From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun May 18 2003 - 14:12:40 MDT
IMO, the points recently raised by M.L. vis-a-vis the
CNN/congressional debate on assault weapons point out
how out of touch with the "leading edge" most of the
public/politicians and perhaps even extropians(?) may be.
I took an opportunity at the recent Foresight S.A.
conference to stand up and point out that I had
the genomic sequence of the SARS virus on my computer,
I had access to the machines and resources necessary
to recreate it. (This effort would not be much
different from the recent efforts that recreated
the polio virus.) I also pointed out that I could
return to the conference in the next year and easily
infect everyone attending with the SARS virus.
There are at least two other individuals from time to
time contributing to this list (Aubrey de Grey and
Rafal Smigrodski) who I am sure have equivalent
knowledge bases and perhaps half a dozen individuals
I can think of who could rapidly develop such a
knowledge base. (So my perspective is hardly unique.)
What Mike (and the congresspersons) seem to be
forgetting is that as we move into the future
the (historic) weapons debate may well become
pointless (sound and fury signifying nothing?).
An interesting exercise for extropes might be to
consider -- "What fraction of individuals on
the Extropian list could I not easily defend
myself against should someone decide that I should
be toast?"
This is the question that one may be dealing with with
the increasing frequency of suicide bombers (i.e. they
don't care if they survive) and/or the cleverness
(increasingly high tech tools) of assassins.
(Of course these questions are based in my perspective
that Americans have the right to "keep and bear arms".
But my emphasis would be on the idea that ineffective
arms aren't worth the time spent discussing them.)
I'll simply observe that assault weapons are
unlikely to stop the momentum of an SUV packed
with C4 and they don't help much with the
SARS virus spread in large quantities over the
envelope in your mailbox.
Robert
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