Indeed, even if we limit our discussion to automatic rifles (recall rifling technology – developed in the 1800s – vastly improved gun accuracy), which give one person the ability to mow down masses of people, we find that we are still perverting the Founders intents. Not good.
I enjoyed this thread and the metaphor behind it but there are some massive differences between ASIC and Nukes/advanced weaponry. ASIC chips can be bought by regular people and the price will continue to drop as it has for all other processors, including anything next gen
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You have a Panglossian view. And so let me ask, on the day that everyone finally has one of these 'commodity priced' ASICs, the day when decentralization is finally achieved - what do you do when some new tech comes along and make them all obsolete?
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The same thing will happen again. The time scales are important here. Perhaps nukes will eventually be comodity priced as well one day but the time horizons are much longer than for silicon
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No matter how decentralized nukes are, it won't result in the desired decentralization of power the Founders hoped for. As long as any single person can blow up the Earth, we get power that is both decentralized and centralized at the same time. That is nothing like 1700s guns.
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I fully agree with your points on the 2nd amendment and how the original intentions no longer apply. My point is simply that ASICs are massively more within reach to your average person than nukes and F-15s ever have been (and hopefully ever will)
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But those ASICs can be made obsolete, just like gatling guns were, by newer tech. And each time the newer tech comes along centralization rears its ugly head.
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Perhaps ASICS are more like machine guns then. Order of magnitude more efficient, more expensive, but not completely out of reach. Wonder what the nuke equivalent would turn out to be... quantum computing?
End of conversation
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