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DanArmak comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread - Less Wrong
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Yes, because there are so few super-rich physicists :-)
Well, in such a world presumably more physicists would be super-rich. There would be other problems with such a world also. For example, if there are very few people with access to nukes then a first-strike attempt becomes much more plausible. Also, with only a few people knowing about something, the standard problems that come from security though obscurity will start showing up.
In our world, there are various weapons that could be used to kill at least as many people as a nuclear bomb would. GE plague is one, and it's easy to believe that in the near future a competent biologist would be able to engineer a usable bioweapon at home. With that alternative in mind, I would love for GE bioweapons to only be accessible to super-rich biologists.
There are fewer super-rich physicists than there are ordinarily rich states who possess nuclear weapons. Plus, 90% of the actual use nuclear weapons get is deterrence, and secret nuclear weapons are useless for that. OTOH, for garage-based first strike capacity nuclear weapons aren't required, there are also bioweapons etc. That's why I'd rather the physicists had a monopoly.