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Michael Beverly's avatar

We are about to enter a new phase whereas manpower and capital (above a certain minimum) will no longer be the deciding factors, but rather, who has access to a reasonably good AI tech and a concealed factory for producing bio-weapons, and willingness to use them, of course.

I'm actually surprised this hasn't happened yet...

The blueprint is Dune author Frank Herberts lessor known work, The White Plague (1982).

Of course, it's fiction, but the technology required is, if not already developed, about to be. Perhaps not in the same way as the book (whereas men are carries of a plague that only kills women and threatens to end humanity) but nevertheless, the idea isn't that far-fetched, one could dig up bodies n the permafrost and culture the Spanish Flu and release it...obviously anthrax can't be that hard to make as we saw in post-911 attack, etc.

The Demon in the Freezer author Richard Preston talked about (this is decades ago) how his friends, as a hobby, were creating new viruses all the time. What a man in a lab could do previously in a year an AI can already do now in minutes. It will not be long before someone creates something as least as bad as small pox or anthrax or the Spanish Flu, this is axiomatic as they could just stick to making what nature has already provided.

What AI and drone technology allow is a small force to multiply itself by a factor of 10 or 100 thousand, perhaps more. How many men can US brigade kill in day (sans nuclear)? Even if it's 10s of thousands, a small group of people with the right bio-weapon and a few thousand (or even a few hundred) drones could wipe out most of New York or Los Angeles in a few hours work (granted it might take a few weeks before everyone is dead, but the result is the same).

I'm curious, David, why do you think Ukraine hasn't unleashed a bio-weapon in Moscow?

They don't have access to one?

The world would turn against them if they did?

Morality and ethics?

In The White Plague the protagonist unleashes the weapon in England, Ireland, and Libya and demands the world governments instruct those countries to send all citizens of those nations back home and then let the plague run its course. Of course, it's fiction, so things go sideways, but the idea in principle seems sound.

I mean, logical. If you want Russia to end the war, seems like killling off a million citizens out to do the trick as long as you can back up your next threat, i.e. if you don't pull out your troops, next attack will kill 10 million....

I never understood the idea of "War Crimes" in that, if your defending your home, seems like all bets are off.

It's like the little birdie analogy you've used in your libertarian talks, i.e. the little birdie is willing to fight to the death to defend it's territory with a no-holds-barred strategy. "We're both gonna die if you attack, so think twice, bigger bird."

Ultimately I think this is the only way a libertarian or anarchist or any type of new country based not on geography but ideals is going to be able to form and survive, it must have a weapon so dangerous and so unstoppable, the big countries must respect it.

Heinlien taught me this in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The gravity well of earth meant that the moon citizens could simply hurl boulders and they'd turn into WMD.

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Nick O'Connor's avatar

I'm not sure there's such a divide between the British and American model. By continental European standards the British army has always been risibly small, and required vast expansion for the world wars; and local militias used to be a significant part of the armed forces (and in a sense, with the Territorial Army, still are).

Undeniable that efficiency was always secondary to a desire for the British army to have interests identical to those of the ruling class, though. I recently found out that even as late as the early twentieth century an officer's salary wasn't sufficient to allow you to marry and have children, unless you had another source of income.

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