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Everything about the last decade has been about undermining agreements or giving them the finger altogether, and disrupting conventional approaches to just abou

Everything about the last decade has been about undermining agreements or giving them the finger altogether, and disrupting conventional approaches to just about everything. Robots are expensive and require a lot of technical expertise. Engineers can be poached or killed. We have doctor shortages and supply chain issues. Once we've tooled everything to make lithium batteries and war robots, blown them all up overseas, and an adversary leverages cyberattacks to cripple production of any more, someone's going to shell cities with mustard gas or deploy a bioweapon or something. We won't be able to produce gas masks in time or treat victims; COVID response should be considered a failed test run on both fronts (where we couldn't even produce masks and latex gloves during peacetime). The Geneva Convention is due for disruption.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> someone's going to shell cities with mustard gas or deploy a bioweapon or something Everyone is already plenty capable of doing this. And it isn't treaties that hold them back. It's utility; absent a significant technological change, chemical and biological weapons are less effective than high explosives [1]. > won't be able to produce gas masks in time or treat victims We certainly have and will for a retaliatory strike force. As well as for key sections of government and industry. Your hypothetical attack is the analogue of America's air strategy for the past fifty years: bombing civilians has never broken a country's fighting resolve alone. > Geneva Convention is due for disruption It's always been a loose agreement. And it's constantly being violated. Robotic arms don't significantly change the incentives for certain standards of behavior; if Russia and Ukraine were fighting with robots, instead of flesh-and-blood men, their strategic imperatives wouldn't drastically shift. [1] https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> someone's going to shell cities with mustard gas or deploy a bioweapon or something Everyone is already plenty capable of doing this. And it isn't treaties that hold them back. It's utility; absent a significant technological change, chemical and biological weapons are less effective than high explosives [1]. > won't be able to produce gas masks in time or treat victims We certainly have and will for a retaliatory strike force. As well as for key sections of government and industry. Your hypothetical attack is the analogue of America's air strategy for the past fifty years: bombing civilians has never broken a country's fighting resolve alone. > Geneva Convention is due for disruption It's always been a loose agreement. And it's constantly being violated. Robotic arms don't significantly change the incentives for certain standards of behavior; if Russia and Ukraine were fighting with robots, instead of flesh-and-blood men, their strategic imperatives wouldn't drastically shift. [1] https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...