[fa.arms-d] Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #130

C70:arms-d (06/26/82)

>From HGA@MIT-MC Sat Jun 26 03:34:30 1982

Arms-Discussion Digest                            Volume 0 : Issue 130

Today's Topics:
                            1 or 2 Digests
                           Aiding the USSR
                           Keep your peace
                        Discussions on Arms-d
     Radio Shack 8080's escaping in Soviet diplomatic pouches...
                    A New Voice Enters the Fray...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     25 Jun 82 10:24:31-EDT (Fri)
From:     Earl Weaver (VLD/VMB) <earl@BRL>
Subject:  1 or 2 Digests

I vote for one digest.  I think most people that now see arms-d would
read both anyway.  [JCP, bring on Av Wk again]

[Switch topics (slight tangent)]

Is there any chance the passive resistence philosophy could be used to
thwart the current criminal acts (muggings, murders, robbery, etc) in
this country?

------------------------------

Date: 25 June 1982 16:42-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: Aiding the USSR

    Date: 06/22/82 22:47:08
    From: ES at MIT-MC
         I disagree with REM's comment that we should bail out the
    Russian economy because they might decide to start a nuclear war
    if their economy collapsed.

I didn't say anything of the sort. I am opposed to bailing out private
companies and foreign governments. But I'm also opposed to cutting our
own throats just to hurt the Russians more, like we've done with the
wheat embargo and like has recently been proposed with 8080 chips.
There's a place in the middle where we allow free enterprise of
non-military and general-purpoe goods, without either extreme of
bail-out or cutthrot economic war.

    First of all, they might not.  Once we follow this policy there
    will be no hope of ever ridding the world of the cancer of
    communism.

I don't think it's at all appropriate to use words like "cancer" in
referrence to foreign governments and philosophies. That word brings
up thoughts of people getting sick and dying, of cells multiplying
without control and overwealming the body. Please avoid that kind of
right-winged emotionalism. If "cancer" applies to any foreign
governments, it would apply to those which have runaway birth without
control, who are causing the population explosion, who are overflowing
their starving people into other countries begging for free handouts
but unwilling to solve the problem of too many births. But even for
those I wouldn't want to use the word "cancer" as a substitute for
open thought, as you are trying to do.

    On the contrary, if their economic system is weak, it is they who
    should be the blackmail victims.  We could sell them grain, but
    only if they allow American newspapers and magazines and books to
    be sold in the Soviet Union.

This is a possible way for us to act, although I don't totally condone
it.

    The value of the arms race as an economic weapon seems to be much
    overlooked.  Our economy could be pulled out of the recession now,
    just as before World War II.  Of course, we would not actually use
    the weapons, its just part of the game.  Nevertheless, these
    weapons would be functional and available should the necessity
    arise.  Meanwhile, the presumably inefficient communist economy
    must make its slaves suffer more and more if they wish to keep up
    with us.

No! There are already too many weapons around, and too much of our
economy is already diverted to unproductive make-work. I'd rather have
a space race, setting up temporary make-work programs to develop
space, which in the long run will return new wealth, which weapons
won't return ever unless we actually use them to rape other countries
(pardon the word "rape" - "rob" is more correct although not strong
enough) in which case we're the bad guys who steal from others rather
than make good ourselves. I don't want our nation to go that route.
Let's make new goods ourselves instead of taking from others.

    I can think of no better example of strategic stupidity than the
    recent gas pipeline deal between Western Europe and the USSR.

Yeah, W.Germany is taking a big chance of default with no recourse
short of war. I hope W.Germany doesn't get burned, but if they do I
guess we'll just have to let them pay for their own dumbness. P.s. as
I type this, there's a follow-up to Haig's resignation an hour ago,
about how USA put sanctions on NATO in response to their approving the
pipeline, and now NATO is so mad at us that Haig had to resign.

    I would add to this that the money could better be spent on energy
    self sufficiency for thousands, if not millions, of years by
    constructing breeder reactors.

Yup, except the pipeline wasn't our decision, in fact (see above)
we're against it, so in regard to USA policy both these points are
irrelevant. As for breeders in general, I'm for them (see my messages
to ENERGY a few months ago re extracting uranium&thorium from seawater
to use fission as a "renewable" resource as the stuff leaches out of
land and flows to the ocean fast enough to keep ahead of our use of
it).

------------------------------

Date: 25 June 1982 17:00-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: keep your peace

ARMS-D discusses the pros and cons of various weapons systems and
methods to handle conflict. It would be absurd to force anyone opposed
to weapons systems onto a separate list DISARM-D or whatever. That
would quash debate and defeat the whole purpose of this list.
Besides, I don't think Arpanet is the place for people of one belief
to get together and force out anyone of opposing belief.  If you want
to do that, form a private church, not on Arpanet (or join an existing
one like the NRA or the John Birch Society).

(Awaiting flak from all the NRA people out there...)

------------------------------

Date: 25 June 1982  18:57-EDT (Friday)
From: Robert A. Carter <CARTER at RUTGERS>
Subject: keep your peace

    Date: Friday, 25 June 1982  17:00-EDT
    From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>

    ARMS-D discusses the pros and cons of various weapons systems

Precisely.

    and methods to handle conflict. 

That is a bit broad, isn't it?  A great deal of human communication
falls under that heading; certainly INFO-LAW and HN would qualify.  As
a working description of the subject matter for a digest it does not
seem particular enough to serve the purpose.

By "methods to handle conflict," perhaps you mean the exploration of
the moral reasons for nuclear disarmament or of the ethical and
theological implications of various flavors of non-violence as a creed
- the stuff that seems to me to have been preoccupying ARMS-D lately.
That is not just another method of handling conflict; it is a radical
attack on existing modes of human interrelation.  I think the most
passionate of those who have come to be know in the shorthand of this
discussion as "pacifists" would agree.

It would be a fascinating topic for a list or digest; it would amount
to a kind of meta-POLI-SCI.  I would follow it eagerly.  My concern
with continuing that topic here is that talk of the grandiose general
always tends to chill discussion of the technical particular, just as
in ARMS-D recently.  It is hard to maintain examination of a
relatively narrow technical activity if some discussants recur to the
immorality of engaging, or indeed of even contemplating, that
activity.

    It would be absurd to force anyone opposed to weapons systems onto
    a separate list DISARM-D or whatever.  Besides, I don't think
    Arpanet is the place for people of one belief to get together and
    force out anyone of opposing belief.

Force?  How, pray?  I have been reading your contributions for quite a
while, and have enjoyed their preciseness of thought.  Your analysis
of auto-accident law on HN a while ago was particularly well-preciseness of thought.  Your analysis
of auto-accident law on HN a while ago was particularly well-done.
But even Homer nods, and this accusation is just huff-puffing clap
trap.

    ... join ...the John Birch Society).

No, no discussions of weapons systems there, they've gone on to
grander things too.

R. Carter

------------------------------

Date: 26 June 1982 05:28-EDT
From: Harold G. Ancell <HGA at MIT-MC>
Subject: Discussions on Arms-d

I believe that Arms-d exists pretty much to discuss what its members
want to discuss, except for the various things Apranet lists shouldn't
print (such as political advocacy.)  There are frictions between the
partisans of various world views ("pacifists", "right wingers",
rationalists, irrationalists, etc.)  The distance in many cases is too
wide to ever bridge, and I think it is best that we learn to live with
this.  I recommend that those whose sensibilities are offended by
various submissions either ignore the messages they consider to be
evidence of complete brain death, or respond in a reasonable,
RESPECTFULL, manner.  I for one am very tired of those on various
sides who engage in naming calling.

    Date: Friday, 25 June 1982  17:00-EDT
    From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>

    ... It would be absurd to force anyone opposed to weapons systems
    onto a separate list DISARM-D or whatever.  Besides, I don't think
    Arpanet is the place for people of one belief to get together and
    force out anyone of opposing belief.  If you want to do that, form
    a private church, not on Arpanet (or join an existing one like the
    NRA or the John Birch Society).

Well, no one is going to be forced out of this list, at least as long
as I am moderating it.  By the way, for what its worth, I'm a member
of the NRA, and I don't really believe there is much comparison
between it and the John Birch Society.  Those who take exception to
this please respond directly to me; I doubt the other readers of this
list would be very interested.

					- Harold

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jun 1982 0510-PDT
From: Allan M. Schiffman <Schiffman at SRI-KL>
Subject: Radio Shack 8080's escaping in Soviet diplomatic pouches...

[Note from the Moderator: this message was sent to the Space digest,
and since it is very relevant to the recent discussions concerning
Soviet computer topic, with the author's permission I have included it
in todays digest.  - Harold]

It's interesting that a group of people ostensibly informed about
computer technology should spend so much time discussing locking the
barn door after the horse has escaped.

The Soviets have had substantial IC production capability for many
years.  In 1979 CDC, in supplying information in support of an export
licence application (to sell machines to the USSR) revealed that they
had done a "strip job" on Soviet electronic equipment obtained in
Eastern Europe.

There were several "reverse-engineered" IC's found; the CDC experts
paid careful attention to soviet-manufactured 8080s and 16K dynamic
RAMs.  The DRAM seemed to have been a copy made by a photographic
process {generating masks from photographs of carefully scraped
layers}.  The 8080 was a new design -- it had an 8085-type bus, but an
8080 type clock generator {i.e. no clock generator}.

I believe it is the case that 8085s have been in production in CHINA
since 1981.

There is every reason to believe that anything you can buy in Radio
Shack, the Soviets can make.

Of course, possibly due to their notoriously inefficient central
planning, they lack the infrastructure to do so CHEAPLY.  This is
slightly less important for military applications.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that theoretical computer
science is similiarly backward.  However, it's a good bet that their
trained manpower is miniscule compared to the U.S., computers are more
like rarities there.

I hope to find a reference to that CDC study within a few days; in the
meantime:
	"Database Management Systems Development in the USSR"
		- A.G. Dale; ACM Computing Surveys V11#3 9/79
	"The Soviet Bloc's Unified System of Computers"

		- N.C. Davis, S.E. Goodman; ACM Computing Surv. V10#2 6/78
	"Computing in China 1980"
		- H.D. Huskey; IEEE Computer V14#10 10/81

-Allan

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jun 1982 14:41:14-PDT
From: cbosg!nscs!jpj at Berkeley
Subject: A New Voice Enters the Fray...

Greetings!  This is my first submission to this list - I thought that
a brief scenario might help to characterize my views.

Imagine that one morning you go to retrieve your mail and in amongst
the bills and the Publisher's Clearinghouse promos you find a typed
note.  The text of the note is very simple, it says:

    I AM WATCHING YOU.  I HAVE A GUN.  YOU ARE NOT SAFE - ANYWHERE.

Scary stuff.  After looking the note over six or seventy times, what
would you do?  Well, considering the fact that you are fairly sure
that you don't have any *real* enemies (course there was that guy you
flipped off after he cut you off in traffic, but still...), you
probably would try to dismiss it as a prank.  Ok, fine.

Next day, same thing happens - a new note in your mailbox.  It says,

    I SEE YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME.  I WILL SHOW YOU.  YOU WILL NEVER BE SAFE.

Things seem to be getting a bit out of hand.  Not wishing to be an
alarmist, but not yet ready to die, either, you decide to take the
notes to the police.

The police are very polite, listen to your story, file a report, and
then tell you that there really is nothing that anyone can do - that
it is indeed a *sick* world out there and why not just forget about
it?

Feeling somewhat less than satisfied by that, but realizing that what
they say is probably true (after all, they are the police and they
should *know* - I mean, cops are *realists*, aren't they?), you decide
to forget the whole thing.

And guess what?  Nothing happens.  After a month you throw the notes
into the back of a drawer and laugh the whole thing off.  You find
that it makes good cocktail party conversation.  But no big deal, life
goes on.

Then, one sunny afternoon, while you are walking back to work from a
particularly delightful luncheon; as you lean against a building
waiting for the light to change, a bullet explodes into the masonry by
your head.  Terrified you fall to the ground, searching for your
assailant.  People scream and run in all directions - but you cannot
see anyone with a gun.  The notes and their warnings come flooding
back - and you begin to feel sick.

The police come, and assure that everything is alright.  You tell them
your story, again - you describe your panic and fear.  They tell you
that they will do what they can - and to feel lucky that you weren't
hurt.

You go home - but cannot sleep.  All you can think of is how close you
came to death.  But what is worse, is the knowledge that the author of
the notes is still out there - waiting.  And that your life is in the
hands of someone else.


--------------------------------------------------------------

We are all living the life of this story's protagonist.  We live in a
world of constant threat - where the total destruction of everything
that we associate with living can come at any instant.  What do we do
about it?  We have listened to those hardened by life's *realities*
and have adopted a response of ignorance - literally.

Still the danger is there - waiting.  The damning aspect of all of
this is that *we* chose this course.  To speak of the realities of
life (ie, the need for sovereignty and its defense) as immutables is a
fallacy.  People established the order of the world.  People *can*
re-order the world into something other than a self-destructive
entity.

I would state one simple principle that should allow those who have
read this and are now gathering tinder for their flames to well direct
their fires:

    THERE IS NO PRINCIPLE IN HUMAN AFFAIRS, THAT JUSTIFIES THE
    POSSIBLE EXTINCTION OF HUMANITY IN ITS DEFEN

C70:arms-d (06/26/82)

>From HGA@MIT-MC Sat Jun 26 03:34:30 1982

Arms-Discussion Digest                            Volume 0 : Issue 130

Today's Topics:
                            1 or 2 Digests
                           Aiding the USSR
                           Keep your peace
                        Discussions on Arms-d
     Radio Shack 8080's escaping in Soviet diplomatic pouches...
                    A New Voice Enters the Fray...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     25 Jun 82 10:24:31-EDT (Fri)
From:     Earl Weaver (VLD/VMB) <earl@BRL>
Subject:  1 or 2 Digests

I vote for one digest.  I think most people that now see arms-d would
read both anyway.  [JCP, bring on Av Wk again]

[Switch topics (slight tangent)]

Is there any chance the passive resistence philosophy could be used to
thwart the current criminal acts (muggings, murders, robbery, etc) in
this country?

------------------------------

Date: 25 June 1982 16:42-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: Aiding the USSR

    Date: 06/22/82 22:47:08
    From: ES at MIT-MC
         I disagree with REM's comment that we should bail out the
    Russian economy because they might decide to start a nuclear war
    if their economy collapsed.

I didn't say anything of the sort. I am opposed to bailing out private
companies and foreign governments. But I'm also opposed to cutting our
own throats just to hurt the Russians more, like we've done with the
wheat embargo and like has recently been proposed with 8080 chips.
There's a place in the middle where we allow free enterprise of
non-military and general-purpoe goods, without either extreme of
bail-out or cutthrot economic war.

    First of all, they might not.  Once we follow this policy there
    will be no hope of ever ridding the world of the cancer of
    communism.

I don't think it's at all appropriate to use words like "cancer" in
referrence to foreign governments and philosophies. That word brings
up thoughts of people getting sick and dying, of cells multiplying
without control and overwealming the body. Please avoid that kind of
right-winged emotionalism. If "cancer" applies to any foreign
governments, it would apply to those which have runaway birth without
contro applies to any foreign
governments, it would apply to those which have runaway birth without
control, who are causing the population explosion, who are overflowing
their starving people into other countries begging for free handouts
but unwilling to solve the problem of too many births. But even for
those I wouldn't want to use the word "cancer" as a substitute for
open thought, as you are trying to do.

    On the contrary, if their economic system is weak, it is they who
    should be the blackmail victims.  We could sell them grain, but
    only if they allow American newspapers and magazines and books to
    be sold in the Soviet Union.

This is a possible way for us to act, although I don't totally condone
it.

    The value of the arms race as an economic weapon seems to be much
    overlooked.  Our economy could be pulled out of the recession now,
    just as before World War II.  Of course, we would not actually use
    the weapons, its just part of the game.  Nevertheless, these
    weapons would be functional and available should the necessity
    arise.  Meanwhile, the presumably inefficient communist economy
    must make its slaves suffer more and more if they wish to keep up
    with us.

No! There are already too many weapons around, and too much of our
economy is already diverted to unproductive make-work. I'd rather have
a space race, setting up temporary make-work programs to develop
space, which in the long run will return new wealth, which weapons
won't return ever unless we actually use them to rape other countries
(pardon the word "rape" - "rob" is more correct although not strong
enough) in which case we're the bad guys who steal from others rather
than make good ourselves. I don't want our nation to go that route.
Let's make new goods ourselves instead of taking from others.

    I can think of no better example of strategic stupidity than the
    recent gas pipeline deal between Western Europe and the USSR.

Yeah, W.Germany is taking a big chance of default with no recourse
short of war. I hope W.Germany doesn't get burned, but if they do I
guess we'll just have to let them pay for their own dumbness. P.s. as
I type this, there's a follow-up to Haig's resignation an hour ago,
about how USA put sanctions on NATO in response to their approving the
pipeline, and now NATO is so mad at us that Haig had to resign.

    I would add to this that the money could better be spent on energy
    self sufficiency for thousands, if not millions, of years by
    constructing breeder reactors.

Yup, except the pipeline wasn't our decision, in fact (see above)
we're against it, so in regard to USA policy both these points are
irrelevant. As for breeders in general, I'm for them (see my messages
to ENERGY a few months ago re extracting uranium&thorium from seawater
to use fission as a "renewable" resource as the stuff leaches out of
land and flows to the ocean fast enough to keep ahead of our use of
it).

------------------------------

Date: 25 June 1982 17:00-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: keep your peace

ARMS-D discusses the pros and cons of various weapons systems and
methods to handle conflict. It would be absurd to force anyone opposed
to weapons systems onto a separate list DISARM-D or whatever. That
would quash debate and defeat the whole purpose of this list.
Besides, I don't think Arpanet is the place for people of one belief
to get together and force out anyone of opposing belief.  If you want
to do that, form a private church, not on Arpanet (or join an existing
one like the NRA or the John Birch Society).

(Awaiting flak from all the NRA people out there...)

------------------------------

Date: 25 June 1982  18:57-EDT (Friday)
From: Robert A. Carter <CARTER at RUTGERS>
Subject: keep your peace

    Date: Friday, 25 June 1982  17:00-EDT
    From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>

    ARMS-D discusses the pros and cons of various weapons systems

Precisely.

    and methods to handle conflict. 

That is a bit broad, isn't it?  A great deal of human communication
falls under that heading; certainly INFO-LAW and HN would qualify.  As
a working description of the subject matter for a digest it does not
seem particular enough to serve the purpose.

By "methods to handle conflict," perhaps you mean the exploration of
the moral reasons for nuclear disarmament or of the ethical and
theological implications of various flavors of non-violence as a creed
- the stuff that seems to me to have been preoccupying ARMS-D lately.
That is not just another method of handling conflict; it is a radical
attack on existing modes of human interrelation.  I think the most
passionate of those who have come to be know in the shorthand of this
discussion as "pacifists" would agree.

It would be a fascinating topic for a list or digest; it would amount
to a kind of meta-POLI-SCI.  I would follow it eagerly.  My concern
with continuing that topic here is that talk of the grandiose general
always tends to chill discussion of the technical particular, just as
in ARMS-D recently.  It is hard to maintain examination of a
relatively narrow technical activity if some discussants recur to the
immorality of engaging, or indeed of even contemplating, that
activity.

    It would be absurd to force anyone opposed to weapons systems onto
    a separate list DISARM-D or whatever.  Besides, I don't think
    Arpanet is the place for people of one belief to get together and
    force out anyone of opposing belief.

Force?  How, pray?  I have been reading your contributions for quite a
while, and have enjoyed their preciseness of thought.  Your analysis
of auto-accident law on HN a while ago was particularly well-done.
But even Homer nods, and this accusation is just huff-puffing clap
trap.

    ... join ...the John Birch Society).

No, no discussions of weapons systems there, they've gone on to
grander things too.

R. Carter

------------------------------

Date: 26 June 1982 05:28-EDT
From: Harold G. Ancell <HGA at MIT-MC>
Subject: Discussions on Arms-d

I believe that Arms-d exists pretty much to discuss what its members
want to discuss, except for the various things Apranet lists shouldn't
print (such as political advocacy.)  There are frictions between the
partisans of various world views ("pacifists", "right wingers",
rationalists, irrationalists, etc.)  The distance in many cases is too
wide to ever bridge, and I think it is best that we learn to live with
this.  I recommend that those whose sensibilities are offended by
various submissions either ignore the messages they consider to be
evidence of complete brain death, or respond in a reasonable,
RESPECTFULL, manner.  I for one am very tired of those on various
sides who engage in naming calling.

    Date: Friday, 25 June 1982  17:00-EDT
    From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>

    ... It would be absurd to force anyone opposed to weapons systems
    onto a separate list DISARM-D or whatever.  Besides, I don't think
    Arpanet is the place for people of one belief to get together and
    force out anyone of opposing belief.  If you want to do that, form
    a private church, not on Arpanet (or join an existing one like the
    NRA or the John Birch Society).

Well, no one is going to be forced out of this list, at least as long
as I am moderating it.  By the way, for what its worth, I'm a member
of the NRA, and I don't really believe there is much comparison
between it and the John Birch Society.  Those who take exception to
this please respond directly to me; I doubt the other readers of this
list would be very interested.

					- Harold

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jun 1982 0510-PDT
From: Allan M. Schiffman <Schiffman at SRI-KL>
Subject: Radio Shack 8080's escaping in Soviet diplomatic pouches...

[Note from the Moderator: this message was sent to the Space digest,
and since it is very relevant to the recent discussions concerning
Soviet computer topic, with the author's permission I have included it
in todays digest.  - Harold]

It's interesting that a group of people ostensibly informed about
computer technology should spend so much time discussing locking the
barn door after the horse has escaped.

The Soviets have had substantial IC production capability for many
years.  In 1979 CDC, in supplying information in support of an export
licence application (to sell machines to the USSR) revealed that they
had done a "strip job" on Soviet electronic equipment obtained in
Eastern Europe.

There were several "reverse-engineered" IC's found; the CDC experts
paid careful attention to soviet-manufactured 8080s and 16K dynamic
RAMs.  The DRAM seemed to have been a copy made by a photographic
process {generating masks from photographs of carefully scraped
layers}.  The 8080 was a new design -- it had an 8085-type bus, but an
8080 type clock generator {i.e. no clock generator}.

I believe it is the case that 8085s have been in production in CHINA
since 1981.

There is every reason to believe that anything you can buy in Radio
Shack, the Soviets can make.

Of course, possibly due to their notoriously inefficient central
planning, they lack the infrastructure to do so CHEAPLY.  This is
slightly less important for military applications.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that theoretical computer
science is similiarly backward.  However, it's a good bet that their
trained manpower is miniscule compared to the U.S., computers are more
like rarities there.

I hope to find a reference to that CDC study within a few days; in the
meantime:
	"Database Management Systems Development in the USSR"
		- A.G. Dale; ACM Computing Surveys V11#3 9/79
	"The Soviet Bloc's Unified System of Computers"

		- N.C. Davis, S.E. Goodman; ACM Computing Surv. V10#2 6/78
	"Computing in China 1980"
		- H.D. Huskey; IEEE Computer V14#10 10/81

-Allan

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jun 1982 14:41:14-PDT
From: cbosg!nscs!jpj at Berkeley
Subject: A New Voice Enters the Fray...

Greetings!  This is my first submission to this list - I thought that
a brief scenario might help to characterize my views.

Imagine that one morning you go to retrieve your mail and in amongst
the bills and the Publisher's Clearinghouse promos you find a typed
note.  The text of the note is very simple, it says:

    I AM WATCHING YOU.  I HAVE A GUN.  YOU ARE NOT SAFE - ANYWHERE.

Scary stuff.  After looking the note over six or seventy times, what
would you do?  Well, considering the fact that you are fairly sure
that you don't have any *real* enemies (course there was that guy you
flipped off after he cut you off in traffic, but still...), you
probably would try to dismiss it as a prank.  Ok, fine.

Next day, same thing happens - a new note in your mailbox.  It says,

    I SEE YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME.  I WILL SHOW YOU.  YOU WILL NEVER BE SAFE.

Things seem to be getting a bit out of hand.  Not wishing to be an
alarmist, but not yet ready to die, either, you decide to take the
notes to the police.

The police are very polite, listen to your story, file a report, and
then tell you that there really is nothing that anyone can do - that
it is indeed a *sick* world out there and why not just forget about
it?

Feeling somewhat less than satisfied by that, but realizing that what
they say is probably true (after all, they are the police and they
should *know* - I mean, cops are *realists*, aren't they?), you decide
to forget the whole thing.

And guess what?  Nothing happens.  After a month you throw the notes
into the back of a drawer and laugh the whole thing off.  You find
that it makes good cocktail party conversation.  But no big deal, life
goes on.

Then, one sunny afternoon, while you are walking back to work from a
particularly delightful luncheon; as you lean against a building
waiting for the light to change, a bullet explodes into the masonry by
your head.  Terrified you fall to the ground, searching for your
assailant.  People scream and run in all directions - but you cannot
see anyone with a gun.  The notes and their warnings come flooding
back - and you begin to feel sick.

The police come, and assure that everything is alright.  You tell them
your story, again - you describe your panic and fear.  They tell you
that they will do what they can - and to feel lucky that you weren't
hurt.

You go home - but cannot sleep.  All you can think of is how close you
came to death.  But what is worse, is the knowledge that the author of
the notes is still out there - waiting.  And that your life is in the
hands of someone else.


--------------------------------------------------------------

We are all living the life of this story's protagonist.  We live in a
world of constant threat - where the total destruction of everything
that we associate with living can come at any instant.  What do we do
about it?  We have listened to those hardened by life's *realities*
and have adopted a response of ignorance - literally.

Still the danger is there - waiting.  The damning aspect of all of
this is that *we* chose this course.  To speak of the realities of
life (ie, the need for sovereignty and its defense) as immutables is a
fallacy.  People established the order of the world.  People *can*
re-order the world into something other than a self-destructive
entity.

I would state one simple principle that should allow those who have
read this and are now gathering tinder for their flames to well direct
their fires:

    THERE IS NO PRINCIPLE IN HUMAN AFFAIRS, THAT JUSTIFIES THE
    POSSIBLE EXTINCTION OF HUMANITY IN ITS DEFEN

C70:arms-d (06/26/82)

>From HGA@MIT-MC Sat Jun 26 03:34:30 1982

Arms-Discussion Digest                            Volume 0 : Issue 130

Today's Topics:
                            1 or 2 Digests
                           Aiding the USSR
                           Keep your peace
                        Discussions on Arms-d
     Radio Shack 8080's escaping in Soviet diplomatic pouches...
                    A New Voice Enters the Fray...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     25 Jun 82 10:24:31-EDT (Fri)
From:     Earl Weaver (VLD/VMB) <earl@BRL>
Subject:  1 or 2 Digests

I vote for one digest.  I think most people that now see arms-d would
read both anyway.  [JCP, bring on Av Wk again]

[Switch topics (slight tangent)]

Is there any chance the passive resistence philosophy could be used to
thwart the current criminal acts (muggings, murders, robbery, etc) in
this country?

------------------------------

Date: 25 June 1982 16:42-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: Aiding the USSR

    Date: 06/22/82 22:47:08
    From: ES at MIT-MC
         I disagree with REM's comment that we should bail out the
    Russian economy because they might decide to start a nuclear war
    if their economy collapsed.

I didn't say anything of the sort. I am opposed to bailing out private
companies and foreign governments. But I'm also opposed to cutting our
own throats just to hurt the Russians more, like we've done with the
wheat embargo and like has recently been proposed with 8080 chips.
There's a place in the middle where we allow free enterprise of
non-military and general-purpoe goods, without either extreme of
bail-out or cutthrot economic war.

    First of all, they might not.  Once we follow this policy there
    will be no hope of ever ridding the world of the cancer of
    communism.

I don't think it's at all appropriate to use words like "cancer" in
referrence to foreign governments and philosophies. That word brings
up thoughts of people getting sick and dying, of cells multiplying
without control and overwealming the body. Please avoid that kind of
right-winged emotionalism. If "cancer" applies to any foreign
governments, it would apply to those which have runaway birth without
control, who are causing the population explosion, who are overflowing
their starving people into other countries begging for free handouts
but unwilling to solve the problem of too many births. But even for
those I wouldn't want to use the word "cancer" as a substitute for
open thought, as you are trying to do.

    On the contrary, if their economic system is weak, it is they who
    should be the blackmail victims.  We could sell them grain, but
    only if they allow American newspapers and magazines and books to
    be sold in the Soviet Union.

This is a possible way for us to act, although I don't totally condone
it.

    The value of the arms race as an economic weapon seems to be much
    overlooked.  Our economy could be pulled out of the recession now,
    just as before World War II.  Of course, we would not actually use
    the weapons, its just part of the game.  Nevertheless, these
    weapons would be functional and available should the necessity
    arise.  Meanwhile, the presumably inefficient communist economy
    must make its slaves suffer more and more if they wish to keep up
    with us.

No! There are already too many weapons around, and too much of our
economy is already diverted to unproductive make-work. I'd rather have
a space race, setting up temporary make-work programs to develop
space, which in the long run will return new wealth, which weapons
won't return ever unless we actually use them to rape other countries
(pardon the word "rape" - "rob" is more correct although not strong
enough) in which case we're the bad guys who steal from others rather
than make good ourselves. I don't want our nation to go that route.
Let's make new goods ourselves instead of taking from others.

    I can think of no better example of strategic stupidity than the
    recent gas pipeline deal between Western Europe and the USSR.

Yeah, W.Germany is taking a big chance of default with no recourse
short of war. I hope W.Germany doesn't get burned, but if they do I
guess we'll just have to let them pay for their own dumbness. P.s. as
I type this, there's a follow-up to Haig's resignation an hour ago,
about how USA put sanctions on NATO in response to their approving the
pipeline, and now NATO is so mad at us that Haig had to resign.

    I would add to this that the money could better be spent on energy
    self sufficiency for thousands, if not millions, of years by
    constructing breeder reactors.

Yup, except the pipeline wasn't our decision, in fact (see above)
we're against it, so in regard to USA policy both these points are
irrelevant. As for breeders in general, I'm for them (see my messages
to ENERGY a few months ago re extracting uranium&thorium from seawater
to use fission as a "renewable" resource as the stuff leaches out of
land and flows to the ocean fast enough to keep ahead of our use of
it).

------------------------------

Date: 25 June 1982 17:00-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: keep your peace

ARMS-D discusses the pros and cons of various weapons systems and
methods to handle conflict. It would be absurd to force anyone opposed
to weapons systems onto a separate list DISARM-D or whatever. That
would quash debate and defeat the whole purpose of this list.
Besides, I don't think Arpanet is the place for people of one belief
to get together and force out anyone of opposing belief.  If you want
to do that, form a private church, not on Arpanet (or join an existing
one like the NRA or the John Birch Society).

(Awaiting flak from all the NRA people out there...)

------------------------------

Date: 25 June 1982  18:57-EDT (Friday)
From: Robert A. Carter <CARTER at RUTGERS>
Subject: keep your peace

    Date: Friday, 25 June 1982  17:00-EDT
    From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>

    ARMS-D discusses the pros and cons of various weapons systems

Precisely.

    and methods to handle conflict. 

That is a bit broad, isn't it?  A great deal of human communication
falls under that heading; certainly INFO-LAW and HN would qualify.  As
a working description of the subject matter for a digest it does not
seem particular enough to serve the purpose.

By "methods to handle conflict," perhaps you mean the exploration of
the moral reasons for nuclear disarmament or of the ethical and
theological implications of various flavors of non-violence as a creed
- the stuff that seems to me to have been preoccupying ARMS-D lately.
That is not just another method of handling conflict; it is a radical
attack on existing modes of human interrelation.  I think the most
passionate of those who have come to be know in the shorthand of this
discussion as "pacifists" would agree.

It would be a fascinating topic for a list or digest; it would amount
to a kind of meta-POLI-SCI.  I would follow it eagerly.  My concern
with continuing that topic here is that talk of the grandiose general
always tends to chill discussion of the technical particular, just as
in ARMS-D recently.  It is hard to maintain examination of a
relatively narrow technical activity if some discussants recur to the
immorality of engaging, or indeed of even contemplating, that
activity.

    It would be absurd to force anyone opposed to weapons systems onto
    a separate list DISARM-D or whatever.  Besides, I don't think
    Arpanet is the place for people of one belief to get together and
    force out anyone of opposing belief.

Force?  How, pray?  I have been reading your contributions for quite a
while, and have enjoyed their preciseness of thought.  Your analysis
of auto-accident law on HN a while ago was particularly well-done.
But even Homer nods, and this accusation is just huff-puffing clap
trap.

    ... join ...the John Birch Society).

No, no discussions of weapons systems there, they've gone on to
grander things too.

R. Carter

------------------------------

Date: 26 June 1982 05:28-EDT
From: Harold G. Ancell <HGA at MIT-MC>
Subject: Discussions on Arms-d

I believe that Arms-d exists pretty much to discuss what its members
want to discuss, except for the various things Apranet lists shouldn't
print (such as political advocacy.)  There are frictions between the
partisans of various world views ("pacifists", "right wingers",
rationalists, irrationalists, etc.)  The distance in many cases is too
wide to ever bridge, and I think it is best that we learn to live with
this.  I recommend that those whose sensibilities are offended by
various submissions either ignore the messages they consider to be
evidence of complete brain death, or respond in a reasonable,
RESPECTFULL, manner.  I for one am very tired of those on various
sides who engage in naming calling.

    Date: Friday, 25 June 1982  17:00-EDT
    From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>

    ... It would be absurd to force anyone opposed to weapons systems
    onto a separate list DISARM-D or whatever.  Besides, I don't think
    Arpanet is the place for people of one belief to get together and
    force out anyone of opposing belief.  If you want to do that, form
    a private church, not on Arpanet (or join an existing one like the
    NRA or the John Birch Society).

Well, no one is going to be forced out of this list, at least as long
as I am moderating it.  By the way, for what its worth, I'm a member
of the NRA, and I don't really believe there is much comparison
between it and the John Birch Society.  Those who take exception to
this please respond directly to me; I doubt the other readers of this
list would be very interested.

					- Harold

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jun 1982 0510-PDT
From: Allan M. Schiffman <Schiffman at SRI-KL>
Subject: Radio Shack 8080's escaping in Soviet diplomatic pouches...

[Note from the Moderator: this message was sent to the Space digest,
and since it is very relevant to the recent discussions concerning
Soviet computer topic, with the author's permission I have included it
in todays digest.  - Harold]

It's interesting that a group of people ostensibly informed about
computer technology should spend so much time discussing locking the
barn door after the horse has escaped.

The Soviets have had substantial IC production capability for many
years.  In 1979 CDC, in supplying information in support of an export
licence application (to sell machines to the USSR) revealed that they
had done a "strip job" on Soviet electronic equipment obtained in
Eastern Europe.

There were several "reverse-engineered" IC's found; the CDC experts
paid careful attention to soviet-manufactured 8080s and 16K dynamic
RAMs.  The DRAM seemed to have been a copy made by a photographic
process {generating masks from photographs of carefully scraped
layers}.  The 8080 was a new design -- it had an 8085-type bus, but an
8080 type clock generator {i.e. no clock generator}.

I believe it is the case that 8085s have been in production in CHINA
since 1981.

There is every reason to believe that anything you can buy in Radio
Shack, the Soviets can make.

Of course, possibly due to their notoriously inefficient central
planning, they lack the infrastructure to do so CHEAPLY.  This is
slightly less important for military applications.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that theoretical computer
science is similiarly backward.  However, it's a good bet that their
trained manpower is miniscule compared to the U.S., computers are more
like rarities there.

I hope to find a reference to that CDC study within a few days; in the
meantime:
	"Database Management Systems Development in the USSR"
		- A.G. Dale; ACM Computing Surveys V11#3 9/79
	"The Soviet Bloc's Unified System of Computers"

		- N.C. Davis, S.E. Goodman; ACM Computing Surv. V10#2 6/78
	"Computing in China 1980"
		- H.D. Huskey; IEEE Computer V14#10 10/81

-Allan

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jun 1982 14:41:14-PDT
From: cbosg!nscs!jpj at Berkeley
Subject: A New Voice Enters the Fray...

Greetings!  This is my first submission to this list - I thought that
a brief scenario might help to characterize my views.

Imagine that one morning you go to retrieve your mail and in amongst
the bills and the Publisher's Clearinghouse promos you find a typed
note.  The text of the note is very simple, it says:

    I AM WATCHING YOU.  I HAVE A GUN.  YOU ARE NOT SAFE - ANYWHERE.

Scary stuff.  After looking the note over six or seventy times, what
would you do?  Well, considering the fact that you are fairly sure
that you don't have any *real* enemies (course there was that guy you
flipped off after he cut you off in traffic, but still...), you
probably would try to dismiss it as a prank.  Ok, fine.

Next day, same thing happens - a new note in your mailbox.  It says,

    I SEE YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME.  I WILL SHOW YOU.  YOU WILL NEVER BE SAFE.

Things seem to be getting a bit out of hand.  Not wishing to be an
alarmist, but not yet ready to die, either, you decide to take the
notes to the police.

The police are very polite, listen to your story, file a report, and
then tell you that there really is nothing that anyone can do - that
it is indeed a *sick* world out there and why not just forget about
it?

Feeling somewhat less than satisfied by that, but realizing that what
they say is probably true (after all, they are the police and they
should *know* - I mean, cops are *realists*, aren't they?), you decide
to forget the whole thing.

And guess what?  Nothing happens.  After a month you throw the notes
into the back of a drawer and laugh the whole thing off.  You find
that it makes good cocktail party conversation.  But no big deal, life
goes on.

Then, one sunny afternoon, while you are walking back to work from a
particularly delightful luncheon; as you lean against a building
waiting for the light to change, a bullet explodes into the masonry by
your head.  Terrified you fall to the ground, searching for your
assailant.  People scream and run in all directions - but you cannot
see anyone with a gun.  The notes and their warnings come flooding
back - and you begin to feel sick.

The police come, and assure that everything is alright.  You tell them
your story, again - you describe your panic and fear.  They tell you
that they will do what they can - and to feel lucky that you weren't
hurt.

You go home - but cannot sleep.  All you can think of is how close you
came to death.  But what is worse, is the knowledge that the author of
the notes is still out there - waiting.  And that your life is in the
hands of someone else.


--------------------------------------------------------------

We are all living the life of this story's protagonist.  We live in a
world of constant threat - where the total destruction of everything
that we associate with living can come at any instant.  What do we do
about it?  We have listened to those hardened by life's *realities*
and have adopted a response of ignorance - literally.

Still the danger is there - waiting.  The damning aspect of all of
this is that *we* chose this course.  To speak of the realities of
life (ie, the need for sovereignty and its defense) as immutables is a
fallacy.  People established the order of the world.  People *can*
re-order the world into something other than a self-destructive
entity.

I would state one simple principle that should allow those who have
read this and are now gathering tinder for their flames to well direct
their fires:

    THERE IS NO PRINCIPLE IN HUMAN AFFAIRS, THAT JUSTIFIES THE
    POSSIBLE EXTINCTION OF HUMANITY IN ITS DEFENSE.

Cheers...
Jim Jenal

------------------------------

End of Arms-D Digest
********************