New York Times on the Web Forums
Resource
Area for Forum Hosts and Moderators
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.
(15009 previous messages)
rshow55
- 03:55pm Oct 14, 2003 EST (#
15010 of 17697) 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.
When I was just a kid - Mimi Beardsley's age when she was a
special help to Kennedy - I was asked to work on a list of
"Robert Showalter problems."
I wrote a rough list of "Robert Showalter problems" as I
knew of then about 1970 - in the order they popped into my
head a few months ago when I tried to list them.
Plato's problem
Negotiations
Fluid mechanics - especially mixing
Flame stability and combustion
target tracking
optimality theory
modelling
buried problem in mathematics
code of the brain - and several useful
levels
combat theory
innovation of large organizations
Robert Showalter problems were problems "too hard" for
anybody to solve - one way or another - especially ones
government folks in Eisenhower's circle knew they had.
I was given a superb education - and worked on solving as
many of these problems as I could -
I found out a great deal about how these problems were too
hard for me.
My work from 1971 to 1986 is pretty well documented - and
was well focused. It centered around the AEA effort - centered
on getting a format for optimal innovation that could work for
large organizations - and mathematical efforts - some with
Steve Kline. We can go through more details. In 1979 - with
Kline and others - we'd negotiated, and were well along toward
satisfying a big contingent contract with Ford Motor Company -
that could have made my investors and I a great deal of money
- and saved the economy tens of billions - while demonstrating
the format I'd been assigned to perfect.
Casey postpoined that - and things went wrong.
There were some interesting problems. . . .
Some would make a long story - but I'd just about given up
hope of accomplishing the big things (especially negotiation
things - and Plato's problem - that I'd been asked to do. )
- - - -
But since I've met lchic - it seems to me
that there's been a lot of progress.
She's the most valuable mind I've ever been nowhere
near . . or anywhere near. And I believe we've already
changed the English language some - by talking about
"connecting the dots" - - and will do more.
lchic
- 03:57pm Oct 14, 2003 EST (#
15011 of 17697) ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has
to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong
foundation
Showalter people with managerial responsibilites are on a
continual learning curve - they have to be - or their
competitors would outsmart them.
lchic
- 04:00pm Oct 14, 2003 EST (#
15012 of 17697) ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has
to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong
foundation
Showalter ... in the small print i first read 'combat
theory' as 'cantabb theory' ...
jorian319
- 04:00pm Oct 14, 2003 EST (#
15013 of 17697) day length increases 1 second every
500 days. -James "Idiot" Nienhuis
Yeah, it's kind of like the measures/countermeasures
dilemma, except that one can actually profit from
applied managerial skills.
(2684 following messages)
New York Times on the Web Forums
Resource
Area for Forum Hosts and Moderators Missile Defense
|