From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Aug 20 2002 - 06:57:38 MDT
On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, Brian Atkins wrote:
> The planes were the technology. The point being that our society seems
> to have a rather dismal record when it comes to coming up with perfect
> (or even near-perfect) defenses to new technologies right from the get-go.
Not planes per se, but the evolution of planes. As I recall a bomber once
crashed into the Empire State Building with little negative effect. What
is interesting is that the WTC were built in 1970-72 and the 767 design
was started in 1978 and first flew in 1981 (less than a decade apart).
It seems clear that there was a lack of thought about building strength
relative to mobile energy capacity.
> Usually it seems to take a long evolutionary period of mistakes before
> we finally figure it out. This kind of evolutionary period however is
> unacceptable when it comes to existential risks.
Unless we constantly pay attention and are constantly evaluating the risks,
e.g. the relative energy content of a high speed plane loaded with fuel
compared with the fire resistance of our buildings, accidents will happen.
The trend with nanotech would be in the right direction -- planes
would get lighter and carry less fuel while buildings would get
stronger and be more fire tolerant (support beams built out of
sapphire rather than steel).
Robert
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