From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sat Feb 22 2003 - 05:07:37 MST
The danger with E-weaponry is IMHO twofold: first, the resistance to
using it is much less than anti-human weaponry. Even current nonlethal
weapons have a chance of killing people and is seen as real force;
frying electronics is much less morally troublesome. This means that
many would be far more willing to use it pre-emptively, and that can
easily trigger classical force counter reaction.
Second, it seems it has a much greater potential impact on
technologically advanced societies (and especially civil societies) than
underdeveloped societies. The cost to Iraq of an e-bomb over Baghdad
(measured compared to the GNP) is likely far lower than the cost of
an e-bomb over London or Washington. There are so much electronics
around that the disruption would be profound. Just imagine metropolitan
traffic where nearly every car might have occasional electronics
glitches, not to mention the reliance of electronics for infrastructure,
commerce and everyday activities. That there are backups and that truly
important systems are hardened doesn't help when everything else is
erratic or broken; just the re-investments to replace computers, phones,
inkjet cartridges and hospital equipment are going to be ruinous.
This suggests that e-weaponry makes a great terror or guerilla weapon.
If you use it, the denouncements from the world community will be far
weaker (hey, nobody was hurt!) and even more squeamish would-be
terrorists/freedom fighters would be ready to use it. At the same time
it is a great way of evening the odds against a high-tech adversary,
especially if you can get it into his population or finance centers.
From a transhumanist point it is even worse, since such weapons strike
against the infrastructure we want to use to bootstrap ourselves (unless
one is rigorously pro-biotech and mental training). They might even be
the sabotage tool of choice for truly violent luddites. At the same time
proliferation of e-weaponry (which seems likely) might lead to a heavier
emphasis on distributed robust systems after a few nasty cases have
occured and everybody else is scrambling to avoid being fried. Maybe a
proper transhumanist approach would be to premptively find ways of
distributing one's informational and electronic exoself in such a way
that the occasional e-bomb (or fire, burglarly or computer intrusion)
doesn't sting that much.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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