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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 - 04:12pm Feb 27, 2003 EST (# 9332 of 9340)
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.

Gisterme - I think a problem is how easy it is to dehumanize and dismiss people - for instance, just dismissing them as "evil."

Standing up for the group is a great thing to do - but at times - right answers are distasteful. To anybody. But sometimes they matter a great deal.

You made an interesting posting yesterday - and I'm going to respond now

rshow55 - 04:16pm Feb 27, 2003 EST (# 9333 of 9340)
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.

gisterme - 02:47am Feb 27, 2003 EST (# 9315 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.breoazby4Gc.341953@.f28e622/10849 is a very interesting, hopeful response - if the work , committment and procedures to get to real closure could actually be brought to bear. We could, together, save millions of lives - and many, many billions (perhaps trillions) of dollars if the key issues were taken to closure. Even if we were both wrong, in spots. Gisterme quotes me:

rshow55 - 07:11pm Feb 26, 2003 EST (# 9314 of ...) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.breoazby4Gc.341953@.f28e622/10848

"...On this thread, again and again, there have been technical arguments - and with absolutely stunning, monotonous regularity - gisterme presents arguments that make no technical sense at all - that are perversely wrong - and feels right about them..."

and gisterme says:

" That statement would be correct only if one were to substitue "Showalter" for gisterme. I invite anybody to check the record.

We have a difference of opinion here. A contradiction. Something clear enough, defined enough, worked through enough to check - though the checking would take resources, and procedures.

in http://www.mrshowalter.net/whytimes2/ there's this:

"The NYT forums can discuss issues that the focused journals cannot. They can deal with issues without being much constrained by issues of territory and status. They have a real, creative intellectual service to perform.

*********

If one is to have hope of working out a problem, one must first sharply, carefully describe it.

Prior to sharp description, one may face a mystery, an unspeakable mystical strangeness in some body of relations.

. Sometimes, after the work of sharp, careful, well checked description, a mystery may be transmuted into something much different and far more precious. The hard thought and description may have generated a sharp, defined contradiction.

Such a clearly defined contradiction is a target identified, a place to reassess and rebuild, a source of hope. A mystery is a call to awe and stasis. A contradiction is a call to thought and action.

The forums can facilitate this descriptive sharpening.

rshow55 - 04:16pm Feb 27, 2003 EST (# 9334 of 9340)
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.

Now, we've gotten some things sharp.

Gisterme , would you, as a practical matter - permit the record to be checked - in a way that could permit reasonable closure? Would the government permit that?

We need both long and short statements: http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.breoazby4Gc.341953@.f28e622/4168

This forum has probably already made a contribution to the culture - involving the concept of "connecting the dots" - 9238 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.breoazby4Gc.341953@.f28e622/10764 a notion that Secretary Rumsfeld and many other ranking people now use frequently.

How about getting to closure?

It would take some work. And some procedures. And some umpiring.

lchic - 04:18pm Feb 27, 2003 EST (# 9335 of 9340)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

The issues are: