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SteveG comments on Superintelligence 7: Decisive strategic advantage - Less Wrong
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Well, kind of. The Spaniards succeeded by killing off/holding hostage their opposition's leadership cadre, and through the accidental deployment of biological weapons-they were immune the illnesses that spread from them to the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans.
They won the battle, and they might have won later if they engaged in a full-scale invasion, but it is not completely clear form historical outcomes that they actually had a decisive strategic advantage.
Non-immunity to illnesses is very important to us. Our computers and network infrastructure is more or less immune against script-kiddies and polymorphal viruses and standard attack schemes.
Our systems are not immune against tailored attacks from intelligence agencies or AIs.
Minor nitpick: Though the Aztecs and Incas were empires that were defeated by the Spanish, the Mayan Empire had long since fallen when the Spanish arrived. There were Mayans, but only in the sense of the ethnic group that remained in small villages in the region that had formerly been a powerful kingdom.
Sure, the diseases were accidental. But beyond that, they used various methods, including hostage-taking and building alliances, and a few hundred men defeated millions, in two cases. Doesn't that show a decisive strategic advantage?
Way more than a few hundred - local rebellions and malcontents joined their cause in droves on the (mistaken) assumption that they would remain in an advantaged state in the aftermath.