4 ms·

I'm not sure why, if the WHO falls under the UN's mandate, that asteroid defense wouldn't. They're both collective efforts to monitor and combat things that are

I'm not sure why, if the WHO falls under the UN's mandate, that asteroid defense wouldn't. They're both collective efforts to monitor and combat things that aren't human. Moreover, there are obvious military applications for certain asteroid defense techniques. For example, if the U.S. was planning a Bruce Willis-style nukes-in-space approach to deflecting an asteroid, I guarantee the Russians would care (and vice versa).

DanielBMarkham 13y ago
I think there are a lot of things the UN ends up doing simply because it provides a somewhat permanent diplomatic forum for nations of the world. That's fine. I'm not saying that the UN won't end up handling asteroid defense, or various other world-government-ish things. I'm saying it wasn't designed to do so. Big difference. I don't know how far you stretch the intent and structure before something breaks. If I had to bet, that's a long way away. But still, people should be aware of what's going on. The results you get from UN programs are not always going to be what you expect, and there's good reasons for that. Or to put differently, if the UN evolves into doing something for everybody, it stands a significant risk of losing focus on its initial mission. Over the next few decades, the organization could easily become a destabilizing force in the world instead of a stabilizing one. There's no corrective action to tell the UN that it's a victim of scope creep, so they could decide to try to do dang near anything, whether it's a good idea, whether the tools exist, whether it's just some half-baked crackpot idea, or whether it's just an elaborate bribery scheme. There's no feedback loop -- one of my initial points. Anything you can imagine, you can imagine the UN doing. That's not a recipe for a healthy future for the world.

4 ms·

I'm not sure why, if the WHO falls under the UN's mandate, that asteroid defense wouldn't. They're both collective efforts to monitor and combat things that are

by andrewfong 13y ago

DanielBMarkham 13y ago
I think there are a lot of things the UN ends up doing simply because it provides a somewhat permanent diplomatic forum for nations of the world. That's fine. I'm not saying that the UN won't end up handling asteroid defense, or various other world-government-ish things. I'm saying it wasn't designed to do so. Big difference. I don't know how far you stretch the intent and structure before something breaks. If I had to bet, that's a long way away. But still, people should be aware of what's going on. The results you get from UN programs are not always going to be what you expect, and there's good reasons for that. Or to put differently, if the UN evolves into doing something for everybody, it stands a significant risk of losing focus on its initial mission. Over the next few decades, the organization could easily become a destabilizing force in the world instead of a stabilizing one. There's no corrective action to tell the UN that it's a victim of scope creep, so they could decide to try to do dang near anything, whether it's a good idea, whether the tools exist, whether it's just some half-baked crackpot idea, or whether it's just an elaborate bribery scheme. There's no feedback loop -- one of my initial points. Anything you can imagine, you can imagine the UN doing. That's not a recipe for a healthy future for the world.