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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 (8745 previous messages)

rshow55 - 11:31am Feb 9, 2003 EST (# 8746 of 8752) 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.

We live in a world where about a quarter of a million people die every day - many in wrenching ways, after wretched lives. We have to do better - and if we face our problems - we can do a lot better than we've been doing. If people with power and responsibility worked to be

. orderly in ways that made sense to them, and that they could explain

. symmetric or proportionate in ways that made sense to them, and that they could explain, and

. harmonious , aesthetically balanced, in ways that made sense to them, and that they could explain

we could hardly fail to do much better than we've been doing on the things that matter most to most human beings.

7125 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.vkeNaWluZz3^0@.f28e622/8648

7141 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.AswMafy4Zps^1146466@.f28e622/8664

rshow55 12/29/02 10:09am http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.rZioauNS2o4.1597426@.f28e622/8641 . . . If enough people, whatever their other religious and philosophical beliefs, could come to understand that we are animals - that we , as human beings - have no direct connection to either the world or to any God - and can get things wrong - - we could sort these things out.

7145-7147 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.AswMafy4Zps^1146484@.f28e622/8668

As the exception handling system sorts itself out, or evolves, or is developed - the exception handling itself becomes a system - and many of the same sorts of issues that applied at a lower level to the lower system now apply (though at a higher level) to the exception handling system. . . . Patterns emerge. See http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/maslow.html and look at the picture.

We need to know more about exception handling, and handle it better. The golden rule (a principle of symettry) helps. The notion of disciplined beauty (harmony) helps.

(search "golden rule" or see http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/DetailNGR.htm ) disciplined beauty: 5438-40 rshow55 11/1/02 12:00pm http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.cs0OapLuZvR^1150564@.f28e622/6810

rshow55 - 11:33am Feb 9, 2003 EST (# 8747 of 8752) 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.

By the time things are messed up enough that people kill each other, either individually or as groups - some patterns have come into existence that look very bad in terms of order , symmetry , and harmony - - as these things can reasonably be interpreted, in terms that can be described clearly by the standards of disciplined beauty. Especially in terms of patterns that condense from circumstances again and again - patterns pretty well described the generalizations of Berle's Laws of Power, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and the golden rule.

If we face our problems, we can do much better in the future than we've done in the past. Risks, costs, and all.

Leaders of the countries in the UN Security Council are facing up to some key problems - and being forced to. There are risks and dangers - wrenching ones. But it seems to me that a lot of key things could get better for the six billion people who live in the world if the problems before us are faced - and not let to slide into chaos and denial. I think the Bush administration is right to insist that we get solutions, this time. Costs and risks are real - but the costs of containment - of inaction - of paralysis - are real, too.

That doesn't mean that the Bush administration has things right on crucial details. But on an insistence on facing problems, I think they are right.

The concerns being raised at the UN, and all over the world, about what we do are important - and the Bush administration can make mistakes.

bbbuck - 12:04pm Feb 9, 2003 EST (# 8748 of 8752)

After much searching and scratching I have obtained some prototype pictures of almarst2002 and lchic(You'll have to use a little bit of imagination to render the female version).

5000 posts and not one bit of dialog. I think that may be a record.

http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame55.html

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