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> My concern is that they will work just fine: this would bring the domestic costs of warfare to near-zero As an adjunct viewpoint to this - what happens when

by cr0sh 8y ago

> My concern is that they will work just fine: this would bring the domestic costs of warfare to near-zero As an adjunct viewpoint to this - what happens when such weapons are available to regular people? In theory, that's possible today; witness the number of instructables and other similar projects detailing how to create a nerf or paintball automated tracking gun system. It wouldn't take much to upgrade that to mount it on a decent mobile platform with a real weapon. Right now, the objective or use-case for such a device isn't clear, so we haven't seen criminals build or use them, beyond perhaps drug trafficking via consumer drones and similar. I'm sure, though, that it is going to be a problem in the future...

philipkglass 8y ago
I'm pretty sure that some criminals will use such devices in the future. I'm also pretty sure that criminal use is going to be rare. There doesn't seem to be a very large overlap between willingness to commit violent crime and the technical competency to turn off-the-shelf consumer products into weapons. Why do terrorists stab people with knives when they could make explosives from household materials instead? They're clearly violent and unafraid of death. My interpretation: they lack the necessary knowledge to make explosives, aren't capable of self-learning either, and settle for a vastly inferior but readily available knife. Even organized crime seems to use explosives rather rarely, and even then diverted/stolen commercial ones more often than DIY.
- lewiscollard 8y ago
  > There doesn't seem to be a very large overlap between willingness to commit violent crime and the technical competency to turn off-the-shelf consumer products into weapons. Good insight, which I will tack my own thought onto: the kind of person that would be successful at this would probably have the right mindset to work in an engineering job, and people who do that are both earning enough that they have no need to turn to crime, and too busy to be a political or religious extremist (something about idle hands and the devil's work...) Still. Stabbing and other unsophisticated attacks seems to be relatively recent and primarily a feature of Islamic terrorism. If I am correct, then... > My interpretation: they lack the necessary knowledge to make explosives, aren't capable of self-learning either, and settle for a vastly inferior but readily available knife. ...I have an alternative, perhaps entirely wrong interpretation: Islamic terrorism typically requires that its most skilled and most dedicated operatives kill themselves in the course of their first and only attack. Which is to say, they're running out of good operatives. Meh, perhaps your original interpretation is better :)

by cr0sh 8y ago

philipkglass 8y ago

I'm pretty sure that some criminals will use such devices in the future. I'm also pretty sure that criminal use is going to be rare. There doesn't seem to be a very large overlap between willingness to commit violent crime and the technical competency to turn off-the-shelf consumer products into weapons. Why do terrorists stab people with knives when they could make explosives from household materials instead? They're clearly violent and unafraid of death. My interpretation: they lack the necessary knowledge to make explosives, aren't capable of self-learning either, and settle for a vastly inferior but readily available knife. Even organized crime seems to use explosives rather rarely, and even then diverted/stolen commercial ones more often than DIY.

lewiscollard 8y ago
> There doesn't seem to be a very large overlap between willingness to commit violent crime and the technical competency to turn off-the-shelf consumer products into weapons. Good insight, which I will tack my own thought onto: the kind of person that would be successful at this would probably have the right mindset to work in an engineering job, and people who do that are both earning enough that they have no need to turn to crime, and too busy to be a political or religious extremist (something about idle hands and the devil's work...) Still. Stabbing and other unsophisticated attacks seems to be relatively recent and primarily a feature of Islamic terrorism. If I am correct, then... > My interpretation: they lack the necessary knowledge to make explosives, aren't capable of self-learning either, and settle for a vastly inferior but readily available knife. ...I have an alternative, perhaps entirely wrong interpretation: Islamic terrorism typically requires that its most skilled and most dedicated operatives kill themselves in the course of their first and only attack. Which is to say, they're running out of good operatives. Meh, perhaps your original interpretation is better :)