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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 - 09:32am Feb 5, 2003 EST (# 8588 of 8591)
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.

8304 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.7xararcx20i.0@.f28e622/9830 talks about things that matter. Human solutions that work well in human terms have to fit the details of the case, and again and again - the issues of order, symmetry, and harmony dealt with in the Golden Rule, Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs, and Berle's Laws of power are important - and when arrangements are at tension with these patterns - there are practical and especially human costs.

The golden rule is primordial -and the relations Maslow and Berle deal with must have been known, one way or another, to people throughout history. These ideas aren't important because they are new or original - they are important because they summarize emergent needs that occur again and again in human affairs. When human arrangements meet the requirements of the Golden Rule, Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs, and Berle's Laws of power, thing can go much better from all sorts of points of view. The Iraqis, and others in the Middle East need to understand that better than they do. I think the US does, as well.

. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs by William G. Huitt Essay and Image: http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/maslow.html

and

, . Berle's Laws of Power taken from Power by Adolf A. Berle . . . 1969 ... Harcourt, Brace and World, N.Y.

are described on this thread in 667 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_0100s/md667n.htm

A key issue that I think needs much more attention than it has had is the need to check - and the need to do so, especially - when people are emotionally committed to ideas and interests -and when they may not even be conscous of why they do what they do.

Checking of some circumstances involving this thread could, I believe, do great good. 8558-9 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.7xararcx20i.0@.f28e622/10084

Links to CIA and my security problems: http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.7xararcx20i.0@.f28e622/4753

8548 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.7xararcx20i.0@.f28e622/10074 includes this:

"it seems to me to be important for leaders of nation states to determine if I'm right that gisterme either is, or is close to, the President of the United States. Because if that is correct, we have on this thread a very good corpus of material on how Bush thinks - the kind of thinking he approves of, and the kinds of arguments he uses.

If gisterme is, indeed, the President, or close to him - that would be the basis of much fruitful discussion - discussion that people might pay attention to. Discussion that people ought to pay attention to.

It seems to me that checking that could facilitate convergence on facts and underlying ideas - and that the costs of the discussion, though real, are tiny compared to the costs that are being incurred - or that are to be expected soon - if discussions on some key questions of fact do not occur.

When the UN dismisses claims the US makes - how can the matter be checked to closure.

If we used techniques prototyped here - so that assertions were set down where people could look at them - there would be less room for deception than there is now.

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