ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (12/16/85)
Arms-Discussion Digest Sunday, December 15, 1985 5:34PM
Volume 5, Issue 62
Today's Topics:
SDI software
Conflict Resolution and the Prevention of War
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Date: 13 Dec 85 11:23-EST
From: Samuel McCracken <oth104%BOSTONU.bitnet@WISCVM.arpa>
Subject: SDI software
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I recently heard Robert Jastrow claim that the software used by
AT&T to switch the national telephone network is longer than any current
estimate for SDI battle management code, is connected to many more nodes,
was debugged using simulations, and has run flawlessly from the day
it was put up. Comments?
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Date: Sun, 15 Dec 85 10:27:23 EST
From: alpert at harvard.HARVARD.EDU (Richard Alpert)@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Conflict Resolution and the Prevention of War
American railroad companies missed a great opportunity when they
declined an offer made by the United States Government which would
have given them a monopoly of the nation's airlines. They were, they
claimed, railroad men in the railroad business.
IBM took a great step forward in realizing that they were not in the
business of making business machines but in the business of handling
information.
The thrust of any movement to prevent the destruction of humanity must
not focus too closely on the technical aspects of the means by which
this deed might be accomplished. Of course, these details are
important, but are short-lived when one considers the life span of the
larger issue, that of conflict resolution. The healthy debate over
the legality of LOWC merely will be replaced by yet another question
when the next technological step has been taken. (I do realize that
the result of such a debate might well be the prevention of the
accidental destruction of the Earth, though.)
We ought to devote some energy to seeing that social structures
advance at at least some linear factor of the rate of technological
development. If we all still believe that THE way to solve
international conflicts is by killing people and destroying
landscapes, our arguments for arms control will continue as long as we
continue to exist; only the names of the arms and the magnitude of the
consequence of their use will change. Even though we may be actively
engaged in those activities, we are not in the business of limiting
arms, we are not in the business of preventing war, we are in the
business of defining means by which conflicts may be resolved.
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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