Subject:
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Re: Are we doing the right thing?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 3 Sep 2001 06:09:49 GMT
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Viewed:
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814 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> First, Lindsay, I don't want to gush, but I really just love reading your
> stuff. Your only problem is that you're too sporadic. :-) Do you teach like
> this? Or does the nature of the college classroom require the lecture to be
> generally dry?
Depends. I try to draw relevance to the here and now, elements
of the present-day psyche or political order, whenever possible.
> Most people seem to object to history on the basis that it's
> boring. I think it's partly because it's presented as a series of generally
> unconnected facts, and partly because there is often no relevent tie-in to the
> here and now.
You're telling a story, kind of like Grandpa's family lore. It's
just on a national--or world--scale. When it becomes a chore of
memorization with no rhyme or reason, as history often does at
the survey level, yeah, it's boring as hell. I tell students not
to memorize too much desiderata, that's why we have *books*.
Thanks for the positive review, though. I'll bear that in mind
when I'm reading my student evaluations next week and cringing.
:D
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
>
> > See above. Yes, it is imperative to national security to defend
> > ourselves against attacks--but the defence should really be in
> > line with the potential and nature of attack.
>
> Mightn't it be that our missile defense system would lead to infrastructure
> development that would allow us to not only defend against ICBMs, but also to
> project force around the globe? What if this is merely an intermediate step to
> space-based rail guns that can closely target individuals? It might be that we
> don't really need the ABS (Anti-Ballistic Shield), but we do want future
> spin-offs.
Maybe. But I don't want any space-based railguns that could
kill me in my car floating around up there either. That's
still a "high ground" military technology that's not productive.
<rant>
I thought of another potential question: What does this space
infrastructure do that an equivalent investment in the ISS/Alpha
or even something stupid like polar mobile telephone satellites
could not? What can putting this antimissile technology in orbit
do beyond its spec that can't be done on the ground? I can
answer the question the reverse way!
Compared to virtually any other attempt to build space infra-
structure, a missile defence shield would be the *least* return
on investment I can possibly imagine, other than actually firing
pennies into space in Saturn V rockets (which would at least have
the cool possible side effect of making the troposphere glow all
green at night ;) ).
I read in the NYT--admittedly left of center--today that Bush
has accepted the understanding that China will have to upgrade
its nuclear arsenal to overwhelm any missile shield. Great!
More money, more money, more money. It's not American money,
but like the Russian sort, it's real and money spent on guns is
money NOT spent on butter. Germany and Japan didn't make their
post-WWII miracles happen by spending money on arms races.
And when they can overwhelm our shield, we'll have to upgrade
the shield, then they'll have to overwhelm the shield, then
we'll have to upgrade the shield. Creating its own demand--
the defence industry's wet dream, I'd say! Have any numbers
been bandied about for how much this little shield will cost
initially? How much for upkeep? And for all that money, what
will it do that deterrence *doesn't* do today, with a comparative
cost that's effectively zero (more is spent, IIRC, on retiring
missiles due to be scrapped under treaty than in keeping up the
standing force)?
As I type this out, sub-Saharan Africa sans South Africa has a
GDP of about half a trillion dollars. Sounds like a lot until you
realize there's 600 million people on the continent. The US GDP
is a hair under *ten trillion dollars*. In short, our GDP is on
average about 35-40 times per capita what it is in real purchasing
power in sub-Saharan Africa.
Why build another pointless weapon? Why not invest the money in
African businesses, factories, and educational initiatives?
Not to be given away, but to be used to grow local economies?
We'd get a handsome return (albeit not for perhaps ten years
which is usually what makes investors balk at the prospect),
Africans would get work, a living wage, and a greater range of
domestic products, African nations would have diverse economies,
and African education could begin to undo some of the devastation
wrought over the last 250 years or so. Not reparations, but
*reconciliation*!
</rant>
Nobody has ever been able to explain to me just what it is
we'll get if this "shield" is in place, besides a costly and
pointless arms race. I appreciate Chris's "when life hands
you lemons..." stance, though.
> > And since the terrorist has no homeland to be retaliated against...
>
> I don't particularly have a homeland against which to retaliate, but I don't
> think we should be swatting people with nukes.
Retaliation doesn't have to be nuclear, either. Hey, wait,
didn't you say once that we should all have the right to own
weapons of mass destruction? :D
http://www.aemann.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/atomic/buildabomb.html [2]
I think my car is an AFE (air-fuel explosive)...
> > Not directly. But if a group should nuke a city, do you think
> > *any* legitimate government--or even most other terrorist organ-
> > izations--would have *anything* to do with them?
>
> Maybe not, but at least largely because to do so would be dangerous. I don't
> doubt there are enough folks out there who'd like to spit some nukes, that they
> could get a mutual admiration society together after the fact.
Yes, but would it be a mutual admiration society with any money
or *real* power? Nope. I recall seeing a lot of survivability
preparation in the 1950s (Duck and Cover!) because people thought
nuclear war was going to be the norm. But, alas, it wasn't--it
turns out those nasty Russians weren't feral beasts after all.
Ditto China. Everyone has a limit--for example, the Germans in WWII
never used poison gas on the battlefield [1], despite having the
chemical capacity to do so. (The Italian Army used it in Ethiopia
in 1935-6, but only against the Ethiopians--kind of tells you a
little bit about how the Ethiopians ranked in the Italian imperial
mind, huh?)
> > > I fully support retaliations for terrorist acts against the US and
> > > against American citizens when there is a sufficient trail to 'whodunnit.'
> >
> > Ditto. But again, to play devil's advocate: The terrorist feels
> > that their acts are analagous to the kind of evil violence perpe-
> > trated against them and their people.
>
> From your comments at the bottom, it sounds as if you actually disagree with
> them on this? Is that right? It seems to me that some people do have an
> actually valid beef with the US. You know how they say we control way more
> than our "share" of the resources of the earth? That's because we were best at
> manipulating things so that other folks didn't get them. So we live the good
> life and (and because) other people don't. Why shouldn't they be ticked?
I probably came across as *too* dissociative. I was trying
to dissociate myself from their methods, but not the rationale.
Were I in fact one of these very dispossessed souls, I'm sure
my calculation would be very different--I have the benefit of
a Western education, I'm a (mostly-) White Anglo-Saxon (sorta-)
Protestant (defnitely-) male, and I'm a US citizen. My position-
ality makes me *highly* suspect when I'm making value judgements
unless I make a reality check at all points.
But sometimes I go overboard. :)
> > I definitely support retaliation--it is in
> > all senses a war, except that detecting the enemy is a lot harder.)
>
> Couldn't war (just like domestic crime) be averted by working to make
> their lot better?
How do we do that? It seems that every time we go in to do it,
someone tries to turn a buck out of the deal--or wring some kind
of political benefit--and it all goes to hell. The biggest of
the big problems is that we're devising development theory and
it's just that, theory. It's never actually worked *anywhere*,
save in limited ways and for limited periods of time. I'd say
"look at South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc." but they did that
themselves, without us dictating or sticking our fingers into
their business (except for guaranteeing their national security
by writ, which one could argue is the best promotor of national
economic growth).
> Are Israel and Palestine in conflict _really_ because of the Holy Land, or is
> it because there are two few of whatever resources to go around? Why not step
> in with a method of better each group's lot without taking (much) from the
> other?
Whatever factors it started with, I get the impression that it's
ossified into factions that define themselves in opposition to
the other so completely that everything is read into that dichotomy.
It may take the passing of the current generation before there are
enough cool heads to make progress.
> > > It also baffles me that the
> > > extremist groups are so senseless and insane in their acts.
> >
> > I rarely hear of a group terrorist act that's senseless. They
> > seem insane, but usually not. Horrific, yes. Indefensible,
> > certainly.
>
> I disagree. Any people should use whatever methods they have at their disposal
> to secure a fair measure of life. To do less is to accept slavery. If their
> only recourse is terrorism, then their neighbors damn well need to help solve
> their problems (or snuff them).
I still don't think that makes the acts horrific or indefensible
to me or to the victims--even righteous violence is hard to justify
to its targets.
> > 2) Oil. <snip>
>
> With exactly which part(s) of this analysis do you disagree?
See waaaay above--it's a matter of scale.
> > 3) History. <snip>
>
> With exactly which part(s) of this analysis do you disagree?
Ditto.
best
LFB
[1] Note that I said WWII, not WWI. WWI is a very different bird.
[2] I know they're not in order. This article is reproduced from
the _Journal of Irreproducible Results_, but there's no clear
indication of why, it seems, the British have particular love of
the concept of making a nuclear weapon in the kitchen.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Are we doing the right thing?
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| First, Lindsay, I don't want to gush, but I really just love reading your stuff. Your only problem is that you're too sporadic. :-) Do you teach like this? Or does the nature of the college classroom require the lecture to be generally dry? Most (...) (23 years ago, 2-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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