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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 - 10:23am Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9351 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.

NASA Pressed on When Officials Learned of E-Mail About Shuttle By KENNETH CHANG and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/28/national/nationalspecial/28INQU.html

The details that were obvious to me were, it seems, obvious to many NASA people, too.

What did they do?

A sermon posted on this thread many times deals with a case where a Russian colonel did not do "what was expected" - and saved the world from horror. The NASA engineers were ordinary people - reacting in ordinary ways - but they were not heroes. http://www.mrshowalter.net/sermon.html

9314 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.DDr1b0YuYGb.1127178@.f28e622/10848

9205 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.DDr1b0YuYGb.1127178@.f28e622/10731

9241 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.DDr1b0YuYGb.1127178@.f28e622/10767

9242 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.DDr1b0YuYGb.1127178@.f28e622/10768

We need logical tools, and human insights, that make closure possible, and agreements resiliant, to a degree that they haven't been before.

9040 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.DDr1b0YuYGb.1127178@.f28e622/10566 reads:

But our "logic" - is mostly a choosing between many alteratives going on or being fashioned in our heads - and in the course of that choosing - people believe what "feels right."

But what "feels right," most often, is what, in our minds "cooperates with the interests of authority - with our group." Look at Pritchard's notes on Milgram's experiment - and on Jonestown - to get a sense of how wrong it feels, for most people, to go against authority. http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html

We need to face the fact that there is more need to check - especially when "the ties that bind" are involved - than people feel comfortable with.

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.

(I believe, having read gisterme's response to this - that I' exactly correct - and that gisterme is dangerously wrong - I'd even be inclined, just here, to use the word evil -- though he's making some openminded statements. But would block what would actually need to be done for checking to closure. )

. . .

We're dealing here with nonrandom, basic patterns of human behavior that get us into messes. We need to face them. If we did - we could do better.

We ought to think about the behavior set out in http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html and realize that if we're "wired to be nice" - that is - to be cooperative - we're also "wired to be self deceptive and stupid" whenever the immediate thought seems to go against our cooperative needs.

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/413

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/414

rshow55 - 10:25am Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9352 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.

In 2000 and early 2001, I was concerned that he world might well blow up - for reasons I knew a good deal about. There's been some limited progress since 1999 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.DDr1b0YuYGb.1127178@.f28e622/2484 and some progress continues. There's still plenty to fear, along with a great deal to hope for.

Now, I feel sure that the world won't blow up - and if things were reasonably done - things might go beautifully. I'm reasonably sure than, ten or twenty years from now - we'll have a much better organized, more peaceful world. People are slow to learn - but smart enough for that. At the same time, it seems to me that the decisions of the Bush administration are now backwards enough, dangerous enough - that there may be, in the next five years - 5-20 million people may die unnecessarily - including a significant number of Americans, because of stupid mistakes every bit as avoidable as some that NASA has made - and denied in every bit as garish a manner.

Secret, Scary Plans By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/28/opinion/28KRIS.html

The scariest work under way in the Pentagon these days is the planning for a possible military strike against nuclear sites in North Korea.

Survival fears behind N Korean test: Downer Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says North Korea's increasingly provocative actions are part of a plan to protect the nation's leadership. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2003/02/item20030225122835_1.htm

. . ..

Meanwhile, former Australian ambassador to South Korea, Richard Broinwoski, says North Korea's missile launch is an attempt to gain the attention of the US.

Mr Broinwoski says there is a strong possibility the North will launch another missile.

"The Americans should really talk directly with North Korea because the North Koreans are getting desperate by being isolated, by being characterised as a rogue state and actually being threatened very strongly by the United States," he said.

Desperate people fight. Why are we afraid to talk?

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