From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Sun Mar 12 2000 - 14:22:04 MST
Anyone ever hear of an invention by an Australian Physicist who invented a hand held "rifle" called Metal Storm? This is/was an electo-static gun that pushed out (potentially) 100,000 fleshettes per minute. Kind of like dozen Vulcan Mini-guns in a soldier's hand. Or is it just a quicker way to perform massacres in the Balkans or Rwanda or California?
In a message dated Sun, 12 Mar 2000 12:33:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, GBurch1@aol.com writes:
> [ oops -- pulled the trigger too quick!]
>
> In a message dated 3/11/00 11:48:48 PM Central Standard Time,
> klemencc@sgi.net writes:
>
> > With the trend being to reduce "collateral damage" in military operations
> > and to adopt sub-lethal weapons in police operations (because of a growing
> > sensitivity on the part of an informed public?), couldn't the end result be
> > the development of something with the equivalent effect of H.G.Wells' gas
> of
> > peace in his film Things to Come? The mode of delivery pictured there would
> > be impractical, but what about a subsubmunition resembling a swarm of gnats
> > (with boring capabilities) delivering a sleeping gas by injection? To be
> > followed by swift occupation and disarmament of the 'bad guys'. That's
> > crude, but you get the idea.
>
> Obviously, I believe this is one underlying, genuine motivation (along with
> profit and sheer geeky pursuit of cool tech) behind the development of these
> kinds of weapon systems. Of course, super-smart weapons will also have the
> potential to serve as weapons of mass destruction, once self-replication
> arrives on the scene. Only time and a continuing effort for civil society to
> control the military will tell which way they are used.
>
> Greg Burch ----
> Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
> http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
> ICQ # 61112550
> "We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
> enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
> question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
> -- Desmond Morris
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