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I believe some of our major cities, the power could be knocked out for weeks with a deer rifle or a few sacks of thermite. There was an article in Omni magazine by G. Gordon Liddy on our vulnerabilities.<br><br><div><div id="SkyDrivePlaceholder"></div>> From: spike66@att.net<br>> To: extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org<br>> Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 22:18:00 -0700<br>> Subject: Re: [ExI] keynes vs hayek again, was: RE: 3d printers for sale<br>> <br>> <br>> >... On Behalf Of Jeff Davis<br>> ...<br>> <br>> >...The US is profoundly vulnerable in a near-endless number of ways. The<br>> car drone might be one of the biggies, but its just one of many. I'm<br>> actually surprised it hasn't happened yet, and I hope it's because my<br>> thinking is somehow flawed...Best, Jeff Davis<br>> <br>> It isn't flawed Jeff. The people that ponder this kind of thing have been<br>> thinking about possible defenses against car drones for years. Robo-cars<br>> are newish, but didn't just happen last week. When I attended the DARPA<br>> Grand Challenge in 2004, none of the racers finished in the required time,<br>> but from a controls perspective, a race through the desert is far harder<br>> than driving on paved roads. <br>> <br>> As a controls engineer, it occurred to me, and others, that this technology<br>> could easily be adapted to the relatively easy task of making a supercruise<br>> on the freeway. Then Sebastian Thune came along and won the next DARPA<br>> challenge, then gave us streetable robo-cars. Within minutes, it was clear<br>> that these things could easily be made into guided weapons of enormous<br>> destructive capacity, and if the 1000 kg or so which can be packed into a<br>> Prius isn't bad enough, one could hitch on a trailer with five times that<br>> much.<br>> <br>> This horrifying attack was done with five tons of ammonium nitrate and<br>> nitromethane:<br>> <br>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing<br>> <br>> Car-drones are a big threat. It might be hard to combat such a weapon.<br>> <br>> spike<br>> <br>> <br>> _______________________________________________<br>> extropy-chat mailing list<br>> extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org<br>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat<br></div> </div></body>
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