Talk about mixed feelings. As a libertarian I'm completely against the idea of some new set of laws about what I can or can't do with light, for cripes sake.

Talk about mixed feelings. As a libertarian I'm completely against the idea of some new set of laws about what I can or can't do with light, for cripes sake. But as a pilot, and a passenger, hell if we can put up with people attacking airliners in this way. We've reached a point where each individual has a lot more power over the rest of us simply because of technology and population density. For instance, 100 years ago if you lived in a cave up in the mountains I could care less if you had six tons of dynamite up there with you. Now the kid down the street going to online laser stores with his mom's VISA card is a bigger threat. Some random jackass hurts a bunch of people with tech, then we all collectively punish ourselves in an effort to prevent future random jackasses. It's a feedback loop that doesn't look so healthy for society. It's interesting that for many decades scientific doomsayers have been saying the Earth cannot support the expected population growth due to lack of ability to grow food, or provide power, or some other problems. But what may actually be the hard-stop in terms of growth isn't actually providing for the people: it's having an increasing number of increasingly powerful individuals living in increasing close proximity to each other. It's as if you found a saloon full of drunken cowboys in the 1800s, locked the doors, then handed them all pistols. If they live through that their reward is that you cut off their dominant hands (to prevent future use of pistols) and then hand out hand-grenades, if they live through that, you cut off their other hand (to prevent future use of hand grenades) and then distribute foot-operated laser weapons, etc. The situation both cannot remain the same and it cannot keep changing the way it is. Fascinating problem.