Billy Brown wrote:
> In both cases the benefits of relatively free deployment of the technology
> are so great that efforts at strict control are doomed to failure. Only a
> spectacular string of very scary-looking disasters would convince the public
> to support strict keep-it-away-from-lunatics regulation, and nothing like
> that has happened. Which raises an interesting question - why haven't we
> had any serious problems with terrorist use of these technologies?
Just a theory, but maybe...
* In order to effectively use these technologies, one must acquire a
lot of knowledge.
* In the process of acquiring said knowledge, people typically learn of
ways to solve problems better (cheaper/faster/more effective) than
violence and mass slaughter.
* By the time one amasses the facilities and knowledge to actually use
these in a terrorist capacity, one has usually moved beyond terrorist
tactics and onto tactics that actually accomplish whatever ends were
desired. (Exception: if one is extremely devoted to a cause that
acknolwedges no solution except death to one's enemies, for instance
with the Iraqi weapons labs.)
Does this seem plausible, or is there some major logic hole that I'm not
seeing?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:09:03 MDT