From: lists@thecri.org
Date: Thu Feb 27 2003 - 23:32:16 MST
Another thought on this topic, and referencing Spike
(By the way, I have been lurking here for a few months, great
discussions!)
I have given much thought to how extremists can screw things up. At
first I tried to alert some people, then I realized that the less said
the better. Many extremists and terrorists are copycats. Once people
started shottings in high schools and going postal, many others
followed.
I spoke to someone in the Government who said that the TV show that
discussed how vulnerable subways are (Nova or 20-20?), they called
Terrorism 101. He said it was the _worst_ thing journalists could ever
have done!
So I really do not talk about what things could happen to us. That is
better left for think tanks and commitees behind closed doors. The
discussions of how they could harm us, that is.
A concern though is that perhaps they are not thinking of these things!
It does not take a intellectual giant to realize that a big city is more
of a target than a small town. Yet the dillema is that the momentum of
our society is still taking us towards greater centralization; more
skyscrapers, more subways, more more more.
So while I absolutely do not want to help the extremists, I do weant to
help our country (and world), but many in office are still thinking very
linearly. That 20 years from today will be as different as today is from
20 years ago. I doubt that!
Things have changed, we must be very careful how we react, but react we
must.
Having said all that, I see a dillemma; to prepare we must think about
what can hurt us, but by thinking about what can hurt us, we give ideas
to those that can hurt us!
Again, transparency, overlaid on a secular framework that respects as
many different belief systems as possible is the least bad solution I
can think of....
Erik Sayle
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.org [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]
On Behalf Of spike66
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2003 8:42 PM
To: extropians@extropy.org
Subject: Re: weapons of mass panic
Amara Graps wrote:
> I would be so happy to see Spike thinking about ways of boosting
> rockets for our explorations of the universe. Instead I am distressed
> to see him analyzing how subways are vulnerable and unsafe. (Does that
> help you understand my comments Spike?)
Ja. My comments were spurred by the Nova program. I ordinarily never
think about subways. I seldom ride one, for I don't live or work in a
big city.
After I posted about the vulnerability of a subway system,
I began second guessing the wisdom of discussing publicly
such matters. Then a good friend read my mind and suggested
I cork it, forthwith. This brings us back around to another thread of a
few weeks ago, the one about scientists refraining from discussing
technologies that could be used to harm mankind.
That being said, I will go off on a tangent of sorts. My scenario was
one of mass disruption, a short-lived isotope that is easily available,
relatively cheap, legal, at least temporarily indistinguishable from
lethal radiation sources, but one that does not actually cause any
deaths. My notion is that subways in particular are inherently
undefendable from such attacks.
As for the more serious attackers that really wish to
cause harm, the subway is far more vulnerable to firebombing than a
train, because the tunnel traps heat, the wreckage is inherently
difficult to remove, and in a subway tunnel it is far more difficult to
evacuate the survivors.
There *may* be a way to make a subway train entirely
from nonflammables. However, as time moves forward,
societies with incompatible premises are brought into
ever closer contact. Luddites and extremists have ever
greater power to tear down society and disrupt progress.
That is why I made the prediction that within a decade,
the world's subway systems will be rendered useless.
That being said, I suggest that such a fate is not the
end of progress as we know it, for the Silicon Valley
is a prime example of an extended suburb that supports
plenty of technological innovation with few mass transit systems or sky
scrapers. A total disruption of BART, the local subway, would scarcely
be noticed, for its ridership has never been high.
The obstructionists, terrorists, the McVeighs,
Bin Ladins, Kazinskys of this world have convinced
me humanity needs to spread out and cover all the available real estate,
to make society inherently less vulnerable and less dependent on those
systems which cannot in principle be defended.
If global warming is true and we really can melt off
all that ice, we need to get on that, release that
carbon, free up all that land that is currently
unavailable. All of northern Canada, Siberia, the
deserts, make it habitable, spread out, build enormous, extended
tenuously populated but inhabited civilization on all of it, with
thoroughly mixed cultures so that no one religion or custom can take
hold of the minds of the people there. All governments would need to be
secular and open minded.
Siberia is a perfect example. Russia needs money. We
should be able to buy huge tracts of that empty
real estate and make something out of it. The Luddites
and terrorists have shown that humans must stop
bunching up, spread out and reclaim unused, wasted
land. And water.
All that from a Nova program pointing out how easy it
would be to shut down a subway system. spike
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