4 ms·

I personally fear the lone-wolf attack drastically reducing in cost and effort. Where it would once be cost-prohibitive to design and manufacture your own nerve

I personally fear the lone-wolf attack drastically reducing in cost and effort. Where it would once be cost-prohibitive to design and manufacture your own nerve gas or lethal virus, these days with AI/ML and Crispr-cas and the like, it feels like any intelligent, deranged person wanting to take as many people to the grave with him has the tools to do just that.

bitexploder 5y ago
I think this is inevitable and something we will grapple with in coming decades. Especially around genetic engineering of viruses.
WJW 5y ago
Intelligent and deranged persons already have the tools to make way more casualties with way less effort using guns and/or explosives. The "problem" for them is that people who get sufficiently deranged to think that killing a few hundred (or even thousand) people will meaningfully solve the problem they are upset about will also be sufficiently deranged that their ability to reason coherently will be drastically reduced.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Would they? I'm not seeing that as necessarily true. The Unabomber seems like a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski Or look at mass shooting incidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S... The Las Vegas shooting was rationally planned and carried out. He managed to shoot nearly 500 people, killing 60. They did happen to pick conventional weapons. But is that because of rational choice, or just familiarity and availability? Imagine somebody like Kaczynski, but instead of being an award-winning young mathematician, he was an award-winning industrial chemist or genomics student.
  - uxp100 5y ago
    Kaczynski did not optimize for death, really following the lead of the shockingly common political bombing campaigns of the 70s. The Las Vegas shooter might be a better example.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      Sure, but I don't think that was a necessary outcome. Consider this quote: "I felt disgusted about what my uncontrolled sexual cravings had almost led me to do. And I felt humiliated, and I violently hated the psychiatrist. Just then there came a major turning point in my life. Like a Phoenix, I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope." I agree he went with something common to the time. But I don't think that was a necessary outcome. After all, his approach didn't achieve his goals, so we can't say his sort of terrorism is any more rational than aiming for something bigger. Indeed, the nominal goals he ended up with, one could argue that mass-death terrorism is more rational.
  - Houshalter 5y ago
    None of these examples got away with it, or even acheived any of their stated goals. If terrorism actually worked, it would be a lot scarier. Also fortunately most political extremists don't want to kill just random people. Weapons of mass destruction don't discriminate, making them poor choices.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      I'm not getting your point as it relates to the discussion here. But for some goals, terrorism definitely works. Look at the US South after the Civil War. White terrorism worked for more than a century, from thousands of individual lynchings up through mass events like the Tulsa Massacre and Wilmington Coup. Or look at the number of shootings that involve misogyny, which is the enforcement mechanism for patriarchy. In both cases, violence is used to create fear to keep a population subordinate. It also can work very well against occupying forces. Afghanistan, for example. Or if Russia takes Kiev, we'll surely see how well it works against Russian soldiers. And it works very well to get attention and heighten tensions. Al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks were a big success for them on both counts. If you're in the "immanentize the eschaton" class of kook, which these days includes a lot of people from the far left to the far right, the heightened tensions are their own reward. And even if it didn't work, that's not really the question. The question is whether somebody being crazy enough to think it will is enough to prevent them from succeeding. I'm saying the two aren't mutually exclusive. Aum Shinrikyo comes to mind here. As, in another way, does Russia. Would Putin using nuclear weapons ever keep him in power? I doubt it. But might he do it anyhow on one theory or another? Nobody can rule that out.

bitexploder 5y ago

I think this is inevitable and something we will grapple with in coming decades. Especially around genetic engineering of viruses.

WJW 5y ago

Intelligent and deranged persons already have the tools to make way more casualties with way less effort using guns and/or explosives. The "problem" for them is that people who get sufficiently deranged to think that killing a few hundred (or even thousand) people will meaningfully solve the problem they are upset about will also be sufficiently deranged that their ability to reason coherently will be drastically reduced.

wpietri 5y ago
Would they? I'm not seeing that as necessarily true. The Unabomber seems like a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski Or look at mass shooting incidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S... The Las Vegas shooting was rationally planned and carried out. He managed to shoot nearly 500 people, killing 60. They did happen to pick conventional weapons. But is that because of rational choice, or just familiarity and availability? Imagine somebody like Kaczynski, but instead of being an award-winning young mathematician, he was an award-winning industrial chemist or genomics student.
- uxp100 5y ago
  Kaczynski did not optimize for death, really following the lead of the shockingly common political bombing campaigns of the 70s. The Las Vegas shooter might be a better example.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Sure, but I don't think that was a necessary outcome. Consider this quote: "I felt disgusted about what my uncontrolled sexual cravings had almost led me to do. And I felt humiliated, and I violently hated the psychiatrist. Just then there came a major turning point in my life. Like a Phoenix, I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope." I agree he went with something common to the time. But I don't think that was a necessary outcome. After all, his approach didn't achieve his goals, so we can't say his sort of terrorism is any more rational than aiming for something bigger. Indeed, the nominal goals he ended up with, one could argue that mass-death terrorism is more rational.
- Houshalter 5y ago
  None of these examples got away with it, or even acheived any of their stated goals. If terrorism actually worked, it would be a lot scarier. Also fortunately most political extremists don't want to kill just random people. Weapons of mass destruction don't discriminate, making them poor choices.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    I'm not getting your point as it relates to the discussion here. But for some goals, terrorism definitely works. Look at the US South after the Civil War. White terrorism worked for more than a century, from thousands of individual lynchings up through mass events like the Tulsa Massacre and Wilmington Coup. Or look at the number of shootings that involve misogyny, which is the enforcement mechanism for patriarchy. In both cases, violence is used to create fear to keep a population subordinate. It also can work very well against occupying forces. Afghanistan, for example. Or if Russia takes Kiev, we'll surely see how well it works against Russian soldiers. And it works very well to get attention and heighten tensions. Al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks were a big success for them on both counts. If you're in the "immanentize the eschaton" class of kook, which these days includes a lot of people from the far left to the far right, the heightened tensions are their own reward. And even if it didn't work, that's not really the question. The question is whether somebody being crazy enough to think it will is enough to prevent them from succeeding. I'm saying the two aren't mutually exclusive. Aum Shinrikyo comes to mind here. As, in another way, does Russia. Would Putin using nuclear weapons ever keep him in power? I doubt it. But might he do it anyhow on one theory or another? Nobody can rule that out.