From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Aug 19 2002 - 10:20:15 MDT
On Mon, Aug 19, 2002 at 07:07:58AM -0700, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> On Mon, 19 Aug 2002, Brian Atkins wrote:
>
> > So the real issue is how does government become able to do perfect
> > prediction of threats?
>
> By having smart people brainstorm about how they would conduct attacks.
> We have more smart people than non-state terrorist groups do.
> I think the terrorists have been getting their ideas from us
> so we may want to be somewhat more careful of what we discuss
> in public.
As Adam Ierymenko said: " I can think of lots of creative terrorist
actions. So can anyone else with half a brain. Thankfully, most
terrorists aren't that bright. Don't share your brain with terrorists."
Often there is no other way than to reveal a vulnerability to get it
fixed - see the software industry. The IL-4 mousepox trick is another
example. Had the researchers kept silent the idea would not have been
suggested to the potential transgene bioweapons researchers out there,
but at the same time nobody would be looking at ways of defeating the
nasty trick either; the bioweapons would have become more dangerous and
harder to deal with, and the risks involved less quantified.
The strength of openness is that more people can work on positive
solutions than the small cabals that work on negative solutions. Without
openness the advantage will always be on the side who came up with an
idea, but since the (relatively rare) negative ideas likely will not have
any positive countersolution they will be more dangerous.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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