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RE: Deep Dives | Wikileaks Archive | The X-37B and the New Space Arms Race
Thanks @eco-alex, I've certainly heard about this phenomenon before. It would be nice to know that higher beings wouldn't let us destroy our own planet. But, surely we need to take the lead as a species and ban the development of weapons that could wipe us all out! I mean, there have been nearly 2,500 nuclear devices tested all around the world since the 1940s and those weren't stopped by UFOs. So what are we to make of this?
Totally agree! This comment is aimed at reducing fear.. there are many who are very scared about things so this is a gift for them... as well as a call to action that can really bring change
I'm going to have to disagree with you regarding banning weapons.
First, it's impossible. Tech is born of physics, and trying to ban physics won't work. Weapons will be made, because people want them and physics makes them possible.
Second, it's contrary to the interests of individuals to ban tech. Technology inevitably empowers individuals more than groups. Pointy sticks made an individual so armed able to defeat groups of thugs. Guns do this better, and higher tech always does a better job.
Since we face armed groups intent on being thugs, we need to embrace tech, and better secure our freedom from oppression. Weapons are the way to do this.
The problem has never been that weapons are dangerous, but that thugs are dangerous.
Ban thugs, not the tools we have to prevent them from making us their victims.
Thanks!
I certainly agree that thugs, cabals, criminal orgs. play a major role here but the problem inevitably is that even when a group of thugs is removed from the equation another group of thugs fills the power vacuum. Or people with good intentions in the beginning allow themselves to be corrupted, sort of like Orwell's classic Animal Farm.
I agree that thugs generally are used to control groups of non-thug civilians, and this has been a constant historically.
However, tech changes this. When individuals are possessed of weapons that are potent enough to make oppressing them dangerous enough, thugs seek easier prey. I believe this is why mass murders are almost always inflicted on unarmed people, for example, school shootings.
People are social animals, and our packs have a violence aspect deriving from our biological nature. Evolution is ongoing, and tech is impacting our nature constantly. Some people are becoming more capable of reason. Some are becoming less so.
It is probable that if people don't fiddle with our genes (unlikely!) we'll diverge into multiple species--if we haven't already. Behaviour is often overlooked as a divergence mechanism, but much of it is biologically determined, and related species that could physically interbreed and remain one species may be not doing so because behaviour alone prevents it.
The sad fact of history doesn't need to be the inevitable future, and I am confident that it will not be, although only for those that are capable of learning from it. @r0nd0n occasionally refers to 'recreational nukes' in discussions of rights, and there is a good case for responsible persons having them, because it will keep them safe from violent aggression, and responsible people have no interest in using nukes irresponsibly.
Also, physics. I am pretty confident either nukes themselves, or similar weapons will eventually be trivial to acquire and possess, making prevention of such possession either extraordinarily abusive of any and all freedom, or utterly impossible.
In the likely event we become a spacefaring race, it will be impossible to prevent.
Either we are competent to wield power responsibly, or we are going to go extinct. There is a problem that edge cases will and do exist, and I actually think this is the reason that the prior technically competent civilizations Earth has hosted in the past were destroyed. I note the legends that refer to these kinds of events happening, including the Mahabharata which specifically describes nukes and planes used to deliver them.
I hope we can break free of that cycle, but the extant global political contest does not bode positively in that regard.
The tl;dr is that physics makes stuff possible that people will become able to possess, and I cannot envision a society repressive enough to prevent this from happening that isn't doomed to become tyranny so dire that it will be swiftly and successfully rebelled against.
To answer your last question the bombs that werent stopped didnt give rise to WWIII !