4 ms·
It would take at least several years of development to create one vaguely effective venomous human assassin, with probably over a decade of development until th
by SamoyedFurFluff 6y ago
It would take at least several years of development to create one vaguely effective venomous human assassin, with probably over a decade of development until the human developed vaguely enough dexterity to actually assassinate people. Unless we figure out a way to make humans grow faster at scale? I’ve always felt that enhancing human genetics to make them into weapons strikes me as more expensive and less scalable than inventing machinery that humans can use as weapons.
What would be more scalable- a human born venomous or the ability to install a venom gland in a human sinus, replacing at least one tooth?
- SubiculumCode 6y agoyes. And in the meantime, simple drones that fling poisoned darts, or even toss venomous snakes, is much more feasible than mutant ninja warriors.
- jetbooster 6y agoBiting people isn't particularly discreet, and a person that gets captured can't dispose of a gland. A similarly deadly poison in the tip of a mundane item that a person might reasonably be carrying seems much more practical, much more likely to succeed, and much more likely to remain undetected
- 1-more 6y agoGeorgi Markov springs to mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoPoisoned dentures sounds a lot like the fake/apocryphal joke about pens during the space race: > During the height of the space race in the 1960s, legend has it, NASA scientists realized that pens could not function in space. They needed to figure out another way for the astronauts to write things down. So they spent years and millions of taxpayer dollars to develop a pen that could put ink to paper without gravity. But their crafty Soviet counterparts, so the story goes, simply handed their cosmonauts pencils. The soviets? They just gave their agents poisoned dentures and called it a day.
- alex_anglin 6y agoNot to spoil a cold war joke about excesses of American procurement, but that story has been debunked pretty thoroughly: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-n...
- bovermyer 6y agoIt depends. Looking at it purely from an efficiency perspective, encouraging biological weapon development in humans at a rapid pace - possibly through retroviral techniques - may be more effective than technological devices, if the former is less detectable than the latter, and especially if the former has a lower price point than the latter. There are multiple variables in play here, and that's not even getting into the ethical considerations.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoHow is that time and effort possibly more effective than taking an already skilled person and giving them a gun?
- jedberg 6y agoAs OP said, detachability. If you have a venom gland, even if you have to go through a metal detector it probably won't be found.
- bovermyer 6y agoWell, to put it another way, why would you devote time towards a hypothetical violent emission of kinetic force from an explosive device when you could more immediately benefit from removing an intelligent obstacle by applying force with a blunt object? E.g. - why research a gun when you could brain someone with a big rock? Seriously, not trying to be condescending here - if you could probably do a thing more effectively down the road with one path, why would you choose a more immediate path?