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 [F] New York Times on the Web Forums  / Science  /

    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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.


Earliest Messages Previous Messages Recent Messages Outline (8643 previous messages)

rshow55 - 10:15am Feb 6, 2003 EST (# 8644 of 8648) Delete Message
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.

It seems to me that the world is a great deal safer and more hopeful place than it was in September, 2000, when lunarchick and I started work on this thread - - maybe that just shows how crazy I am. It also seems to me that we could do a lot better - and a lot of things - including things on view at the Security Council - show that we're well along the road to better things.

Getting to truths - in the sense of maps that work well enough for the things we need us to do - is NOT hopeless - though it might "logically" seem so - because though the world is far more complex than we can completely master - the patterns that matter.

3791 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@193.NfCqai35Rvu^1599691@.f28e622/4770

3790 cites Almarst , from September 13, 2002 - and is worth reading with respect to our Iraqi plans, as well. http://www.mrshowalter.net/calendar1.htm

Everybody does a lot of guessing - mostly unconscious - and everybody has to. So long as people keep at it - keep checking - and are prepared to discard ideas, even though they've come to like them - when they turn out to be wrong - we can do well enough to get the maps we need to keep us out of disasters, and do pretty well about the things we want to do in human terms that we can state in a orderly, symmetrical, and harmonious way, admit to ourselves, and admit and explain to others.

I'm hoping to explain that, in a way that people can actually face and understand. If they did - they'd understand a lot else - and could solve problems better.

I'm hopeful, and apologize for moving slowly, and not responding to every good comment and request on this thread. It seems to me that with a few changes, a lot of things can go very much better - from the viewpoint of people on the Security Council - and from our own. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b2bd/1644 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b2bd/1662

I'm also hopeful, selfishly, that I can get my security problems handled - emerge from what is now substantially house arrest - and make a living. There's an initiative at Stanford, funded by Exxon-Mobil, GE, and other firms, and advertised on the Op Ed page - that I'd like to be involved with. I'd have other options, too - if I could just get the US government to tell me, in writing, what they've told me verbally - in a way that would permit me to work with ordinary American institutions.

almarst2002 - 03:10pm Feb 6, 2003 EST (# 8645 of 8648)

THIS IS VERY SERIOUS - http://www.channel4.com/news/home/z/stories/20030206/dossier.html

"Channel Four News has learnt that the bulk of the nineteen page document was copied from three different articles - one written by a graduate student."

almarst2002 - 04:27pm Feb 6, 2003 EST (# 8646 of 8648)

An Iraqi scientist has been privately interviewed by UN weapons experts for the first time in the current crisis, as Baghdad fights back against an extensive US dossier on its alleged banned weapons. - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2734851.stm

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