"The cost of destroying the world falls by the day"
Paraphrased, can't remember the source
Paraphrased, can't remember the source
The thing couldn't even shoot through two sides of a car door.
And this is still very low in the category of actual damage - close to the top I'd put a resourceful teenager halting a desalination plant or crashing the power grid in some country using only his laptop. Actually, I'm still a bit surprised it hasn't happened yet given the laughable state of infosec in the industries.
The point of the quote is - our technological advancements tend to raise the amount of damage a single person can do by using products of the system against the system itself. And this is a big problem, because while you can hope for some level of control over countries or even corporations, with 7 billion people on this planet, some accident is bound to occur eventually, and individuals hell-bent on destroying the world pop up by pure chance.
" individuals hell-bent on destroying the world "
I disagree that the shotgun would be easier because of ammo issue. It may be as you say in the US of A, but in Europe it's not that easy to get your hands on live rounds. Also, I doubt people often sell ammo to a 12 year old - so in order to get it, you'd have to interact with a grownup. Railguns are easier; your parents will never know what you're building even if you're spending your lunch money on high voltage capacitors.
I'll start worrying when the actual amount of danger exceeds what a rural teenager can do with access to a farm supply store and $20.
This thing is optimistically as powerful as a handgun. Any random teenager with over $50K and two years of time to sink into this kind of project can get a gun.
A teenager with $50K can obtain a car and just run people over, too. That's both more likely and more effective.
> The point of the quote is - our technological advancements tend to raise the amount of damage a single person can do
Our technological advancements also tend to raise the amount of "the sky is falling" paranoia. When drones first started getting popular, I saw several articles about how terrorists were going to build smart bombs with GPS-guided drones. This is a legitimately plausible scenario. The question is whether someone with the resources to build a drone with sufficient range and carrying capacity to do real damage could do the same without drones, and the answer is most certainly yes.
New tech doesn't necessarily mean more danger, even if it means new types of danger.
> Our technological advancements also tend to raise the amount of "the sky is falling" paranoia.
I've noticed that too. I don't want to sound paranoid about technology in general, and I'm not worried about terrorists doing their terrorist things. I'm worried what an average random individual could do, whether by accident or on purpose. Most of the popular dangers don't multiply the power of an individual enough. But biotech does.
Thanks. I missed that. How did he manage to get these for 1/10th the cost? Still, I'm pretty sure a black-market handgun or a beater car can each be obtained for <$4k.
> Most of the popular dangers don't multiply the power of an individual enough. But biotech does.
I could see that. I'm not sure how much biotech is really going to be accessible, though. I think much of it will end up locked down (legally), and I suspect that the regulations will be fairly effective. There are already biological agents that people can harvest, but it's relatively uncommon.
I don't know, but one of the way I used to source (much smaller) HV capacitors for free was disassembling flash modules from single-use cameras that were thrown away after film was extracted from it. Generally, there are ways. In my city there is an electronics market where you can source a lot of parts (some extracted from old devices) cheap. I haven't asked for how much they sell those big HV capacitors in Shenzhen yet, but I'm willing to bet it won't be anywhere near $800/pc.
> I'm not sure how much biotech is really going to be accessible, though. I think much of it will end up locked down (legally), and I suspect that the regulations will be fairly effective.
I don't know either; we'll find out in a decade. But I don't see it effectively locked down in the longer (10+ years) run, unless something slows down current wave of progress that is happening around biotech equipment. Like with 3D printers, a lot of things you needed shit ton of money for can now be done with DIY equipment in a garage. This gave rise to community biolabs (biohackerspaces).
> There are already biological agents that people can harvest, but it's relatively uncommon.
True. I ascribe this to people generally not being evil or having murderous instincts. What worries me more are accidents and incentives-induced-stupidity. As an example of the latter, the most common bioattack people are doing right now is coming to work sick. It's actually mind-blowing that so many companies (outside IT) force people directly or indirectly to come in sick, even though it results in other employees getting infected and overall productivity in the company taking a hit.
Is the oldest source that I remember (from page 37).
> Moore’s Law of Mad Science: Every eighteen months, the minimum IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point.