[TheDude]

So what can be done with nanoweapons? Anything in the works or on the horizon? Will we be able to eat the Iranian army soon? No Messy Occupation! Or for that matter any sort of exotic weaponry on the drawing boards of 2007.
Let's stick to works in progress, possiblities actually being discussed and limits to their being implemented. Nothing about how "It can't be done and why didn't we stupid humans start covering every roof with PV 20 years ago." We still have oil for a while, and if Lockheed can build goo bombs they'll get their no-bid contracts toot suite.

[JasonHam]

I'm sure nano , if developed to its full potential, will be used to design "smart" weapons. How ever you want to define "smart". The possibilties to what nano can do are endless.....but hey, don't take my word for it, do your own research.

[americandream]

Forkers aren't capable of keeping this planet in one piece let alone nano their way up the evolution ladder.

Only nano our dumb two legged brothers are headed for is the jungle..well, whats left of it.

[EnergyUnlimited]

You may consider biological weapons to be nanoweapons.

[gg3]

Yeah, here's the nanoweapon of the future.

When I started to write this posting, I wrote out some technical details, then edited them twice, and then decided to take them out entirely. So now we'll start from a different point with a different story.

In college, back in the early 1980s I wrote a paper, where I speculated on high-tech terrorist weapons. One idea in particular, that I had discovered quite by accident, took up most of the paper. I called it a "radiation dispersal device," or RDD for short. Last month I noticed that the Pentagon now uses that term for a dirty bomb.

The original concept for the RDD was an "area denial weapon" that would produce terror in the victims but probably not do actual harm beyond that point. For a cost I estimated at less than a thousand bucks, a terrorist could contaminate the ground floor lobby area of a highrise office tower, effectively putting the place out of business.

So with that in the background to demonstrate a prediction that was in one way on-target but in another way an underestimate, I offer you the following:

Bugs.

Germs.

Germs have an inherent advantage over radioactivity because they can do something radioactivity can't: multiply.

This is the topic about which I sat down to write this posting.

Suffice to say that one or two people, using commonly-available materials, could create something that, while not truly a weapon of mass destruction, could be used to take down a chunk or two of the economy at a time.

A more coordinated group of perhaps fifty or a hundred could do similar damage, with slightly different bugs via a different route, and never even be detected.

Think for a moment about the poisonous pet food recalls, and consider what would happen if something analogous occurred with the human food supply, but using bacteria rather than chemicals.

It's not a question of "if" but a question of "when." The best we can hope for is that it doesn't happen during the present Administration, or we might kiss goodbye an even larger chunk of the Constitution.

This is what happens when there are too many humans on a small planet with finite resources. Like rats in an overcrowded box, they eat each others' children.

[smiley]

What do you see as nano-technology and what do you see as a weapon?

I mean if your talking about radar absorbent glasses for the stealth bombers you are talking about an application of nanotechnology for a weapon system. Most applications of nanotechnology are like that, Camouflage, armour etc.

I don't see any real applications of nano-technology as a weapon itself.

Of course if you scale MEMS and micro-RF as nanotechnology then the you have a wider range of eavesdropping devices, sensors, and with a bit of fantasy you can see self-steering grenades and flechette type projectiles over the horizon.

[JasonHam]

I was thinking more on the lines of nano being used to create or alter "something" within the human body. Maybe even "thoughts". It could be spread through a germ or an altered germ or something like a germ without anybody ever knowing.

I know it sounds like sci-fi , star trek stuff. But, look at what decoding the human genome is going to do for "science". We can already clone people!! It doesnt sound that far fetched.....

[JasonHam]

purcatty, couldnt agree more. Remember a time when you couldnt buy bottled water? Then, everybody started to sell bottled water. And in that very same time, all these "reports" come out about how you should drink a gazillion gallons of water a day!! Those "reports" were most likely funded by the very same people selling the bottled water. That shit goes on all the time......Thats why I'm skeptical of anybody telling me "Something", then telling me I need to buy "Something" to mitigate against the other "Something". Follow the money indeed....

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('purcatty', 'T')he GMO stuff is bad but using plain germs and viruses, Germs are not that contagious if you are careful.

[gg3]

There's no need for a new technology to brainwash people. We already have one that works so well that people willingly dose themselves with it daily. It's called television. And for an occasional larger dose, that's called the movies.

As for bugs, I'm not going to be tempted to talk tech here, but suffice to say that there are ways to get enough resistant bacteria into the food supply to cause big chunks of the economy to go down even if the total death toll is only a few hundred.

See also John Robb's theory of "systempunkts." A small lever planted in the right crack in the mountainside can unleash a landslide.

As for fear, yep, that's another mind-killer, thanks to the daily brainwash.

And the opposite of fear is love. Ponder that for a while.

[JasonHam]

Does raphael scare anybody else???

[dbruning]

Reading his posts are like surfing.

Skim along the top and you'll be fine.

go too deep...and you drown really quick in something.




There may be some debate what your drowning in though

[strider3700]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JasonHam', 'D')oes raphael scare anybody else???

[lateralus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JasonHam', 'D')oes raphael scare anybody else???