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"I believe the world is more dangerous than it used to be, and that as technology develops things generally get more dangerous." I don't think this is true. A

"I believe the world is more dangerous than it used to be, and that as technology develops things generally get more dangerous." I don't think this is true. A great book that discusses this is Stephen Pinker's "The Better Angels of our Nature," which essentially shows that we're living in the least violent, most peaceful era of human history. Fareed Zakaria's "The Post-American World" also discusses how we're currently in the most peaceful, economically prosperous time in world history. Despite the violence and unrest presented daily in news media, life is far better now than it used to be by almost any metric. That's why I agree with the people referenced in Sam's second footnote, who believe "the amount of effort spent on the war on terror is disproportionate to the actual risk." As terrible as the September 11 attacks were, ten times as many people die in car accidents every year. David Foster Wallace's brief essay, "Just Asking," really hits this point [1]. [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-asking/306288&#x2F http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-ask...;

sama 13y ago
Mildy bad things are less common, but very bad things are possible now that were not 50 years ago. One individual can have a much worse impact.
- mindcrime 13y ago
  Regarding your concern about biological weapons... I'm not convinced all this State surveillance could plausibly have any impact on an individual actor, developing and using a sophisticated biological weapon. I think we're at (or near) the point where individuals can engineer / grow their own viruses in home laboratories. The risk is that one whacko grows SARS v456 and unleashes it, resulting in a The Stand scenario. But if he/she is truly working alone, monitoring their communication probably won't help. Now thermonuclear is different, because - AFAIK - it would take a massive engineering effort involving lots of people and sophisticated equipment to build a nuke. But that's the same reason that it strikes me that it's less likely that terrorists will ever get one. Even nation-states like N. Korea struggle to develop nukes, and do so undetected. A terrorist group building a nuke seems like a plot from a Mack Bolan novel, not a real-world possibility. Now, buying a nuke on the black-market, from a former Soviet state, might be doable... so I'm not saying there's zero chance of this happening. But weighed against the clearly non-zero chance of our government decaying into a totalitarian / fascist regime like something out of Orwell; I'd err on the side of restraining the government.
  - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
    Counter point: They catch moonshiners by staking out the places you can buy large volumes of corn and sugar. They catch meth cooks by monitoring large quantity purchases of those ingredients (whatever they are...). They bust up grow houses by finding higher than average power bills due to all the climate control equipment used. It is not beyond reason that they could catch (or at least become aware of) individuals with home labs by flagging purchases of those supplies and/or equipment.
    - mindcrime 13y ago
      It is not beyond reason that they could catch (or at least become aware of) individuals with home labs by flagging purchases of those supplies and/or equipment. Fair enough. I don't actually know enough about the details of doing home virus experimentation and engineering to know for sure. I just have a vague recollection of having heard some stuff about how those abilities are filtering down to DIY land.

sama 13y ago

Mildy bad things are less common, but very bad things are possible now that were not 50 years ago. One individual can have a much worse impact.

mindcrime 13y ago
Regarding your concern about biological weapons... I'm not convinced all this State surveillance could plausibly have any impact on an individual actor, developing and using a sophisticated biological weapon. I think we're at (or near) the point where individuals can engineer / grow their own viruses in home laboratories. The risk is that one whacko grows SARS v456 and unleashes it, resulting in a The Stand scenario. But if he/she is truly working alone, monitoring their communication probably won't help. Now thermonuclear is different, because - AFAIK - it would take a massive engineering effort involving lots of people and sophisticated equipment to build a nuke. But that's the same reason that it strikes me that it's less likely that terrorists will ever get one. Even nation-states like N. Korea struggle to develop nukes, and do so undetected. A terrorist group building a nuke seems like a plot from a Mack Bolan novel, not a real-world possibility. Now, buying a nuke on the black-market, from a former Soviet state, might be doable... so I'm not saying there's zero chance of this happening. But weighed against the clearly non-zero chance of our government decaying into a totalitarian / fascist regime like something out of Orwell; I'd err on the side of restraining the government.
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  Counter point: They catch moonshiners by staking out the places you can buy large volumes of corn and sugar. They catch meth cooks by monitoring large quantity purchases of those ingredients (whatever they are...). They bust up grow houses by finding higher than average power bills due to all the climate control equipment used. It is not beyond reason that they could catch (or at least become aware of) individuals with home labs by flagging purchases of those supplies and/or equipment.
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    It is not beyond reason that they could catch (or at least become aware of) individuals with home labs by flagging purchases of those supplies and/or equipment. Fair enough. I don't actually know enough about the details of doing home virus experimentation and engineering to know for sure. I just have a vague recollection of having heard some stuff about how those abilities are filtering down to DIY land.