hopeless -on the things that matter - because explanations and solutions that can work in detail are so improbable - and there are so many ways to rule out assertions - that for things that matter enough - understanding

rshow55 - 07:40am Feb 5, 2003 EST (# 8579 of 8584)
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.

The problems are not hopeless -on the things that matter - because explanations and solutions that can work in detail are so improbable - and there are so many ways to rule out assertions - that for things that matter enough - understandings good enough to use can be arrived at much more often than is now the case. But it takes work, and an acknowledgement that images in our minds, no matter how much we happen to believe them - are representations - and can easily be very wrong. You have to check. You have to know what the limitations on the checks applied actually are. And if people are not clearly expressing what they need - for whatever reason - their needs can't be reasonably accomodated.

Sometimes the reasons may involve conscious deception. Unconscious, repressed motivations can be at least as important - are probably at least as common - and can be much more dangerous, because they are hidden - and therefore hard to identify and deal with.

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