Re: Criticism depth, was Re: Homework...

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Jan 11 2001 - 15:37:40 MST


hal@finney.org writes:

> In the earlier discussion at
> http://www.lucifer.com/exi-lists/extropians.2Q00/3019.html, Robert
> Bradbury (who was involved in the Foresight discussions leading to the
> creation of the paper) discussed particle beam weapons as a possible
> countermeasure. You would have earth-orbiting satellites watching for
> "hot spots" which indicate a point of infection, and which sterilize
> the vicinity with neutron bombardment or some other form of disruptive
> radiation.

How good are they? I remember spending a pleasant train journey with
Henrik Ohrstrom discussing the use of neutron bombs against
nanodevices (making the other passengers distinctly nervous :-). The
problem seems to be that you really want to drench the region in
particles so that the goo will be wiped out, but then you need a
reasonably deep penetration (lots of energy) and will likely leave a
lot of ugly isotopes around. Sure, in nanotopia we can clean it up
simpler, but it is still not easy.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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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