From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Sun Mar 19 2000 - 14:16:58 MST
Zero Powers wrote:
>
> >From: Brian Atkins <brian@posthuman.com>
> >
> >Brent Allsop wrote:
> > >
> > > Extropians,
> > >
> > > The first big clue that Bill Joy is way off in his wired
> > > article comes with his comment early on:
> > >
> > > > "control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a
> > > > tiny elite - just as it is today"
> > >
> > > I don't know how he came up with this but to me nothing could
> > > be further from the truth.
As far as I am concerned, he's reached his dotage...
>
> <snip, snip>
>
> >I would have to disagree. At the current time, corporations and other
> >large "elite" groups can wield far more computing power than you can
> >possibly buy. Even if you get all your friends together ala SETI. IBM
> >is going to have a petaflop computer in just a few years. All cheaper
> >computer chips mean is that the corporations can still buy many more
> >of them than you. I will admit that the Internet is quite an empowering
> >invention for the individual, buts lets face it that big money still
> >matters.
>
> Well, the fact of the matter is that the average individual presently has no
> need whatsoever for control over large systems of machines. I personally
> would have no idea what to do with a supercomputer, besides writing and
> reading, like I do on my lowly Pentium class box. However, say, if some
> sort of computational war were to be declared by IBM against the rest of us
> (and if the stakes in the outcome were sufficiently important) the ~200
> million internet users could combine the computing power of their machines
> and absolutely trounce IBM.
You wouldn't need that many. IBM's most complex computer is of the Deep
Blue variety, with about 1000 CPUs. They don't have many of these. Most
internally operated machines at IBM range from desktop PCs up to large
servers that will use typically 24-48 processors, but these are rare and
IBM only operates a few of these, most of their servers are 1-4
processor RISC systems. They do maintain rather large RAIDs to house all
of the data they keep on customers, products, designs, etc.
However, such systems are NOT expensive. The general manager at Datamann
(my main client) just picked up two raid systems, used, that have 24 and
36 4.5gig SCSI ultrawide drives each, for a total of $2500. We can part
out those drives at $200-400 and easily double or quadruple the money
spent on them, but those systems are available at reasonable rates. The
RS/6000 systems we sell new from IBM are actually rather affordable.
>
> Right now only the military and the police are allowed to have special
> weapons like fully automatic weapons. But if war were to break out between
> the police/national guard against the millions of legally armed folks in the
> US with their hunting rifles and pistols, my money would be on the poorly
> armed masses.
THis isn't true. Any law abiding citizen can own fully automatic
weapons. They simply need to fill out some paperwork and pay a $200.00
transfer tax and send it to the ATF. I've got my machine gun (and a
silencer). There are currently 200,000 registered privately owned
machine guns in the US. Granted this is limited, no new machine guns are
allowed to be manufactured for the public, since 1986, but those 200,000
are quite legally owned and resold to others. However, your main point
is correct. Given a contest between the 1 million armed infantry
soldiers the US Govt could field if it called up all National Guard and
reserve units, and the 80 million gun owning individuals and/or
households, I would bet on the people.
Mike Lorrey
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:27:31 MST