Seems to have largely worked for Chemical and Nuclear weapons. At least in terms of weapon systems, banning lasers designed to blind was apparently completely effective.
I guess it helps when the technology being deterred (strong lasers, etc) are simply not fun and recreational. I frankly have no strong desire to turn on a super strong laser and burn things with it. On contrast, learning to operate firearms safely and accurately can be a life-long pursuit. They're simply more recreational thus the desire to own.
There's nothing inherently "more recreational" or more interesting about a thing that shoots bullets than a laser that burns things. That's just your personal interest built on top of the interests of other people, a cultural artifact.
Whatever you say about guns, I can counter with something like: lasers can be bounced off mirrors, therefore they are more interesting and fun than devices that fire bullets.
Eh. Recreational generally implies some amount of affordability and easy entry level.
Nuclear weapons and lasers are not simple machines, nor are they cheap, and (somewhat unrelated) they generally aren't as instinctively fun or easy to practice at towards any goal.
The US was actually building a weapon system for this when it was banned. It’s more than just a laser, you need a complex targeting system to be effective. Anyway, the limitation on line of sight vs over the horizon missiles and the straightforward countermeasures probably played a major role.
You can build nuclear reactors in your home (and people do[1-6]) pretty much without regulation and if you fuck up and vent a bunch of radioactive gas to atmosphere, your community will suffer for it.
As for chemical weapons, people accidentally create chlorine gas all of the time. Aside from that, the reason you don't see more of this is because the really potent nerve agents and useful explosives (smokeless powders and beyond) have complex reactions that require trained chemists to produce.
It's a good thing most people aren't motivated to do that, but Aum Shinrikyo happened in our lifetimes.
I personally have the know how to create several things that are genuinely dangerous (like an EPFCG...I even have a copy of the 70s-era paper from LANL), but absolutely zero motivation to do so. It's not regulation that's stopping me.
You can build lasers that can blind people with the laser diode from your blu-ray player and people do it for fun. Nothing illegal about it here either and I've built a few.
Regulation really hasn't stopped any government from manufacturing nuclear weapons. Proliferation treaties have largely been a failure as you can see evidence of in recent years. The actual _use_ of nuclear weapons is something else and has nothing to do with regulation. The use of nuclear and chemical weapons doesn't support any governments war objectives. It turns out you don't actually win if everyone in the world simultaneously hates you, won't trade with you and will sanction you into oblivion. It turns out that the ability to import and export goods is worth more than the dead bodies of your enemies.
There are well over 100,000 people in the US that could afford to buy a Nuclear bomb if it was for sale at a reasonable multiple of it’s construction cost. Similarly effective chemical weapons that can kill tens of thousands of people when released over a populated area are relatively cheap to construct. If they where on sale you can bet people would buy them as artwork if nothing else.
So sure, people can do plenty of mildly dangerous things, but it’s hard to find something significantly more destructive than intentionally setting off a few hundred fires out west. That’s the kind of thing a homeless person could pull off with a backpack and 30$ worth of supplies.
It’s regulation that’s stopping the sale of nuclear weapons to the general populace. If there where several thousand of the thing in random peoples hands globally you can expect one of them to have been stolen and used. Or just purchased with the intent to make a statement.
The people capable and interested in building them have no interest in such, regardless of regulation. There also don't seem to be buyers on the other end to motivate anyone with money. If you did build such a thing for cash, you can't assume it won't be used on you or your loved ones.
Your argument is assuming a market that is not there. It's also a disgustingly cynical view of humanity that I care not to entertain.
The people capable and interested in building them have no interest in such, regardless of regulation.
That’s an extraordinarily optimistic view of humanity. How to you align that with say the tobacco industry which actively spent money to kill ever more people by getting the young addicted? I honestly don’t want to change your mind, but I am curious about how you could think that in the face of what some people will do for money.
Tobacco had hundreds of years of use as a medicinal before we realized anything about addictions and cancer.[1] It also looks to be a very viable biofuel (at least a GM'd, non-smokable version of it) providing 3x per acre the amount of ethanol per acre as corn and 3x per acre the amount of oil as soy. It's also a natural pesticide & insect repellant and source of saltpeter/potassium nitrate.
Not just that, but smokers mostly just hurt themselves and smoke for the benefits nicotine provides them. People drink alcohol too and that's not good for you either.
We will be growing and selling tobacco long after people stop smoking it.
I'm not aware of any medicinal benefits of nuclear weapons or nerve gas. Almost nobody has any reason to produce either.
This is veering off into stupid territory.
The practice of Tobacco companies looking for new younger customers continued well after the harmful effects where known. Here’s a direct quote on the topic.
"Younger adult smokers are the only source of replacement smokers. Repeated government studies (Appendix B) have shown that:
Less than one-third of smokers (31%) start after age 18.
Only 5% of smokers start after age 24
Thus, today's young adult smoking behavior will largely determine the trend of industry volume over the next several decades. If younger adults turn away from smoking, the industry must decline, just as a population that does not give birth will eventually dwindle. In such an environment, a positive RJR sales trend would require disproportionate share gains and/or steep price increases (which could depress volume)."
original quote from the internal documents of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, circa 1985, in the collection of Stanford Research Into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (note that statistics are out-of-date).
But thanks for helping me to understand where you’re coming from.
Comments
Seems to have largely worked for Chemical and Nuclear weapons. At least in terms of weapon systems, banning lasers designed to blind was apparently completely effective.
I guess it helps when the technology being deterred (strong lasers, etc) are simply not fun and recreational. I frankly have no strong desire to turn on a super strong laser and burn things with it. On contrast, learning to operate firearms safely and accurately can be a life-long pursuit. They're simply more recreational thus the desire to own.
No, that doesn't hold water.
There's nothing inherently "more recreational" or more interesting about a thing that shoots bullets than a laser that burns things. That's just your personal interest built on top of the interests of other people, a cultural artifact.
Whatever you say about guns, I can counter with something like: lasers can be bounced off mirrors, therefore they are more interesting and fun than devices that fire bullets.
Eh. Recreational generally implies some amount of affordability and easy entry level.
Nuclear weapons and lasers are not simple machines, nor are they cheap, and (somewhat unrelated) they generally aren't as instinctively fun or easy to practice at towards any goal.
The US was actually building a weapon system for this when it was banned. It’s more than just a laser, you need a complex targeting system to be effective. Anyway, the limitation on line of sight vs over the horizon missiles and the straightforward countermeasures probably played a major role.
You can build nuclear reactors in your home (and people do[1-6]) pretty much without regulation and if you fuck up and vent a bunch of radioactive gas to atmosphere, your community will suffer for it.
As for chemical weapons, people accidentally create chlorine gas all of the time. Aside from that, the reason you don't see more of this is because the really potent nerve agents and useful explosives (smokeless powders and beyond) have complex reactions that require trained chemists to produce.
It's a good thing most people aren't motivated to do that, but Aum Shinrikyo happened in our lifetimes.
I personally have the know how to create several things that are genuinely dangerous (like an EPFCG...I even have a copy of the 70s-era paper from LANL), but absolutely zero motivation to do so. It's not regulation that's stopping me.
You can build lasers that can blind people with the laser diode from your blu-ray player and people do it for fun. Nothing illegal about it here either and I've built a few.
[1]:https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/how-to-build-a... [2]:https://www.businessinsider.com/12-year-old-builds-nuclear-r... [3]:https://www.instructables.com/Build-A-Fusion-Reactor/ [4]:https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30917842/homemade-... [5]:https://www.foxnews.com/science/teen-builds-working-nuclear-... [6]:https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/07/150726-nucle...
Regulation really hasn't stopped any government from manufacturing nuclear weapons. Proliferation treaties have largely been a failure as you can see evidence of in recent years. The actual _use_ of nuclear weapons is something else and has nothing to do with regulation. The use of nuclear and chemical weapons doesn't support any governments war objectives. It turns out you don't actually win if everyone in the world simultaneously hates you, won't trade with you and will sanction you into oblivion. It turns out that the ability to import and export goods is worth more than the dead bodies of your enemies.
There are well over 100,000 people in the US that could afford to buy a Nuclear bomb if it was for sale at a reasonable multiple of it’s construction cost. Similarly effective chemical weapons that can kill tens of thousands of people when released over a populated area are relatively cheap to construct. If they where on sale you can bet people would buy them as artwork if nothing else.
So sure, people can do plenty of mildly dangerous things, but it’s hard to find something significantly more destructive than intentionally setting off a few hundred fires out west. That’s the kind of thing a homeless person could pull off with a backpack and 30$ worth of supplies.
My argument was that _regulation_ doesn't stop these things. Your argument is still not a refutation of that.
Regulation is not the reason that people don't use the technology. It turns out that most people aren't assholes.
And notice how all of the access to said technology is still there.
It’s regulation that’s stopping the sale of nuclear weapons to the general populace. If there where several thousand of the thing in random peoples hands globally you can expect one of them to have been stolen and used. Or just purchased with the intent to make a statement.
You're making several leaps of logic there.
The people capable and interested in building them have no interest in such, regardless of regulation. There also don't seem to be buyers on the other end to motivate anyone with money. If you did build such a thing for cash, you can't assume it won't be used on you or your loved ones.
Your argument is assuming a market that is not there. It's also a disgustingly cynical view of humanity that I care not to entertain.
That’s an extraordinarily optimistic view of humanity. How to you align that with say the tobacco industry which actively spent money to kill ever more people by getting the young addicted? I honestly don’t want to change your mind, but I am curious about how you could think that in the face of what some people will do for money.
That's just naive.
Tobacco had hundreds of years of use as a medicinal before we realized anything about addictions and cancer.[1] It also looks to be a very viable biofuel (at least a GM'd, non-smokable version of it) providing 3x per acre the amount of ethanol per acre as corn and 3x per acre the amount of oil as soy. It's also a natural pesticide & insect repellant and source of saltpeter/potassium nitrate.
Not just that, but smokers mostly just hurt themselves and smoke for the benefits nicotine provides them. People drink alcohol too and that's not good for you either.
We will be growing and selling tobacco long after people stop smoking it.
I'm not aware of any medicinal benefits of nuclear weapons or nerve gas. Almost nobody has any reason to produce either. This is veering off into stupid territory.
[1]:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1079499/
The practice of Tobacco companies looking for new younger customers continued well after the harmful effects where known. Here’s a direct quote on the topic.
"Younger adult smokers are the only source of replacement smokers. Repeated government studies (Appendix B) have shown that: Less than one-third of smokers (31%) start after age 18. Only 5% of smokers start after age 24 Thus, today's young adult smoking behavior will largely determine the trend of industry volume over the next several decades. If younger adults turn away from smoking, the industry must decline, just as a population that does not give birth will eventually dwindle. In such an environment, a positive RJR sales trend would require disproportionate share gains and/or steep price increases (which could depress volume)." original quote from the internal documents of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, circa 1985, in the collection of Stanford Research Into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (note that statistics are out-of-date).
But thanks for helping me to understand where you’re coming from.