This one is easy. Right now, attack is easier than defense; you can't
stop a massed nuclear attack. Given nanotechnology, the inequality will
get even worse. But in software, it seems to me that it's getting
easier to defend then attack, and I certainly don't see Powers worrying
about Trojan-horse attacks and the like. And it could be that under the
ultimate laws of physics, defense is just easier than attack; once you
have total control over local space, no external force can take it away
from you.
Leaving aside answers like "social contracts" and "convergent motivations".
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way