News:

PD.com: Ten minutes of your life that you can never get back.

Main Menu

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could....

Started by Cramulus, January 29, 2020, 07:29:07 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Cramulus

Quote from: Frontside Back on January 30, 2020, 02:34:28 PM
As with the nukes, point of limiting any tech feels like being more about giving the bullies an edge, rather than keeping everyone safe.

Gosh I sound like a fucking libertarian, someone fuck me and m opinion up.

yeah, the idea was that we're better off with 10 well-armed bullies than 100


tyrannosaurus vex

States know their place in the international pecking order of by how much physical damage they can inflict on other states, and how far they can project that power. Nuclear weapons might allow militarily and economically (relatively) weak states to upend that system and throw international order into question. So non-proliferation isn't about keeping actual people safe from nukes, it's about more or less limiting the power to wreak havoc on a global scale to states that could have done so even without nukes. It isn't like alcohol prohibition because nobody is really questioning the inherent morality of nuclear weapons (except for publicity reasons).
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Cain

On the other hand, it's a very good, shorthand way of indicating to scientists that perhaps they should think about the ethical consequences of their discoveries.

Like those idiots who are matching up a facial recognition app to people's social media accounts. At some point in the process, someone should have sat down and said "hey, so what if stalkers or people in witness protection got targeted by this".

Of course, it's very possible they did have that conversation, and decided "fuck it". And who knows, maybe somewhere really far down the line, this will have some positive consequences (though lets be honest, it's going to be linked up to an insect drone system for assassinating people, and it will only have a 2.5% fail rate)

Frontside Back

You say that like there weren't a line of people behind them waiting for their chance to convert their morals into dollars.
"I want to be the Borg but I want to do it alone."

Cain


tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Cain on January 30, 2020, 05:07:08 PM
On the other hand, it's a very good, shorthand way of indicating to scientists that perhaps they should think about the ethical consequences of their discoveries.

Like those idiots who are matching up a facial recognition app to people's social media accounts. At some point in the process, someone should have sat down and said "hey, so what if stalkers or people in witness protection got targeted by this".

Of course, it's very possible they did have that conversation, and decided "fuck it". And who knows, maybe somewhere really far down the line, this will have some positive consequences (though lets be honest, it's going to be linked up to an insect drone system for assassinating people, and it will only have a 2.5% fail rate)

Statistically if it happens at the same time as the usual advances in medical technology and safety standards, the only real problem will be that you might get murdered by a robotic dragonfly instead of by CaRoNaViRuS
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

altered

"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

Cramulus

Quote from: Cain on January 30, 2020, 05:07:08 PM
Like those idiots who are matching up a facial recognition app to people's social media accounts. At some point in the process, someone should have sat down and said "hey, so what if stalkers or people in witness protection got targeted by this".


ffffucking sssssshitttttt

In the OP I was talking about brand new tech in very broad terms, but this is a good example of existing tech being leveraged in horrible ways.. how was it legal to scrape millions of people's FB profiles, even if those profiles are set to 'public'? If that shitbeard Weev got sent to jail for writing a script that scraped data off of a public website, then this should be prosecutable too.


The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: Cain on January 30, 2020, 05:07:08 PM
On the other hand, it's a very good, shorthand way of indicating to scientists that perhaps they should think about the ethical consequences of their discoveries.

Like those idiots who are matching up a facial recognition app to people's social media accounts. At some point in the process, someone should have sat down and said "hey, so what if stalkers or people in witness protection got targeted by this".

Of course, it's very possible they did have that conversation, and decided "fuck it". And who knows, maybe somewhere really far down the line, this will have some positive consequences (though lets be honest, it's going to be linked up to an insect drone system for assassinating people, and it will only have a 2.5% fail rate)

Hm... Insect drone assassination. You're walking along minding your own, feel a little pinch, and by the time you even get your hand up to scratch or swat at it the VX or perhaps something more subtly fatal if you're really special is already kicking in, and the drone chemically triggered to disintegrate in a manner that obliterates any trace of origin, and the entire "adjustment" costing a tiny fraction of the traditional material and logistical costs of making a memorable example of someone, and so being easy and quick to clean up if shit goes south.

Goddamn I love Science.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

Doktor Howl

Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on January 30, 2020, 05:24:23 PM
Quote from: Cain on January 30, 2020, 05:07:08 PM
On the other hand, it's a very good, shorthand way of indicating to scientists that perhaps they should think about the ethical consequences of their discoveries.

Like those idiots who are matching up a facial recognition app to people's social media accounts. At some point in the process, someone should have sat down and said "hey, so what if stalkers or people in witness protection got targeted by this".

Of course, it's very possible they did have that conversation, and decided "fuck it". And who knows, maybe somewhere really far down the line, this will have some positive consequences (though lets be honest, it's going to be linked up to an insect drone system for assassinating people, and it will only have a 2.5% fail rate)

Statistically if it happens at the same time as the usual advances in medical technology and safety standards, the only real problem will be that you might get murdered by a robotic dragonfly instead of by CaRoNaViRuS

You're so fucking judgemental.
Molon Lube

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on January 30, 2020, 09:40:33 PM
Quote from: Cain on January 30, 2020, 05:07:08 PM
On the other hand, it's a very good, shorthand way of indicating to scientists that perhaps they should think about the ethical consequences of their discoveries.

Like those idiots who are matching up a facial recognition app to people's social media accounts. At some point in the process, someone should have sat down and said "hey, so what if stalkers or people in witness protection got targeted by this".

Of course, it's very possible they did have that conversation, and decided "fuck it". And who knows, maybe somewhere really far down the line, this will have some positive consequences (though lets be honest, it's going to be linked up to an insect drone system for assassinating people, and it will only have a 2.5% fail rate)

Hm... Insect drone assassination. You're walking along minding your own, feel a little pinch, and by the time you even get your hand up to scratch or swat at it the VX or perhaps something more subtly fatal if you're really special is already kicking in, and the drone chemically triggered to disintegrate in a manner that obliterates any trace of origin, and the entire "adjustment" costing a tiny fraction of the traditional material and logistical costs of making a memorable example of someone, and so being easy and quick to clean up if shit goes south.

Goddamn I love Science.

I just woke up in a bad mood, but I have two variations on the insect drone terror attack.

1 instead of using VX or something at direct contact the drone is programmed or human giuded to find your face, zip a couple feet directly in front of it, and trigger an inert pressurized gas to force blister agent through an actuator. So you thought your high tech mosquito net would save you... Lol, no. As a method of punishing noncompliance or failure in a criminal and/or corporate feudalism sense I call this one "losing face"

2 alternatively the payload could be some form of hallucinogenic neurotoxin that systematically deconstructs the neuron connections that allow you to reason in the forebrain leaving you incoherent but emotionally aware of a horrible sense of loss beyond coherent expression. Even if you were some kind of Zen master and managed to despite this remain calm you are now effectively tabula rasa. Cocktail in a tailored steroid for the hyperactivation of the amygdala and some form of adrenaline like stimulants and you have the chemical equivalent of the rage virus from 28 days later. I call any variation of this scientific deconstruction of the capacity for reason, memory, and coherent expression "sunshining".
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

Cain

Or it could just fly straight through their neck at maximum speed.

Cain

Quote from: Cramulus on January 30, 2020, 06:49:24 PM
Quote from: Cain on January 30, 2020, 05:07:08 PM
Like those idiots who are matching up a facial recognition app to people's social media accounts. At some point in the process, someone should have sat down and said "hey, so what if stalkers or people in witness protection got targeted by this".


ffffucking sssssshitttttt

In the OP I was talking about brand new tech in very broad terms, but this is a good example of existing tech being leveraged in horrible ways.. how was it legal to scrape millions of people's FB profiles, even if those profiles are set to 'public'? If that shitbeard Weev got sent to jail for writing a script that scraped data off of a public website, then this should be prosecutable too.

Agreed 100%. This is Cambridge Analytica territory, "well of course people couldn't make an informed decision about what they don't know, but hey, they set it to public so it's their problem."

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: Cain on January 31, 2020, 11:21:04 AM
Or it could just fly straight through their neck at maximum speed.

:lulz:

The names "ticklebot" and "puffbot" just came to me.

If you could get the velocity high enough to punch through a neck you might call it a "bulletbot".

Then there's the so-called xenobots currently being researched. Those have POTENTIAL, but have been seen to demonstrate emergent behavior in groups, so I'm not sure they are despite the label a robot at all.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl