Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: can.general,can.ai
Subject: Re: Star Wars
Message-ID: <5392@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Apr-85 16:11:21 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5392
Posted: Mon Apr  1 16:11:21 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Apr-85 16:11:21 EST
References: <897@ubc-vision.CDN>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 45

> ...  The decision times are too short for our leaders
> to make strategic decisions.  Laser battle stations will have at MOST
> 60-seconds of "boost phase" in which to shoot down the Russian missiles.
> Who will make these decisions?  ...
> ...maybe the President won't be in the decision loop.  In other words,
> the decisions about our planet will be made by automatic systems, that is,
> by complex AI programs communicating over a vast satellite computer network.

"Decisions about our planet"?  Are you not confusing offensive weapons
with defensive systems?  Surely deciding to shoot down rising missiles
is not going to endanger our planet any more than the missiles would.
The worst side effect of an incorrect automatic "shoot" decision would
be to kill several cosmonauts, a tragedy but hardly a planetary disaster.
And this should be simple to guard against, given even a few minutes
advance notice of normal space launches.

I have heard no suggestion that the offensive weapons should be changed
from their current "launch on Presidential command only" status.

> Every system will eventually fail.  The domestic Nuclear Energy industry
> has relied on ever increasing safety precautions, redundant systems, and
> reliability testing to develop a "safe" energy source.

There are no safe energy sources.  Not coal, not solar, not nuclear.
They all kill people.  The objective of the nuclear-power industry was
to build a system that killed fewer people than any other energy source,
per megawatt-hour.  They have succeeded.  Look at the numbers, not the
rhetoric, please.

> But the Three Mile
> Island (TMI) reactor was within 30-minutes of a real meltdown.  

30 minutes is a long time, even for human reactions.  If you read a
detailed and unbiased account of the events, such as the special issue
of IEEE Spectrum on the TMI disaster, you will discover that there was
never any serious danger of widespread disaster.  There were fears
aplenty at the time, but in hindsight (although ONLY in hindsight) they
were quite unjustified.


Please, if we are going to debate SDI, let us debate on the basis of
facts, not uninformed hysteria.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry