2 ms·

They're disposable. They don't need to take anything.

subroutine 7y ago
Get a... "very, very small quadcopter, one inch in diameter that can carry a one-or two-gram shaped charge,” ...and fire a bullet from it, and let me know what goes farther, the bullet or the quad.
chongli 7y ago
And shaped charges are entirely besides the point. They could instead carry a small auto-injector (like an EpiPen) containing a few mg of ricin [1]. It'd be like getting stung by an insect. Within days the symptoms would start to appear. If this happened to even a few hundred people, let alone thousands, then hospitals would be completely overwhelmed and people would be dying everywhere. It would cause a mass panic. Injection with ricin was how Georgi Markov was assassinated [2]. It was shocking to say the least. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella
- subroutine 7y ago
  A few hundred is within the scope of what people are doing with conventional explosives. The article is talking about the ability to target millions of people. I just don't believe we will see a day when tiny drones with epipens pose a greater threat than guns.
  - chongli 7y ago
    What sets it apart from conventional explosives is that it's decentralized. A single attacker can distribute these things all over a city. This makes it much more difficult to mitigate the threat, let alone apprehend the attacker.
    - ineedasername 7y ago
      A single attacker can't distribute them in this way because it takes many more for that scale of resources. Absent a self-funded evil genius comic book villain, you're looking at terrorist organizations and nation states, not lone individuals.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  Have you ever had to use or administer an auto injector like an EpiPen? It's not trivial. It requires deliberate force against a skin surface. A lightweight drone simply couldn't do it. Not could any drone, on its own. It would take a dedicated system to find and latch on to the skin while the injection loaded. At that point, it would be far easier to just have drone release sarin has in a crowd. And that sort of deployment is a threat society has existed with for decades and hasn't collapsed under it's weight.

Get a... "very, very small quadcopter, one inch in diameter that can carry a one-or two-gram shaped charge,” ...and fire a bullet from it, and let me know what goes farther, the bullet or the quad.

chongli 7y ago

And shaped charges are entirely besides the point. They could instead carry a small auto-injector (like an EpiPen) containing a few mg of ricin [1]. It'd be like getting stung by an insect. Within days the symptoms would start to appear. If this happened to even a few hundred people, let alone thousands, then hospitals would be completely overwhelmed and people would be dying everywhere. It would cause a mass panic. Injection with ricin was how Georgi Markov was assassinated [2]. It was shocking to say the least. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella

subroutine 7y ago
A few hundred is within the scope of what people are doing with conventional explosives. The article is talking about the ability to target millions of people. I just don't believe we will see a day when tiny drones with epipens pose a greater threat than guns.
- chongli 7y ago
  What sets it apart from conventional explosives is that it's decentralized. A single attacker can distribute these things all over a city. This makes it much more difficult to mitigate the threat, let alone apprehend the attacker.
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    A single attacker can't distribute them in this way because it takes many more for that scale of resources. Absent a self-funded evil genius comic book villain, you're looking at terrorist organizations and nation states, not lone individuals.
ineedasername 7y ago
Have you ever had to use or administer an auto injector like an EpiPen? It's not trivial. It requires deliberate force against a skin surface. A lightweight drone simply couldn't do it. Not could any drone, on its own. It would take a dedicated system to find and latch on to the skin while the injection loaded. At that point, it would be far easier to just have drone release sarin has in a crowd. And that sort of deployment is a threat society has existed with for decades and hasn't collapsed under it's weight.