Sometimes the future scares me

[andrewducker]

If I had to use one word to describe what technology does for people it
would be "Leverage".

A person without any tools isn't powerless, but they are pretty severely
outclassed when it comes to dealing with predators that are of even vaguely
the same size.* A person with a pointy stick or a rock is better off, one
with access to sculpted metal (either with a pointy end, or strapped to
themselves) is at a massive advantage. Once you start building even simple
objects you suddenly have the ability to launch big lumps of stuff at
people****.

Eventually you reach the point where a single person can press a button and
launch enough nuclear missiles to wipe out all life on the planet*****.
Which is pretty impressive for a pinky.

Now, that last one requires a lot of other people to keep the
infrastructure in working order and make sure that the button****** is
correctly wired up. So the question is, do you eventually reach the point
where the increase in leverage means that a single individual can threaten
all of human life without needing the massive support behind them?

And the answer looks likely to be "yes" pretty soon. The US has asked
for certain details of research into weaponising bird flu to be
censored. Because leading on from there it's only a few steps to
something which would produce a massive epidemic. Right now, that would
require a pretty large lab, but ten years from now it's likely that (a)our
understanding will be much better and (b)the equipment will be a lot
cheaper.

All of which makes me incredibly grateful for the work going on in
antivirals. I hope that we never need them to deal with man-made
threats, and that the cure wins the weapons race. I really do.

*Frankly, I wouldn't want to take on a badger with my bare
hands, and they're about 20% of my mass. An adult chimpanzee weighs around
the same as me, and would easily rip me into little meaty chunks. Put me
up against a tiger or a bear and I'm just fucked.**
**I'm not sure if my chances of survival against a chimpanzee are any
higher than against a tiger. I'd assume a tiger would slaughter a
chimpanzee, but I suspect my survival rate against either would be zero.
***Editor-types, should the footnote for trebuchets be above the one for
chances of survival, or beneath it? I swithered a lot, but felt this way
around was clearer. I have a hunch that the correct answer is "Footnotes
on footnotes are an abomination."
****Trebuchets are awesome. Ballistas too. I love the attack on Minas
Tirith.
*****It's not just weapons that we get out of technology, of course. We
also get creativity. A person working with an automated loom can weave
vastly faster than a person without one. Spreadsheets get rid of huge
amounts of manual drudgery for accountants. And with computers we take a
massive leap, to the point where a single person can be a whole orchestra.
******Yes, I know about launch codes and suchlike. It's a metaphorical
button - and it _could_ be a button if we wanted it to be.

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Which does all tend to support my general feeling that if existential risk mitigation is not your top altruistic priority, what are you thinking?

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

[info]channelpenguin on December 22nd, 2011 09:50 am (UTC)
We are particularly underpowered as animals. IIRC, all humans (Well maybe not Mariusz_Pudzianowski) have a mutant form of the myostatin gene, which controls muscle development and are thus 5-7 times physically weaker than we 'should' be for an animal our size.

I really do think this is one of the things that has driven our tool making and intelligence :-)

[andrewducker]

There's probably a feedback loop there. If you have tools then you don't need to expend as much energy on building muscle mass, and can spend it elsewhere instead (or survive on less).

One wonders how much we'd need to eat if we did have that gene. And also when it vanished.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

It's always astonished me that more countries have not managed to develop atomic weapons. The first atom bomb was detonated in 1945, which means that technology is now 66 years old and pre-dates the transistor and the microwave. Yet copying it is beyond the capability of many nations.

[andrewducker]

Seeing as NK managed it, despite being a technological backwater, I assume that what's stopping most countries is that they don't want the hassle.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Ahem: known nuclear armed powers including undeclared ones are: USA, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, South Africa (the latter disarmed unilaterally in 1992).

However, a huge bunch of other countries are under the US nuclear umbrella, and the NPT deters a bunch of others from actually developing The Bomb. Countries which are known or suspected to have had nuclear weapons programs at some time, or to have had contingency plans for developing them if US coverage was withdrawn, include: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Canada, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and probably a few I've forgotten.

Also: chances are high that any of the above plus Japan, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Poland, Finland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Australia, Egypt, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Czech Republic could build themselves a working nuke within 2-3 years if they had a motive for doing so and didn't have to worry about being bombed by the USA or its proxies (notably Israel).

It's not that copying it is hard; it's that we have a stable anti-proliferation framework in place, counter-balanced by an alliance system that removes the incentive for building nuclear weapons from most potential developers.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Nuclear weapons are essentially unusable military for political reasons. Their strategic role ("balance of terror") is all but obsolete; anyone who ordered their use would be (a) inviting retaliation, (b) setting themselves up for a War Crimes trial.

Meanwhile, their original circa-WWII tactical role ("take out a large munitions factory or similar target with a single bomb, rather than a thousand bomber raid") is now achievable using JDAM or similar smart conventional weapons. So they're obsolete as tactical weapons, too. (Smart bombs are a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper to build and can be spun as being less destructive in terms of collateral damage.)

[guybles.livejournal.com]

So, how do we leverage ourselves in the event of any future badger uprising? Mushrooms? Snakes?

[andrewducker]

I assume that that's what the Bovine TV thing is a cover for...