> This also commits the logical fallacy of ascribing superpowers to the bad guys cooking up viruses while assuming the good guys are sitting on their duffs letting bad things happen.
[...]
> If we're instead talking about a mythical time in the future when we do understand enough biology to engineer something like this, one would have to assume the good guys possess the knowledge to develop countermeasures.
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The amount you need to destroy is more or less a constant. When the efficacy of your technologies is limited, then a technology that only gives you a small percentage edge over your opponent's technology - say Iron vs Bronze - is survivable for the defender provided they have an edge in some other area, though not necessarily pleasant. However, as the efficacy of technology increases, you only need a small percentage edge over your opponent in terms of relative efficacy of technologies to have more than enough power to destroy all that you need to in order to remove them forever.
Consider that armies could be separated by hundreds of years of technology in the past, and still fight on a roughly equal footing. Technology did not more very fast, nor was it very powerful. Then imagine what an army of today would do to an army of a hundred, or even fifty years ago. In the Iran-Iraq war two armies with Cold-War level technology faced each other off for eight years. The Iraqi army were, however, swept aside very quickly by a more advanced force.
The timespan in which there's a rough parity in power shortening. Even small difference in development with respect to time can rapidly become insurmountable when you're dealing with a high rate of change and powerful technologies. What you're defending is more or less static: people, land, resources, they're not getting any more durable, while weapons are always becoming more powerful.
You only need one world ending plague. The defender has to be on top every time, the attacker only has to surpass them once. There is no chance to adapt to what they make, or to try again any more than biological evolution can adapt people to a bullet in the head - because any minor adaptation in that direction makes no difference when compared to the sorts of forces that are imparted.
And I don't think we should have much confidence in the idea that the defender is going to be on top every time.
The questions seem to me to be ones of whether a reluctance to destroy the world is characteristic of organised systems, and whether organised systems will always have the edge over individual effort. If we get to a level where someone can create a suitably devastating bio-weapon in their garden shed, will we also be in a position where that's effectively analogous to creating any other outdated weapon in your shed?
I don't know, computer viruses don't lead me to much hope on that point. Enormous energies are being expended to restrain the energies of a few, with no clear victory in sight. The playing field is not always slanted the way we might like.
[...]
> If we're instead talking about a mythical time in the future when we do understand enough biology to engineer something like this, one would have to assume the good guys possess the knowledge to develop countermeasures.
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The amount you need to destroy is more or less a constant. When the efficacy of your technologies is limited, then a technology that only gives you a small percentage edge over your opponent's technology - say Iron vs Bronze - is survivable for the defender provided they have an edge in some other area, though not necessarily pleasant. However, as the efficacy of technology increases, you only need a small percentage edge over your opponent in terms of relative efficacy of technologies to have more than enough power to destroy all that you need to in order to remove them forever.
Consider that armies could be separated by hundreds of years of technology in the past, and still fight on a roughly equal footing. Technology did not more very fast, nor was it very powerful. Then imagine what an army of today would do to an army of a hundred, or even fifty years ago. In the Iran-Iraq war two armies with Cold-War level technology faced each other off for eight years. The Iraqi army were, however, swept aside very quickly by a more advanced force.
The timespan in which there's a rough parity in power shortening. Even small difference in development with respect to time can rapidly become insurmountable when you're dealing with a high rate of change and powerful technologies. What you're defending is more or less static: people, land, resources, they're not getting any more durable, while weapons are always becoming more powerful.
You only need one world ending plague. The defender has to be on top every time, the attacker only has to surpass them once. There is no chance to adapt to what they make, or to try again any more than biological evolution can adapt people to a bullet in the head - because any minor adaptation in that direction makes no difference when compared to the sorts of forces that are imparted.
And I don't think we should have much confidence in the idea that the defender is going to be on top every time.
The questions seem to me to be ones of whether a reluctance to destroy the world is characteristic of organised systems, and whether organised systems will always have the edge over individual effort. If we get to a level where someone can create a suitably devastating bio-weapon in their garden shed, will we also be in a position where that's effectively analogous to creating any other outdated weapon in your shed?
I don't know, computer viruses don't lead me to much hope on that point. Enormous energies are being expended to restrain the energies of a few, with no clear victory in sight. The playing field is not always slanted the way we might like.