From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Wed Dec 25 2002 - 06:38:41 MST
On Tue, 24 Dec 2002, spike66 wrote:
> Regardless of what it does, society will have a
> 3 sigma element whose fantasy is to slay as many
> as possible. Over time, technology empowers
So what. As long as they can't do it, we're cool.
> individuals to do ever more damage. In 1995,
> shortly before I started reading extropians,
> I became convinced that regardless of what path
> the future takes, universal surveillance will
> result. Terrorists take away our right to
> privacy. spike
This doesn't follow. Few technologies are destructive. Out of hand, I can
think of conventional and nuclear explosives, nerve and bioagents. We
clearly can discount ecovory for now. While our current society is
_mentally_ ill equipped with living under the threat veil, this doesn't
mean it can't be done. In fact blanket surveillance is one of the worst
methods to prevent casualties, especially in cases when a tiny package
delivered by automation can unleash death and destruction on a large
scale.
The robust, passive solutions to threats are 1) decentralization 2)
blanket realtime agent detection and user notification 3) physical seals
and shields, from gloves and masks to suits and tents up to the level of
closed loop ecosystems.
What is necessary for decentralization? Convincing telepresence. Ability
to see the man on the stairs who is not there, with full detail. So spend
the money on augmented reality (huds, trackers), motion capturing and
realtime avatar projection. Which will require low-latency broadband
infrastructure, and not just in the cities.
Once you go distributed the threats diminish almost to zero, quite
naturally.
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