3 ms·

That's just baseless fear from the moment that the system has been designed to be safe. Plus, you can count on the bazillion scientists working on it to whistl

That's just baseless fear from the moment that the system has been designed to be safe. Plus, you can count on the bazillion scientists working on it to whistleblow any sticks that would have been put in their wheels during the design if the military wanted to middle. There are only two kinds of projects: secret projects for the military, and civil projects where the design and the safety are pretty much the thing of hundreds engineers not bound by military oaths.

vkou 5y ago
'Trust me, I'm an engineer' doesn't fly with me, and it sure as hell isn't going to fly with another country's government - for the same reason that an engineering firm using nuclear bombs to dig canals isn't going to fly. It's a dual-use technology that can be trivially repurposed for aggression, that cannot be defended against.
- henearkr 5y ago
  You don't seem to understand what I mean. If the system is designed to be cut in the event that it would be unaligned with its on-ground receptors, through opto-mechanical interrupters, then you cannot use it for an aggression, unless you move the on-ground receptors all the way to your target, but that would be very flagrant and difficult to hide, and every worker at the receptor facility would see it, as well as any other civilian far or near the project. The only way that such satellite could go wrong is if it actually does not integrate such failsafe mechanisms, and if its real design is hidden, and ill-known to anybody except a handful of military-secret-bound engineers. If I were to follow your reasoning, then by the same rule any energy plant or even any technological artifact would be incredibly unsafe. But the fact is that we integrate security mechanisms in those, and are mostly satisfied with them, such that we accept to use these technologies. Of course accidents happen, but the security mechanisms evolve too. Some are so good that they rarely fail anymore, like for example the master cylinder in car brakes (it is an actuator that enhances your effort on the brakes, but if it fails then you end up just pushing raw on the brakes and thus it works anyway, just a little harder). Of course, this kind of Dyson sphere project will require quite a bit of popular education to convince and explain why its mechanisms make it safe. This reminds me of the company who developed RNA vaccines because they don't risk to change cells' DNA and they are safer globally, and then they have to explain endlessly to people that no, it's not an evil design, and, no, it does not even include nano-5G-antennas....

vkou 5y ago

'Trust me, I'm an engineer' doesn't fly with me, and it sure as hell isn't going to fly with another country's government - for the same reason that an engineering firm using nuclear bombs to dig canals isn't going to fly. It's a dual-use technology that can be trivially repurposed for aggression, that cannot be defended against.

henearkr 5y ago
You don't seem to understand what I mean. If the system is designed to be cut in the event that it would be unaligned with its on-ground receptors, through opto-mechanical interrupters, then you cannot use it for an aggression, unless you move the on-ground receptors all the way to your target, but that would be very flagrant and difficult to hide, and every worker at the receptor facility would see it, as well as any other civilian far or near the project. The only way that such satellite could go wrong is if it actually does not integrate such failsafe mechanisms, and if its real design is hidden, and ill-known to anybody except a handful of military-secret-bound engineers. If I were to follow your reasoning, then by the same rule any energy plant or even any technological artifact would be incredibly unsafe. But the fact is that we integrate security mechanisms in those, and are mostly satisfied with them, such that we accept to use these technologies. Of course accidents happen, but the security mechanisms evolve too. Some are so good that they rarely fail anymore, like for example the master cylinder in car brakes (it is an actuator that enhances your effort on the brakes, but if it fails then you end up just pushing raw on the brakes and thus it works anyway, just a little harder). Of course, this kind of Dyson sphere project will require quite a bit of popular education to convince and explain why its mechanisms make it safe. This reminds me of the company who developed RNA vaccines because they don't risk to change cells' DNA and they are safer globally, and then they have to explain endlessly to people that no, it's not an evil design, and, no, it does not even include nano-5G-antennas....