Assuming:
1) With nanotech the costs of *losing* a war can get pretty extreme.
2) The historical incentives to wage war removed.
3) If a government tries to control you (Chechnya, Kurds, etc.) you
just go make an ocean nation state someplace.
4) The open-minded majority would band together very quickly to
eliminate the threat of a sociopath from using nanotech.
How can you envision anyone in their right mind starting a nanotech war?
In the *long* run, all the protons probably decay so it doesn't matter
whether or not we have a nanowar. In the short run, the question is
can we prevent one until a significant majority of humanity has
hyperbandwidth communications and a dozen copies of his/herself
stashed away someplace. We've been over and over and over this
and I have yet to see a good argument for what would trigger the
irrational behavior that escalates into all out war (knowing full
well the probable consequences).
Take the China situation for example -- In a nanoworld the obvious
solution would be build Taiwan2, move all your people to it and give
the damn island back to the Chinese. Either it has to go to completely
rigid top down control police states ("nobody leaves, nobody gets hurt")
or everyone has mobility and the governments have to stop being so
silly as to make the types of statements that start wars.
Robert
On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, Zero Powers wrote:
> >From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com>
> >
> >I wish you the best of luck in your efforts to prevent a full-scale
> >nanowar from developing, but be aware that, in the long run, the task is
> >hopeless.
>
> Nothing like a dose of good old fashioned extropian can-do optimism to
> brighten your day. Why wouldn't the policy of mutually assured destruction
> work for us the way it did to prevent full-scale nuclear war?
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