4 ms·

> I'll do nuclear non-proliferation work all day, but won't touch a system that can kill another human unless we are at war. Humans are really, really good at k

> I'll do nuclear non-proliferation work all day, but won't touch a system that can kill another human unless we are at war. Humans are really, really good at killing one another -- we don't need to get better at that. I don't think you can stop humans from getting better at killing each other. So the real question is: who should have the best killing systems? If the answer is "not the US," then who will it be?

wolfram74 7y ago
Have you ever heard of the movie "The Mouse that Roared"?
- coding123 7y ago
  It looks like a great story. I wish movies these days were as imaginative or risky.
ISL 7y ago
It is essential that we find a way to stop humans from getting better at killing one another. If killing-technology advances to the point that one person can kill seven billion, we will have a major problem on our hands. What is necessary is to have sufficient distributed killing-capacity to prevent any one actor from gaining outsized power over everyone else. If people collectively agree that WMD are bad, and are willing to go to conventional war to stop everyone else from developing WMD, there may be a WMD-free equilibrium.
- amflare 7y ago
  The issue there is that declaring conventional war on someone who is making WMD's means you losing really quickly. So you need WMD's to ensure you can stand against them. And therein lies the entire history of military development. You can't enforce anything without force. And he who has the most force has the advantage.
  - ISL 7y ago
    Declaring conventional war on someone who has WMDs, especially if they have a lot of them, is a fool's game. Blocking them from making them, if they don't already have them, is a different story.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > If killing-technology advances to the point that one person can kill seven billion, we will have a major problem on our hands. Don't we already have the technology for that? I see no technical reason that prevents totally automating the execution of launch commands for existing nuclear arsenals (i.e. building literal, not figurative, nuclear button). The issue is that academics in other countries do not have qualms like yours, which could eventually give those countries a destabilizing competitive advantage. From the OP: > America’s adversaries understand this. China is tightly integrating its defense establishment with startups, companies, and academia in “military-civilian fusion.” Russia, Iran, and North Korea have also fused those activities. So the question is: will it be an improvement over the current status quo if one or more of those countries gains military edge over the US? Will things be better if, say, the US lacks the military technology to repulse a conventional invasion of Taiwan by the PRC, because Chinese scientists developed better stealth coatings or better missile seekers, while the American ones said "I'd rather not"?
  - ISL 7y ago
    > Don't we already have the technology for that? Some would argue that we have a major problem on our hands ;). Regarding, "I'd rather not", the point is well-taken. I'm probabilistically alive because my grandfather, who had orders to ship out the time of Japan's surrender, did not participate in an invasion of Japan. I live in a country whose political system endures in part because of the dedicated active service of more than a million citizens and in part because of the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives to the cause. When I say, "I'd rather not." I hope to lead by example. The weapons we have are sufficient to cause the end of days, which seems like enough. I don't mind if the tools I build have some military use -- making a better bandage keeps anyone who happens to be leaking blood alive. I do mind if the primary purpose of my work has lethality in mind. I'm a precision-measurement experimental physicist, and the thing we do is optimize. I believe it would be corrosive to my soul if the goal of my daily optimization is the death of another person -- a person with a mother, a father, friends, loved ones, and perhaps children. So long as the world is at peace (and one can readily argue that it is not, or that battles are won before they are fought), I will not make weapons. If I have to make weapons, they will be good ones. "Once upon a time, in the very earliest days of interplanetary exploration, as unarmed human vessel was set upon by a warship from the planet Kzin-home of the fiercest warriors in Known Space. This was a fatal mistake for the Kzinti, of course; they learned the hard way that the reason humanity had decided to study war no more was that humans were so very, very, good at it." -- from the jacket of the anthology 'Man-Kzin Wars'. Or, to draw an idea from the cultural history of China: "Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools. He uses them only when he has no choice. Peace and quiet are dear to his heart. And victory no cause for rejoicing. If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing; If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself." Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 31 (https://www.wussu.com/laotzu/laotzu31.html https://www.wussu.com/laotzu/laotzu31.html)
- nradov 7y ago
  The US and its coalition partners went to conventional war to stop Iraq from developing WMD. How well did that work out? WMD development is mostly done in secret so we'll usually never have hard evidence of what any country is doing. It's just a totally unrealistic proposal.
  - carti 7y ago
    This was claimed for propaganda purposes and never substantiated, afaik.
    - nradov 7y ago
      Exactly! Which is precisely why ISL’s proposal would never work in the real world. Countries would falsely claim that their enemies were secretly building WMDs.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
discreteevent 7y ago
Unfortunately the US has a long history of giving the best killing systems to randomers (in many cases as a self sustaining racket, which is horrifying). The net result has not been great at all. If the parents criteria of pure defense was applied then the world including the people of the US would be much better off.

wolfram74 7y ago

Have you ever heard of the movie "The Mouse that Roared"?

coding123 7y ago
It looks like a great story. I wish movies these days were as imaginative or risky.

ISL 7y ago

It is essential that we find a way to stop humans from getting better at killing one another. If killing-technology advances to the point that one person can kill seven billion, we will have a major problem on our hands. What is necessary is to have sufficient distributed killing-capacity to prevent any one actor from gaining outsized power over everyone else. If people collectively agree that WMD are bad, and are willing to go to conventional war to stop everyone else from developing WMD, there may be a WMD-free equilibrium.

amflare 7y ago
The issue there is that declaring conventional war on someone who is making WMD's means you losing really quickly. So you need WMD's to ensure you can stand against them. And therein lies the entire history of military development. You can't enforce anything without force. And he who has the most force has the advantage.
- ISL 7y ago
  Declaring conventional war on someone who has WMDs, especially if they have a lot of them, is a fool's game. Blocking them from making them, if they don't already have them, is a different story.
CharlesColeman 7y ago
> If killing-technology advances to the point that one person can kill seven billion, we will have a major problem on our hands. Don't we already have the technology for that? I see no technical reason that prevents totally automating the execution of launch commands for existing nuclear arsenals (i.e. building literal, not figurative, nuclear button). The issue is that academics in other countries do not have qualms like yours, which could eventually give those countries a destabilizing competitive advantage. From the OP: > America’s adversaries understand this. China is tightly integrating its defense establishment with startups, companies, and academia in “military-civilian fusion.” Russia, Iran, and North Korea have also fused those activities. So the question is: will it be an improvement over the current status quo if one or more of those countries gains military edge over the US? Will things be better if, say, the US lacks the military technology to repulse a conventional invasion of Taiwan by the PRC, because Chinese scientists developed better stealth coatings or better missile seekers, while the American ones said "I'd rather not"?
- ISL 7y ago
  > Don't we already have the technology for that? Some would argue that we have a major problem on our hands ;). Regarding, "I'd rather not", the point is well-taken. I'm probabilistically alive because my grandfather, who had orders to ship out the time of Japan's surrender, did not participate in an invasion of Japan. I live in a country whose political system endures in part because of the dedicated active service of more than a million citizens and in part because of the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives to the cause. When I say, "I'd rather not." I hope to lead by example. The weapons we have are sufficient to cause the end of days, which seems like enough. I don't mind if the tools I build have some military use -- making a better bandage keeps anyone who happens to be leaking blood alive. I do mind if the primary purpose of my work has lethality in mind. I'm a precision-measurement experimental physicist, and the thing we do is optimize. I believe it would be corrosive to my soul if the goal of my daily optimization is the death of another person -- a person with a mother, a father, friends, loved ones, and perhaps children. So long as the world is at peace (and one can readily argue that it is not, or that battles are won before they are fought), I will not make weapons. If I have to make weapons, they will be good ones. "Once upon a time, in the very earliest days of interplanetary exploration, as unarmed human vessel was set upon by a warship from the planet Kzin-home of the fiercest warriors in Known Space. This was a fatal mistake for the Kzinti, of course; they learned the hard way that the reason humanity had decided to study war no more was that humans were so very, very, good at it." -- from the jacket of the anthology 'Man-Kzin Wars'. Or, to draw an idea from the cultural history of China: "Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools. He uses them only when he has no choice. Peace and quiet are dear to his heart. And victory no cause for rejoicing. If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing; If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself." Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 31 (https://www.wussu.com/laotzu/laotzu31.html https://www.wussu.com/laotzu/laotzu31.html)
nradov 7y ago
The US and its coalition partners went to conventional war to stop Iraq from developing WMD. How well did that work out? WMD development is mostly done in secret so we'll usually never have hard evidence of what any country is doing. It's just a totally unrealistic proposal.
- carti 7y ago
  This was claimed for propaganda purposes and never substantiated, afaik.
  - nradov 7y ago
    Exactly! Which is precisely why ISL’s proposal would never work in the real world. Countries would falsely claim that their enemies were secretly building WMDs.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

discreteevent 7y ago

Unfortunately the US has a long history of giving the best killing systems to randomers (in many cases as a self sustaining racket, which is horrifying). The net result has not been great at all. If the parents criteria of pure defense was applied then the world including the people of the US would be much better off.