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Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!havens
From: havens@ubc-vision.CDN (Bill Havens)
Newsgroups: can.general,can.ai
Subject: Star Wars analysis
Message-ID: <903@ubc-vision.CDN>
Date: Tue, 2-Apr-85 19:16:56 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.903
Posted: Tue Apr  2 19:16:56 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Apr-85 22:13:19 EST
Organization: UBC Computational Vision Lab, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 38


In reply to henry@utzoo:
Be careful in describing other people's analyses as hysteria.  It is quite
useful to concentrate on establishing the facts from which informed debate
may proceed.  However, you have gone beyond that goal in a personal way.
The flurry of activity on this network is not a debating exercise.  We
are concerned about a very serious change in Canadian Science and an
even more serious escalation of weapons for mass destruction.

My abstract about the dangers of relying on computers to achieve reliable
automatic strategic defense was not hysterical. It was factual.  The
information that I presented was taken from a number of recent papers
published by Alan Borning, Severo Ornstein and others in such journals
as "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" and soon in the CACM.  I quoted
their findings and analyses correctly.

In particular, you dismiss their assertions that we are inexorably moving
towards "launch on warning" and the removal of human (read Presidential)
decision making about starting nuclear war.  Your reason for dismissing
these frightening facts is that you have heard no suggestion that the
US should change its public policy of Presidential command.
To the contrary, I specifically outlined testimony to Congress where these 
facts were admitted by SDI representatives.

To repeat -
the Star Wars technology is only an effective deterrent if it
can be used during the "boost phase" of the rising Russian missiles.
The 60-second decision time required NECESSITATES automatic decision making
and automatic "nuclear war fighting".  Its not a matter of current US policy.  
It is dictated directly by the technology.

In the second part of your response to my argument, you miss the point about
Nuclear Power Systems.  A technology is "safe" only if we are willing to accept
the consequences of infrequent but inevitable system failures.  In an
accidental nuclear power plant "meltdown", society survives.  In an
accidental nuclear holocaust, society and possibly the planet both die!

Bill Havens.....