ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (07/27/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Sunday, July 27, 1986 10:30AM
Volume 6, Issue 126
Today's Topics:
seriousness and how to tell
Radiation and infant deaths
Re: Civil Disobedience
Free lunches on the way to the moon
Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V6 #124
Free lunches on the way to the moon
DIVAD
stopping 20% of warheads not useful, anyone disagree?
SDI: PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1986 01:21 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: seriousness and how to tell
This is a question to the entire list.
How would one tell -- on the basis of external observable evidence --
that either the U.S. or the Soviet Union is "serious" or not about
arms control? What evidence would (or should) it take to convince a
skeptic that the other side is serious?
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 86 09:30:19 pdt
From: Steve Walton <ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Subject: Radiation and infant deaths
Jan Steinman writes in Arms-D V6 #124:
>Sources, please, or are you speaking from personal opinion? I listed mine
>-- please don't bother to respond to documentary evidence without supplying
>same.
>...
>(1) Killing Our Own, 1982, Harvey Wasserman and Norman Solomon, Dell
> Publishing, New York.
>
I'm sorry, but I don't consider a Dell paperback "documentary evidence."
Please cite an epidemiological study in a peer-reviewed research journal
which substantiates your claim of 260 infant deaths as a result of TMI.
>And please don't cloud the issue by comparing apples with oranges.
>Denver's infant death rate is certainly different than Harrisburg's, and
>would certainly rise if another Rocky Flats accident coincided with the
>right atmospheric conditions.
My point was that if the TMI release was small compared to the amounts
present naturally in places where people are living normal lives, this
gives a strong presumption that said release was, in fact, harmless.
>My allusion to government cover-up was due to the way the State handled
>that data. The raw data is a matter of public record, but the
>interpretation of that data by the State revealed that there was no infant
>death rate increase *after* the accident, as compared with before the
>accident, slyly ignoring the data *during* the accident -- the very data
>independent researchers say show 260 more infants died than would have been
>considered normal. The State Secretary of Health was fired for supporting
>the State's own data.
Define "*during* the accident." Do you mean that 260 infants died simul-
taneously during the venting of steam from the reactor (which was the only
release of radiation from the accident)? Sounds hard to hide.
>Many experts agree there is NO SAFE LEVEL of radiation -- every bit is
>capable of causing statistically demonstrable damage, and granite and
>cosmic rays certainly cause a certain number of problems.
It is correct to say that there is no level of radiation which does
not cause cell damage; however, I would say that a radiation level
which causes so little damage that it doesn't have a statistical
chance of causing cancer in, say 100 years of exposure is safe.
>I don't expect
>this bit of news to cause people to leave Denver in droves -- they choose
>to live there for various reasons. Not one of over 5 billion human beings,
>however, has a choice about living with the consequences of even a minor,
>regional nuclear war.
>
How is TMI relevant to nuclear war?
Steve Walton
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 86 15:09 EDT
From: Jong@HIS-BILLERICA-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Re: Civil Disobedience
This strays from SDI, and perhaps reveals [more so than my normal
submissions! :-)] my ignorance, but I feel defensive about my
comments on civil disobedience (after replies by Dick King, Tom
Sloan, and Will Doherty), and wish to clarify them.
I think that civil disobedience IS working "within the system."
In the 1850's, Ralph Waldo Emerson refused to pay the (trifling)
poll tax, because he didn't want to support a federal government
that promoted domestic slavery and foreign war. When confronted
by the sheriff of Concord, MA, he went to jail (for one night)
rather than pay. Emerson was playing within the rules of the
game; he broke the law, and he deliberately went to jail. I
believe the phrase is "courage of convection."
If Emerson wanted to work outside the system, I think he would
have tried to EVADE the poll tax in some way, with NO INTENTION
of being caught. A more clear-cut example of working outside the
system is, say, a terrorist hijacking a plane, then fleeing to a
friendly country for refuge. There is no way within the system
to capture and punish the offender.
For an institution such as MIT to disobey the government by
refusing to bid on or accept funding for Star Wars research
requires considerable courage. The government can cut off other
funding, for DoD and non-DoD projects; threaten student loan
guarantees; blacklist graduates; I'm sure there are many ways to
apply the screws. As I stated earlier, one can't expect any
institution to put itself on the line.
I certainly don't advocate violence, and I have no connection to
Star Wars work. But allow me to point out that in this country
we as individuals reserve the right not to be made stooges.
------------------------------
Subject: Free lunches on the way to the moon
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 86 17:05:40 PDT
From: goddard@venera.isi.edu
Herb Lin writes:
>>5. SDI need not cost as much as some fear it might. For example,
>> going to the moon in the '60's cost the USA nothing!
>> Miniaturization of electronics, and encapsulation for space led directly
>> to domestic products like the now common "pacemaker."
>> The DIFFERENCE between tax dollars paid by those wearing pacemakers, and
>> the "aid to their families" that would have been paid had those heart
>> patients died or been disabled, is more than $25 billion.
>> [Data from a CPA friend of mine.]
[From Lin: I said no such thing. This was from a message I forwarded
to the list. Please be careful of tying me personally to
contributions I forward from other sources.]
And the moon is made of blue cheese. Going to the moon cost the effort of
a lot of people for many years. That a spin-off enabled some more people
to work does not make the original effort cost-free, except in a strict
financial sense (and even then, only free to the government).
SDI, if pursued, will require the effort of a very large
number of people, from researchers through engineers to the people who
pay the taxes. If in the course of SDI some technologies that actually
contribute to our well-being are developed, we shall all be pleased.
We could of course expend the effort directly on improving our quality
of life. It requires some quite extraordinairy mysticism to believe
that research directed at military requirements is as likely to have
beneficial spin-offs as research directed squarely at our needs. Let
us not beat around the bush. SDI is designed to address military needs.
If military needs are the highest priority, then so be it. If not, then
why not explicitly address other needs, e.g. health care. Whatever the
choice, it should be clear that it is a choice. There is a limited amount
of labor and brain power available, and none of it is free.
Nigel Goddard
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1986 00:39 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: DIVAD
Some time ago there was a flap about whether or not DIVAD did or did
not shoot at a latrine fan. I have documentation now from a person
who should know: Richard DeLauer, former Undersecretaty of Defense for
Research and Engineering in the first Reagan term. He says it did,
and that it was supposed to do that. See Technology Review, July
1986, page 64.
------------------------------
Date: 1986 July 26 13:06:51 PST (=GMT-8hr)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject:stopping 20% of warheads not useful, anyone disagree?
>Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1986 11:11 EDT
>From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
>Subject: SDI performance requirments - who said what?
>Danny Graham has said that SDI would be worth building if it could
>stop 20% of incoming missiles.
I wholeheartedly disagree with Danny Graham on that point. I've
already come to the opinion that even a 90% defense against 25,000
H-bombs, letting 2500 get through, would be essentially worthless,
we'd still lose our cities and our populace and our governments and
our industry and our medical facilities and our ozone layer, if not
have nuclear winter too. A 20% defense would be even more worthless
against an all-out attack, and furthermore wouldn't be much good
against an attack by China or France or Libya either. Is there anyone
on this whole list who agrees that 20% defense would be worthwhile for
an all-out attack or any other kind? (The only conceivable argument to
me would be it would tip the balance a little if we had it and they
didn't, but I have already concluded that if one side had twice the
overkill of the other it wouldn't make any difference except in the
minds of <derogatory term deleted> such as Ronald Reagan. The side
with half the weapons could still destroy the other side, surely the
side with 20% fewer could too.)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 86 17:10:24 pdt
From: Dave Benson <benson%wsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: SDI: PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES
I have just completed reading
SDI: PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES
Staff Report Submitted To
Senator William Proxmire, Senator J. Bennett Johnston
and Senator Lawton Chiles
March 17, 1986
By:
Douglas Waller
James Bruce
Douglas Cook
These three staffers conducted about 40 interviews of technocrats,
scientists and engineers associated with SDI so-called research. The
results of the interviews and the staffers opinions are contained in
this highly readable 64 page report. I believe you may obtain a copy
by writing to Senator Proxmire's office.
From recent news reports, this report has been quite influential in
causing the Senate to (almost) change its mind about SDI funding for
the coming fiscal year. HOWEVER, the report has almost nothing to say
about the software problems facing SDI beyond statements to the effect
that the SDIO is still evaluating the Eastport Group Report (footnote:
this is the group from which Dave Parnas resigned...).
I can only conclude from this that Washington decision-makers still
have not recognized the problems raised by Jon Jacky, Dave Parnas,
Herb Lin, Jim Horning, Dave Redell, me and possibly others: The
software technology to build large software which can be trusted to
work the first time does not exist. This technology will not come
into existence anytime soon.
I know, I know... I've seen it on ARMS-D enough: The
SDI software doesn't have to work the first (and only) time it
might be called upon. We would, however, have to trust it to work.
Perhaps this point is too subtle for politicians? (Shouldn't be,
most of them are lawyers by training.)
There was a nice opinion piece in Harper's Magazine about 3 months ago
on SDI by a Washington, D.C., scene observer. It ended with the phrase
"Oh hell, beam me up, Scotty." (There's no intelligent life here.)
After reading this staff report, I'm ready whenever Scotty finishes
his beam-me-up R&D contact -- so long as the thing isn't controlled
by software.
------------------------------
End of Arms-Discussion Digest
*****************************