Slashdot Mirror
Spy Fly
opencity writes "CNN (and AP) reports on the 'Spy Fly' project. "Biologists and technologists at the University of California, Berkeley have spent the past four years developing a tiny robot, called the Micromechanical Flying Insect, that they say will one day fly like a fly." Good technical stuff on the Cal Berkeley page. The Pentagon likes the idea for spying and battlefield deployment but their page has no info about weaponization or command / communication technologies."
Berkely researchers are close to actually getting their models to fly, but according to a source within the university, there were still some bugs to work out.
Actually, this is pretty damn cool, these things weigh less than 1/24th of a penny, have a wingspan of a quarter. The propulsion system on this thing is pretty interesting / amazing.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
The "bad guys" resort to ... this?
Once they perfect the fly, next it's ants, cockroaches etc.
Ants completely immune to insecticide, crawling into people's houses, looking and listening to everything happening in every room.
Ants crawling into keyboards and sensing keystrokes; into monitors and recording displays;
Insects in cars, flying around the sky, networking and collecting data.
Once the prototypes are worked out, and production is tooled up, it'll be viable to implement 100% surveillance of a entire resident populations.
Or, with extreme micromechanical advances, it'll be devices smaller than a human cell, resistant to human antibodies, that can enter via the nasal passages, travel through the bloodstream, sneak past the blood-brain barrier, and embed into various centres around the brain, including the speech centre. Thus such devices will have the ability to read a portion of human thought (the verbal compenent at least), encode verbal thoughts into a data stream, and use the brain's electricity to power a transmitter, sending the encoded thoughts out to external surveillance insects for collection into government databases.
George Orwell's coined word 'thoughtcrime' will take on a much more literal meaning.
This is one of the most frightening developments I've ever seen. The only thing that might hold it in check is an underground movement of people developing technological counter-measures.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
could be a great weapon once they figure out how to attach the big friggin' laser to it's head.
A long time ago they had a series of kid's science fiction books about a kid inventor named Danny Dunn, and one book, Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy was about a robotic dragonfly that could fly around and spy on people. He flew it with a helmet and gloves that foretold of modern virtual reality, because he could feel in his gloves whatever the dragonfly landed on. He ended up destroying it in fears the technology would land in the wrong hands and be used for sinister (Orwellian?) purposes. Anybody else remember reading this one?
I can imagine the flybot being life savers
in rescue operations. Given the mine collapse
in the news in the last few days (congrats
all around for the successful rescue), I'm
surprised there isn't a more humanitarian spin
to promote this type of technology.
But then, talking about rescuing people doesn't
generate as much buzz as "oh my god! the
government is onto my pr0n collection!!"...
-- I have enough stupid gadgets to know that I can do without -- http://www.modestneeds.org
The Diamond Age is a great book and everyone should read it right now to know where this stuff is headed.
Picture the Berkeley scientists, eyes glued to the monitor, excitedly following the maiden flight...
rrrrrRRRRRrrrrrrRRRRRRrrrrrr
Scientist: "Oooh, look at that!"
rrrrrRRRRRrrrrrrRRRRRRrrrrrr
Scientist: "Let's land over there."
Speaker: "Whadda..?"
rrrrrRRRRRrrrrrrRRRRRRrrrrrr
Speaker: "Damn bugs!"
rrrrrRRRRRrrrrrr SPLAT!
Speaker falls silent.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
Imagine a spy fly with a injection system which infects people with serious deseases like Hepatitis A/B/C or AIDS.
Goodbye, Mr. President/Chancellor/King/Gran Genernalissimo.
On the other hand the Mossad can use this system to take out these mad bombing bastards. (The CIA would as usual too lame to kill these retards.)
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
ENVISIONED DELIVERABLES (5/2003): 2.5 cm MFI capable of laboratory flight
I guess, they were way too optimistic about the schedule. Not to mention that their server runs Windows.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
That you cannot invest all this money and effort, into destruction, without destroying the world as the result.
"CNN (and AP) reports on the 'Spy Fly' project. "Biologists and technologists at the University of California, Berkeley have spent the past four years developing a tiny robot, called the Micromechanical Flying Insect, that they say will one day fly like a fly." Good technical stuff on the Cal Berkeley page. The Pentagon likes the idea for spying and battlefield deployment but their page has no info about weaponization or command / communication technologies."
This basically means, like with the atomic bomb, the government is using technology for evil purposes.
Why do we need a 350-400 billion military budget yet only a 20 billion dollar school budget?
Please tell me what would happen, if I gave some monkeys, a button, and told the monkey not to push the little red button which ends the world, wait lets take it a step further, lets say I give this power to thousands, millions of monkeys.
How long until one of the monkeys pushes the button?
For scientific minds reading this, the second law of thermodynamics clearly explains in a very logical way, that unless humans are educated and evolve mentally as a whole, expect things to collapse, with technologies like this here, the atomic bomb, soon nano technology, just wait until it gets in the hands of bin laden, the next hitler, hell i wouldnt even trust these technologies in the hands of george bush or the average american.
So why are we busy creating technology after technology without educating people in how to responsibly use these technologies we create? Are we supposed to be proud of our technology which will be used to spy on millions of people, ruin millions of lives, get people killed etc?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Of course it should be weaponized. A little pincer or something of the kind, a tiny camera, some image recognizion software, and I could use it to hunt down those d****d mosquitoes. I sure could use one of those, following me everywhere!.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Opens up a market for magnetic flyswatters though.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
This will be a great "fun" when the army's worst nightmare becomes birds and spiders eating their spies ;-). I can already imagine them having to produce a flock of electronic eagles to protect the flies...
One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
Frickin "Laser" Insect
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Oh yippee! At least *real* insects only carry diseases. I'm scared the government wants to turn me into a borg.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
The department of defense (should be offense) is spending hundreds of billions per year developing weapons and spy technologies.
What the fuck is the purpose of spending so much money on technologies which are bad for humanity, but not spending any money on education.
Do they expect a bunch of typical people like bush and others to be able to make the right decisions in using this technology?
This is 2002! I think its time USA stopped trying to be the king of weapons and war and started promoting education to the third world.
All of these terrorists, they dont get any education, all they know is islam, they do whatever their leader says, its all they know in life, and thats the problem
Islam is fine, but people need to understand that War is not fine, and spying on people is not good.
I'm sure people will say "but we have to spy on the good, to stop the bad" and thats true, but if we are going to spend all this time effort and money on spy technology to stop the bad, we should also be spending just as much money to provide education to the masses.
Most people arent bad, most are just ignorant, most Nazis and KKK who hate certain races do so in ignorance, sure the leaders like hitler or bin ladens may be smart, but their followers usually are ignorant sheep instead of free thinkers, perhaps letting some of these ignorant sheep on to the net would be more effective than spying on them and blowing them up, and fighting fire and fire.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The technology is a very good technology, but most humans are like apes and monkeys, they go around having wars, hating each other, and doing evil crap.
True theres some good people who will use the technology for good, but if just a handful use this technology for bad, it could ruin it.
Create this technology and let some of the dumbasses in the government get a hold of it and you'll see what I mean.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Just giving another weapon to evil people in the world.
You see, creating more weapons to destroy evil, ALWAYS ends up helping evil in the long run.
The atomic bomb is a good example.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
So you believe the atomic bomb SHOULD have been created? are YOU really that stupid?
This spy fly technology is an impossible to stop technology, you do realize by creating it, you are putting it into the hands of Nazis, KKK, Bin Laden, Saddam, even evil people within our own government.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Fritillus Lepidoptera Imitatus.
crawling into people's houses, looking and listening to everything happening in every room
...
...
I'm going to risk some karma here, and suggest you're barking up the wrong tree here:
surveilance devices allready exists, they are very cheap and use realy old-fashioned technology (remember Orwell's 1984 was written >60 years ago )
and to the extent the (any) goverment wants to control the ordinary people's lives they can allready do this technologically and financially.
IMHO, the issues of privacy and citizen-state relationship are not technological by nature, but are political issues, and technology rarely changes them.
the only possible exception to the above is of encryption technology. But as for being afraid of miniature mechanical bugs listening to our conversations / sexual activities / whatever I say nothing has changed. The goverment allready has practically indetectable bugs
so, contrary to common geek belief, technology will nither greatly help nor greatly impede you in your civil-rights struggle. It's not a technology issue.
but that's just my non-expert oppinion, lets wait and see
Working for necessity's mother.
A laser cannon could deflect the astriod, the laser could literally beam the astriod and deflect it off its course.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
the stupid thing and disable it
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Agreed. But know consider it the other way around. Do you really want well educated masses? :)
Able to criticise the current goverment?
Yes thats exactly what we need, then the world can change and wars will finally cease.
Humanity can't handle the technology fire responsible. Neither cars, AC, household equipment, food...
But these technologies dont destroy all humanity.
Neither have I faith that humanity will be able to handle nuclear or biological weapons. Still we managed it somehow. Quite on the verge of destruction, but still...
We were lucky. We wont be lucky for much longer.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I got a real laugh out of this paragraph:
"Michelson said he is developing a flapping robot, called the entomopter, that will use bursts of gas, a byproduct of the device's chemical propulsion system, to adjust the amount of lift provided by each of the robot's twin sets of wings."
What's the fuel? Chili?
This stuff has been going on with the 80s but it looks like they've finally gotten close to some results.
But why should intelligent enlightened people create technologies which dumbass hawks in government will use irresponsibly, to spy on people, harrass, control, and kill people with?
Spying on, harassing, controlling, and killing people is not necessarily a bad thing. It depends on who it's been done to e.g. Al Quaeda, Nazis.
Oh and lets not forget it will eventually spread to people like bin laden, and the next hitler.
Unfortunately it probably will eventually regardless of what the U.S. does. After all there are other countries in the world capable of developing new technologies.
Look, geeks in slashdot may be intelligent enough to handle these technologies, but the average idiot, would destroy the world with it.
Care to be more condescending and elitist. Somehow the world has survived through 50+ years of the Cold War and associated nuclear arms race despite the non-existence of Slashdot and the fact that most leaders were not geek-types.
Governments invest hundreds of billions in weapons, but next to nothing in education, the US government spends less than japan in educating the masses yet spends 350-400 billion on its military.
Gee, where to start with this.
First of all the U.S. is a very wealthy nation - we can afford guns, butter, AND a health plan for the elderly. The U.S. spends a lot on defense and a lot on education. In fact I believe the per pupil expenditure in the U.S. is greater than most western countries. It's also not clear that education spending beyond a certain level even correlates with better educational achievement. Here in the U.S. it's generally true that the school districts that spend the most per student typically have the worst academic performance.
Secondly, choosing to spend more on defense is not as irrational as you make it sound. After all the consequences of having a deficient military defense include the deaths of millions of fellow citizens and the destruction of your country. Compared to this, the price of having a less than perfect educational system seems very minor.
Furthermore, U.S. defense spending also has beneficial effects for the world at large. For instance the U.S. military pretty much guarantees the Freedom of the Seas for the rest of the world and keeps piracy to a minimum. Global trade could not exist without this quiet protection. It also has a dampening effect on regional rivalries and allows other countries (such as Japan) to get by with minimal defense spending since they're under the U.S. protection umbrella.
Terrorism is caused by ignorance, Hate is caused by ignorance, and both of these are usually results of poor education, lack of knowledge, low intelligence, etc.
Wrong. Terrorism (and hate) may have several causes, but it's doubtful that ignorance and lack of education is among them. After all most of the senior leadership of Al Queda is well educated and familiar with western society. Bin Laden himself actually lived in Europe for a while, and several of the 9/11 hijackers had advanced degrees and had lived in the U.S. and Europe for years. They may hate the U.S. (and western society in general) but it's certainly not because they're ignorant of it or uneducated in general. Sometimes it's intimate familiarity that breeds the most murdurous kind of hate - e.g. Hutus/Tutsis in Rwanda, Serbs/Croats/Bosnians in Yugoslavia.
Knowledge and education are great things, but they're no panacea for all human woes.
Well, I seen a horsefly. I seen a dragonfly. I seen a housefly. See, I seen all that too.
But I've never seen a spy fly.
There are spy flies in PKD's book A Maze of Death (which, along with Ubik, seems to have inspired the Matrix movie as well).
Funny that you cite the atomic bomb in your example...
Tell me, when was the last time 2 world powers took up arms against each other?
Seems to me there hasn't been any massive loss of life (say, even close to a world war) since we droped the bomb on Japan.
No, it will run FlyBSD. Or FlyRIX. Maybe even BeeOS, but it was discontinued.
*runs*
You do realize, theres alot more solar energy in space than there is on earth? You do realize there are particles in space, waves carrying these particles allow solar sails to travel as such great speeds.
In space, you should in theory be able to create a laser thousands of times more powerful than it would be if its on earth, due to the fact that if done right, the suns energy could be harnessed.
Also theres other ways, you could simply use more than one laser aimed at the same target to increase how effective the laser is.
Airforce
current plans to deflect astriods
you can see two sites there with lasers currently in the works which are said to be powerful enough to do it.
See picture
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Some people Hate just because they are mean and evil.
Please define mean and evil. Stupid is a better word.
Hate caused by fear? So hate of self means you fear yourself?
Hate of your own species is hate of self. Not everyone who fears, hates, hate is an instinct that certain people possess, just like certain people are greedy, certain people are violent, etc.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The United States knew That Nazi Germany had an Atomic Bomb program, but didn't know how far along it was. It was also known that the first nation to develop the bomb would win the war, even if they were on the verge of defeat. Considering Hitler's goals, it would have been pretty fucking stupid to take a chance that Hitler would get the Bomb first.
The USA also knew that the USSR had had a Bomb program but didn't know how far along it's program was. Considering the expanionist goals of Stalin, it would have been pretty fucking stupid to take a chance that Stalin would get the Bomb first.
The USA suspected that the Japanese Empire had an Atomic Bomb Program, and it was confirmed on May 14th, 1945 when the German U-Boat U234 surrended after the European war ended. The Boat had 54 Kilos of Uranium Dioxide, Papers from the Nazi Bomb Program, The Two Japanese Officers who oversaw the shipment had labeled the Uranium Dioxide as U235 (Weapons grade). The USA also found out that there were two Japanese Subs that were loaded with Uranium Dioxide, which was bound for Japan. Considering the nature of the Imperial Japanese Government it would have been pretty fucking stupid to take a chance that they would get the bomb first.
In the 1940's it wasn't a question of IF an Atomic Bomb should be developed, it was a question of WHO was going to get the damn thing first, and you better be glad that Hesinberg blew the calculations on Critical Mass leading to a cutback in the Nazi Program or it could well have been Hitler getting the Bomb first. You better be glad that Japanese program was hampered by problems getting ahold of Uranium because they might have won the race, and you'd be hearing about Los Angles and San Francisco instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Japanese Program did involve some Ironies. It's existance likely played a part in the decession to use the American Bombs. The Uranium Dioxide that was intended for the Japanese Program was delivered to Oakridge in May 1945. The Oakridge plant would have taken about a week to process 54 kilos of Uranium Dioxide into half a kilo of U235, so the U235 that was intended for the Japanese program was delivered to Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. (along with additional U235 provided by the USA)
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
I mean ignorant because they dont understand that when you hate others you also hate yourself, when you kill someone else you are actually killing yourself, they dont understand we are all connected, and we are all one species, and you cant just go around killing people.
This is why I call them ignorant, murder is ignorant.
You cannot harm someone else on purpose, and not be considered ignorant, you purposely do harm to others, you actually are doing harm to yourself, your children, its like a ripple effect.
You can claim they do it because they are evil, but evil is ignorant, the nature of evil, not just the effects.
You think knowledge and intelligence equals enlightenment? hell no, alot of sheep have knowledge. But without proper understanding, you'll use your knowledge to destroy yourself instead of to help yourself.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Whats the good of having a well educated population that is unable to defend itself? Some power mad asshole decides "Oh boy! Suckers ripe for the plucking!"
Why do you assume that throwing money at schools will magicly cause students to become more intrested in learning than in the next album by their favorite band, or if their favorite team will make it to the Super Bowl, or if they can get some good pot this weekend, or if they will get a piece of ass or......
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Sure these could be (and probably will be) used by government to snoop on people. For the record, my uncle was investigated by the FBI for starting a union and foiling one of LBJs hare-brained schemes in the early 1960s; wire tapping, neighbors and friends asked a lot of questions, etc. So I have no love for those power hungry idiots.
But this tech will work both ways. I believe David Brin said it in Transparent Society. The problem isn't the spying itself so much as the onesidedness of it all, in that only the rich and powerful have been able to spy, and avoid being spied upon. Once these things are mass produced, they will get into civilian hands, and the rich and powerful will be more susceptible to them, not less. Similar to Diamand Age, also.
I'd say the tech will be as great an equalizer as the gun was -- all previous weapons required lots of personal time for training which only the rich and powerful could afford. Just as spying on my uncle took lots of manpower, previous weapons required lots of resources and commitment -- armor, the longbow, swords. The revolver in particular was a revolution in personal weaponry. These bugs will be just as revolutionary, and the rich and powerful won't be able to hide from them nearly as well.
Infuriate left and right
- adam
P.S.
"Excuse me for being curious," he said, "but are you Alusz Iphigenia Eperje-Tokay?"
"I am Alusz Iphigenia Eperje-Tokay," she said, correcting his pronunciation.
I'm saying we should have a nation of scholars instead of a nation of warriors.
We should be spending equal amounts on both, not almost all our money on the military.
Defense is to defend ourself from assholes, the current government seems to like to bully other countries and try to police the world. This is a bad idea.
We only need enough money to defend our country, you dont need 350-400 billion to defend the country, thats the budget needed to police the entire planet.
I'd say 100 billion is needed to defend the country, and 100 billion to educate the masses.
Why do you assume that throwing money at schools will magicly cause students to become more intrested in learning than in the next album by their favorite band, or if their favorite team will make it to the Super Bowl, or if they can get some good pot this weekend, or if they will get a piece of ass or......
throwing money at the military is no smarter than throwing money at school.
Who said I agree with how schools currently work? Schools need to be completely reformed, and made modern.
Reform the school, currently schools are designed for the 1800s, this is 2002, get rid of chalkboards, replace them with electronic displays, allow programmers to write more interactive learning software, install a touch pad palm style display into all of the desks, no more need for paper, use electronic paper if there is a need.
Internet connect all of this, so the work a person does at school can simply be uploaded to a central server, then when they get home they can continue their learning experience.
Oh, and the reason we should use computers and technology to educate our children, its proven that one teacher can not teach 30 kids properly, and reducing class sizes which is what the government is currently trying to do, is just not going to work.
Accept the fact that public schools will be big, give teachers the tools required to teach a big class.
electronic paper, interactive assignments, complete with videos,students should be taught teamwork and work as a team using the technology provided,homework should be downloadable from the net etc, teachers should be able to use animations to explain things to students on a digital board, an animation should show students how to do their math, show them how the atomic bomb works, etc
Kids dont like school because of how its designed, its not very modern, kids want school to be fun, so why not make it fun, connect the school to the web.
I'm sure some older people here will say "too much technology in school is bad, kids will play and chat, and not learn a thing"
However statistics prove that kids learn more from TV, Games, and Movies than they do from books. Of course before The net, TV, etc exsisted and there were only books, people all learned from books.
Now people learn from the web, they chat, but chatting should be allowed as long as A, everything you say is displayed in public on the teachers electronic board, the teacher can moderate, or should be able to turn this off.
Basically, just like we have the PC designed to help you learn and gather information at home, special devices and tools should be designed to aid in teaching.
Currently its not helping, because people are just throwing PCs at schools, with generic software like microsoft windows, AOL chat, etc.
With a 100 billion dollar budget, a whole industry could form, to develop hardware and software DESIGNED for schools.
This is why the budget should be increased, of course I cant control how the money is spent, and if schools just want to throw money at microsoft and dell, well thats their stupidity.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Search and Rescue?
These things could get into earthquake rubble no problem at all.
Something like this would have been perfect in the recent mining diasaster (or even the WTC) for searching for and establishing communications with any survivors, and for helping to identify the best methods and locations for the air, water, and rescue holes. Although the miners got out alive, they were very lucky to last for three days without any contact. These rescue attempts are very much a balance between acting quickly, so that you can save someone before they succumb, but also taking your time so that the rescue attempt doesn't kill them or the rescuers. Small guided or autonomous cameras could assess the situation quickly but without dangerously disturbing the situation. In large diasasters, like earthquakes and the WTC, they could help direct limited resources to spots with the best chance of finding survivors.
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
So were we susposed to invade Japan? Any idea of what that would have entailed? Based on what we saw at Iwo Jima and Okinawa we had estimates of over 1 Million US Injured and wounded in the proposed invasion. Estimates made by the Generals who were planning it. These weren't scare tatics to advocate the Bomb instead of an Invasion, the estimates were made by men who didn't know the bomb existed. Japanese dead would have numbered in the Millions.
Or we could have continue to tighten the Blockade and waited to starve the Japanese into surrender. Hundreds of thousands dead of a famine if they didn't hold out too long, Millions if the hard liners retained control.
Either of these options would have entailed ignoring that Japan had an Atomic Bomb Program, and we had no way of knowing if they were months or years away from being able to Nuke us.
"I dont know how many thousands of these nuclear bombs, and of unbelieveable power, what was the point?"
Surrivibility of a deterent after a first strike. In order to insure that if the vast majority of your nuclear weapons were destroyed in a surprise attack, you would have enough left to inflict revenge and still have some as a deterent against a third party. After the 1960's the Cold War was a three way struggle with both the USSR and The USA having to watch China also armed with Nukes.
If you have 200 Nukes and 95% are destroyed you only have 10 left for retribution and detering the third nation. If you have 2000 Nukes and 5% surrive a first strike you have 100 left.
The game was never Blow every thing up 20 times, it was insuring that if we suffered a second Pearl Harbor we would be able to blow enough stuff up one time to make it more trouble to attack us than it was worth.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
... like a banana?
Miko O'Sullivan
All the girls say hes pretty fly for a spy guy!
would you bother to inflict someone with a virus this way?
Evil Men in Black Gov't Headquarters
7pm Meeting
Evil #1: The king of Kuwait is refusing to buy Microsoft software! We must assassinate him!
Evil #2: But how?
Evil #1: I know! Let's do it in such a way that it requires years and years for him to die, if ever!
Evil #2: Someone shoot this man.
Evil #3 (shoots Evil #1 in the back of the head).
Evil #4: How about we just put naurotoxins on the stupid fly like we usually do?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Yesterday evening, John Fisher, a middle-aged, South London bachelor was led away from his house after he was found to have swatted a bionic fly-like creature which was buzzing around his kitchen. Neighbours looked on in surprise as Fisher shouted in confusion when a SWAT team broke down his front door and rushed into the house. The suspect was allegedly busy making popcorn and running a plastic fly swatter under the tap.
"Huh? What the hell are you arresting me for? Let me go!" he cried as he was bundled into a waiting police car. "All I did was swat a damn fly!" Curiously, the police failed to tell him that what he had destroyed was not actually a fly, but an electronic insect costing $40 million being tested by the US military. The electromechanical creature was spying on Fisher to test out its televisual capabilities, relaying images to the nerds controlling it over at DARPA.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Oh yeah, The US won WWII by using a "Symbol of power"
And they would of stopped USSR's expansionist policies by waving around a "Symbol of Power"
US "You better stop that, you big bad USSR! We have several nukes!"
USSR "So? Go ahead and destroy a few of our towns. We have plenty of nukes to meet our goals. Rolling off the assembly line like sausages."
The USA pushed USSR? Yeah, Stalin is synonymous with "Good guy".
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Don't tell us, tell this guy. He's the one who's so freaked out about it.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
The USA did not have to get into the cold war that was absolutely pointless as was vietnam.
I understand world war 2 was a defensive situation and no ones doubting that hitler and japan was dangerous.
However, after world war 2, the situation was very diffrent, we were winning world war 2 before we used nuke, nuke was just the final nail in the coffin, and lastly, the cold war, and making thousands of nukes, thats pointless.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The cold was was pointless
Maybe theres no denying nuke had to be made at some point, but the cold war?
Why were we competiting with Russia and China in the first place? Why not let them control their country, and we control ours. Why get involved in world affairs? As long as they dont attack us or our allies?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
technology rarely changes them
I would agree with you but for one thing. Money.
At the moment it costs the state a measurable amount of cash to monitor what I say today. They have to get someone to actually plant a bug, or tap a line, or track me down and follow me.
If you have a 'practically free' method of doing this the state is no longer impeded by availability of funds - and can bug everyone 'just in case'. The auto processing, pattern recognition technology that spots stolen cars / repeat shoplifters, can be used on these feeds to flag up people who say the words 'I'm a baddie' more than twice.
Just by releasing a swarm of flies/ ants they can have a bug in every room in the country. If its okay to use them to stop Bin Laden - why not use them to stop wife beaters, and drug dealers, and tax dodgers, and litterers, and over-eaters. If the costs are low enough then it makes sense.
We used to flatten a city in an attempt to destroy a single ball bearing plant. Now we can often not only hit just the plant, but do so at night when the workers are at home. The motivation for hugely destructive weapons, like hydrogen bombs, is tremendously reduced.
I guess people just missed it. Nuclear weapons aren't expensive. They were attractive because they were cheap, and we're less likely to use them when we're willing to spend a few bucks. Take a deep breath and read that again.
A nuclear missle is expensive compared to a tank, or even a brigade of tanks, but compared to a division of tanks? Cheap! The US built a large nuclear arsenal because we were afraid of having to fight a huge conventional war with the USSR, and neither the American public nor, God knows, the European public, were willing to sustain the kind of massive forces that would have required. Millions of men, with millions of salaries, and gas, and food, and lodging, and ammunition -- no wonder we thought in terms of battlefield nukes. But we don't have to do that anymore, and we don't.
Do you think we're likely to destroy the world with Tomahawks? Those things carry a 1,000 pound warhead, or about 1/20 the explosives that were carried by a WW II B-17, a plane typically used several hundred at a time. It would take one hell of a lot of them to destroy Rhode Island, much less the world.
Let me put it another way: the Hiroshima bomb was about a 15-kiloton weapon. That makes Hiroshima a 30, 000 Tomahawk bomb. AFAIK, we neither have nor intend ever to manufacture as many as that.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander