From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Wed Mar 15 2000 - 22:42:05 MST
Spike Jones wrote:
>
> > Zero Powers wrote: Why wouldn't the policy of mutually assured destruction
> > work for us the way it did to prevent full-scale nuclear war?
>
> In 1946 Edward Teller's group realized that there is no theoretical
> limit to how large a nuclear fusion device could be made. One could
> theoretically nuke the entire earth with one such weapon, in which
> case there was no need to haul it elsewhere. It came to be known
> as the backyard weapon, effective only in scaring away would be
> invaders. We could imagine some wacko dictator announcing that
> there were hungry nanoassemblers squirrelled away within her borders,
> and so she was immediately dismantling her military. Would an
> invader chance it? spike
Which is not neccessarily a bad thing for people that want to leave
other people alone, and for people that want to be left alone. Its the
people who insist on meddling in others affairs that bitch about this
sort of arrangement, because they don't like to have to live with the
consequences of their actions (or not live, as the case may be). I'm
perfectly happy having a MAD policy with nanotechnology, just as I was
perfectly happy with that strategy for nuclear technology. Those few
individuals who truly don't want to live unless they get to be the top
dog are obviously a concern, but how many such people will ever make it
to such positions in the first place. Such people tend to get eliminated
pretty early on.
Mike Lorrey
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