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We said a similar proliferation sentence once on communication technology and biology - and here we are. Everybody can build and wield information-technology we

We said a similar proliferation sentence once on communication technology and biology - and here we are. Everybody can build and wield information-technology weapons and very soon everyone will be able to craft his/her own bio-weapon in a sink. Exponential tech and social peace of a basically unaltered species do not go well together. Atomic capabilities are basically just one of the thousands of facets of this problem. Imagine air-borne-electric taxis being prevalent in a future city. A 9/11 event might just look like a hack into traffic control and rerouting a thousand flying batteries to smash into buildings. With great power, comes great incapability for responsibility.

vharuck 5y ago
>We said a similar proliferation sentence once on communication technology and biology - and here we are. Everybody can build and wield information-technology weapons and very soon everyone will be able to craft his/her own bio-weapon in a sink. I wonder if there isn't a massive difference of likelihood between remote (IT) and physically deployed terrorism. For example, it may be easy to mess with smart cars by tampering with electronic billboards or leaving devices by the road to "fake out" cameras. But it's always been easy to leave dangerous things on a hidden part of a road (over a hill, around a sharp turn). It doesn't happen because very few people want to hurt random people, and those that might do it impulsively have plenty of time to rethink while going to the location, waiting for a chance, and then placing the trap. So I'm not worried the future will have more location-based terrorism or dangerous pranks. Even biological. I'm worried about easy and remote terrorism. Where people don't have to see or even think about the victims, and there's little time for reconsideration between planning and acting. Needs citation: I wonder if the need to be sneaky in a location is itself a guard rail. It requires the would-be terrorist to imagine how other people might catch them and react, which maybe triggers the social part of our nature. And maybe it only works if they imagine people being present and with faces, instead of disembodied actors on a network.
bserge 5y ago
Everyone could craft their own bombs at home for a century, and have them detonated remotely for decades. Very few actually did it.

vharuck 5y ago

>We said a similar proliferation sentence once on communication technology and biology - and here we are. Everybody can build and wield information-technology weapons and very soon everyone will be able to craft his/her own bio-weapon in a sink. I wonder if there isn't a massive difference of likelihood between remote (IT) and physically deployed terrorism. For example, it may be easy to mess with smart cars by tampering with electronic billboards or leaving devices by the road to "fake out" cameras. But it's always been easy to leave dangerous things on a hidden part of a road (over a hill, around a sharp turn). It doesn't happen because very few people want to hurt random people, and those that might do it impulsively have plenty of time to rethink while going to the location, waiting for a chance, and then placing the trap. So I'm not worried the future will have more location-based terrorism or dangerous pranks. Even biological. I'm worried about easy and remote terrorism. Where people don't have to see or even think about the victims, and there's little time for reconsideration between planning and acting. Needs citation: I wonder if the need to be sneaky in a location is itself a guard rail. It requires the would-be terrorist to imagine how other people might catch them and react, which maybe triggers the social part of our nature. And maybe it only works if they imagine people being present and with faces, instead of disembodied actors on a network.

bserge 5y ago

Everyone could craft their own bombs at home for a century, and have them detonated remotely for decades. Very few actually did it.