3 ms·

> has the rapid development of missile technology "democratized access" to surface-to-air missiles? Yes? They are being used in the Ukraine conflict on both si

> has the rapid development of missile technology "democratized access" to surface-to-air missiles? Yes? They are being used in the Ukraine conflict on both sides. While not SAMs, Hamas has missiles. Even North korea has a it’s own SAM system. If the best examples you can come up with are Thalidomide and Chloroflurocarbons you aren’t really selling the danger. Both are chemistry technologies, something by which we have massively benefitted from on the whole, but can have uniquely hard to detect effects, most catagories of inventions don’t have the risks of novel toxiciy like chemistry inventions.

tech_ken 3y ago
Interesting point, I guess by "democratized access" I was thinking along a "state <-> individual" axis, but you're not wrong that in terms of nationstates there's better access across citizen groups, rather than just being concentrated in a few wealthy nations. I'm curious about how these weapons proliferated so widely, do you feel like it comes from improvements in their level of technological development? It seems like it could be explained more by geopolitics than "development" per se, although I could see an argument that weapons-sharing agreements are their own flavor of technology. > Both are chemistry technologies, something by which we have absolute massively benefitted from on the whole. But this is kind of my point. There isn't any such "thing" as "chemistry technologies", in reality it's only the individual technologies themselves which are "real". To talk about "the development of chemical technologies" you have to talk about both thalidomide and CRISPR together. Moreover, the history of this group of technologies (and the positive outcomes you refer to) are products not just of development but of the culture of safety and caution that e/acc wants to see undone. I can't see how a true empiricist could say "it's better to develop any chemical technology and release it to the public ASAP"; you've never had a true experiment and the whole problem space is full of edge-cases.

tech_ken 3y ago

Interesting point, I guess by "democratized access" I was thinking along a "state <-> individual" axis, but you're not wrong that in terms of nationstates there's better access across citizen groups, rather than just being concentrated in a few wealthy nations. I'm curious about how these weapons proliferated so widely, do you feel like it comes from improvements in their level of technological development? It seems like it could be explained more by geopolitics than "development" per se, although I could see an argument that weapons-sharing agreements are their own flavor of technology. > Both are chemistry technologies, something by which we have absolute massively benefitted from on the whole. But this is kind of my point. There isn't any such "thing" as "chemistry technologies", in reality it's only the individual technologies themselves which are "real". To talk about "the development of chemical technologies" you have to talk about both thalidomide and CRISPR together. Moreover, the history of this group of technologies (and the positive outcomes you refer to) are products not just of development but of the culture of safety and caution that e/acc wants to see undone. I can't see how a true empiricist could say "it's better to develop any chemical technology and release it to the public ASAP"; you've never had a true experiment and the whole problem space is full of edge-cases.