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> What happens when some maniac changes the software to make autopilot into full self driving, then plows into a minivan on its way to Little League practice?
by gthtjtkt 10y ago
> What happens when some maniac changes the software to make autopilot into full self driving, then plows into a minivan on its way to Little League practice?
We can't let these hypothetical worst-case scenarios be an excuse to stifle innovation.
What happens if we let people modify their microwaves and a terrorist uses his to give kids cancer!?!?
What if we let people tinker with their toasters and somebody uses one to electrocute a pool full of kids!?!?
Please, think of the children!
- alexbock 10y ago> What happens if we let people modify their microwaves and a terrorist uses his to give kids cancer!?!? I know this was said in jest, but given the (generally unfounded) fears some people have about microwaves and cellphones I want to point out that exposure to unshielded microwave radiation isn't going to cause cancer (at least not any more than anything else that heats you up could somehow cause cancer) because microwave radiation is non-ionizing; you would need at least ultraviolet light for that (and UV-C or X-rays would be most effective). The biggest danger with strong microwave radiation would be boiling your eyeballs as they lack the cooling most of your body has but contain significant amounts of water.
- gthtjtkt 10y agoGood to know, now I'll have something to say to my mom the next time tells me to back away from the microwave while it's on...
- snissn 10y agohave you looked into 5G signals? I was recently reading about how they plan to make them in the 50GHz range, which to me seems potentially dangerous
- alexbock 10y ago50 GHz is still significantly less energetic than visible light, which is in the hundreds of terahertz. The sun bombards us with a lot of visible light, but you have to get into the blue/violet/ultraviolet region before it's energetic enough (high enough frequency) to cause damage. Barring some strange and previously unknown special biological interaction with a particular radio frequency, radio signals which have lower frequencies and lower intensities than visible light from the sun are not going to cause cancer any more than exposure to red or green light would cause cancer.
- mountaineer22 10y agoWhat about cooking the marrow in bone?
- Dylan16807 10y agoIf that's not a weird joke, I really want to hear why you think marrow is going to absorb more microwaves than any other part of your body. Because it won't, it's an overall heat like sitting in a sauna. At low power it's warm, past that it's unpleasant, past that you have heat stroke.
- gohrt 10y agobone marrow is one of the parts of the body that has high water content and thus would heat faster than others under radiation. Sauna heat does not preferentially target liquid for heating.
- Dylan16807 10y agoAlmost all of your body is high water content, and the heat will easily conduct the last little bit. By the time you have to worry about specific non-brain parts being overheated, your overall temperature is such that you're braindead.
- icebraining 10y agoActually, no, you can easily sustain heavy damage to certain organs without being brain-dead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_burn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_burn
- Dylan16807 10y agoI should have chosen my words to be more focused, I suppose. You can damage certain organs. You will not be cooking deep internal organs with an unshielded microwave. Not without cooking everything else. Pretend my original comment ended with "Past that, you basically fell in a fire and it doesn't matter what is heating you." Is there anything wrong with that? Or the rejection of the idea that bone marrow is at risk?
- coldtea 10y ago>We can't let these hypothetical worst-case scenarios be an excuse to stifle innovation. Well, given that the Earth could be wiped out at any moment with the nuclear weapons and stuff we stockpiled, long term this idea might prove to be laughably wrong.
- zekevermillion 10y agoVery true! We should be concerned about worst-case scenarios. Probably an isolated car crash is not a worst-case scenario, except for a PR-obsessed tech company.
- gkya 10y agoInnovation is the magic word that renders everything it's attached to undebatable and unquestionable..
- nitrogen 10y agoThe parent argument is that the magic words we should stop using are "what if". So let's stop the qualitative pontification and have a quantitative discussion of cost vs. benefit for various parties.
- gohrt 10y agoThat's not how nuclear weapons work.
- coldtea 10y agoCare to elaborate? Because that's exactly how they work.
- zekevermillion 10y agoHow many people die in auto wrecks each year. How many people die due to accidents involving microwave ovens.
- unethical_ban 10y agoPut that way, the statistical impact of someone tweaking their automobile improperly is lower than that of someone messing up their toaster.
- chasing 10y ago> We can't let these hypothetical worst-case scenarios be an excuse to stifle innovation. Yes, we sure can. I don't want your "innovation" killing a bunch of people. If you can't innovate without endangering people, you need to "innovate your innovation" and come up with a way you can do it safely.
- Pica_soO 10y agoI'm sorry Mr. Wright, we have several, accounted ways of flying and they all led to death. Maybe you should try something a little safer. No, of course you cant experiment with only yourself as test person- this government cares about its subjects.
- Pica_soO 10y agoStill dont see the point why the third generation of the of Wrights should have a right to cease control over new forms of space travel. No reason why the descendants of the inventors wife and the patent-lawyer, shall hold back the creatives of today.