3 ms·

The proliferation of technology has never successfully been curtailed through regulation on long enough time scales.

Retric 6y ago
Seems to have largely worked for Chemical and Nuclear weapons. At least in terms of weapon systems, banning lasers designed to blind was apparently completely effective.
- matt-attack 6y ago
  I guess it helps when the technology being deterred (strong lasers, etc) are simply not fun and recreational. I frankly have no strong desire to turn on a super strong laser and burn things with it. On contrast, learning to operate firearms safely and accurately can be a life-long pursuit. They're simply more recreational thus the desire to own.
  - smolder 6y ago
    No, that doesn't hold water. There's nothing inherently "more recreational" or more interesting about a thing that shoots bullets than a laser that burns things. That's just your personal interest built on top of the interests of other people, a cultural artifact. Whatever you say about guns, I can counter with something like: lasers can be bounced off mirrors, therefore they are more interesting and fun than devices that fire bullets.
    - seph-reed 6y ago
      Eh. Recreational generally implies some amount of affordability and easy entry level. Nuclear weapons and lasers are not simple machines, nor are they cheap, and (somewhat unrelated) they generally aren't as instinctively fun or easy to practice at towards any goal.
  - Retric 6y ago
    The US was actually building a weapon system for this when it was banned. It’s more than just a laser, you need a complex targeting system to be effective. Anyway, the limitation on line of sight vs over the horizon missiles and the straightforward countermeasures probably played a major role.
- busterarm 6y ago
  You can build nuclear reactors in your home (and people do[1-6]) pretty much without regulation and if you fuck up and vent a bunch of radioactive gas to atmosphere, your community will suffer for it. As for chemical weapons, people accidentally create chlorine gas all of the time. Aside from that, the reason you don't see more of this is because the really potent nerve agents and useful explosives (smokeless powders and beyond) have complex reactions that require trained chemists to produce. It's a good thing most people aren't motivated to do that, but Aum Shinrikyo happened in our lifetimes. I personally have the know how to create several things that are genuinely dangerous (like an EPFCG...I even have a copy of the 70s-era paper from LANL), but absolutely zero motivation to do so. It's not regulation that's stopping me. You can build lasers that can blind people with the laser diode from your blu-ray player and people do it for fun. Nothing illegal about it here either and I've built a few. [1]:https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/how-to-build-a-usd1000-fusion-reactor-in-your-basement https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/how-to-build-a... [2]:https://www.businessinsider.com/12-year-old-builds-nuclear-reactor-at-home-with-equipment-from-ebay-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/12-year-old-builds-nuclear-r... [3]:https://www.instructables.com/Build-A-Fusion-Reactor/ https://www.instructables.com/Build-A-Fusion-Reactor/ [4]:https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30917842/homemade-nuclear-reactor/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30917842/homemade-... [5]:https://www.foxnews.com/science/teen-builds-working-nuclear-fusion-reactor-in-memphis-home https://www.foxnews.com/science/teen-builds-working-nuclear-... [6]:https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/07/150726-nuclear-reactor-fusion-science-kid-ngbooktalk/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/07/150726-nucle... Regulation really hasn't stopped any government from manufacturing nuclear weapons. Proliferation treaties have largely been a failure as you can see evidence of in recent years. The actual _use_ of nuclear weapons is something else and has nothing to do with regulation. The use of nuclear and chemical weapons doesn't support any governments war objectives. It turns out you don't actually win if everyone in the world simultaneously hates you, won't trade with you and will sanction you into oblivion. It turns out that the ability to import and export goods is worth more than the dead bodies of your enemies.
  - Retric 6y ago
    There are well over 100,000 people in the US that could afford to buy a Nuclear bomb if it was for sale at a reasonable multiple of it’s construction cost. Similarly effective chemical weapons that can kill tens of thousands of people when released over a populated area are relatively cheap to construct. If they where on sale you can bet people would buy them as artwork if nothing else. So sure, people can do plenty of mildly dangerous things, but it’s hard to find something significantly more destructive than intentionally setting off a few hundred fires out west. That’s the kind of thing a homeless person could pull off with a backpack and 30$ worth of supplies.

Seems to have largely worked for Chemical and Nuclear weapons. At least in terms of weapon systems, banning lasers designed to blind was apparently completely effective.

matt-attack 6y ago
I guess it helps when the technology being deterred (strong lasers, etc) are simply not fun and recreational. I frankly have no strong desire to turn on a super strong laser and burn things with it. On contrast, learning to operate firearms safely and accurately can be a life-long pursuit. They're simply more recreational thus the desire to own.
- smolder 6y ago
  No, that doesn't hold water. There's nothing inherently "more recreational" or more interesting about a thing that shoots bullets than a laser that burns things. That's just your personal interest built on top of the interests of other people, a cultural artifact. Whatever you say about guns, I can counter with something like: lasers can be bounced off mirrors, therefore they are more interesting and fun than devices that fire bullets.
  - seph-reed 6y ago
    Eh. Recreational generally implies some amount of affordability and easy entry level. Nuclear weapons and lasers are not simple machines, nor are they cheap, and (somewhat unrelated) they generally aren't as instinctively fun or easy to practice at towards any goal.
- Retric 6y ago
  The US was actually building a weapon system for this when it was banned. It’s more than just a laser, you need a complex targeting system to be effective. Anyway, the limitation on line of sight vs over the horizon missiles and the straightforward countermeasures probably played a major role.
busterarm 6y ago
You can build nuclear reactors in your home (and people do[1-6]) pretty much without regulation and if you fuck up and vent a bunch of radioactive gas to atmosphere, your community will suffer for it. As for chemical weapons, people accidentally create chlorine gas all of the time. Aside from that, the reason you don't see more of this is because the really potent nerve agents and useful explosives (smokeless powders and beyond) have complex reactions that require trained chemists to produce. It's a good thing most people aren't motivated to do that, but Aum Shinrikyo happened in our lifetimes. I personally have the know how to create several things that are genuinely dangerous (like an EPFCG...I even have a copy of the 70s-era paper from LANL), but absolutely zero motivation to do so. It's not regulation that's stopping me. You can build lasers that can blind people with the laser diode from your blu-ray player and people do it for fun. Nothing illegal about it here either and I've built a few. [1]:https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/how-to-build-a-usd1000-fusion-reactor-in-your-basement https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/how-to-build-a... [2]:https://www.businessinsider.com/12-year-old-builds-nuclear-reactor-at-home-with-equipment-from-ebay-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/12-year-old-builds-nuclear-r... [3]:https://www.instructables.com/Build-A-Fusion-Reactor/ https://www.instructables.com/Build-A-Fusion-Reactor/ [4]:https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30917842/homemade-nuclear-reactor/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30917842/homemade-... [5]:https://www.foxnews.com/science/teen-builds-working-nuclear-fusion-reactor-in-memphis-home https://www.foxnews.com/science/teen-builds-working-nuclear-... [6]:https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/07/150726-nuclear-reactor-fusion-science-kid-ngbooktalk/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/07/150726-nucle... Regulation really hasn't stopped any government from manufacturing nuclear weapons. Proliferation treaties have largely been a failure as you can see evidence of in recent years. The actual _use_ of nuclear weapons is something else and has nothing to do with regulation. The use of nuclear and chemical weapons doesn't support any governments war objectives. It turns out you don't actually win if everyone in the world simultaneously hates you, won't trade with you and will sanction you into oblivion. It turns out that the ability to import and export goods is worth more than the dead bodies of your enemies.
- Retric 6y ago
  There are well over 100,000 people in the US that could afford to buy a Nuclear bomb if it was for sale at a reasonable multiple of it’s construction cost. Similarly effective chemical weapons that can kill tens of thousands of people when released over a populated area are relatively cheap to construct. If they where on sale you can bet people would buy them as artwork if nothing else. So sure, people can do plenty of mildly dangerous things, but it’s hard to find something significantly more destructive than intentionally setting off a few hundred fires out west. That’s the kind of thing a homeless person could pull off with a backpack and 30$ worth of supplies.