Slashdot Mirror
Warfare at the Speed of Light
unassimilatible writes "From the They Said It Couldn't Be Done Dept., the Oakland Tribune reports that the Lawrence Livermore Labratory is ensuring that the Pentagon, inside of a decade, could be armed with a beam weapon that is near-instantaneous, gravity-free and truly surgical, focusing to such hair-splitting accuracy that it could avoid civilians while predetonating munitions miles away - perhaps someday even being mounted on Humvees."
Leaving aside the technical issues of "can you do it," there are the political and moral issues of "should you do it." Precision guided, 100% accuracy is fine until you target the wrong point. The notion that we can have zero collateral damage assumes that we can distinguish between combatants vs. innocents and allies with high accuracy.
This invention might lower the tragedies of war if we have the intell to discriminate accurately. It might also increase collateral damage/friendly fire if the device inspires overconfidence in those who press the trigger.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
And yet it can't be used defensively?
How about the following quotes?
"What we're building... Is a laser for cutting through mountians (roads, mines etc.)"
"What we're building... is a laser to defend our skies, country against missles"
"What we're building... is a laser to cut underground bunkers on the moon"
"What we're building... a giant popcorn popper"
This is kind of sad, when we just exploit technology with weapons in the forefront of our minds and not research or domestic uses! I mean I know they're from the DoD, but with war on their minds, goodness knows what else they're up to.
Absent human intent and use, technology stays on the shelf. Getting on a moral high horse about new weaponry will not stop people from deciding to war on each other, It will only ensure that they use more primitivw weapons.
War won't diappear if we're afraid to use new tools. People will throw rocks at each other if they have nothing else.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Come on, is this an article about optics or military equipment? For all conventional intents and purposes, "near-instantaneous" is correct and "gravity-free" almost so. And you know what? In four words, the article has thoroughly described this system's advantages over other weapons.
Of course, you are probably being facetious and my extreme boredom has driven me to type this reply.