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Comment by anvandare | Hacker News Reader

First one to get the (nuclear|genetic|quantum decryptor| ...) superweapon wins. That's been always true. Any government who's currently protesting and proclaiming they never will partake in it are either (1) idiots or (2) lying.

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This was a straightforwards application of well understood and disseminated science, it is entirely unlike a secret superweapon. Even if this technique is banned in the US and not in China I have no doubt that many Americans would still play medical tourist to have enhanced babies. There might be large differences in the willingness of Chinese versus American parents to have their children modified but that isn't a matter of government intervention.

The Manhattan project was also a straightforward application of known science. The US didn't discover nuclear fission in the desert. Atomic weaponry had been known to be possible for decades; the US was just the first to do it.

I strongly support further research in this area and think that regulatory means to stop it will be both ineffectual and harmful.

Or (3) too weak and trying to gain sympathy from other governments.

Really apart from nukes which had a brief preproliferation period when have superweapons been worth it? Most of the time they have been holes to put money in and get ego out from the Paris railway gun to the megatanks of Nazi Germany.

I don't follow this area so my reply may be naive but it seems like developing super-weapons would be worthwhile if only to be able to detect when others are doing the same.

Likewise, the large benefit being a perceived halo of invincibility. A 'superweapon' further provides political positioning to maneuver before, during, after some confrontation.

My point here is to say worth valued in effects viewed as secondary.

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