[ExI] Upon pondering your freedoms

[Bryan Bishop]

On Saturday 12 July 2008, Damien Broderick wrote:
> At 12:10 PM 7/12/2008 -0700, Lee wrote:
> >Consider tanks and atomic bombs.
>
> Can a citizen *bear* tanks and nukes? Maybe the fabled suitcase nuke?

There was a recent article about some engineering undergrad who built a 
tank. So there's one. Another fellow off on the nets is famous for 
releasing schematics on how to build guided missiles with $5k worth of 
parts. Not quite the suitcase nuke, but a suitcase rocket maybe?

> One could easily "bear" a vial of lethal or incapacitating
> bacteria/viri, but perhaps that isn't really an acceptable weapon to

Many already do ... we call them "sick". I know you're talking about 
deliberate bacterial weapons, but the results are the same.

> be used in fighting against a tyrannical govt? ("Acceptable"? There's
> no getting away from context and likely consequences in this sort of
> debate.)

Ugh. Big contextual headache surrounding all of this. I hardly think 
that claiming that people shouldn't carry handnukes is a good way to 
make sure we don't die from hand nukes ... let's focus on not dying 
instead (more like Aubrey's/other's biogerontology work- this is just 
aging, but it's the same general approach of focusing on the root of 
the problem (sort of)).

- Bryan
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"Genius is the ability to escape the human condition;
Humanity is the need to escape." -- Q. Uim